Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1)(44)
“Stay down, you pathetic skiv.”
Again, Helvar tried to rise. He was fast, and prison had made him strong. Kaz cracked him hard on the jaw, then gave the pressure points at Helvar ’s huge shoulders two lightning-quick jabs with the tip of his cane. The Fjerdan grunted as his arms went limp and useless at his sides.
Kaz flipped the cane in his hand and pressed the carved crow’s head against Helvar ’s throat. “Move again and I’ll smash your jaw so badly you’ll be drinking your meals for the rest of your life.”
The Fjerdan stilled, his blue eyes alight with hate.
“Where is the pardon?” Helvar growled. “I saw you put it in your pocket.”
Kaz crouched down beside him and produced the folded document from a pocket that had seemed
empty just a moment before. “This?”
The Fjerdan flopped his useless arms, then released a low animal growl as Kaz made the pardon
vanish in thin air. It reappeared between his fingers. He turned it once, flashing the text, then ran his hand over it, and showed Helvar the seemingly blank page.
“Demjin,” muttered Helvar. Kaz didn’t speak Fjerdan, but that word he knew. Demon.
Hardly. He’d learned sleight of hand from the cardsharps and monte runners on East Stave, and spent hours practising it in front of a muddy mirror he’d bought with his first week’s pay.
Kaz knocked his cane gently against Helvar ’s jaw. “For every trick you’ve seen, I know a thousand more. You think a year in Hellgate hardened you up? Taught you to fight? Hellgate would have been paradise to me as a child. You move like an ox – you’d last about two days on the streets where I grew up. This was your one free pass, Helvar. Don’t test me again. Nod so I know you understand.”
Helvar pressed his lips together and nodded once.
“Good. I think we’ll shackle those feet tonight.”
Kaz rose, snatched his new hat from the desk where he’d left it, and gave the Fjerdan one last kick to the kidneys for good measure. Sometimes the big ones didn’t know when to stay down.
Over the next day, Inej saw Kaz begin to move the pieces of his scheme into position. She’d been privy to his consultations with every member of the crew, but she knew she was seeing only fragments of his plan. That was the game Kaz always played.
If he had doubts about what they were attempting, they didn’t show, and Inej wished she shared his certainty. The Ice Court had been built to withstand an onslaught of armies, assassins, Grisha, and spies. When she’d said as much to Kaz, he’d simply replied, “But it hasn’t been built to keep us out.”
His confidence unnerved her. “What makes you think we can do this? There will be other teams out there, trained soldiers and spies, people with years of experience.”
“This isn’t a job for trained soldiers and spies. It’s a job for thugs and thieves. Van Eck knows it, and that’s why he brought us in.”
“You can’t spend his money if you’re dead.”
“I’ll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.”
“There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.”
He’d turned his back on her then, giving each of his gloves a sharp tug. “And when I want a sermon on that, I know who to come to. If you want out, just say so.”
Her spine had straightened, her own pride rising to her defence. “Matthias isn’t the only irreplaceable member of this crew, Kaz. You need me.”
“I need your skills, Inej. That’s not the same thing. You may be the best spider crawling around the Barrel, but you’re not the only one. You’d do well to remember it if you want to keep your share of the haul.”
She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t wanted to show just how angry he’d made her, but she’d left his office and hadn’t said a thing to him since.
Now, as she headed towards the harbour, she wondered what kept her on this path.
She could leave Kerch any time she wanted. She could stow away on a ship bound for Novyi Zem.
She could go back to Ravka and search for her family. Hopefully they’d been safe in the west when the civil war broke out, or maybe they’d taken refuge in Shu Han. The Suli caravans had been following the same well-worn roads for years, and she had the skills to steal what she needed to survive until she found them.
That would mean walking out on her debt to the Dregs. Per Haskell would blame Kaz; he’d be forced to carry the price of her indenture, and she’d be leaving him vulnerable without his Wraith to gather secrets. But hadn’t he told her that she was easily replaced? If they managed to pull off this heist and return to Kerch with Bo Yul-Bayur safely in tow, her percentage of the haul would be more than enough to buy her way out of her contract with the Dregs. She’d owe Kaz nothing, and there would be no reason for her to stay.
Sunrise was only an hour away, but the streets were crowded as she wended her way from East to West Stave. There was a Suli saying: The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true. Her father had liked to recite this when she was training on the wire or the swings. Be decisive, he’d say. You have to know where you want to go before you get there. Her mother had laughed at this. That’s not what that means, she’d say. You take the romance out of everything. He hadn’t, though. Her father had adored her mother. Inej remembered him leaving little bouquets of wild geraniums for her mother to find everywhere, in the cupboards, the camp cookpots, the sleeves of her costumes.