Six of Crows (49 page)

They passed through an open stone court and the palace doors into a vaulted entry several storeys high. The palace was made of the same clean, white, unadorned stone as the Ice Court walls, and the whole place felt as if it had been hollowed out of a glacier. Nina couldn’t tell if it was nerves, imagination, or if the place really was cold, but her skin puckered with gooseflesh, and she had to fight to keep her teeth from chattering.

She entered a vast circular ballroom packed with people dancing and drinking beneath a glistening pack of wolves hewn from ice. There had to be at least thirty massive sculptures of running, leaping beasts, their flanks gleaming slickly in the silvery light, jaws open, their slowly melting muzzles dripping occasionally onto the crowd below. Music from an unseen orchestra was barely audible over the gabble of conversation.

The Elderclock began to chime ten bells. It had taken her too long to get across that stupid glass bridge. She needed a better view of the room. As she headed for a swooping white stone staircase, she caught sight of two familiar figures in the shadows of a nearby alcove. Kaz and Matthias. They’d made it. And they were in
drüskelle
uniforms. Nina suppressed a shiver. Seeing Matthias in those colours settled a different kind of cold into her bones. What had he thought when he put it on? She let her eyes meet his briefly, but his gaze was unreadable. Still, seeing Kaz beside him gave her some comfort. She wasn’t alone, and they were still on schedule.

She didn’t risk so much as a nod of acknowledgement, but continued up the stairs to the balcony on the second floor where she could get a better look at the flow of the crowd. It was a trick she’d learned in school from Zoya Nazyalensky. There were patterns in the way people moved, the way they clustered around power. They thought they were drifting, milling aimlessly, but really they were being drawn towards people of status. Not surprisingly, there was a large concentration eddying around the Fjerdan queen and her attendants.
Strange
, Nina thought, observing their white gowns. In Ravka, white was a servant’s colour. But that crown wasn’t anything to sniff at – twisting spines of diamonds that looked like branches glowing with new frost.

The royals were too well-protected to be of use to her, but not far away she saw another whirl of activity around a group in military dress. If anyone knew Yul-Bayur ’s location on the island, it would be someone highly ranked in Fjerda’s military.

“Nice view, isn’t it?”

Nina nearly jumped as a man sidled up beside her. Some spy she made. She hadn’t even noticed him approaching.

He grinned at her and placed a hand at the small of her back. “You know, there are rooms here set aside for a little fun. And you look like more than a little fun.” His hand slid lower.

Nina plunged his heart rate, and he dropped like a stone, conking his head on the banister. He’d wake up in about ten minutes with a bad headache and possibly a minor concussion.

“Is he all right?” asked a passing couple.

“Too much to drink,” said Nina airily.

She slipped quickly down the stairs and into the crowd, moving steadily towards where a group of soldiers garbed in silver-and-white military dress surrounded a portly man with a luxuriant moustache. If the constellation of medals on his chest was any indication, he had to be a general or close to it. Should she target him directly? She needed someone of high-enough rank to have access to privileged information – someone drunk enough to make ill-considered decisions, but not so drunk that he couldn’t take her where she needed to go. By the ruddy look of the general’s cheeks and the way he was swaying on his feet, he looked as if he might be too far gone to do anything but take a nap facedown in a potted plant.

Nina could feel the minutes ticking down. It was time to make her bid. She nabbed a glass of champagne then moved carefully around the circle. As a soldier separated from the group, she took a step backwards, directly into his path. He slammed into her. He was light enough on his feet that it wasn’t much of a hit, but she gave a sharp cry and lurched forwards, spilling her champagne.

Instantly, several strong arms reached out to brace her fall.

“You clod,” said the general. “You nearly knocked her from her feet.”

And on the first try
, Nina thought to herself.
Never mind. I am an excellent spy.

The poor soldier ’s cheeks were bright red. “Apologies, miss.”

“I’m sorry,” she said in Kerch, feigning confusion and keeping to the language of the Menagerie.

“I don’t speak Fjerdan.”

“Deep apologies,” he attempted in Kerch. Then made a valiant attempt at Kaelish, “Much sorry.”

“Oh no, it was my fault entirely,” Nina said breathlessly.

“Ahlgren, stop slaughtering her language and fetch her a fresh glass of champagne.” The soldier bowed and hurried off. “Are you quite all right? Shall I find you a seat?” the general asked in excellent Kerch.

“He just startled me,” Nina said with a smile, leaning on the general’s arm.

“I think it might be best to get you off your feet.”

Nina restrained an arch of her brow.
I just bet. But first I need to find out what you know.

“And miss the party?”

“You look pale. Some rest in one of the upper rooms will help.”

Saints
,
he doesn’t waste any time, does he?
Before Nina could insist that she was perfectly well but might like to take a turn on the terrace, a warm voice said, “Really, General Eklund, the best way to garner a woman’s goodwill is not to tell her she looks sickly.”

The general scowled, his moustache bristling, but then he seemed to snap to attention.

“So true, so true,” he laughed nervously.

Nina turned, and the floor seemed to drop from beneath her feet.
No
, she thought, her heart stuttering in panic.
It can’t be. He drowned. He’s supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean.

But if Jarl Brum was dead, he made a very lively corpse.

TEN BELLS AND HALF CHIME

Jesper’s clothes were covered in tiny slivers and shavings of steel. His stolen uniform was soaked with sweat, his arms ached, and the headache that had burrowed into his left temple felt as if it was setting up permanent residence there. For nearly a half hour, he had been focusing on a single link in the chain that ran from the left end of the winch into one of the slots in the stone wall, using his power to weaken the metal as Wylan sawed away at it with the laundry shears. At first they’d been cautious, worried they’d snap the link and disable the gate before it was time to raise it, but the steel was stronger than either of them had anticipated, and their progress was frustratingly slow. When the three-quarters chime rang, Jesper ’s panic took over.

“Let’s just raise the gate,” he said with a frustrated growl. “We sound Black Protocol, and then shoot at the winch until it gives up.”

Wylan flipped his curls from his forehead and spared him a quick glance. Jesper could see the blood on his hands where blisters had formed and then burst as he hacked away at the link. “You really love guns so much?”

Jesper shrugged. “I don’t love killing people.”

“Then what is it about them?”

Jesper refocused on the link. “I don’t know. The sound. The way the world narrows to just you and the target. I worked with a gunsmith in Novyi Zem who knew I was a Fabrikator. We came up with some crazy stuff.”

“For killing people.”

“You build bombs, merchling. Spare me your judgement.”

“My name is Wylan. And you’re right. I don’t have any business criticising you.”

“Don’t start doing that.”

“What?”

“Agreeing with me,” said Jesper. “Sure path to destruction.”

“I don’t like the idea of killing people, either. I don’t even like chemistry.”

“What do you like?”

“Music. Numbers. Equations. They’re not like words. They … they don’t get mixed up.”

“If only you could talk to girls in equations.”

There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they’d created in the link, Wylan said,

“Just girls?”

Jesper restrained a grin. “No. Not just girls.” It really was a shame they were all probably going to die tonight. Then the Elderclock began to toll eleven bells. His eyes met Wylan’s. They were out of time.

Jesper leaped to his feet, trying to dust some of the metal bits from his face and shirt. Would the chain hold long enough? Too long? They’d just have to find out. “Get in position.”

Wylan took his spot at the right handle of the winch, and Jesper grabbed the handle on the left.

“Prepared to hear the sound of certain doom?” he asked.

“You’ve never heard my father mad.”

“That sense of humour is getting progressively more Barrel-appropriate. If we survive, I’ll teach you to swear. On my count,” said Jesper. “Let’s let the Ice Court know the Dregs have come to call.”

He counted down from three and they began to turn the winch, carefully matching each other ’s pace, eyes on the weakened link. Jesper had expected some thunderous noise, but except for a few creaks and clanks, the machinery was silent.

Slowly, the ringwall gate began to rise. Five inches. Ten inches.

Maybe nothing will happen
, thought Jesper.
Maybe Matthias was lying, or all this stuff about Black
Protocol is a fake to keep people from even trying to open the gates.

Then the bells of the Elderclock rang out, loud and panicked, high and demanding, an escalating tide of echoes, climbing one on top of another, booming over the White Island, the ice moat, the wall.

The bells of Black Protocol had begun to sound. There was no turning back now. They released the handles of the winch in unison, letting the gate thunder down, but still the link didn’t give.

“Come on,” Jesper said, coaxing the stubborn metal. A better Fabrikator probably could have made quick work of it. A Fabrikator on
parem
probably could have turned the chain into a set of steak knives and had time for a cup of coffee. But Jesper was neither of those things, and he’d run out of finesse. He grabbed hold of the chain, hanging from it, using all his weight to try to put pressure on the link. Wylan did the same, and for a moment they hung, pulling on the chain like a couple of crazed squirrels who hadn’t mastered climbing. Any minute now guards would be storming into the courtyard, and they’d have to leave off this insanity to defend themselves. The gate would still be operational. They’d have failed.

“Maybe you should try singing at it,” Jesper said hopelessly.

And then, with a final shiver of protest, the link snapped.

Jesper and Wylan fell to the floor as the chain zipped through their hands, one end vanishing through the slot, the other sending the winch handles spinning.

“We did it!” Jesper shouted over the din of the bells, caught somewhere between excitement and terror. “I’ll cover you. Deal with the winch!”

Jesper picked up his rifle, braced himself at a slit in the stone wall overlooking the courtyard, and prepared for all hell to break loose.

TEN BELLS AND HALF CHIME

“Just how long are we going to be kept waiting?” a man in wine-coloured velvet asked. The guards ignored him, but the other guests clustered by the entry with Inej grumbled their frustration. “I came here at great expense,” he continued, “and it was not so I could spend all my time hovering by the front door.”

The guard closest to them recited in a bored monotone, “The men at the checkpoint are dealing with other guests. As soon as they’re free, you’ll be taken back through the ringwall and detained at the checkpoint until your identification can be cleared.”