Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(122)

“The treasury is the safest place on the island.”

“You keep him here with the Grisha?”

Brum nodded. “The main vault was converted to a laboratory for him.”

“And you’re sure it’s safe?”

“I have the master key,” said Brum, patting the disk hanging from his neck, “and he’s guarded night and day. Only a select few even know he’s here. It’s late, and I need to make sure Black Protocol has been addressed, but if you like, I’ll take you to see him tomorrow.” Brum placed his arm around Matthias. “And tomorrow we’ll deal with your return and reinstatement.”

“I still stand accused of slave trading.”

“We’ll get the girl to sign a statement recanting the slaving charges easily enough. Believe me, once she’s had her first taste of jurda parem, she’ll do anything you ask and more. There will be a hearing, but I swear you will wear drüskelle colours again, Matthias.”

Drüskelle colours. Matthias had worn them with such pride. And the things he’d felt for Nina had caused him so much shame. It was still with him, maybe it always would be. He’d spent too many years full of hate for it to vanish overnight. But now the shame was an echo, and all he felt was regret

– for the time he’d wasted, for the pain he’d caused, and yes, even now, for what he was about to do.

He turned to Brum, this man who had become father and mentor to him. When he’d lost his family, it had been Brum who had recruited him for the drüskelle. Matthias had been young, angry, completely unskilled. But he’d given what was left of his broken heart to the cause. A false cause. A lie. When had he seen it? When he’d helped Nina bury her friend? When he’d fought beside her? Or had it been long before – when she’d slept in his arms that first night on the ice? When she’d saved him from the shipwreck?

Nina had wronged him, but she’d done it to protect her people. She’d hurt him, but she’d attempted everything in her power to make things right. She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honourable and strong and generous and very human, maybe more vividly human than anyone he’d

ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else – full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster.

“You taught me so much,” Matthias said. “You taught me to value honour and strength. You gave

me the tools for vengeance when I needed them most.”

“And with those tools we will build a great future, Matthias. Fjerda’s time has finally come.”

Matthias returned his mentor ’s embrace.

“I don’t know if you’re wrong about the Grisha,” he said gently. “I just know you’re wrong about her.”

He held Brum tight, in a hold Matthias had learned in the echoing training rooms of the drüskelle stronghold, rooms he would never see again. He held Brum as he struggled briefly and as his body went slack.

When Matthias pulled away, Brum had slipped into unconsciousness, but Matthias did not think he imagined the rage that lingered on his mentor ’s features. He made himself memorise it. It was right that he should remember that look. He was a true traitor at last, and he should carry the burden of it.

When they’d entered the great ballroom, Matthias and Kaz had staked out a shadowy nook near the stairs. They’d watched Nina enter in that outrageous gown of shimmering scales – and then Matthias had spotted Brum. The shock of seeing his mentor alive had been followed by the terrible realisation that Brum was following Nina.

“Brum knows,” he’d said to Kaz. “We have to help her.”

“Be smart, Helvar. You can save her and get us Yul-Bayur, too.”

Matthias had nodded and plunged into the crowd. “Decency,” he’d heard Kaz mutter behind him.

“Like cheap cologne.”

He’d waylaid Brum by the stairs. “Sir—”

“Not now.”

Matthias had been forced to step right in front of him. “Sir.”

Brum had halted then. His face had shown anger at being stopped, then confusion, and then wondering disbelief. “Matthias?” he’d whispered.

“Please, sir,” Matthias had said hurriedly. “Just give me a moment to explain. There is a Grisha here tonight intent on assassinating one of your prisoners. If you’ll bear with me, I can explain the plot and how it can be stopped.”

Brum had signalled to another drüskelle to watch Nina, and shepherded Matthias into an alcove beneath the stairs. “Speak,” he’d said, and Matthias had told him the truth – a bare sliver of it: his escape from the shipwreck, his near drowning, Nina’s false charge of slavery, his captivity in Hellgate, and then the promise of the pardon. He’d blamed it all on Nina, and said nothing of Kaz or the others. When Brum had asked if Nina was alone in her mission, he’d simply said he didn’t know.

“She believes I’m waiting to escort her over the secret bridge. I broke away as soon as I could and came to find you.”

A part of him was disgusted by how easily the lies came to his lips, but he would not leave Nina at Brum’s mercy.

He looked at Brum now, mouth slightly open in sleep. One of the things he’d respected most in his mentor was his mercilessness, his willingness to do hard things for the sake of the cause. But Brum had taken pleasure in what he’d done to these Grisha, what he would have gladly done to Nina and Jesper. Maybe the hard things had never been difficult for Brum the way they’d been for Matthias.