Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

“Wylan,” Jesper said, giving him a little shake. “Maybe your tutors didn’t cover this lesson, but you do not argue with a man covered in blood and a knife up his sleeve.”

Kaz turned to Jesper. “Fit Helvar with some shackles to keep him honest,” he said as he headed below. “And get me clean clothes and fresh water.” “Since when am I your valet?” “Man with a knife, remember?” he said over his shoulder. “Man with a gun!” Jesper called after him.

“She will,” said Kaz, and something savage flashed in his eyes. Matthias suspected that Brekker would drag the girl back from hell himself if he had to.

Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.” Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.” “My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.

Kaz had taught her to crack a safe, pick a pocket, wield a knife. He’d gifted her with her first blade, the one she called Sankt Petyr—not as pretty as wild geraniums, but more practical, she supposed. Maybe I’ll use it on you, she’d said. He’d sighed. If only you were that bloodthirsty. She hadn’t been able to tell if he was kidding.

He’d bet on her, and that meant something—even if he’d done it for his own selfish reasons. He’d even dubbed her the Wraith. I don’t like it, she’d said. It makes me sound like a corpse. A phantom, he corrected. Didn’t you say I was to be your spider? Why not stick with that? Because there are plenty of spiders in the Barrel. Besides, you want your enemies to be afraid. Not think they can squash you with the toe of one boot. My enemies? Our enemies.

“You think like a lockpick,” he’d told Wylan. “I do not.” “I mean you can see space along three axes.” “I’m not a criminal,” Wylan protested. Kaz had cast him an almost pitying look. “No, you’re a flautist who fell in with bad company.”

“If you aren’t born with every advantage, you learn to take your chances.”

Inej rolled her eyes. “No wonder you do so badly at the tables.” Jesper steered her toward the rail, where they could make an approximation of a promenade without getting in anyone’s way. “I’d threaten to toss you into the drink, but Kaz is watching.”

“You know I can do it, Kaz, and you know I’m not going to refuse. So why ask?” Because I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk to you for two days.

Kaz nodded. He glanced around then said, “The navy threw him out for insubordination and refused him his pension. He has a sister to support near Belendt. I got him his money.” “That was good of you.” Kaz narrowed his eyes. “I’m not some character out of a children’s story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor. There was money to be made and information to be had. Specht knows the navy’s routes like the back of his hand.” “Never something for nothing, Kaz,” she said, her gaze steady. “I know. Still, if the Ferolind is intercepted, we’ll have no way out of Djerholm.” “I’ll get us out. You know that.”

“I don’t want your prayers,” he said. “What do you want, then?” The old answers came easily to mind. Money. Vengeance. Jordie’s voice in my head silenced forever. But a different reply roared to life inside him, loud, insistent, and unwelcome. You, Inej. You. He shrugged and turned away. “To die buried under the weight of my own gold.” Inej sighed. “Then I’ll pray you get all you ask for.”

He was used to having his Wraith around—feeding the crows outside his window, sharpening her knives while he worked at his desk, chastising him with her Suli proverbs. He didn’t want Inej. He just wanted their routine back.

“Wake up, you miserable lump of muscle.” Clean Fjerdan, pure, spoken like a noble.

“Don’t even think about getting near me in those clothes. You’re soaked through.” “You can keep our blood flowing.” “I’m exhausted,” she said angrily. “And once I fall asleep, all we’ll have is that fire to keep us warm. I can see you shaking from here. Are all Fjerdans this prudish?” No. Maybe. He didn’t really know. The drüskelle were a holy order. They were meant to live chastely until they took wives—good Fjerdan wives who didn’t run around yelling at people and taking their clothes off. “Are all Grisha so immodest?” he asked defensively. “Boys and girls train side by side together in the First and Second Armies. There isn’t a lot of room for maidenly blushing.” “It’s not natural for women to fight.” “It’s not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall, and yet there you stand. Did you really swim all those miles just to die in this hut?”

“You’re welcome, you big idiot.”

Despite her fatigue, she trotted ahead of him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want to like a Grisha. You’re scared that if you laugh at my jokes or answer my questions, you might start thinking I’m human. Would that be so terrible?” “I do like you.” “What was that?” “I do like you,” he said angrily. She’d beamed, feeling a well of pleasure erupt through her. “Now, really, is that so bad?” “Yes!” he roared. “Why?” “Because you’re horrible. You’re loud and lewd and … treacherous. Brum warned us that Grisha could be charming.” “Oh, I see. I’m the wicked Grisha seductress. I have beguiled you with my Grisha wiles!” She poked him in the chest. “Stop that.” “No. I’m beguiling you.” “Quit it.”

He got to his feet and offered her his hand. “I’m Matthias.” “Nina,” she said, taking it. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

“If you two keep fighting, you’re going to get us all killed, and I have a lot more card games I need to lose.” “You must find a way to make peace,” said Inej. “At least for a while.” “This is not your concern,” Matthias growled. Kaz stepped forward, his expression dangerous. “It is very much our concern. And watch your tone.”

She saw Inej signal to Kaz. Without a word, he positioned himself against the nearest slab and cupped his hands at his knee. The ground buckled and swayed, but he held steady as she launched herself from the cradle of his fingers in a graceful arc. She vanished over the slab without a sound. A moment later, the ground went still. “Trust the Wraith,” said Jesper.

Wylan was covered in dust and wearing a slightly dazed, deliriously happy expression. Nina started to laugh. “Try to look like you knew it would work.”

He gave a rueful laugh, turning the pick over in his hands. “Wanden olstrum end kendesorum.” It was the first part of a Fjerdan saying: The water hears and understands. It sounded kind enough, but Matthias knew that Nina would be familiar with the rest of it. “Isen ne bejstrum,” she finished. The water hears and understands. The ice does not forgive.

“Hooded, chained, and shackled?” said Jesper. “You’re sure we can’t go in as entertainers? I hear Wylan really kills it on the flute.”

Inej would never betray him. He knew it. Kaz felt ill. Though he’d trusted her with his life countless times, it felt much more frightening to trust her with this shame.

Go on and flex, Kaz thought. Doesn’t matter how big the gun is if you don’t know where to point it.

Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. “The trick is not getting knocked down,” he’d told her with a laugh. “No, Kaz,” she’d said, “the trick is in getting back up.”

He saw that Jesper was staring at his hands. “What were you expecting?” Kaz growled. “Claws, at least,” Jesper said, shifting his gaze to his own bony bare feet. “Possibly a spiny thumb.”

“What is he doing?” asked Matthias. “Performing an ancient Zemeni ritual,” Kaz said. “Really?” “No.”

“What happens when you take their money and you become a rich man?” Kaz’s mouth had quirked slightly at that. “Then you can steal my secrets, too.”

The shadow of something dark moved across Kaz’s face. “If it were a trick, I’d promise you safety. I’d offer you happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.” For some reason, those words had comforted her. Better terrible truths than kind lies.

From there he’d worked and scraped and saved. He’d trailed the professional thieves of the Barrel and learned how to pick pockets and how to cut the laces on a lady’s purse. He did his first stint in jail, and then a second. He quickly earned a reputation for being willing to take any job a man needed done, and the name Dirtyhands soon followed. He was an unskilled fighter, but a tenacious one.

He still went by Kaz, as he always had, but he stole the name Brekker off a piece of machinery he’d seen on the docks. Rietveld, his family name, was abandoned, cut away like a rotten limb. It was a country name, his last tie to Jordie and his father and the boy he’d been. But he didn’t want Jakob Hertzoon to see him coming.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Kaz. “Helvar’s been holding out on us.” “Have you?” asked Inej. “It’s not—” Matthias dragged a hand over his cropped hair. “How do you know these things, demjin?” he growled at Kaz. “Logic. The whole Ice Court is a masterpiece of fail-safes and doubled systems. That glass bridge is impressive, but in an emergency, there would have to be another way to get reinforcements to the White Island and get the royal family out.”

Kaz gazed out at the White Island, head tilted, eyes slightly unfocused. “Scheming face,” Inej murmured. Jesper nodded. “Definitely.” She was going to miss that look.

“I’m all for locking the Fjerdans in their own fortress,” said Jesper. “Truly. But how do we get out?

“I have something for you,” she said as she pulled his leather gloves from the sleeve of her prison tunic. He stared at them. “How—” “I got them from the discarded clothes. Before I made the climb.” “Six stories in the dark.”

“I wonder what Matthias would have to say about that outfit.” “He wouldn’t approve.” “He doesn’t approve of anything about you. But when you laugh, he perks up like a tulip in fresh water.” Nina snorted. “Matthias the tulip.” “The big, brooding, yellow tulip.”

“Water everywhere,” said Wylan. “Do the fountains symbolize Djel?” “The wellspring,” mused Kaz, “where all sins are washed clean.” “Or where they drown you and make you confess,” Wylan said. Jesper snorted. “Wylan, your thoughts have taken a very dark turn. I fear the Dregs may be a bad influence.”

“One day you’ll run out of tricks, demjin.” “You’d better hope it’s not today.”

“The life you live, the hate you feel—it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”

She ran to him, and he swept her up in his arms. He buried his face in her hair. She felt his lips move against her ear when he said, “I never want to see you like this again.” “Do you mean the dress or the cell?” A laugh shook him. “Definitely the cell.” Then he cupped her face in his hands. “Jer molle pe oonet. Enel mörd je nej afva trohem verret.” Nina swallowed hard. She remembered those words and what they truly meant. I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the drüskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her.

Kaz hoped the Shu boy he was holding on to was a surprisingly young Bo Yul-Bayur and not some hapless prisoner Nina and Matthias had decided to liberate.

As soon as Nina had described the drüskelle initiation ritual, he’d known: The Fjerdan stronghold hadn’t been built around a great tree but around a spring. Djel, the wellspring, who fed the seas and rains, and the roots of the sacred ash. Water had a voice. It was something every canal rat knew, anyone who had slept beneath a bridge or weathered a winter storm in an overturned boat—water could speak with the voice of a lover, a long-lost brother, even a god.

What god do you serve? Inej had asked him. Whichever will grant me good fortune. Fortunate people didn’t end up racing ass over teakettle beneath an ice moat in hostile territory.

When he was fourteen, Kaz had put together a crew to rob the bank that had helped Hertzoon prey on him and Jordie. His crew got away with fifty thousand kruge, but he’d broken his leg dropping down from the rooftop. The bone didn’t set right, and he’d limped ever after. So he’d found himself a Fabrikator and had his cane made. It became a declaration. There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken. The cane became a part of the myth he built. No one knew who he was. No one knew where he came from. He’d become Kaz Brekker, cripple and confidence man, bastard of the Barrel.

Kaz remembered her perched on the sill of his attic window, sometime during that first year after he’d brought her into the Dregs. She’d been feeding the crows that congregated on the roof. “You shouldn’t make friends with crows,” he’d told her. “Why not?” she asked. He’d looked up from his desk to answer, but whatever he’d been about to say had vanished on his tongue. The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbor wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world. “Why not?” she’d repeated, eyes still closed. He said the first thing that popped into his head. “They don’t have any manners.” “Neither do you, Kaz.” She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.

The ache in his lungs was unbearable. He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.

“Jesper,” she gasped in relief. “Finally.” “I’m here, too, you know,” said Wylan.

“You don’t deserve miracles,” said Matthias with a scowl. “You desecrated the sacred ash.” Kaz pushed to his feet, staggered slightly, drew in another shaky breath. “It’s a symbol, Helvar. If your god is so delicate, maybe you should get a new one. Let’s get out of here.”

“I’ll thank you when we’re aboard the Ferolind. Move.” He was already dragging himself up the boulders that lined the far side of the gorge. “You can explain why our illustrious Shu scientist looks like one of Wylan’s school pals along the way.” Nina shook her head, caught between annoyance and admiration. Maybe that was what it took to survive in the Barrel. You could never stop. “He’s a friend?” asked Kuwei in skeptical Shu. “On occasion.”