فصل 29

29

NINE BELLS

“What if I say no, Brekker?” It was mere posturing, Matthias knew that. The time for protest had long passed. They were already jogging down the gentle slope of the embassy roof towards the drüskelle sector, Wylan panting from exertion, Jesper loping along with ease, and Brekker keeping pace despite his crooked gait and lack of cane. But Matthias disliked how well this low thief could read him. “What if I don’t give you this last bit of myself and my honour?”

“You will, Helvar. Nina is on her way to the White Island right now. Are you really going to leave her stranded?”

“You presume a great deal.”

“Seems like the perfect amount to me.”

“These are the law courts, right?” Jesper said as they raced over the roof, catching glimpses of the elegant courtyards below, each built around a burbling fountain and dotted with rustling ice willows.

“I guess if you’re going to be sentenced to death, this isn’t a bad place for it.”

“Water everywhere,” said Wylan. “Do the fountains symbolise Djel?”

“The wellspring,” mused Kaz, “where all sins are washed clean.”

“Or where they drown you and make you confess,” Wylan said.

Jesper snorted. “Wylan, your thoughts have taken a very dark turn. I fear the Dregs may be a bad influence.”

They used a doubled segment of rope and the grappling hook to cross to the roof of the drüskelle sector. Wylan had to be looped into a sling, but Jesper and Kaz moved easily across the rope, hand over hand, with unnerving speed. Matthias approached with more caution, and though he didn’t show it, he did not like the way the rope creaked and bowed with his own weight.

The others pulled him onto the stone of the drüskelle roof, and as Matthias stood, he was struck by a wave of vertigo. More than any place in the Ice Court, more than any place in the world, this felt like home to him. But it was home turned on its head, his life viewed at the wrong angle. Peering into the dark, he saw the massive pyramid skylights that marked the roof. He had the disconcerting sense that if he looked through the glass he would see himself running drills in the training rooms, seated at the long table in the dining hall.

In the distance, he heard the wolves barking and yapping in their kennel by the gatehouse, wondering where their masters had gone for the night. Would they recognise him if he approached with an outstretched hand? He wasn’t sure he recognised himself. On the northern ice, his choices had seemed clear. But now his thoughts were muddied with these thugs and thieves, with Inej’s courage and Jesper ’s daring, and with Nina, always Nina. He couldn’t deny the relief he’d felt when she’d emerged from the incinerator shaft, dishevelled and gasping, frightened but alive. When he and Wylan had pulled her out of the flue, he’d had to force himself to let her go.

No, he would not look through those skylights. He could afford no more weakness, especially on this night. It was time to move forwards.

They reached the lip of the roof overlooking the ice moat. From here it looked solid, its surface polished bright as a mirror and illuminated by the guard towers on the White Island. But the moat’s waters were ever shifting, concealed only by a wafer-thin skin of frost.

Kaz secured another coil of rope to the roof’s edge and prepared to rappel down to the shore.

“You know what to do,” he said to Jesper and Wylan. “Eleven bells and not before.”

“When have I ever been early?” asked Jesper.

Kaz braced himself for the descent and vanished over the side. Matthias followed, hands gripping the rope, bare feet pressed against the wall. When he glanced up, he saw Wylan and Jesper gazing down at him. But the next time he looked, they were gone.

The shore surrounding the ice moat was little more than a slender, slippery rind of white stone.

Kaz perched there, pressed against the wall and frowning out at the moat.

“How do we cross? I don’t see anything.”

“Because you are not worthy.” “I’m also not near-sighted. There’s nothing there.”

Matthias began edging along the wall, running his hand over the stone at hip level. “On Hringk?lla the drüskelle finish our initiation,” he said. “We go from aspirant to novice drüskelle in the ceremony at the sacred ash.”

“Where the tree talks to you.”

Matthias resisted the urge to shove him into the water. “Where we hope to hear the voice of Djel.

But that’s the final step. First, we have to cross the ice moat undetected. If we are judged worthy, Djel shows us the path.”

In truth, elder drüskelle simply passed the secret of the crossing along to aspirants they wished to see enter the order; it was a way of culling the weak or those who had simply not meshed successfully with the group. If you’d made friends, if you’d proven yourself, then one of the brothers would take you aside and tell you that on the night of the initiation, you should go to the shore of the ice moat and run your hand along the wall of the drüskelle sector. At its centre, you would find an etching of a wolf that marked the location of another glass bridge – not grand and arching like the one that spanned the moat from the embassy wing, but flat, level, and only a few feet wide. It lay just under the frozen skin of the surface, invisible if you didn’t know to look for it. Commander Brum himself had been the one to tell Matthias how to find the secret bridge, as well as the trick for crossing it undetected.

It took Matthias two passes along the wall before his fingers found the carved lines of the wolf. He rested his hand there briefly, feeling the traditions that connected him to the order of drüskelle, as old as the Ice Court itself.

“Here,” he said.

Kaz shuffled over and squinted across the moat. He leaned out and Matthias yanked him back.

He pointed to the guard towers on the top of the wall surrounding the White Island. “You’ll be visible,” he said. “Use this.”

He scraped his hand along the wall and his palm came away white. The night of his initiation, Matthias had rubbed his clothes and hair with the same chalky powder. Camouflaged from the view of the guards in their towers, he’d crossed the slender path to the island to meet his brothers.

Now he and Kaz did the same, though Matthias noticed Kaz tucked his gloves neatly away first. Inej must have returned them.

Matthias stepped onto the secret bridge, then heard Kaz hiss when the icy waters of the moat closed over his feet.

“Chilly, Brekker?”

“If only we had time for a swim. Get moving.”

Despite his taunts to Kaz, by the time they were halfway to the island, Matthias’ feet had gone almost completely numb, and he was keenly aware of the guard towers high above the moat.

Drüskelle would have come this way earlier tonight. He’d never heard of any aspirant being spotted or shot at on the bridge, but anything was possible.

“All this to be a witchhunter?” Kaz said behind him. “The Dregs need a better initiation.”

“This is only one part of Hringk?lla.”

“Yes, I know, then a tree tells you the secret handshake.”

“I feel sorry for you, Brekker. There is nothing sacred in your life.”

There was a long pause, and then Kaz said, “You’re wrong.”

The outer wall of the White Island loomed up before them, covered in a rippling pattern of scales.

It took a moment to locate the ridge of scales that hid the gate. Only a short while ago, drüskelle would have been gathered in this niche of the wall to welcome their new brothers ashore, but now it was empty, the iron grating chained. Kaz made quick work of the lock, and soon they were in a slender passage that would lead them to the gardens that backed the barracks of the royal guard.

“Were you always good at locks?”

“No.”

“How did you learn?”

“The way you learn about anything. Take it apart.”

“And the magic tricks?”

Kaz snorted. “So you don’t think I’m a demon any more?”

“I know you’re a demon, but your tricks are human.”

“Some people see a magic trick and say, ‘Impossible!’ They clap their hands, turn over their money, and forget about it ten minutes later. Other people ask how it worked. They go home, get into bed, toss and turn, wondering how it was done. It takes them a good night’s sleep to forget all about it.

And then there are the ones who stay awake, running through the trick again and again, looking for that skip in perception, the crack in the illusion that will explain how their eyes got duped; they’re the kind who won’t rest until they’ve mastered that little bit of mystery for themselves. I’m that kind.”

“You love trickery.”

“I love puzzles. Trickery is just my native tongue.”

“The gardens,” Matthias said, pointing to the hedges up ahead. “We can follow them all the way round to the ballroom.”

Just as they were about to emerge from the passage, two guards rounded the corner – both in black and silver drüskelle uniforms, both carrying rifles.

“Perjenger! ” one of them shouted in surprise. Prisoners. “Sten! ”

Without thinking, Matthias said, “Desjenet, Djel comenden! ” Stand down, Djel wills it so. They were the words of a drüskelle commanding officer, and he delivered them with all the authority he’d ever learned to muster.

The soldiers exchanged a confused glance. That moment of hesitation was enough. Matthias grabbed the first soldier ’s rifle and head-butted him hard. The drüskelle collapsed.

Kaz slammed into the other soldier, knocking him over. The drüskelle kept hold of his rifle, but Kaz slipped behind him and brought his forearm across the soldier ’s throat, applying pressure until the soldier ’s eyes shut, and his head fell forwards as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Kaz rolled the body off him and stood.

The reality of the situation struck Matthias suddenly. Kaz hadn’t picked up the rifle. Matthias had a gun in his hands, and Kaz Brekker was unarmed. They were standing over the bodies of two unconscious drüskelle, men who were supposed to be Matthias’ brothers. I can shoot him, Matthias thought. Doom Nina and the rest of them with a single act. Again, Matthias had the strange sense of his life viewed the wrong way up. He was dressed in prison clothes, an intruder in the place he’d once called home. Who am I now?

He looked at Kaz Brekker, a boy whose only cause was himself. Still, he was a survivor, and his own kind of soldier. He had honoured his bargain with Matthias. At any point, he might have decided that Matthias had served his purpose – once he’d helped them draw up the plans, once they’d got past the holding cells, once Matthias had revealed the secret bridge. And whoever he’d become, Matthias was not going to shoot someone unarmed. He’d not yet sunk so far.

Matthias lowered his weapon.

A faint smile touched Kaz’s lips. “I wasn’t sure what you’d do if it came down to this.”

“Neither was I,” Matthias admitted. Kaz lifted a brow, and the truth struck Matthias with the force of a blow. “It was a test. You chose not to pick up the rifle.”

“I needed to be sure you were really with us. All of us.”

“How did you know I wouldn’t shoot?”

“Because, Matthias, you stink of decency.”

“You’re mad.”

“Do you know the secret to gambling, Helvar?” Kaz brought his good foot down on the butt of the fallen soldier ’s rifle. The gun flipped up. Kaz had it in his hands and pointed at Matthias in the space of a breath. He’d never been in any danger at all. “Cheat. Now let’s clean up and get those uniforms on. We have a party to go to.”

“One day you’ll run out of tricks, demjin.”

“You’d better hope it’s not today.”

We’ll see what this night brings, Matthias thought as he bent to the task. Trickery is not my native tongue, but I may learn to speak it yet.