Page 40 of Six of Crows (Dregs 1)
“Why?”
“I’m not that good a Tailor. It’s part of all Corporalki training now, but I just don’t have an affinity for it.”
Matthias snorted.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve never heard you admit you’re not good at something.”
“Well, it happens so rarely.”
He was horrified to find his lips curling in a smile, but it was easy enough to quell when he thought of his face being changed. “What does Brekker want you to do to me?”
“Nothing radical. I’ll change your eye color, your hair—what you have of it. It won’t be permanent.”
“I don’t want this.” I don’t want you near me.
“It won’t take long, and it will be painless, but if you want to argue about it with Kaz…”
“Fine,” he said, steeling himself. It was pointless to argue with Brekker, not when he could simply taunt Matthias with the promise of the pardon. Matthias picked up a bucket, flipped it over, and sat down. “Can I have the key now?”
She handed it over to him and he unshackled his wrists as she rooted around in a box she’d brought over. It had a handle and several little drawers stuffed with powders and pigments in tiny jars. She extracted a pot of something black from a drawer.
“What is it?”
“Black antimony.” She stepped close to him, tilting his chin back with the tip of her finger. “Unclench your jaw, Matthias. You’re going to grind your teeth down to nothing.”
He crossed his arms.
She started shaking some of the antimony over his scalp and gave a rueful sigh. “Why does the brave drüskelle Matthias Helvar eat no meat?” she asked in a theatrical voice as she worked. “’Tis a sad story indeed, my child. His teeth were winnowed away by a vexatious Grisha, and now he can eat only pudding.”
“Stop that,” he grumbled.
“What? Keep your head tilted back.”
“What are you doing?”
“Darkening your brows and lashes. You know, the way girls do before a party.” He must have grimaced because she burst out laughing. “The look on your face!”
She leaned in, the waves of her brown hair brushing against his cheeks as she bled the color from the antimony into his brows. Her hand cupped his cheek.
“Shut your eyes,” she murmured. Her thumbs moved over his lashes, and he realized he was holding his breath.
“You don’t smell like roses anymore,” he said, then wanted to kick himself. He shouldn’t be noticing her scent.
“I probably smell like boat.”
No, she smelled sweet, perfect like … “Toffee?”
Her eyes slid away guiltily. “Kaz said to pack what we needed for the journey. A girl has to eat.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a bag of toffees. “Want one?”
Yes. “No.”
She shrugged and popped one in her mouth. Her eyes rolled back, and she sighed happily. “So good.”
It was a humiliating epiphany, but he knew he could have watched her eat all day. This was one of the things he’d liked best about Nina—she savored everything, whether it was a toffee or cold water from a stream or dried reindeer meat.
“Eyes now,” she said around the candy as she pulled a tiny bottle from her case. “You’ll have to keep them open.”
“What is that?” he asked nervously.
“A tincture developed by a Grisha named Genya Safin. It’s the safest way to change eye color.”
Again she leaned in. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her mouth slightly open. Her lips were bare inches from his. If he sat up straighter, they’d be kissing.
“You have to look at me,” she instructed.
I am. He shifted his gaze to hers. Do you remember this shore, Nina? he wanted to ask, though he knew she must.
“What color are you making my eyes?”
“Shhh. This is difficult.” She dabbed the drops onto her fingers and held them close to his eyes.
“Why can’t you just put them in?”
“Why can’t you stop talking? Do you want me to blind you?”
He stopped talking.
Finally, she drew back, gaze roving over his features. “Brownish,” she said. Then she winked. “Like toffee.”
“What do you intend to do about Bo Yul-Bayur?”
She straightened and stepped away, her expression shuttering. “What do you mean?”
He was sorry to see her easy manner go, but that didn’t matter. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “You know exactly what I mean. I don’t believe for a second you’ll let these people hand Bo Yul-Bayur over to the Kerch Merchant Council.”
She put the bottle back in one of the little drawers. “We’ll have to do this at least two more times before we get to the Ice Court so I can deepen the color. Get your things together. Kaz wants us ready to leave on the hour.” She snapped the top of the case closed and picked up the shackles. Then she was gone.
* * *
By the time they bid their goodbyes to the ship’s crew, the sky had turned from pink to gold.
“See you in Djerholm harbor,” Specht called. “No mourners.”
“No funerals,” the others replied. Strange people.
Brekker had been frustratingly tight-lipped about how exactly they were going to reach Bo Yul-Bayur and then get out of the Ice Court with the scientist in tow, but he’d been clear that once they had their prize, the Ferolind was their escape route. It had papers bearing the Kerch seal and indicating that all fees and applications had been made for representatives of the Haanraadt Bay Company to transport furs and goods from Fjerda to Zierfoort, a port city in south Kerch.
They began the march from the rocky shore up the cliff side. Spring was coming, but ice was still thick on the ground, and it was a tough climb. When they reached the top of the cliff, they stopped to catch their breath. The Ferolind was still visible on the horizon, its sails full of the wind that whipped at their cheeks.
“Saints,” said Inej. “We’re actually doing this.”
“I’ve spent every minute of every miserable day wishing to be off that ship,” said Jesper. “So why do I suddenly miss it?”
Wylan stamped his boots. “Maybe because it already feels like our feet are going to freeze off.”
“When we get our money, you can burn kruge to keep you warm,” said Kaz. “Let’s go.” He’d left his crow’s head cane aboard the Ferolind and substituted a less conspicuous walking stick. Jesper had mournfully left behind his prized pearl-handled revolvers in favor of a pair of unornamented guns, and Inej had done the same with her extraordinary set of knives and daggers, keeping only those she could bear to part with when they entered the prison. Practical choices, but Matthias knew that talismans had their power.
Jesper consulted his compass, and they turned south, seeking a path that would lead them to the main trading road. “I’m going to pay someone to burn my kruge for me.”
Kaz fell into step beside him. “Why don’t you pay someone else to pay someone to burn your kruge for you? That’s what the big players do.”
“You know what the really big bosses do? They pay someone to pay someone to…”
Their voices trailed off as they tromped ahead, and Matthias and the others followed after. But he noticed that each of them cast a final backward glance at the vanishing Ferolind. The schooner was a part of Kerch, a piece of home for them, and that last familiar thing was drifting farther away with every moment.
Matthias felt some small measure of sympathy, but as they trekked through the morning, he had to admit he enjoyed seeing the canal rats shiver and struggle a bit for once. They thought they knew cold, but the white north had a way of forcing strangers to reevaluate their terms. They stumbled and staggered, awkward in their new boots, trying to find the trick of walking in hard-crusted snow, and soon Matthias was in the lead, setting the pace, though Jesper kept a steady eye on his compass.
“Put your…” Matthias paused and h
ad to gesture to Wylan. He didn’t know the Kerch word for “goggles” or even “snow,” for that matter. They weren’t terms that came up in prison. “Keep your eyes covered, or you could damage them permanently.” Men went blind this far north; they lost lips, ears, noses, hands, and feet. The land was barren and brutal, and that was all most people saw. But to Matthias it was beautiful. The ice bore the spirit of Djel. It had color and shape and even a scent if you knew to seek it out.
He pushed ahead, feeling almost at peace, as if here Djel could hear him and ease his troubled mind. The ice brought back memories of childhood, of hunting with his father. They’d lived farther south, near Halmhend, but in the winters that part of Fjerda didn’t look much different from this, a world of white and gray, broken by groves of black-limbed trees and jutting clusters of rock that seemed to have risen up from nowhere, shipwrecks on a bare ocean floor.
The first day trekking was like a cleansing—little talk, the white hush of the north welcoming Matthias back without judgment. He’d expected more complaints, but even Wylan had simply put his head down and walked. They’re all survivors, Matthias understood. They adapt. When the sun began to set, they ate their rations of dried beef and hardtack and collapsed into their tents without a word.
But the next morning brought an end to the quiet and Matthias’ fragile sense of peace. Now that they were off the ship and away from its crew, Kaz was ready to dig into the details of the plan.
“If we get this right, we’re going to be in and out of the Ice Court before the Fjerdans ever know their prize scientist is gone,” Kaz said as they shouldered their packs and continued to push south. “When we enter the prison, we’ll be taken to the holding area beneath the men’s and women’s cellblocks to await charges. If Matthias is right and the procedures are still the same, the patrols only pass through the holding cells three times a day for head counts. Once we’re out of the cells, we should have at least six hours to cross to the embassy, locate Yul-Bayur on the White Island, and get him down to the harbor before they realize anyone is gone.”
