Matthias folded his arms. “Digging in your bag of tricks, demjin?”
Kaz flexed his fingers in his gloves. How did you survive the Barrel? When they took everything from you, you found a way to make something from nothing.
“I’m going to invent a new trick,” Kaz said. “One Van Eck will never forget.” He turned to the others. If he could have gone after Inej alone, he would have, but not even he could pull that off. “I’ll need the right crew.”
Wylan got to his feet. “For the Wraith.”
Jesper followed, still not meeting Kaz’s eyes. “For Inej,” he said quietly.
Matthias gave a single sharp nod.
Inej had wanted Kaz to become someone else, a better person, a gentler thief. But that boy had no place here. That boy ended up starving in an alley. He ended up dead. That boy couldn’t get her back.
I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he’d promised her so long ago.
Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.
Pekka Rollins tucked a wad of jurda into his cheek and leaned back in his chair to survey the raggedy crew Doughty had brought to his office. Rollins lived above the Emerald Palace in a grand suite of rooms, every inch of them covered in gilt and green velvet. He loved flash – in his clothes, his friends, and his women.
The kids standing before him were the opposite of anything properly stylish. They wore the costumes of the Komedie Brute, but no one got access to his office without showing his face, so the masks had come off. He recognised some of them. He’d hoped to recruit the Heartrender Nina Zenik at some point, but now she looked as if she might not last out the month – all jutting bones, dark hollows, and trembling hands. Seemed he’d dodged a bad investment there. She leaned against a giant Fjerdan with a shaved head and grim blue eyes. He was huge, probably former military. Good muscle to have around. Where did Kaz Brekker find these people?
The boy next to them was Shu, but he looked far too young to be the scientist they’d all been so desperate to get their hands on. Besides, Brekker would never bring such a prize to the Emerald Palace. And then, of course, Rollins knew Jesper Fahey. The sharpshooter had run up an astonishing amount of debt at nearly every gambling den on East Stave. His loose talk had put Rollins wise to the knowledge that Brekker was sending a team to Fjerda. A little digging and a lot of bribes had yielded the where and when of their departure – intelligence that had proved faulty. Brekker had been one step ahead of the him and the Dime Lions. The little canal rat had managed to make it to the Ice Court after all.
It was a good thing, too. If not for Kaz Brekker, Rollins would still be sitting in a cell in that damned Fjerdan prison waiting for another round of torture – or maybe looking down from a pike atop the ringwall.
When Brekker had picked the lock on his prison cell door, Rollins hadn’t known if he was about to be rescued or assassinated. He’d heard plenty about Kaz Brekker since he’d risen to prominence in the Dregs – that sorry outfit Per Haskell called a gang – and he’d seen him around the Barrel a few times. The boy had come from nowhere and been a slew of trouble since. But he was still just a lieutenant, not a general, a terrier nipping at Rollins’ ankles.
“Hello, Brekker,” Rollins had said. “Come to gloat?”
“Not exactly. You know me?”
Rollins had shrugged. “Sure, you’re the little skiv who keeps stealing my customers.”
The look that passed over the boy’s face then had taken Rollins aback. It was hatred – pure, black, long simmering. What have I ever done to this little pissant? But in seconds the look was gone, and Rollins wondered if he’d imagined it altogether.
“What do you want, Brekker?”
The boy had stood there, something bleak and mad in his gaze. “I want to do you a favour.”
Rollins noted Brekker ’s bare feet and prison clothes, the hands shorn of his legendary black gloves – a ridiculous affectation. “You don’t look like you’re in a position to do anyone favours, kid.”
“I’m going to leave this door unlocked. You’re not stupid enough to go after Bo Yul-Bayur without a crew to back you. Wait for your moment and get out.”
“Why the hell would you help me?”
“You weren’t meant to die here.”
Somehow it sounded like a curse.
“I owe you, Brekker,” Rollins had said as the boy exited his cell, hardly believing his luck.
Brekker had glanced back at him, his dark eyes like caverns. “Don’t worry, Rollins. You’ll pay.”