Six of Crows (58 page)

Inej grinned, thinking of the future and her little ship. “Let’s buy it and burn it down.”

They watched the waves for a while. “Ready?” Nina said.

Inej was glad she hadn’t had to ask. She pushed up her sleeve, baring the peacock feather and mottled skin beneath it.

It took the barest second, the softest brush of Nina’s fingertips. The itch was acute but passed quickly. When the prickling faded, the skin of Inej’s forearm was perfect—almost too smooth and flawless, like it was the one new part of her.

Inej touched the soft skin. Just like that it was done. If only every wound could be banished so easily.

Nina kissed Inej’s cheek. “I’m going to find Matthias before things get bad.”

But as she walked away, Inej saw Nina had another reason to depart. Kaz was standing in the shadows near the mast. He had a heavy coat on and was leaning on his crow-head cane – he looked almost like himself again. Inej’s knives would be waiting in the hold with her other belongings. She’d missed her claws.

Kaz murmured a few words to Nina, and the Grisha reared back in surprise. Inej couldn’t make out the rest of what they said, but she could tell the exchange was tense before Nina made an exasperated sound and vanished belowdecks.

“What did you say to Nina?” Inej asked when he joined her at the rail.

“I have a job I need her to perform.”

“She’s about to go through a terrifying ordeal—”

“And work still needs to get done.”

Pragmatic Kaz. Why let empathy get in the way? Maybe Nina would be glad for the distraction.

They stood together, gazing out at the waves, silence stretching between them.

“We’re alive,” he said at last.

“It seems you prayed to the right god.”

“Or travelled with the right people.”

Inej shrugged. “Who chooses our paths?” He said nothing, and she had to smile. “No sharp retort?

No laughing at my Suli proverbs?”

He ran his gloved thumb over the rail. “No.”

“How will we meet the Merchant Council?”

“When we’re a few miles out, Rotty and I will row to harbour in the longboat. We’ll find a runner to get word to Van Eck and make the exchange on Vellgeluk.”

Inej shivered. The island was popular with slavers and smugglers. “The Council’s choice or yours?”

“Van Eck suggested it.”

Inej frowned. “Why does a mercher know about Vellgeluk?”

“Trade is trade. Maybe Van Eck isn’t quite the upstanding merch he seems.”

They were silent for a while. Finally, she said, “I’m going to learn to sail.”

Kaz’s brow furrowed, and he cast her a surprised glance. “Really? Why?”

“I want to use my money to hire a crew and outfit a ship.” Saying the words wrapped her breath up in an anxious spool. Her dream still felt fragile. She didn’t want to care what Kaz thought, but she did.

“I’m going to hunt slavers.”

“Purpose,” he said thoughtfully. “You know you can’t stop them all.”

“If I don’t try, I won’t stop any.”

“Then I almost pity the slavers,” Kaz said. “They have no idea what’s coming for them.”

A pleased flush warmed her cheeks. But hadn’t Kaz always believed she was dangerous?

Inej balanced her elbows on the railing and rested her chin in her palms. “I’ll go home first, though.”

“To Ravka?”

She nodded.

“To find your family.”

“Yes.” Only two days ago, she would have left it at that, respecting their unspoken agreement to tread lightly in each other ’s pasts. Now she said, “Was there no one but your brother, Kaz? Where are your mother and father?”

“Barrel boys don’t have parents. We’re born in the harbour and crawl out of the canals.”

Inej shook her head. She watched the sea shift and sigh, each wave a breath. She could just make out the horizon, the barest difference between black sky and blacker sea. She thought of her parents.

She’d been away from them for nearly three years. How would they have changed? Could she be their daughter again? Maybe not right away. But she wanted to sit with her father on the steps of the wagon eating fruit from the trees. She wanted to see her mother dust chalk from her hands before she prepared the evening meal. She wanted tall southern grasses and the vast sky above the Sikurzoi Mountains. Something she needed was waiting for her there. What did Kaz need?

“You’re about to be rich, Kaz. What will you do when there’s no more blood to shed or vengeance to take?”

“There’s always more.”

“More money, more mayhem, more scores to settle. Was there never another dream?”

He said nothing. What had carved all the hope from his heart? She might never know.

Inej turned to go. Kaz seized her hand, keeping it on the railing. He didn’t look at her. “Stay,” he said, his voice rough stone. “Stay in Ketterdam. Stay with me.”

She looked down at his gloved hand clutching hers. Everything in her wanted to say yes, but she would not settle for so little, not after all she’d been through. “What would be the point?”

He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to … I want you.”

“You want me.” She turned the words over. Gently, she squeezed his hand. “And how will you have me, Kaz?”

He looked at her then, eyes fierce, mouth set. It was the face he wore when he was fighting.

“How will you have me?” she repeated. “Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our

lips can never touch?”

He released her hand, his shoulders bunching, his gaze angry and ashamed as he turned his face to the sea.

Maybe it was because his back was to her that she could finally speak the words. “I will have you without armour, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”

Speak
, she begged silently.
Give me a reason to stay.
For all his selfishness and cruelty, Kaz was still the boy who had saved her. She wanted to believe he was worth saving, too.

The sails creaked. The clouds parted for the moon then gathered back around her.

Inej left Kaz with the wind howling and dawn still a long while away.

The aches set in after dawn. An hour later, it felt as if her bones were trying to push through the places where her joints met. She lay on the same table where she’d healed Inej’s knife wound. Her senses were still sharp enough that she could smell the coppery scent of the Suli girl’s blood beneath the cleaner Rotty had used to remove it from the wood. It smelled like Inej.

Matthias sat beside her. He’d tried to take her hand, but the pain was too great. The chafe of his skin on hers made her flesh feel raw. Everything looked wrong. Everything felt wrong. All she could think of was the sweet, burnt taste of the
parem
. Her throat itched. Her skin felt like an enemy.

When the tremors began, she begged him to leave.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said, trying to roll on her side.

He brushed the damp hair from her brow. “How bad is it?”

“Bad.” But she knew it would get worse.

“Do you want to try the
jurda?
” Kuwei had suggested that small doses of regular
jurda
might help Nina get through the day.

She shook her head. “I want … I want – Saints, why is it so hot in here?” Then, despite the pain, she tried to sit up. “Don’t give me another dose. Whatever I say, Matthias, no matter how much I beg. I don’t want to be like Nestor, like those Grisha in the cells.”

“Nina, Kuwei said the withdrawal could kill you. I won’t let you die.”

Kuwei.
Back at the treasury Matthias had said,
He’s one of us.
She liked that word.
Us.
A word without divisions or borders. It seemed full of hope.

She flopped back down, and her whole body rebelled. Her clothes were crushed glass. “I would have killed every one of the
drüskelle
.”

“We all carry our sins, Nina. I need you to live so I can atone for mine.”

“You can do that without me, you know.”

He buried his head in his hands. “I don’t want to.”

“Matthias,” she said, running her fingers through the close crop of his hair. It hurt. The world hurt.

Touching him hurt, but she still did it. She might not ever get to again. “I am not sorry.”

He took her hand and kissed her knuckles gently. She winced, but when he tried to pull away, she clutched him tighter.

“Stay,” she panted. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Stay till the end.”

“And after,” he said. “And always.”

“I want to feel safe again. I want to go home to Ravka.”

“Then I’ll take you there. We’ll set fire to raisins or whatever you heathens do for fun.”

“Zealot,” she said weakly.

“Witch.”

“Barbarian.”

“Nina,” he whispered, “little red bird. Don’t go.”

As the schooner sped south, it was as if the whole crew was sitting vigil. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, treading quietly over the decks. Jesper was as worried about Nina as anyone – except Matthias, he supposed – but the respectful silence was hard to bear. He needed something to shoot at.

The
Ferolind
felt like a ghost ship. Matthias was sequestered with Nina, and he’d asked for Wylan’s help in caring for her. Even if Wylan didn’t love chemistry, he knew more about tinctures and compounds than anyone in the crew other than Kuwei, and Matthias couldn’t understand half of what Kuwei said. Jesper hadn’t seen Wylan since they’d fled the Djerholm harbour, and he had to admit he missed having the merchling around to annoy. Kuwei seemed friendly enough, but his Kerch was rough, and he didn’t seem to like to talk much. Sometimes he’d just appear on deck at night and stand silently beside Jesper, staring out at the waves. It was a little unnerving. Only Inej wanted to chat with anyone, and that was because she seemed to have developed a consuming interest in all things nautical. She spent most of her time with Specht and Rotty, learning knots and how to rig sails.

Jesper had always known there was a good chance they wouldn’t make this journey home at all, that they’d end up in cells in the Ice Court or skewered on pikes. But he’d figured that if they managed the impossible task of rescuing Yul-Bayur and getting to the
Ferolind
, the trip back to Ketterdam would be a party. They’d drink whatever Specht might have squirreled away on the ship, eat the last of Nina’s toffees, recount their close calls and every small victory. But he never could have foreseen the way they’d been cornered in the harbour, and he certainly couldn’t have imagined what Nina had done to get them out of it.

Jesper worried about Nina, but thinking about her made him feel guilty. When they’d boarded the schooner and Kuwei explained
parem
, a tiny voice inside him said he should offer to take the drug as well. Even though he was a Fabrikator without training, maybe he could have helped to draw the
parem
out of Nina’s system and set her free. But that was a hero’s voice, and Jesper had long since stopped thinking he had the makings of a hero. Hell, a hero would have volunteered to take the
parem
when they were facing down the Fjerdans at the harbour.

When Kerch finally appeared on the horizon, Jesper felt a strange mixture of relief and trepidation. Their lives were about to change in ways that still didn’t seem real.

They dropped anchor, and when nightfall came, Jesper asked Kaz if he could join him and Rotty in the longboat they were rowing to Fifth Harbour. They didn’t need him along, but Jesper was desperate for distraction.

The chaos of Ketterdam was unchanged – ships unloading their cargo at the docks, tourists and soldiers on leave pouring out of boats, laughing and shouting to each other on their way to the Barrel.

“Looks the same as when we left it,” Jesper said.

Kaz raised a brow. He was back in his sleek grey-and-black suit, immaculate tie. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Jesper admitted.