Page 19 of Six of Crows (Dregs 1)
“Yes, and do it quickly, Nina, because in about ten minutes, things are going to get very hectic around here.”
Nina stared at him. What was Kaz planning? “No matter what I do to him, it won’t last a month. I can’t give him a permanent fever.”
“My contact in the infirmary will make sure he stays sick enough. We just need to get him through diagnosis. Now get to work.”
Nina looked Muzzen up and down. “This is going to hurt just as much as if you’d been in the fight yourself,” she warned.
He scrunched up his face, bracing for the pain. “I can take it.”
She rolled her eyes, then lifted her hands, concentrating. With a sharp slice of her right hand over her left, she snapped Muzzen’s ribs.
He let out a grunt and doubled over.
“That’s a good boy,” said Kaz. “Taking it like a champion. Knuckles next, then face.”
Nina spread bruises and cuts over Muzzen’s knuckles and arms, matching the wounds to Inej’s descriptions.
“I’ve never seen firepox up close,” Nina said. She was only familiar with illustrations from books they’d used in their anatomy training at the Little Palace.
“Count yourself lucky,” Kaz said grimly. “Hurry it up.”
She worked from memory, swelling and cracking the skin on Muzzen’s face and chest, raising blisters until the swelling and pustules were so bad that he was truly unrecognizable. The big man moaned.
“Why would you agree to do this?” Nina murmured.
The swollen flesh of Muzzen’s face quivered, and Nina thought he might be trying to smile. “Money was good,” he said thickly.
She sighed. Why else did anyone do anything in the Barrel? “Good enough to get locked up in Hellgate?”
Kaz tapped his cane on the cell floor. “Stop making trouble, Nina. If Helvar cooperates, he and Muzzen will both have their freedom just as soon as the job is done.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then Helvar gets locked back in his cell, and Muzzen still gets paid. And I’ll take him to breakfast at the Kooperom.”
“Can I have waffles?” Muzzen mumbled.
“We’ll all have waffles. And whiskey. If this job doesn’t come off, no one’s going to want to be around me sober. Finished, Nina?”
Nina nodded, and Inej took her place to bandage Muzzen to look like Matthias.
“All right,” said Kaz. “Get Helvar on his feet.”
Nina crouched beside Matthias as Kaz stood over her with the bonelight. Even in sleep, Matthias’ features were troubled, his pale brows furrowed. She let her hands travel over the bruised line of his jaw, resisting the urge to linger there.
“Not the face, Nina. I need him mobile, not pretty. Heal him fast and only enough to get him walking for now. I don’t want him spry enough to vex us.”
Nina lowered the blanket and went to work. Just another body, she told herself. She was always getting late-night calls from Kaz to heal wounded members of the Dregs who he didn’t want to bring around to any legitimate medik—girls with stabbing punctures, boys with broken legs or bullets lodged inside them, victims of a scuffle with the stadwatch or another gang. Pretend it’s Muzzen, she told herself. Or Big Bolliger or some other fool. You don’t know this boy. And it was true. The boy she knew might have been the scaffold, but something new had been built upon it.
She touched his shoulder gently. “Helvar,” she said. He didn’t stir. “Matthias.”
A lump rose in her throat, and she felt the ache of tears threatening. She pressed a kiss to his temple. She knew that Kaz and the others were watching and that she was making an idiot of herself, but after so long he was finally here, in front of her, and so very broken. “Matthias,” she repeated.
“Nina?” His voice was raw but as lovely as she remembered.
“Oh, Saints, Matthias,” she whispered. “Please wake up.”
His eyes opened, groggily, palest blue. “Nina,” he said softly. His knuckles brushed her cheek; his rough hand cupped her face tentatively, disbelievingly. “Nina?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Shhhh, Matthias. We’re here to get you out.”
Before she could blink he had hold of her shoulders and had pinned her to the ground.
“Nina,” he growled.
Then his hands closed over her throat.
PART TWO
SERVANT & LEVER
7
MATTHIAS
Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her.
In all his dreams he hunted her, sometimes through the new green meadows of spring, but usually through the ice fields, dodging boulders and crevasses with unerring steps. Always he chased, and always he caught her. In the good dreams, he slammed her to the ground and throttled her, watching the life drain from her eyes, heart full of vengeance—finally, finally. In the bad dreams, he kissed her.
In these dreams, she didn’t fight him. She laughed as if the chase was nothing but a game, as if she’d known he would catch her, as if she’d wanted him to and there was no place she’d rather be than beneath him. She was welcoming and perfect in his arms. He kissed her, buried his face in the sweet hollow of her neck. Her curls brushed his cheeks, and he felt that if he could just hold her a little longer, every wound, every hurt, every bad thing would melt away.
“Matthias,” she would whisper, his name so soft on her lips. These were the worst dreams, and when he woke, he hated himself almost as much as he hated her. To know that he could betray himself, betray his country again even in sleep, to know that—after everything
she’d done—some sick part of him still hungered after her … it was too much.
Tonight was a bad dream, very bad. She was wearing blue silk, clothes far more luxurious than anything he’d ever seen her in; some kind of gauzy veil was caught up in her hair, the lamplight glinting off of it like caught rain. Djel, she smelled good. The mossy damp was still there, but perfume, too. Nina loved luxury and this was expensive—roses and something else, something his pauper’s nose didn’t recognize. She pressed her soft lips to his temple, and he could swear she was crying.
“Matthias.”
“Nina,” he managed.
“Oh, Saints, Matthias,” she whispered. “Please wake up.”
And then he was awake, and he knew he’d gone mad because she was here, in his cell, kneeling beside him, her hand resting gently on his chest. “Matthias, please.”
The sound of her voice, pleading with him. He’d dreamed of this. Sometimes she pleaded for mercy. Sometimes there were other things she begged for.
He reached up and touched her face. She had the softest skin. He’d laughed at her for it once. No real soldier had skin like that, he’d told her—pampered, coddled. He’d mocked the lushness of her body, ashamed of his own response to her. He cupped the warm curve of her cheek, felt the soft brush of her hair. So lovely. So real. It wasn’t fair.
Then he registered the bloody wrappings on his hands. Pain rushed at him as he came fully awake—cracked ribs, aching knuckles. He’d chipped a tooth. He wasn’t sure when, but he’d cut his tongue against it at some point. His mouth still held the coppery taste of blood. The wolves. They’d made him murder wolves.
He was awake.
“Nina?”
There were tears in her beautiful green eyes. Rage coursed through him. She had no right to tears, no right to pity.
