Six of Crows: Part One

He was Hoede’s personal Squaller and often traveled with the merchant’s most precious cargos, guaranteeing favorable winds to bring the ships safely and quickly to harbor.

“That's counting against your indenture,” Joost said, pointing to the ruined pane.

“Yes, but we’re agreed that if we have the same results as the Fabrikator, the Council will compensate me? I can’t be asked to bear that expense.”

She saw Kaz and the others gathered near the great stone arch that marked the eastern entrance to the Exchange. Three words had been carved into the rock above them: Enjent, Voorhent, Almhent. Industry, Integrity, Prosperity.

Inej noted the glint of knives tucked into their belts, lead pipes, weighted chains, axe handles studded with rusty nails, and here and there, the oily gleam of a gun barrel.

“It’s always good to have a country in debt to you. Makes for friendlier negotiations.”

Street law dictated that for a parley of this kind each lieutenant be seconded by two of his foot soldiers and that they all be unarmed. Parley. The word felt like a deception—strangely prim, an antique. No matter what street law decreed, this night smelled like violence.

The Exchange was one of the few remaining parts of the city that hadn’t been divvied up and claimed in the ceaseless skirmishes between Ketterdam’s rival gangs.

He seemed to think territory wars could be settled as they once had been: with a short scuffle and a friendly handshake.

Most gang members in the Barrel loved flash: gaudy waistcoats, watch fobs studded with false gems, trousers in every print and pattern imaginable.

“Hiring city guards to do your killing? I'd say that's an expensive proposition for a gang like the Black Tips. I'm not sure I believe your coffers could support it.”

A few kruge from the Dregs and the Black Tips had ensured they wouldn’t interfere with the parley, a common enough transaction.

Had he really managed to bribe city guards to play sniper for him?

The shot had come from somewhere near the west side of the building. If Holst was there, that meant the other guard—Bert Van Daal—would be on the east side. Had Kaz managed to neutralize him, too?

“Let’s say my currency carries more sway.”
“Money is money.”
“I trade in information, Geels, the things men do when they think no one is looking. Shame holds more value than coin ever can.”

All that planning and scheming and bribing for nothing. That’s what you’re thinking right now. How bad it will feel to walk home knowing what you’ve lost.

The medik moved aside, and Kaz blinked twice, trying to clear his vision and make sense of the absurd luxury of his surroundings.

The man observing him from behind a broad desk had the prosperous look of a mercher.

Thanks to Inej, he had information on every judge, bailiff, and high councilman in Kerch.

“You may go. Please send me your bill. And I would, of course, appreciate your discretion in this matter.”

“What’s the difference between wagering at the Crow Club and speculating on the floor of the Exchange?”
“One is theft and the other is commerce.”

“An ordinary Tidemaker can control currents, summon water or moisture from the air or a nearby source. They manage the tides in our harbor. But under the influence of jurda parem, a Tidemaker can alter his own state from solid to liquid to gas and back again, and do the same with other objects. Even a wall.”

“Grisha manipulate matter at its most fundamental levels. They call it the Small Science. Under the influence of parem, those manipulations become faster and far more precise. In theory, jurda parem is just a stimulant like its ordinary cousin. But it seems to sharpen and hone a Grisha’s senses. They can make connections with extraordinary speed. Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be.”

“It’s lethal. An ordinary mind cannot tolerate parem in even the lowest doses.”

A month ago we received a message from Yul-Bayur begging for asylum. He was concerned about his government’s plans for jurda parem, and we agreed to help him defect.

Kaz didn’t know anything about espionage or government squabbles, but why should stealing Bo Yul-Bayur from the Ice Court be any different from liberating valuables from a mercher’s safe?

He’d need a very specialized team, a desperate team that wouldn’t balk at the real possibility that they’d never come back from this job.

The Kerch Council would owe him, to say nothing of what this particular heist would do for his reputation.

To infiltrate the impenetrable Ice Court and snatch a prize from the bastion of Fjerdan nobility and military might?

“It seems to take only one dose. Once the drug has run its course, it leaves the Grisha’s body weakened and the craving is intense. It’s quite debilitating.”

She’d murdered for the Dregs, stolen, brought down bad men and good, and Kaz had never hinted that any of the assignments were less than a command to be obeyed. This was the price she'd agreed to when Per Haskell had purchased her contract and liberated her from the Menagerie.

The infamous tangle of narrow streets and minor waterways known as the Barrel was bracketed by two major canals, East Stave and West Stave, each catering to a particular clientele.

The buildings of the Barrel were different from anywhere else in Ketterdam, bigger, wider, painted in every garish color, clamoring for attention from passersby—the Treasure Chest, the Golden Bend, Weddell’s Riverboat.

Kaz watched the flow of customers in and out of the Emerald’s doors and caught a glimpse of his own steerers, men and women he hired to seduce Pekka’s customers south with the prospect of better deals, bigger wins, prettier girls.

He spotted Tante Heleen in her peacock feathers and famous diamond choker holding court in the gilded parlor.

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.

So instead of risking her life and making major money as a mercenary, she slowed heartbeats, eased breathing, relaxed muscles.

She had a lucrative side business as a Tailor, seeing to the wrinkles and jowls of the wealthy Kerch, but her chief source of income came from altering moods.

“Even if you could get to him, Matthias would never agree to help you.”
“It’s just a question of leverage, Nina.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Don’t I? He’s a person like any other, driven by greed and pride and pain.

“A liar, a thief, and utterly without conscience. But he’ll keep to any deal you strike with him.”