Six of Crows (8 page)

“Let me go and I’ll explain.”

“You can explain right where you are.”

Van Eck huffed a short, shaky breath. “What you’re seeing are the effects of
jurda parem
.”

“
Jurda
is just a stimulant.” The little dried blossoms were grown in Novyi Zem and sold in shops all over Ketterdam. In his early days in the Dregs, Kaz had chewed them to stay alert during stakeouts.

It had stained his teeth orange for days after. “It’s harmless,” he said.

“
Jurda parem
is something completely different, and it is most definitely not harmless.”

“So you did drug me.”

“Not
you
, Mister Brekker. Mikka.”

Kaz took in the sickly pallor of the Grisha’s face. He had dark hollows beneath his eyes, and the fragile, trembling build of someone who had missed several meals and didn’t seem to care.

“
Jurda parem
is a cousin to ordinary
jurda
,” Van Eck continued. “It comes from the same plant.

We’re not sure of the process by which the drug is made, but a sample of it was sent to the Kerch Merchant Council by a scientist named Bo Yul-Bayur.”

“Shu?”

“Yes. He wished to defect, so he sent us a sample to convince us of his claims regarding the drug’s extraordinary effects. Please, Mister Brekker, this is a most uncomfortable position. If you’d like, I will give you a pistol, and we can sit and discuss this in more civilised fashion.”

“A pistol and my cane.”

Van Eck gestured to one of his guards, who exited the room and returned a moment later with Kaz’s walking stick – Kaz was just glad he used the damn door.

“Pistol first,” Kaz said. “Slowly.” The guard unholstered his weapon and handed it to Kaz by the grip. Kaz grabbed and cocked it in one quick movement, then released Van Eck, tossed the letter opener on to the desk, and snatched his cane from the guard’s hand. The pistol was more useful, but the cane brought Kaz a relief he didn’t care to quantify.

Van Eck took a few steps backwards, putting distance between himself and Kaz’s loaded gun. He didn’t seem eager to sit. Neither was Kaz, so he kept close to the window, ready to bolt if need be.

Van Eck took a deep breath and tried to set his suit to rights. “That cane is quite a piece of hardware, Mister Brekker. Is it Fabrikator made?”

It was, in fact, the work of a Grisha Fabrikator, lead-lined and perfectly weighted for breaking bones. “None of your business. Get talking, Van Eck.”

The mercher cleared his throat. “When Bo Yul-Bayur sent us the sample of
jurda parem
, we fed it to three Grisha, one from each Order.”

“Happy volunteers?”

“Indentures,” Van Eck conceded. “The first two were a Fabrikator and a Healer indentured to Councilman Hoede. Mikka is a Tidemaker. He’s mine. You’ve seen what he can do using the drug.”

Hoede.
Why did that name ring a bell?

“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” Kaz said as he glanced at Mikka. The boy’s gaze was focused intently on Van Eck as if awaiting his next command. Or maybe another fix.

“An ordinary Tidemaker can control currents, summon water or moisture from the air or a nearby source. They manage the tides in our harbour. But under the influence of
jurda parem
, a Tidemaker can alter his own state from solid to liquid to gas and back again, and do the same with other objects.

Even a wall.”

Kaz was tempted to deny it, but he couldn’t explain what he’d just seen any other way. “How?”

“It’s hard to say. You’re aware of the amplifiers some Grisha wear?”

“I’ve seen them,” Kaz said. Animal bones, teeth, scales. “I hear they’re hard to come by.”

“Very. But they only increase a Grisha’s power.
Jurda parem
alters a Grisha’s perception.”

“So?”

“Grisha manipulate matter at its most fundamental levels. They call it the Small Science. Under the influence of
parem
, those manipulations become faster and far more precise. In theory,
jurda parem
is just a stimulant like its ordinary cousin. But it seems to sharpen and hone a Grisha’s senses. They can make connections with extraordinary speed. Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be.”

“What does it do to sorry sobs like you and me?”

Van Eck seemed to bristle slightly at being lumped in with Kaz, but he said, “It’s lethal. An ordinary mind cannot tolerate
parem
in even the lowest doses.”

“You said you gave it to three Grisha. What can the others do?”

“Here,” Van Eck said, reaching for a drawer in his desk.

Kat lifted his pistol. “Easy.”

With exaggerated slowness, Van Eck slid his hand into the desk drawer and pulled out a lump of gold. “This started as lead.”

“Like hell it did.”

Van Eck shrugged. “I can only tell you what I saw. The Fabrikator took a piece of lead in his hands, and moments later we had this.”

“How do you even know it’s real?” asked Kaz.

“It has the same melting point as gold, the same weight and malleability. If it’s not identical to gold in every way, the difference has eluded us. Have it tested if you like.”

Kaz tucked his cane under his arm and took the heavy lump from Van Eck’s hand. He slipped it into his pocket. Whether it was real or just a convincing imitation, a chunk of yellow that big could buy plenty on the streets of the Barrel.

“You could have got that anywhere,” Kaz pointed out.

“I would bring Hoede’s Fabrikator here to show you himself, but he isn’t well.”

Kaz’s gaze flicked to Mikka’s sickly face and damp brow. The drug clearly came with a price.

“Let’s say this is all true and not cheap, coin-trick magic. What does it have to do with me?”

“Perhaps you heard of the Shu paying off the entirety of their debt to Kerch with a sudden influx of gold? The assassination of the trade ambassador from Novyi Zem? The theft of documents from a military base in Ravka?”

So that was the secret behind the murder of the ambassador in the washroom. And the gold in those three Shu ships must have been Fabrikator made. Kaz hadn’t heard anything about Ravkan documents, but he nodded anyway.

“We believe all these occurrences are the work of Grisha under the control of the Shu government and under the influence of
jurda parem
.” Van Eck scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Mister Brekker, I want you to think for a moment about what I’m telling you. Men who can walk through walls – no vault or fortress will ever be safe again. People who can make gold from lead, or anything else for that matter, who can alter the very material of the world – financial markets would be thrown into chaos. The world economy would collapse.”

“Very exciting. What is it you want from me, Van Eck? You want me to steal a shipment? The formula?”

“No, I want you to steal the man.”

“Kidnap Bo Yul-Bayur?”

“Save him. A month ago we received a message from Yul-Bayur begging for asylum. He was concerned about his government’s plans for
jurda parem
, and we agreed to help him defect. We set up a rendezvous, but there was a skirmish at the drop point.”

“With the Shu?”

“No, with Fjerdans.”

Kaz frowned. The Fjerdans must have spies deep in Shu Han or Kerch if they had learned about the drug and Bo Yul-Bayur ’s plans so quickly. “So send some of your agents after him.”

“The diplomatic situation is somewhat delicate. It is essential that our government not be tied to Yul-Bayur in any way.”

“You have to know he’s probably dead. The Fjerdans hate Grisha. There’s no way they’d let knowledge of this drug get out.”

“Our sources say he is very much alive and that he is awaiting trial.” Van Eck cleared his throat.

“At the Ice Court.”

Kaz stared at Van Eck for a long minute, then burst out laughing. “Well, it’s been a pleasure being knocked unconscious and taken captive by you, Van Eck. You can be sure your hospitality will be repaid when the time is right. Now have one of your lackeys show me to the door.”

“We’re prepared to offer you five million
kruge
.”

Kaz pocketed the pistol. He wasn’t afraid for his life now, just irritated that this fink had wasted his time. “This may come as a surprise to you, Van Eck, but we canal rats value our lives just as much as you do yours.”

“Ten million.”

“There’s no point to a fortune I won’t be alive to spend. Where’s my hat – did your Tidemaker leave it behind in the alley?”

“Twenty.”

Kaz paused. He had the eerie sense that the carved fish on the walls had halted mid-leap to listen.

“Twenty million
kruge
?”

Van Eck nodded. He didn’t look happy.

“I’d need to convince a team to walk into a suicide mission. That won’t come cheap.” That wasn’t entirely true. Despite what he’d said to Van Eck, there were plenty of people in the Barrel who didn’t have much to live for.

“Twenty million
kruge
is hardly cheap,” Van Eck snapped.

“The Ice Court has never been breached.”

“That’s why we need you, Mister Brekker. It’s possible Bo Yul-Bayur is already dead or that he’s given up all his secrets to the Fjerdans, but we think we have at least a little time to act before the secret of
jurda parem
is put into play.”

“If the Shu have the formula—”

“Yul-Bayur claimed he’d managed to mislead his superiors and keep the specifics of the formula secret. We think they’re operating from whatever limited supply Yul-Bayur left behind.”

Greed bows to me.
Maybe Kaz had been a bit too cocky on that front. Now greed was doing Van Eck’s bidding. The lever was at work, overcoming Kaz’s resistance, moving him into place.

Twenty million
kruge
. What kind of job would this be? Kaz didn’t know anything about espionage or government squabbles, but why should stealing Bo Yul-Bayur from the Ice Court be any different from liberating valuables from a mercher ’s safe?
The most well-protected safe in the world
, he reminded himself. He’d need a very specialised team, a desperate team that wouldn’t balk at the real possibility that they’d never come back from this job. And he wouldn’t be able to just pull from the Dregs. He didn’t have the talent he’d need in their ranks. That meant he’d have to watch his back more than usual.

But if they managed it, even after Per Haskell got his cut, Kaz’s share of the scrub would be enough to change everything, to finally put into motion the dream he’d had since he’d first crawled out of a cold harbour with revenge burning a hole in his heart. His debt to Jordie would be paid at last.

There would be other benefits, too. The Kerch Council would owe him, to say nothing of what this particular heist would do for his reputation. To infiltrate the impenetrable Ice Court and snatch a prize from the bastion of Fjerdan nobility and military might? With a job like this under his belt and that kind of scrub at his fingertips, he wouldn’t need Per Haskell any more. He could start his own operation.

But something was off. “Why me? Why the Dregs? There are more experienced crews out there.”

Mikka started to cough, and Kaz saw blood on his sleeve.

“Sit,” Van Eck instructed gently, helping Mikka into a chair and offering the Grisha his handkerchief. He signalled to a guard. “Some water.”

“Well?” prodded Kaz.

“How old are you, Mister Brekker?”

“Seventeen.”

“You haven’t been arrested since you were fourteen, and since I know you are not an honest man any more than you were an honest boy, I can only assume you have the quality I most need in a criminal:
You don’t get caught.
” Van Eck smiled slightly then. “There’s also the matter of my DeKappel.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Six months ago, a DeKappel oil worth nearly one hundred thousand
kruge
disappeared from my home.”

“Quite a loss.”

“It was, especially since I had been assured that my gallery was impenetrable and that the locks on its doors were foolproof.”

“I do seem to remember reading about that.”

“Yes,” admitted Van Eck with a small sigh. “Pride is a perilous thing. I was eager to show off my acquisition and the lengths I’d gone to in order to protect it. And yet, despite all my safeguards, despite dogs and alarms and the most loyal staff in all of Ketterdam, my painting is gone.”

“My condolences.”

“It has yet to surface anywhere on the world market.”

“Maybe your thief already had a buyer lined up.”

“A possibility, of course. But I’m inclined to believe that the thief took it for a different reason.”

“What would that be?”

“Just to prove that he could.”

“Seems like a stupid risk to me.”

“Well, who can guess at the motives of thieves?”

“Not me, certainly.”

“From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my DeKappel is exactly who I need for this job.”

“Then you’d be better off hiring him. Or her.”

“Indeed. But I’ll have to settle for you.”

Van Eck held Kaz’s gaze as if he hoped to find a confession written between his eyes. At last, Van Eck asked, “We have a deal then?”

“Not so fast. What about the Healer?”

Van Eck looked baffled. “Who?”

“You said you gave the drug to a Grisha from each Order. Mikka’s a Tidemaker – he’s your Etherealnik. The Fabrikator who mocked up that gold was a Materialnik. So what happened to the Corporalnik? The Healer?”

Van Eck winced slightly, but simply said, “Will you accompany me, Mister Brekker?”

Warily, keeping one eye on Mikka and the guards, Kaz followed Van Eck out of the library and down the hall. The house dripped mercher wealth – walls panelled in dark wood, floors tiled in clean black and white, all in good taste, all perfectly restrained and impeccably crafted. But it had the feel of a graveyard. The rooms were deserted, the curtains drawn, the furniture covered in white sheets so that each shadowy chamber they passed looked like some kind of forgotten seascape cluttered with icebergs.