Adrik held his tongue until they were in the little rowboat headed back to shore. They would make land in one of the coves north of Elling and hike back to their lodgings to collect their things.
“There’s going to be trouble when those men are discovered missing,” he said.
Nina felt like a child being scolded, and she didn’t appreciate it. “Good thing we’ll be long gone.”
“We won’t be able to operate out of this port anymore,” added Leoni. “They’re going to tighten security.”
“Don’t take his side.”
“I’m not taking sides,” said Leoni. “I’m just making an observation.”
“Did you want to give up the whole ship? Did you want to give up the Grisha in the hold?”
Adrik adjusted the rudder. “Nina, I’m not angry at you. I’m trying to figure out what we do next.”
She leaned into her oars. “You’re a little angry with me.”
“No one’s angry,” said Leoni, matching Nina’s pace. “We freed a ship full of Grisha from that horrible place. And it’s not like Birgir and his kalfisk goons didn’t have plenty of enemies on the docks. They could have run into trouble with anyone during their surprise inspection. I call this a victory.”
“Of course you do,” said Adrik. “If you can find a way to put a sunny spin on something, you will.”
It was true. Leoni was like cheer in a bottle—and not even months in Fjerda had dimmed her shine.
“Are you actually humming?” Adrik had once asked incredulously when they’d been forced to spend an hour digging their sledge out of the mud. “How can you be so relentlessly optimistic? It isn’t healthy.”
Leoni had stopped humming to give the question her full consideration as she tried to coax their horse to pull. “I suppose it’s because I almost died as a child. When the gods give you another look at the world, best enjoy it.”
Adrik had barely raised a brow. “I’ve been shot, stabbed, bayoneted, and had my arm torn off by a shadow demon. It’s done nothing for my disposition.”
It was true. If Leoni was sunshine walking, Adrik was a doleful storm cloud too put-upon to actually rain.
Now he cast his eyes at the spangle of stars above them as he steered the rowboat toward shore. “The Verstoten will have to be repainted, given new documentation and a new history. We’ll have to shift our operations to another port. Maybe Hjar.”
Nina gripped her oars. King Nikolai had sent the Verstoten to dock and trade in Elling for the better part of a year before Adrik’s team had begun their mission. It was a familiar vessel that had drawn scarce attention. A perfect cover. Had she acted too hastily? Captain Birgir had been a greedy man, not a righteous one. Maybe she’d wanted to see him dead a little too much. But she’d been like this since Matthias died—fine one moment, then ready to snarl and snap like a wild thing.
No, like a wounded animal. And like a wounded animal, for a time, she had gone to ground. She’d spent months at the Little Palace, rekindling old friendships, eating familiar food, sitting by the fire in the Hall of the Golden Dome, trying to remember who she’d been before Matthias, before a glowering Fjerdan had disrupted her life with his unexpected honor, before she’d known that a witchhunter might shed his hate and fear and become the boy she loved. Before he’d been taken from her. But if there was a way back to the girl she had been, she hadn’t found it. And now she was here, in Matthias’ country, in this cold, hostile place.
“We’ll go south,” Leoni was saying. “It’s only going to get colder. We can work our way back here in a few months, when good old Captain Birgir has been forgotten.”
It was a reasonable plan, but the whispering chorus in Nina’s head rose, and she found herself saying, “We should go to Kejerut, to G?fvalle. The fugitives who didn’t make it to the safe house didn’t just change their minds.”
“You know they were most likely captured,” said Adrik.
Tell them the truth, my love.
“Yes, I do,” said Nina. “But you heard what that old man said. Girls go missing from Kejerut.”
Tell them you hear the dead calling.
You don’t know that, Matthias.
It was one thing to hear her dead lover’s voice, quite another to claim she could sense … what exactly? She didn’t know. But she didn’t think the whispering in her head was just imagination. Something was pulling her east to the river cities.
“There’s another thing,” said Nina. “The women I worked with claimed the river up near G?fvalle had gone sour, that the town was cursed.”
Now she had Adrik’s attention. What had she once said to Jesper back in Ketterdam? Do you know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found? Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories. Tales of witches and wondrous happenings, warnings about cursed places—they were signposts to things that ordinary people didn’t understand. Sometimes there was little more to it than local lore. But sometimes there were Grisha hiding in these places, disguising their powers, living in fear. Grisha they could help.
Tell them the truth, Nina.
Nina rubbed her arms. You’re like a dog with a bone, Matthias.
A wolf. Did I ever tell you about the way Trassel would destroy my boots if I didn’t tie them up in a branch out of his reach?
He had. Matthias had told her all kinds of stories to keep her distracted when she’d been recovering from the influence of parem. He’d kept her alive. Why hadn’t she been able to do the same for him?
“Curses, spoiled rivers,” continued Nina. “If it’s nothing, we head south and I’ll buy you both a good dinner.”
“In Fjerda?” said Adrik. “I won’t hold you to it.”
“But if I’m right …”
“Fine,” Adrik said. “I’ll send word to Ravka that we need to establish a new port, and we’ll head to G?fvalle.”
The whispers quieted to a gentle murmur.
“Nina …” Leoni hesitated. “There’s open land out there. Beautiful country. You could find a place for him.”
Nina looked out at the dark water, at the lights glittering on shore. Find a place for him. As if Matthias were an old armoire or a plant that needed just the right amount of sun. His place is with me. But that wasn’t true anymore. Matthias was gone. His body was all that remained, and without Leoni’s careful maintenance, it would have long ago given way to rot. Nina felt the press of tears in the back of her throat. She would not cry. They’d been in Fjerda two months. They’d helped nearly forty Grisha escape Fjerdan rule. They’d traversed hundreds of miles of barren field and snowy plain. There had been plenty of places to lay Matthias to rest. Now it had to be done. It would be done. And one of her promises to him would be fulfilled.
“I’ll see to it,” she said.
“One more thing,” said Adrik, and she could hear the command in his voice, so different from his usual dismal tone. “Our job is to find recruits and refugees. Whatever we discover in G?fvalle, we are not there to start a war. We gather intelligence, open communication, provide a path to escape for those who want it, and that’s all.”
“That’s the plan,” said Nina. She touched her fingers to the spikes of bone in her gloves.
But plans could change.