Six of Crows (14 page)

Inej gave Nina’s hand a brief squeeze, and after a moment, Nina squeezed back. She sat through the next fight in a daze, and the next. She told herself she was ready for this – to see him again, to see him here in this brutal place. After all, she was a Grisha and a soldier of the Second Army. She’d seen worse.

But when Matthias emerged from the mouth of the cave below, she knew she’d been wrong. Nina

recognised him instantly. Every night of the past year, she had fallen asleep thinking of Matthias’ face.

There was no mistaking the gilded brows, the sharp cut of his cheekbones. But Kaz hadn’t lied: Matthias was much changed. The boy who looked back at the crowd with fury in his eyes was a stranger.

Nina remembered the first time she’d seen Matthias in a moonlit Kaelish wood. His beauty had seemed unfair to her. In another life, she might have believed he was coming to rescue her, a shining saviour with golden hair and eyes the pale blue of northern glaciers. But she’d known the truth of him by the language he spoke, and by the disgust on his face every time his eyes lighted on her. Matthias Helvar was a
drüskelle
, one of the Fjerdan witchhunters tasked with hunting down Grisha to face trial and execution, though to her he’d always resembled a warrior Saint, illuminated in gold.

Now he looked like what he truly was: a killer. His bare torso seemed hewn from steel, and though she knew it wasn’t possible, he seemed bigger, as if the very structure of his body had changed. His skin had been gilded honey; now it was fish-belly white beneath the grime. And his hair – he’d had such beautiful hair, thick and golden, worn long in the way of Fjerdan soldiers. Now, like the other prisoners, his head had been shaved, probably to prevent lice. Whichever guard had done it had made a mess of the job. Even from this distance, she could see the cuts and nicks on his scalp, and little strips of blond stubble in the places the razor had missed. And yet, he was beautiful still.

He glared at the crowd and gave the wheel a hard spin that nearly knocked it off its base.

Tick tick tick tick.
Snakes. Tiger. Bear. Boar. The wheel ticked merrily along, then slowed and finally stopped.

“No,” Nina said when she saw where the needle was pointing.

“It could be worse,” said Muzzen. “Could have landed on the desert lizard again.”

She grabbed Kaz’s arm through his cloak and felt his muscles tense. “You have to stop this.”

“Let go of me, Nina.” His gravel-rough voice was low, but she sensed real menace in it.

She dropped her hand, “Please, you don’t understand. He—”

“If he survives, I’ll take Matthias Helvar out of this place tonight, but this part is up to him.”

Nina gave a frustrated shake of her head. “You don’t get it.”

The guard unbolted Matthias’ shackles, and as soon as the chains dropped into the sand, he leaped onto the ladder with the announcer to be lifted to safety. The crowd screamed and stamped. But Matthias stood silent, unmoving, even when the gate opened, even when the wolves charged out of the tunnel – three of them snarling and snapping, tumbling over one another to get to him.

At the last second, Matthias dropped into a crouch, knocking the first wolf into the dirt, then rolling right to pick up the bloodied knife the previous combatant had left in the sand. He sprang to his feet, blade held out before him, but Nina could sense his reluctance. His head was cocked to one side, and the look in his blue eyes was pleading, as if he was trying to engage the two wolves circling him in some silent negotiation. Whatever the plea might have been, it went unheard. The wolf on the right lunged. Matthias crouched low and spun, lodging his knife in the wolf’s belly. It gave a miserable yelp, and Matthias seemed to shudder at the sound. It cost him precious seconds. The third wolf was on him, knocking him to the sand. Its teeth sank into his shoulder. He rolled, taking the wolf with him. The wolf’s jaws snapped, and Matthias caught them. He wrenched them apart, the muscles of his arms flexing, his face grim. Nina squeezed her eyes shut. There was a sickening
crack
. The crowd roared.

Matthias kneeled over the wolf. Its jaw was broken, and it lay on the ground twitching in pain. He reached for a rock and slammed it hard into the poor animal’s skull. It went still and Matthias’

shoulders slumped. The people howled, stomping their feet. Only Nina knew what this was costing him, that he’d been a
drüskelle
. Wolves were sacred to his kind, bred for battle like their enormous horses. They were friends and companions, fighting side by side with their
drüskelle
masters.

The first wolf had recovered and was circling.
Move, Matthias
, she thought desperately. He got to his feet, but his movements were slow, weary. His heart wasn’t in this fight. His opponents were grey wolves, rangy and wild, but cousins to the white wolves of the Fjerdan north. Matthias had no knife, only the bloody rock in his hand, and the remaining wolf prowled the arena between him and the pile of weapons. The wolf lowered its head and bared its teeth.

Matthias dove left. The wolf lunged, sinking its teeth into his side. He grunted, and hit the ground hard. For a moment, Nina thought he might simply give in and let the wolf take his life. Then he reached out, hand scrabbling through the sand, searching for something. His fingers closed over the shackles that had bound his wrists.

He seized them, looped the chain across the wolf’s throat, and pulled, the veins in his neck cording from the strain. His bloody face was pressed against the wolf’s ruff, his eyes tightly shut, his lips moving. What was he saying? A
drüskelle
prayer? A farewell?

The wolf’s hind legs scrabbled at the sand. Its eyes rolled, frightened whites showing bright against its matted fur. A high whine rose from its chest. And then it was over. The creature’s body stilled. Both fighters lay unmoving in the sand. Matthias kept his eyes closed, his face still buried in the creature’s fur.

The crowd thundered its approval. The ladder was lowered, and the announcer sprang down, hauling Matthias to his feet and grabbing his wrist to raise his hand in victory. The announcer gave him a little nudge, and Matthias lifted his head. Nina caught her breath.

Tears streaked the dirt on Matthias’ face. The rage was gone, and it was like some flame had gone out with it. His north sea eyes were colder than she’d ever seen them, empty of feeling, stripped of anything human at all. This was what Hellgate had done to him. And it was her fault.

The guards took hold of Matthias again, pulling the shackles from the wolf’s throat and clapping them back on his wrists. As he was led away, the crowd chanted its disapproval, clamouring “More!

More!”

“Where are they taking him?” Nina asked, voice trembling.

“To a cell to sleep off the fight,” Kaz said.

“Who will see to his injuries?”

“They have mediks. We’ll wait to make sure he’s alone.”

I could heal him
, she thought. But a darker voice rose in her, rich with mocking.
Not even you can
be that foolish, Nina. No Healer can cure that boy. You made sure of it.

She thought she would leap from her skin as the minutes burned away. The others watched the next fight – Muzzen avidly, flexing his fingers and speculating on the outcome, Inej silent and still as a statue, Kaz inscrutable as always, scheming away behind that hideous mask. Nina slowed her own breathing, forced her pulse lower, trying to calm herself, but she could do nothing to mute the riot in her head.

Finally, Kaz gave her a nudge. “Ready, Nina? The guard first.”

She cast a glance at the prison guard standing by the archway.

“How down?” It was a Barrel turn of phrase.
How badly do you want him hurt?

“Shut eye.”
Knock him out, but don’t actually hurt him.

They followed Kaz to the arch through which they’d entered. The rest of the crowd took little notice, eyes focused on the fighting below.

“Need your escort?” the guard asked as they approached.

“I had a question,” said Kaz. Beneath her cape, Nina lifted her hands, sensing the flow of blood in the guard’s veins, the tissue of his lungs. “About your mother and whether the rumours are true.”

Nina felt the guard’s pulse leap and sighed. “Never can make it easy, can you, Kaz?”

The guard stepped forward, lifting his gun. “What did you say? I—” His eyelids drooped. “You don’t—” Nina dropped his pulse, and he toppled forward.

Muzzen grabbed him before he could fall as Inej swept him into the cloak Kaz had been wearing

just moments before. Nina was only mildly surprised to see that Kaz was wearing a prison guard’s uniform beneath it.

“Couldn’t you have just asked him the time or something?” Nina said. “And where did you get that uniform?”

Inej slid the Madman’s mask down over the guard’s face, and Muzzen threw his arm around him,

holding him up as if the guard had been drinking too much. They deposited him on one of the benches pressed against the back wall.

Kaz tugged on the sleeves of his uniform. “Nina, people love to give up authority to men in nice clothes. I have uniforms for the
stadwatch
, the harbour police, and the livery of every merch mansion on the Geldstraat. Let’s go.”

They slipped down the passageway.

Instead of turning back the way they’d come, they moved counter-clockwise around the old tower, the wall of the arena vibrating with voices and stomping feet to their left. The guards posted at each archway paid them little more than a glance, though a few nodded at Kaz, who kept a brisk pace, his face buried in his collar.

Nina was so deep in thought that she nearly missed it when Kaz held up a hand for them to slow.

They’d rounded a bend between two archways and were in the cover of deep shadow. Ahead of them, a medik was emerging from a cell accompanied by guards, one carrying a lantern. “He’ll sleep through the night,” the medik said. “Make sure he drinks something in the morning and check his pupils. I had to give him a powerful sleeping draft.”

As the men moved off in the opposite direction, Kaz gestured his group forward. The door in the rock was solid iron, broken only by a narrow slot through which to pass the prisoner ’s meals. Kaz bent to the lock.

Nina eyed the crude iron door. “This place is barbaric.”

“Most of the better fighters sleep in the old tower,” Kaz replied. “Keeps them away from the rest of the population.”

Nina glanced left and right to where bright light spilled from the arena entryways. There were guards standing in those doorways, distracted maybe, but all one needed to do was turn his head. If they were caught here, would the guards bother giving them over to the
stadwatch
for trial or would they simply force them into the ring to be eaten by a tiger?
Maybe something less dignified
, she thought bleakly.
A swarm of angry voles.

It took Kaz a few quick heartbeats to pick the lock. The door creaked open and they slipped inside.

The cell was pitch-black. A brief moment passed, and the cold green glow of a bonelight flickered to life beside her. Inej held the little glass sphere aloft. The substance inside was made from the dried and crushed bodies of luminous deep-sea fishes. They were common among crooks in the Barrel who didn’t want to get caught in a dark alley, but couldn’t be bothered to lug around lanterns.

At least it’s clean
, Nina thought, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Barren and icy cold, but not
filthy.
She saw a pallet of horse blankets and two buckets placed against the wall, one with a bloody cloth peeking over the rim.

This was what the men of Hellgate competed for: a private cell, a blanket, clean water, a bucket for waste.

Matthias slept with his back to the wall. Even in the dim illumination of the bonelight, she could see his face was starting to swell. Some kind of ointment had been smeared over his wounds – calendula.

She recognised the smell.

Nina moved towards him, but Kaz stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Let Inej assess the damage.”

“I can—” Nina began.

“I need you to work on Muzzen.”

Inej tossed Kaz the crow-headed cane she must have been hiding beneath her Grey Imp costume,

and kneeled over Matthias’ body with the bonelight. Muzzen stepped forward. He removed his cloak and shirt and the Madman’s mask. His head was shaved, and he wore prison-issue trousers.

Nina looked at Matthias then back to Muzzen, grasping what Kaz had in mind. The two boys were

about the same height and the same build, but that was where the similarities ended.

“You can’t possibly mean for Muzzen to take Matthias’ place.”

“He isn’t here for his sparkling conversation,” Kaz replied. “You’ll need to reproduce Helvar ’s injuries. Inej, what’s the inventory?”

“Bruised knuckles, chipped tooth, two broken ribs,” Inej said. “Third and fourth on the left.”

“His left or your left?” Kaz asked.

“His left.”

“This isn’t going to work,” Nina said in frustration. “I can match the damage to Helvar ’s body, but I’m not a good enough Tailor to make Muzzen look like him.”

“Just trust me, Nina.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz.” She peered at Muzzen’s face.

“Even if I swell him up, he’ll never pass.”

“Tonight, Matthias Helvar – or rather, our dear Muzzen – is going to appear to contract firepox, the lupine strain, carried by wolves and dogs alike. Tomorrow morning, when his guards discover him so covered in pustules that he is
unrecognisable
, he will be quarantined for a month to see if he survives the fever and to outwait the contagion. Meanwhile Matthias will be with us. Get it?”