فصل 28

28

EIGHT BELLS AND HALF CHIME

Kaz was watching her intently, his bitter coffee eyes glittering in the light from the dome.

“You know those costumes,” she said. “Heavy cloaks, hoods. That’s all the Fjerdans will see. A Zemeni fawn. A Kaelish mare.” She swallowed and forced the next words past her lips. “A Suli lynx.”

Not people, not even really girls, just lovely objects to be collected. I’ve always wanted to tumble a Zemeni girl, a customer would whisper. A Kaelish girl with red hair. A Suli girl with burnt caramel skin.

“It’s a risk,” said Kaz.

“What job isn’t?”

“Kaz, how are you and Matthias going to get through?” asked Nina. “We might need you for locks, and if things go bad on the island, I don’t want to be stranded. I doubt you can pass yourselves off as members of the Menagerie.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Kaz. “Helvar ’s been holding out on us.”

“Have you?” asked Inej.

“It’s not—” Matthias dragged a hand over his cropped hair. “How do you know these things, demjin?” he growled at Kaz.

“Logic. The whole Ice Court is a masterpiece of fail-safes and doubled systems. That glass bridge is impressive, but in an emergency, there would have to be another way to get reinforcements to the White Island and get the royal family out.”

“Yes,” said Matthias in exasperation. “There’s another way to the White Island. But it’s messy.” He glanced at Nina. “And it certainly can’t be done in a gown.”

“Hold on,” Jesper interrupted. “Who cares if you can all get onto the White Island? Let’s say Nina sparkles Yul-Bayur ’s location out of some Fjerdan higher-up, and you get him back here. We’ll be trapped. By then, the prison guards will have completed their search and are going to know six inmates got out of the sector somehow. Any chance we have of making it through the embassy gates and the checkpoints will be gone.”

Kaz peered past the dome to the embassy’s open courtyard and the ringwall gatehouse beyond.

“Wylan, how hard would it be to disable one of these gates?”

“To get it open?”

“No, to keep it closed.”

“You mean break it?” Wylan shrugged. “I don’t think it would be too difficult. I couldn’t see the mechanism when we entered the prison gate, but from the layout, I’m guessing it’s pretty standard.”

“Pulleys, cogs, some really big screws?”

“Well, yes, and a sizeable winch. The cables wrap around it like a big spool, and the guards just turn it with some kind of handle or wheel.”

“I know how a winch works. Can you take one apart?”

“I think so, but it’s the alarm system the cables are attached to that’s complicated. I doubt I could do it without triggering Black Protocol.”

“Good,” said Kaz. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Jesper held up a hand. “I’m sorry, isn’t Black Protocol the thing we want to avoid at all costs?”

“I do seem to remember something about certain doom,” said Nina.

“Not if we use it against them. Tonight, most of the Court’s security is concentrated on the White Island and right here at the embassy. When Black Protocol sounds, the glass bridge will shut down, trapping all those guards on the island along with the guests.”

“But what about Matthias’ route off the island?” asked Nina.

“They can’t move a major force that way,” Matthias conceded. “At least not quickly.”

Kaz gazed out at the White Island, head tilted, eyes slightly unfocused.

“Scheming face,” Inej murmured.

Jesper nodded. “Definitely.”

She was going to miss that look.

“Three gates in the ringwall,” Kaz said. “The prison gate is already locked up tight because of Yellow Protocol. The embassy gate is a bottleneck crammed with guests – the Fjerdans aren’t going to get troops through there. Jesper, that just leaves the gate in the drüskelle sector for you and Wylan to handle. You use it to engage Black Protocol, then wreck it. Break it badly enough that any guards who manage to mobilise can’t get out to follow us.”

“I’m all for locking the Fjerdans in their own ‘fortress’,” said Jesper. “Truly. But how do we get out? Once we trigger Black Protocol, you guys will be trapped on that island, and we’ll be trapped in the outer circle. We have no weapons and no demo materials.”

Kaz’s grin was sharp as a razor. “Thank goodness we’re proper thieves. We’re going to do a little shopping – and it’s all going on Fjerda’s tab. Inej,” he said, “let’s start with something shiny.”

Beside the big glass dome, Kaz laid out the details of what he had in mind. If the old plan had been daring, it had at least been built on stealth. The new plan was audacious, maybe even mad. They wouldn’t just be announcing their presence to the Fjerdans, they’d be trumpeting it. Again, the crew would be separated, and again, they would time their movements to the chiming of the Elderclock, but now there would be even less room for error.

Inej searched her heart, expecting to find caution there, fear. But all she felt was ready. This wasn’t a job she was performing to pay off her debt to Per Haskell. It wasn’t a task to be accomplished for Kaz or the Dregs. She wanted this – the money, the dream it would help to secure.

While Kaz explained, and Jesper used the laundry shears to portion out pieces of rope, Wylan helped Inej and Nina prepare. To pass as members of the Menagerie, they would need tattoos. They started with Nina. Using one of Kaz’s lockpicks and copper pyrite Jesper had extracted from the roof, Wylan traced his best imitation of the Menagerie feather on Nina’s arm, following Inej’s description and making corrections as needed. Then Nina sank the ink into her own flesh. A Corporalnik didn’t need a tattoo needle. Nina did her best to smoothe the scars on Inej’s forearm. The work wasn’t perfect, but they were short on time and Nina’s calling wasn’t as a tailor. Wylan sketched a second peacock feather over Inej’s skin.

Nina paused, “You’re sure?”

Inej took a deep breath. “It’s warpaint,” she said, both to Nina and herself. “It’s my mark to take.”

“It’s also temporary,” Nina promised. “I’ll remove it as soon as we’re in the harbour.”

The harbour. Inej thought of the Ferolind with its cheerful flags, and tried to hold that image in her head as she watched the peacock feather sink into her skin.

The finished tattoos wouldn’t bear up under any kind of close scrutiny, but hopefully they would do.

Finally, they stood. Inej had predicted that the Menagerie would arrive late – Tante Heleen loved to make an entrance – but they still needed to be in position and ready to move when the time came.

And yet, they hesitated. The knowledge that they might never see each other again, that some of them – maybe all of them – might not survive this night hung heavy in the air. A gambler, a convict, a wayward son, a lost Grisha, a Suli girl who had become a killer, a boy from the Barrel who had become something worse.

Inej looked at her strange crew, barefoot and shivering in their soot-stained prison uniforms, their features limned by the golden light of the dome, softened by the mist that hung in the air.

What bound them together? Greed? Desperation? Was it just the knowledge that if one or all of them disappeared tonight, no one would come looking? Inej’s mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they’d lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. She had no family, no parents or siblings, only people to fight beside. Maybe that was something to be grateful for, too.

It was Jesper who spoke first. “No mourners,” he said with a grin.

“No funerals,” they replied in unison. Even Matthias muttered the words softly.

“If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket,” Jesper said as he hefted two slender coils of rope over his shoulder and signalled for Wylan to follow him across the roof. “The world deserves a few more moments with this face.”

Inej was only slightly surprised to see the intensity of the look that passed between Matthias and Nina. Something had changed between them after the battle with the Shu, but Inej couldn’t be sure what.

Matthias cleared his throat and gave Nina an awkward little bow. “A word?” he asked.

Nina returned the bow with considerably more panache, and let him lead her away. Inej was glad; she wanted a moment with Kaz.

“I have something for you,” she said as she pulled his leather gloves from the sleeve of her prison tunic.

He stared at them. “How—”

“I got them from the discarded clothes. Before I made the climb.”

“Six storeys in the dark.”

She nodded. She wasn’t going to wait for thanks. Not for the climb, or the gloves, or for anything ever again.

He pulled the gloves on slowly, and she watched his pale, vulnerable hands disappear beneath the leather. They were trickster hands – long, graceful fingers made for prying open locks, hiding coins,

making things vanish.

“When we get back to Ketterdam, I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs.”

He looked away. “You should. You were always too good for the Barrel.”

It was time to go. “Saints’ speed, Kaz.”

Kaz snagged her wrist. “Inej.” His gloved thumb moved over her pulse, traced the top of the feather tattoo. “If we don’t make it out, I want you to know …”

She waited. She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope into stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow.

She reached up and touched his cheek. She thought he might flinch again, even knock her hand away. In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself.

“If we don’t survive this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?”

His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough.

She dropped her hand. He took a deep breath.

Kaz had said he didn’t want her prayers and she wouldn’t speak them, but she wished him safe nonetheless. She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it.

Inej joined Nina at the edge of the dome to await the arrival of the Menagerie. The dome was wide and shallow, all silver filigree and glass. Inej saw there was a mosaic on the floor of the vast rotunda below. It appeared in brief flashes between partygoers – two wolves chasing each other, destined to move in circles for as long as the Ice Court stood.

The guests entering through the grand archway were being shepherded into rooms off the rotunda in small groups to be searched for weapons. Inej saw guards emerge with little piles of brooches, porcupine quills, even sashes that Inej assumed must contain metal or wire.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Nina. “You don’t have to put those silks on again.”

“I’ve done worse.”

“I know. You scaled six storeys of hell for us.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Nina paused. “I know that, too.” She hesitated, then said, “Is the haul so important to you?” Inej was surprised to hear what sounded like guilt in Nina’s voice.

The Elderclock began to chime nine bells. Inej looked down at the wolves chasing each other around the rotunda floor. “I’m not sure why I began this,” she admitted. “But I know why I have to finish. I know why fate brought me here, why it placed me in the path of this prize.”

She was being vague, but she wasn’t yet ready to speak the dream that had ignited in her heart – a crew of her own, a ship under her command, a crusade. It felt like something that was meant to be kept secret, a new seed that might grow to something extraordinary if it wasn’t forced to bloom too soon. She didn’t even know how to sail. And yet a part of her wanted to tell Nina all of it. If Nina didn’t choose to go back to Ravka, a Heartrender would be an excellent addition to her crew.

“They’re here,” Nina said.

The girls of the Menagerie entered through the rotunda doors in a wedge formation, their gowns glittering in the candlelight, the hoods of their capes shadowing their faces. Each hood was fashioned to represent an animal – a Zemeni fawn with soft ears and delicate white spots, a Kaelish mare with an auburn topknot, a Shu serpent with beaded red scales, a Ravkan fox, a leopard from the Southern Colonies, a raven, an ermine, and of course the Suli lynx. The tall blonde girl who played the role of the Fjerdan wolf in silvery furs was notably absent.

They were met by uniformed female guards.

“I don’t see her,” said Nina.

“Just wait. The Peacock will enter last.”

And sure enough, there she was: Heleen Van Houden, shimmering in teal satin, an elaborate ruff of peacock feathers framing her golden head.

“Subtle,” said Nina.

“Subtle doesn’t sell in the Barrel.”

Inej gave a high, trilling whistle. Jesper ’s whistle came back from somewhere in the distance. This is it, Inej thought. She’d shoved, and now the boulder was rolling down the hill. Who knew what damage it might do and what might be built on the rubble?

Nina squinted down through the glass. “How does she keep from collapsing under the weight of

those diamonds? They can’t possibly be real.”

“Oh, they’re real,” said Inej. Those jewels had been purchased with the sweat and blood and sorrow of girls like her.

The guards divided the members of the Menagerie into three groups, while Heleen was escorted

separately. The Peacock would never be expected to turn out her clothes and lift her skirts in front of her girls.

“Them,” Inej said, pointing to the group that included the Suli lynx and Kaelish mare. They were heading to the doors on the left of the rotunda.

As Nina tracked the group with her eyes, Inej moved over the roof, following their trajectory.

“Which door?” she called.

“Third on the right,” Nina said. Inej moved to the nearest air duct and lifted the grate. It would be a tight squeeze for Nina, but they’d manage. She slid down into the ventilation duct, crouching and moving along the narrow shaft between rooms. Behind her, she heard a grunt and then a loud whump as Nina hit the bottom of the shaft like a sack of laundry. Inej winced. Hopefully the noises of the crowd below would lend them cover. Or maybe the Ice Court had really big rats.

They crawled along, peering in vents as they went. Finally, they were looking down into some kind of small meeting room that had been commandeered for the purpose of guards searching guests.

The Exotics had removed their capes and laid them on the long oval table. One of the blonde guards was patting the girls down, feeling along the seams and hems of their costumes, and even poking fingers into their hair, while the other guard kept watch with her hand resting on her rifle. She looked ill at ease with the gun. Inej knew Fjerdans didn’t let women serve in the army in a combat capacity. Maybe the female guards had been conscripted from some other unit.

Inej and Nina waited until the guards had finished searching the girls, their capes, and their little beaded purses.

“Ven tidder,” one of the guards said as they exited the room to let the Menagerie girls set themselves to rights.

“Five minutes,” translated Nina in a whisper.

“Go,” said Inej.

“I need you to move.”

“Why?”

“Because I need a clear line of sight, and right now all I can see is your ass.”

Inej wiggled forwards so Nina had a better view through the vent, and a moment later, she heard four soft thuds as the Menagerie girls collapsed on the dark blue carpet.

Quickly, she wrenched the grate loose and dropped onto the shiny surface of the table. Nina tumbled down after her, landing in a heap.

“Sorry,” she moaned as she dragged herself upright.

Inej almost laughed. “You’re very graceful in battle, just not when you’re plummeting.”

“Missed that day in school.”

They stripped the Suli and Kaelish girls down to their underclothes, then bound all the girls’ wrists and ankles with cords from the curtains and gagged them with torn pieces of their prison clothes.

“Clock is ticking,” said Inej.

“Sorry,” Nina whispered to the Kaelish girl. Inej knew that ordinarily Nina would have used pigments to alter her own hair colour, but there simply wasn’t time. Nina bled the girl’s bright red colour directly from the strands of her hair into Nina’s own, leaving the poor Kaelish with a mop of white waves that looked vaguely rusty in places, and Nina with hair that wasn’t quite Kaelish red.

Nina’s eyes were green and not blue, but that kind of tailoring couldn’t be rushed, so they’d have to do. She took white powder from the girl’s beaded bag and did her best to pale her skin.

As Nina worked, Inej dragged the other girls into a tall silverwood cabinet on the far wall, arranging their limbs so that there would be room for the Kaelish. She felt a stab of guilt as she made sure the Suli girl’s gag was secure. Tante Heleen must have bought her to replace Inej; she had the same bronze skin, the same thick sheaf of dark hair. She was built differently, though, soft and curving instead of lean and angular. Maybe she’d come to Tante Heleen of her own free will. Maybe she’d chosen this life. Inej hoped that was true.

“Saints protect you,” Inej whispered to the unconscious girl.

A rap came at the door and a voice spoke in Fjerdan.

“They need the room for the next girls,” Nina whispered.

Inej and Nina shoved the Kaelish into the cupboard and managed to get the doors closed and locked, then yanked on their costumes. Inej was glad she didn’t have time to dwell on the unwelcome familiarity of the silks on her skin, the horrible tinkling of the bells on her anklets. They swept on their capes and took a quick glance in the mirror.

Neither of the costumes fit properly. Inej’s purple silks were far too loose, and as for Nina …

“What the hell is this supposed to be?” she said, looking down at herself. The plunging gown barely covered her substantial cleavage and clung tightly to her buttocks. It had been wrought to look like blue-green scales, giving way to a shimmering chiffon fan.

“Maybe a mermaid?” suggested Inej. “Or a wave?”

“I thought I was a horse.”

“Well they weren’t going to put you in a dress of hooves.”

Nina smoothed her hands over the ridiculous costume. “I’m about to be very popular.”

“I wonder what Matthias would have to say about that outfit.”

“He wouldn’t approve.”

“He doesn’t approve of anything about you. But when you laugh, he perks up like a tulip in fresh water.”

Nina snorted. “Matthias the tulip.”

“The big, brooding, yellow tulip.”

“Are you ready?” Nina asked as they pulled their hoods far down over their faces.

“Yes.” Inej said, and she meant it. “We’ll need a distraction. They’re going to notice four girls went in and only two are coming out.”

“Leave it to me. And watch your hem.”

As soon as they opened the door to the hallway, the guards were waving them over impatiently.

Beneath her cape, Nina flicked her fingers hard. One of the guards bleated as her nose began to gush blood down the front of her uniform in absurdly forceful gouts. The other guard recoiled, but in the next instant, she clutched her stomach. Nina was twisting her wrist in a roiling motion, sending waves of nausea through the woman’s system.

“Your hem,” Nina repeated calmly.

Inej barely had time to gather up her cape before the guard bent double and heaved her dinner over the tiled floor. The guests in the hallway shrieked and shoved at each other, trying to get away from the mess. Nina and Inej sailed by, emitting appropriate squeals of disgust.

“The nosebleed probably would have done the trick,” whispered Inej.

“Best to be thorough.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you liked making Fjerdans suffer.”

They kept their heads down and entered the swell of people filling the rotunda, ignoring the Zemeni fawn who tried to direct them to the other side of the room. It was essential that they not get too close to any of the real Menagerie girls. Inej only wished the cloaks weren’t so easy to track through a crowd.

“This one,” Inej said, steering Nina into a line far from the other members of the Menagerie. It seemed to be moving a bit faster. But when they reached the front of the line, Inej wondered if she’d chosen poorly. This guard seemed even more stern-faced and humourless than the others. He held his hand out for Nina’s papers and scrutinised them with cold blue eyes.

“This description says you have freckles,” he said in Kerch.

“I do,” said Nina smoothly. “They’re just not visible right now. Want to see?”

“No,” the Fjerdan said icily. “You’re taller than described here.”

“Boots,” Nina said. “I like to be able to look a man in the eye. You have very pretty eyes.”

He looked at the paper, then took in her ensemble. “You’re heavier than it says on this paper, I’ll wager.”

She shrugged artfully, the scales of her neckline slipping lower. “I like to eat when I’m in the mood,” she said, puckering her lips shamelessly. “And I’m always in the mood.”

Inej struggled to keep a straight face. If Nina resorted to eyelash batting, she knew she would lose the fight and burst out laughing. But the Fjerdan seemed to be eating it up. Maybe Nina had a stupefying effect on all stalwart northerners.

“Move along,” he said gruffly. Then added, “I … I may be at the party later.”

Nina ran a finger down his arm. “I’ll save you a dance.”

He grinned like a fool, then cleared his throat, and his stern expression fell back into place. Saints, Inej thought, it must be exhausting to be so stolid all the time. He glanced cursorily at Inej’s papers, his mind still clearly on the prospect of unwrapping Nina’s layers of blue-green chiffon. He waved her past, but as Inej stepped forwards she stumbled.

“Wait,” said the guard.

She stopped. Nina looked back over her shoulder.

“What’s wrong with your shoes?”

“Just a bit big,” said Inej. “They stretched more than expected.”

“Show me your arms,” the guard said.

“Why?”

“Just do it,” the guard said harshly.

Inej pulled her arms free of the cloak and held them out, displaying the lumpy peacock feather tattoo.

A guard in captain’s stripes wandered over. “What is it?”

“She’s Suli, for sure, and she has the Menagerie tattoo, but it doesn’t look quite right.”

Inej shrugged. “I got a bad burn as a child.”

The captain gestured to a group of annoyed-looking partygoers gathered near the entry and surrounded by guards. “Anyone suspicious goes over there. Put her with them, and we’ll take her back to the checkpoint to have her papers reviewed.”

“I’ll miss the party,” said Inej.

The guard ignored her, seizing her arm and pulling her back towards the entry as the other people in line stared and whispered. Her heart began to pound.

Nina’s face was frightened, pale even beneath her powder, but there was nothing Inej could say to reassure her. She gave her the briefest nod. Go, she thought silently. It’s up to you now.