Page 31 of Six of Crows (Dregs 1)
Inej had been with the Dregs longer than Nina and yet no tattoo. Strange. She was one of the most valued members of the gang, and it was clear Kaz trusted her—as much as someone like Kaz could. Nina thought of the look on his face when he’d set Inej down on the table. He was the same Kaz—cold, rude, impossible—but beneath all that anger, she thought she’d seen something else, too. Or maybe she was just a romantic.
She had to laugh at herself. She wouldn’t wish love on anyone. It was the guest you welcomed and then couldn’t be rid of.
Nina brushed Inej’s straight black hair back from her face. “Please be okay,” she whispered. She hated the frail waver of her voice in the cabin. She didn’t sound like a Grisha soldier or a hardened member of the Dregs. She sounded like a little girl who didn’t know what she was doing. And that was exactly how she felt. Her training had been too short. She’d been sent out on her first mission too soon. Zoya had said as much at the time, but Nina had begged to go, and they’d needed her, so the older Grisha had relented.
Zoya Nazyalensky—a powerful Squaller, gorgeous to the point of absurdity, and capable of reducing Nina’s confidence to ash with a single raised brow. Nina had worshipped her. Reckless, foolish, easily distracted. Zoya had called her all those things and worse.
“You were right, Zoya. Happy now?”
“Giddy,” said Jesper from the doorway.
Nina startled and looked up to see him rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Who’s Zoya?” he asked.
Nina slumped back in her chair. “No one. A member of the Grisha Triumvirate.”
“Fancy. The ones who run the Second Army?”
“What’s left of it.” Ravka’s Grisha soldiers had been decimated during the war. Some had fled. Most had been killed. Nina rubbed her tired eyes. “Do you know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found?”
Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his guns, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motion. “Never gave it much thought,” he said.
“Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories.” Follow the tales of witches and goblins, and unexplained happenings. Sometimes they were just superstition. But often there was truth at the heart of local legends—people who had been born with gifts that their countries didn’t understand. Nina had gotten very good at sniffing out those stories.
“Seems to me if they don’t want to be found, you should just let them be.”
Nina cast him a dark glance. “The drüskelle won’t let them be. They hunt Grisha everywhere.”
“Are they all charmers like Matthias?”
“And worse.”
“I need to find his leg shackles. Kaz gives me all the fun jobs.”
“Want to trade?” Nina asked wearily.
The frenetic energy of Jesper’s lanky frame seemed to drop away. He went as still as Nina had ever seen him, and his gaze focused on Inej for the first time since he’d entered the little cabin. He was avoiding it, Nina realized. He didn’t want to look at her. The blankets shifted slightly with her shallow breaths. When Jesper spoke, his voice was taut, the strings of an instrument tuned to a too-sharp key.
“She can’t die,” he said. “Not this way.”
Nina peered at Jesper, puzzled. “Not what way?”
“She can’t die,” he repeated.
Nina felt a surge of frustration. She was torn between wanting to hug Jesper tight and scream at him that she was trying. “Saints, Jesper,” she said. “I’m doing my best.”
He shifted, and his body seemed to come back alive. “Sorry,” he said a bit sheepishly. He clapped her awkwardly on the shoulder. “You’re doing great.”
Nina sighed. “Not convincing. Why don’t you go chain up a giant blond?”
Jesper saluted and ducked out of the cabin.
Annoying as he was, Nina was almost tempted to call him back. With Jesper gone, there was nothing but Zoya’s voice in her head and the reminder that her best wasn’t good enough.
Inej’s skin felt too cool to the touch. Nina laid a hand on each of the girl’s shoulders and tried to improve her blood flow, raising her body temperature very slightly.
She hadn’t been completely honest with Jesper. The Grisha Triumvirate hadn’t just wanted to save Grisha from Fjerdan witchhunters. They’d sent missions to the Wandering Isle and Novyi Zem because Ravka needed soldiers. They’d sought out Grisha who might be living in secret and tried to convince them to take up residence in Ravka and enter service to the crown.
Nina had been too young to fight in the Ravkan civil war, and she’d been desperate to be part of the rebuilding of the Second Army. It was her gift for languages—Shu, Kaelish, Suli, Fjerdan, even some Zemeni—that finally overcame Zoya’s reservations. She agreed to let Nina accompany her and a team of Grisha Examiners to the Wandering Isle, and despite all of Zoya’s misgivings, Nina had been a success. Disguised as a traveler, she would slip into taverns and coach houses to eavesdrop on conversations and chat with the locals, then bring the peasant talk back to camp.
If you’re going to Maroch Glen, make sure to travel by day. Troubled spirits walk those lands—storms erupt out of nowhere.
The Witch of Fells is real, all right. My second cousin went to her with an outbreak of tsifil and swears he’s never been healthier. What do you mean he’s not right in the head? More right than you’ll ever be.
They’d found two Grisha families hiding out in the supposed fairy caves of Istamere, and they’d saved a mother, father, and two boys—Inferni, who could control fire—from a mob in Fenford. They even raided a slaving ship near the port in Leflin. Once the refugees had been sorted, those without powers had been offered safe passage back home. Those whose powers had been confirmed by a Grisha Examiner were offered asylum in Ravka. Only the old Heartrender known as the Witch of Fells chose to remain. “If they want my blood, let them come for it,” she’d laughed. “I’ll take some of theirs in return.”
Nina spoke Kaelish like a native and loved the challenge of taking on a new identity in every town. But for all their triumphs, Zoya hadn’t been pleased. “Being good with languages isn’t enough,” she’d scolded. “You need to learn to be less … big. You’re too loud, too effusive, too memorable. You take too many risks.”
“Zoya,” said the Examiner they were traveling with. “Go easy.” He was a living amplifier. Dead, his bones would have served to heighten Grisha power, no different from the shark teeth or bear claws that other Grisha wore. But alive, he was invaluable to their mission, trained to use his amplifier gifts to sense Grisha power through touch.
Most of the time, Zoya was protective of him, but now her deep blue eyes flattened to slits. “My teachers didn’t go easy on me. If she ends up chased through the woods by a mob of peasants, will you tell them to go easy?”
Nina had stomped off, pride smarting, embarrassed by the tears filling her eyes. Zoya had shouted at her not to go past the ridge, but she’d ignored her, eager to be as far away from the Squaller as she could get—and walked right into a drüskelle camp. Six blond boys all speaking Fjerdan, clustered on a cliff above the shore. They’d made no campfire and were dressed as Kaelish peasants, but she’d known what they were right away.
They’d stared at her for a long moment, lit only by silvery moonlight.
“Oh thank goodness,” she’d said in lilting Kaelish. “I’m traveling with my family, and I got turned around in the woods. Can one of you help me find the road?”
“I think she’s lost,” one of them translated in Fjerdan for the others.
Another rose, a lantern in his hand. He was taller than the others, and all her instincts screamed at her to run as he drew closer. They don’t know wha
t you are, she reminded herself. You’re just a nice Kaelish girl, lost in the woods. Don’t do anything stupid. Lead him away from the others, then take him down.
He raised his lantern, the light shining over both of their faces. His hair was long and burnished gold, and his pale blue eyes glinted like ice beneath a winter sun. He looks like a painting, she thought, a Saint wrought in gold leaf on the walls of a church, born to wield a sword of fire.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked in Fjerdan.
She feigned confusion. “I’m sorry,” she said in Kaelish. “I don’t understand. I’m lost.”
He lunged toward her. She didn’t stop to think, but simply reacted, raising her hands to attack. He was too quick. Without hesitation, he dropped the lantern and seized her wrists, slamming her hands together, making it impossible for her to use her power.
“Drüsje,” he said with satisfaction. Witch. He had a wolf’s smile.
The attack had been a test. A girl lost in the woods cowered; she reached for a knife or a gun. She didn’t try to use her hands to stop a man’s heart. Reckless. Impulsive.
This was why Zoya hadn’t wanted to bring her. Properly trained Grisha didn’t make these mistakes. Nina had been a fool, but she didn’t have to be a traitor. She pleaded with them in Kaelish, not Ravkan, and she didn’t cry out for help—not when they bound her hands, not when they threatened her, not when they tossed her in a rowboat like a bag of millet. She wanted to scream her terror, bring Zoya running, beg for someone to save her, but she wouldn’t risk the others’ lives. The drüskelle rowed her to a ship anchored off the coast and threw her into a cage belowdecks full of other captive Grisha. That was when the real horror had begun.
Night blended into day in the dank belly of the ship. The Grisha prisoners’ hands were kept tightly bound to keep them from using their power. They were fed tough bread crawling with weevils—only enough to keep them alive—and had to ration fresh water carefully since they never knew when they might have it next. They’d been given no place to relieve themselves, and the stink of bodies and worse was nearly unbearable.
