Page 83 of Six of Crows (Dregs 1)
There was nothing they could do but stand there like fools and watch her shape get smaller in the sky—a distant moon, a fading star, then gone.
Van Eck’s guards and Grisha closed in, sweeping the mercher and the trunk of kruge through the air, onto the waiting brigantine. Vengeance for Jordie, all Kaz had worked for, was slipping away. He didn’t care.
“You have one week to bring me the real Kuwei,” Van Eck shouted. “Or they’ll hear that girl’s screams all the way back in Fjerda. And if that still doesn’t move you, I’ll let it be known that you’re harboring the most valuable hostage in the world. Every gang, government, smuggler, and spy will be after you and the Dregs. You’ll have nowhere to hide.”
“Kaz, I can make the shot,” said Jesper, holstering his revolvers and grabbing for his rifle. “Van Eck is still in range.”
And all would be lost—Inej, the money, everything.
“No,” Kaz said. “Let them go.”
The sea was flat; no breeze blew, but Van Eck’s remaining Squallers filled the ship’s sails with a driving wind.
Kaz watched the brigantine surge across the water toward Ketterdam, to safety, to a fortress built on Van Eck’s impeccable mercher reputation. He felt as he had looking into the darkened windows of the house on Zelverstraat. Helpless once more. He’d prayed to the wrong god.
Slowly, Jesper lowered his rifle.
“Van Eck will send soldiers and Grisha to search for Kuwei,” said Matthias.
“He won’t find him. Or Nina.” Not in the Slat or any other part of the Barrel. Nowhere in Ketterdam. The previous night, Kaz had ordered Specht to take Kuwei and Nina from the Ferolind in the second longboat—the one he’d told Jesper was being repaired. They were safely stashed in the abandoned cages below the old prison tower at Hellgate. Kaz had made a few inquiries when he’d visited the harbor to contact Van Eck. After the disaster at the Hellshow, the cages had been flooded to purge them of beasts and bodies; they’d been empty ever since. Matthias had hated the idea of letting Nina go anywhere without him, especially in her state, but Kaz had convinced him that keeping her and Kuwei aboard the Ferolind would leave them exposed.
Kaz marveled at his own stupidity. Dumber than a pigeon fresh off the boat and looking to make a fortune on East Stave. His greatest vulnerability had been right beside him. And now she was gone.
Jesper was staring at Wylan, his eyes roving over the black hair, the golden eyes. “Why?” he said at last. “Why would you do this?”
Wylan shrugged. “We needed leverage.”
“That’s Kaz’s voice talking.”
“I couldn’t let you all walk into a hostage exchange thinking I was some kind of insurance.”
“Nina tailored you?”
“The night we left Djerholm.”
“That’s why you disappeared during the journey,” said Jesper. “You weren’t helping Matthias care for Nina. You were hiding.”
“I didn’t hide.”
“You … how many times was it you standing beside me on the deck at night when I thought it was Kuwei?”
“Every time.”
“Nina might not be able to put you back, you know. Not without another dose of parem. You could be stuck like this.”
“Why does it matter?”
“I don’t know!” Jesper said angrily. “Maybe I liked your stupid face.” He turned to Matthias. “You knew. Wylan knew. Inej knew. Everyone but me.”
“Ask me why, Jesper,” Kaz said, his patience at an end.
Jesper shifted uneasily on his feet. “Why?”
“You were the one who sold us out to Pekka Rollins.” He thrust an accusatory finger at Jesper. “You’re the reason we were ambushed when we tried to leave Ketterdam. You almost got us all killed.”
“I didn’t tell Pekka Rollins anything. I never—”
“You told one of the Dime Lions you were leaving Kerch, but that you’d be coming into big money, didn’t you?”
Jesper swallowed. “I had to. They were leaning on me hard. My father’s farm—”
“I told you not to tell anyone you were leaving the country. I warned you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I didn’t have a choice! You had me locked up in the Crow Club before we left. If you’d let me—”
Kaz turned on him. “Let you what? Play a few hands of Three Man Bramble? Dig yourself deeper in with every boss in the Barrel stupid enough to extend you credit? You told a member of Pekka’s gang you were about to be flush.”
“I didn’t know he’d go to Pekka. Or that Pekka knew about parem. I was just trying to buy myself some time.”
“Saints, Jesper, you really haven’t learned anything in the Dregs, have you? You’re still the same dumb farm boy who stepped off the boat.”
Jesper lunged for him, and Kaz felt a surge of giddy violence. Finally, a fight he could win. But Matthias stepped between them, holding them each back with a massive hand. “Stop. Stop this.”
Kaz didn’t want to stop. He wanted to beat them all bloody and then brawl his way through the Barrel.
“Matthias is right,” said Wylan. “We need to think about what’s next.”
“There is no next,” Kaz snarled. Van Eck would see to that. They couldn’t go back to the Slat or get help from Per Haskell and the other Dregs. Van Eck would be watching, waiting to pounce. He’d turn the Barrel, Kaz’s home, his little kingdom, into hostile territory.
“Jesper made a mistake,” said Wylan. “A stupid mistake, but he didn’t set out to betray anyone.”
Kaz stalked away, trying to clear his head. He knew Jesper hadn’t realized what he was setting in motion, but he also knew he could never really trust Jesper again. And maybe he’d kept him in the dark about Wylan because he wanted to punish him a little.
In a few hours, when they’d failed to make contact, Specht would row out for them in the longboat. For now, there was nothing but the flat gray of the sky and the dead rock of this miserable excuse for an island. And Inej’s absence. Kaz wanted to hit someone. He wanted someone to hit him.
He surveyed what remained of his crew. Rotty still hovered by the wreckage of the longboat. Jesper sat with elbows on knees, head in hands, Wylan beside him wearing the face of a near-stranger; Matthias stood gazing across the water in the direction of Hellgate like a stone sentinel. If Kaz was their leader, then Inej had been their lodestone, pulling them together when they seemed most likely to drift apart.
Nina had disguised Kaz’s crow-and-cup tattoo before they’d entered the Ice Court, but he hadn’t let her near the R on his bicep. Now he touched his gloved fingers to where the sleeve of his coat covered that mark. Without meaning to, he’d let Kaz Rietveld return. He didn’t know if it had begun with Inej’s injury or that hideous ride in the prison wagon, but somehow he’d let it happen and it had cost him dearly.
That didn’t mean he was going to
let himself be bested by some thieving merch.
Kaz looked south toward Ketterdam’s harbors. The beginnings of an idea scratched at the back of his skull, an itch, the barest inkling. It wasn’t a plan, but it might be the start of one. He could see the shape it would take—impossible, absurd, and requiring a serious chunk of cash.
“Scheming face,” murmured Jesper.
“Definitely,” agreed Wylan.
Matthias folded his arms. “Digging in your bag of tricks, demjin?”
Kaz flexed his fingers in his gloves. How did you survive the Barrel? When they took everything from you, you found a way to make something from nothing.
“I’m going to invent a new trick,” Kaz said. “One Van Eck will never forget.” He turned to the others. If he could have gone after Inej alone, he would have, but not even he could pull that off. “I’ll need the right crew.”
Wylan got to his feet. “For the Wraith.”
Jesper followed, still not meeting Kaz’s eyes. “For Inej,” he said quietly.
Matthias gave a single sharp nod.
Inej had wanted Kaz to become someone else, a better person, a gentler thief. But that boy had no place here. That boy ended up starving in an alley. He ended up dead. That boy couldn’t get her back.
I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he’d promised her so long ago.
Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.
46
PEKKA
Pekka Rollins tucked a wad of jurda into his cheek and leaned back in his chair to survey the raggedy crew Doughty had brought to his office. Rollins lived above the Emerald Palace in a grand suite of rooms, every inch of them covered in gilt and green velvet. He loved flash—in his clothes, his friends, and his women.
The kids standing before him were the opposite of anything properly stylish. They wore the costumes of the Komedie Brute, but no one got access to his office without showing his face, so the masks had come off. He recognized some of them. He’d hoped to recruit the Heartrender Nina Zenik at some point, but now she looked like she might not last out the month—all jutting bones, dark hollows, and trembling hands. Seemed he’d dodged a bad investment there. She leaned against a giant Fjerdan with a shaved head and grim blue eyes. He was huge, probably former military. Good muscle to have around. Where did Kaz Brekker find these people?
