Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(25)
In moments like that, he thought she might hate him.
Kaz wove his way through the crowd, a shadow in a riot of colour. Each of the major pleasure houses had a speciality, some more obvious than others. He passed the Blue Iris, the Bandycat, bearded men glowering from the windows of the Forge, the Obscura, the Willow Switch, the dewy-eyed blondes at the House of Snow, and of course the Menagerie, also known as the House of Exotics, where Inej had been forced to don fake Suli silks. He spotted Tante Heleen in her peacock feathers and famous diamond choker holding court in the gilded parlour. She ran the Menagerie, procured the girls, made sure they behaved. When she saw Kaz, her lips thinned to a sour line, and she lifted her glass, the gesture more threat than toast. He ignored her and pressed on.
The House of the White Rose was one of the more luxurious establishments on West Stave. It had its own dock, and its gleaming white stone fa?ade looked less like a pleasure house than a mercher mansion. Its window boxes were always bursting with climbing white roses, and their scent clung dense and sweet over this portion of the canal.
The parlour was even stickier with perfume. Huge alabaster vases overflowed with more white roses, and men and women – some masked or veiled, some with faces bare – waited on ivory couches, sipping near-colourless wine and nibbling little vanilla cakes soaked in almond liqueur.
The boy at the desk was dressed in a creamy velvet suit, a white rose in his buttonhole. He had white hair and eyes the colour of boiled eggs. Barring the eyes, he looked like an albino, but Kaz happened to know that he’d been tailored to match the decor of the House by a certain Grisha on the payroll.
“Mister Brekker,” the boy said, “Nina is with a client.”
Kaz nodded and slipped down a hallway behind a potted rose tree, resisting the urge to bury his nose in his collar. Onkle Felix, the bawd who ran the White Rose, liked to say that his house girls were as sweet as his blossoms. But the joke was on the clients. That particular breed of white rose, the only one hardy enough to survive the wet weather of Ketterdam, had no natural scent. All the flowers were perfumed by hand.
Kaz trailed his fingers along the panels behind the potted tree and pressed his thumb into a notch in the wall. It slid open, and he climbed a corkscrew staircase that was only used by staff.
Nina’s room was on the third floor. The door to the bedroom beside it was open and the room unoccupied, so Kaz slipped in, moved aside a still life, and pressed his face to the wall. The peepholes were a feature of all the brothels. They were a way to keep employees safe and honest, and they offered a thrill to anyone who enjoyed watching others take their pleasure. Kaz had seen enough slum dwellers seeking satisfaction in dark corners and alleys that the allure was lost on him. Besides, he knew that anyone looking through this particular peephole and hoping for excitement would be sorely disappointed.
A little bald man was seated fully clothed at a round table draped in ivory baize, his hands neatly folded beside an untouched silver coffee tray. Nina Zenik stood behind him, swathed in the red silk kefta that advertised her status as a Grisha Heartrender, one palm pressed to his forehead, the other to the back of his neck. She was tall and built like the figurehead of a ship carved by a generous hand.
They were silent, as if they’d been frozen there at the table. There wasn’t even a bed in the room, just a narrow settee where Nina curled up every night.
When Kaz had asked Nina why, she’d simply said, “I don’t want anyone getting ideas.”
“A man doesn’t need a bed to get ideas, Nina.”
Nina fluttered her lashes. “What would you know about it, Kaz? Take those gloves off, and we’ll see what ideas come to mind.”
Kaz had kept his cool eyes on her until she’d dropped her gaze. He wasn’t interested in flirting with Nina Zenik, and he happened to know she wasn’t remotely interested in him. Nina just liked to flirt with everything. He’d once seen her make eyes at a pair of shoes she fancied in a shop window.
Nina and the bald man sat, unspeaking, as the minutes ticked by, and when the hour on the clock chimed, he rose and kissed her hand.
“Go,” she said in solemn tones. “Be at peace.”
The bald man kissed her hand again, tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”
As soon as the client was down the hall, Kaz stepped out of the bedroom and knocked on Nina’s
door.
She opened it cautiously, keeping the chain latched. “Oh,” she said when she saw Kaz. “You.”
She didn’t look particularly happy to see him. No surprise. Kaz Brekker at your door was rarely a good thing. She unhooked the chain and let him show himself in as she shucked off the red kefta, revealing a slip of satin so thin it barely counted as cloth.
“Saints, I hate this thing,” she said, kicking the kefta away and pulling a threadbare dressing gown from a drawer.
“What’s wrong with it?” Kaz asked.
“It isn’t made right. And it itches.” The kefta was of Kerch manufacture, not Ravkan – a costume, not a uniform. Kaz knew Nina never wore it on the streets; it was simply too risky for Grisha. Her membership in the Dregs meant anyone acting against her would risk retribution from the gang, but payback wouldn’t matter much to Nina if she was on a slaver ship bound for who knew where.
Nina threw herself into a chair at the table and wriggled her feet out of her jewelled slippers, digging her toes into the plush white carpet. “Ahhh,” she said contentedly. “So much better.” She shoved one of the cakes from the coffee service into her mouth and mumbled, “What do you want, Kaz?”