Six of Crows (31 page)

Kaz raised a brow. “Well, at least you and Helvar found something to agree on.”

Further south they travelled, the coast long gone, the ice broken more and more by slashes of forest, glimpses of black earth and animal tracks, proof of the living world, the heart of Djel beating always.

The questions from the others were ceaseless.

“How many guard towers are on the White Island again?”

“Do you think Yul-Bayur will be in the palace?”

“There are guard barracks on the White Island. What if he’s in the barracks?”

Jesper and Wylan debated which kinds of explosives might be assembled from the prison laundry

supplies and if they could get their hands on some gunpowder in the embassy sector. Nina tried to help Inej estimate what her pace would have to be to scale the incinerator shaft with enough time to secure the rope and get the others to the top.

They drilled each other constantly on the architecture and procedures of the Court, the layout of the ringwall’s three gatehouses, each built around a courtyard.

“First checkpoint?”

“Four guards.”

“Second checkpoint?”

“Eight guards.”

“Ringwall gates?”

“Four when the gate is nonoperational.”

They were like a maddening chorus of crows, squawking in Matthias’ ear:
Traitor, traitor, traitor.

“Yellow Protocol?” asked Kaz.

“Sector disturbance,” said Inej.

“Red Protocol?”

“Sector breach.”

“Black Protocol?”

“We’re all doomed?” said Jesper.

“That about covers it,” Matthias said, pulling his hood tighter and trudging ahead. They’d even made him imitate the different patterns of the bells. A necessity, but he’d felt like a fool chanting,

“
Bing bong bing bing bong
. No, wait,
bing bing bong bing bing
.”

“When I’m rich,” Jesper said behind him. “I’m going somewhere I never have to see snow again.

What about you, Wylan?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“I think you should buy a golden piano—”

“Flute.”

“And play concerts on a pleasure barge. You can park it in the canal right outside your father ’s house.”

“Nina can sing,” Inej put in.

“We’ll duet,” Nina amended. “Your father will have to move.”

She did have a terrible singing voice. He hated that he knew that, but he couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder. Nina’s hood had fallen back, and the thick waves of her hair had escaped her collar.

Why do I keep doing that?
he thought in a rush of frustration. It had happened aboard the ship, too.

He’d tell himself to ignore her, and the next thing he knew his eyes would be seeking her out.

But it was foolish to pretend that she wasn’t in his mind. He and Nina had walked this same territory together. If his calculations were right, they’d washed up only a few miles from where the
Ferolind
had put into shore. It had started with a storm, and in a way, that storm had never ended. Nina had blown into his life with the wind and rain and set his world spinning. He’d been off balance ever since.

The storm had come out of nowhere, tossing the ship like a toy on the waves. The sea had played along until it had tired of the game, and dragged their boat under in a tangle of rope and sail and screaming men.

Matthias remembered the darkness of the water, the terrible cold, the silence of the deep. The next thing he knew, he was spitting up salt water, gasping for breath. Someone had an arm around his chest, and they were moving through the water. The cold was unbearable, yet somehow he was bearing it.

“Wake up, you miserable lump of muscle.” Clean Fjerdan, pure, spoken like a noble. He turned his head and was shocked to see that the young witch they’d captured on the southern coast of the Wandering Isle had hold of him and was muttering to herself in Ravkan. He’d
known
she wasn’t really Kaelish. Somehow she’d got free of her bonds and the cages. Every part of him went into a panic, and if he’d been less shocked or numb, he would have struggled.

“Move,” she told him in Fjerdan, panting. “Saints, what do they feed you? You weigh about as much as a haycart.”

She was struggling badly, swimming for both of them. She’d saved his life. Why?

He shifted in her arms, kicking his legs to help drive them forward. To his surprise, he heard her give a low sob. “Thank the Saints,” she said. “Swim, you giant oaf.”

“Where are we?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied, and he could hear the terror in her voice.

He kicked away from her.

“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t let go!”

But he shoved hard, breaking her hold. The moment he left her arms, the cold rushed in. The pain was sharp and sudden, and his limbs went sluggish. She’d been using her sick magic to keep him warm. He reached for her in the dark.

“
Drüsje?
” he called, ashamed of the fear in his voice. It was the Fjerdan word for witch, but he had no name for her.

“
Drüskelle!
” she shouted, and then he felt his fingers brush against hers in the black water. He grabbed hold and drew her to him. Her body didn’t feel warm exactly, but as soon as they made contact, the pain in his own limbs receded. He was gripped by gratitude and revulsion.

“We have to find land,” she gasped. “I can’t swim and keep both of our hearts beating.”

“I’ll swim,” he said. “You … I’ll swim.” He clasped her back to his chest, his arm looped under hers and across her body, the way she’d been holding him only moments ago, as if she were drowning. And she was, they both were, or they would be soon if they didn’t freeze to death first.

He kicked his legs steadily, trying not to expend too much energy, but they both knew it was probably futile. They hadn’t been far from land when the storm had hit, but it was completely dark.

They might be headed towards the coastline or further out to sea.

There was no sound but their breathing, the slosh of the water, the roll of the waves. He kept them moving – though they might well have been paddling in a circle – and she kept both of them breathing. Which one of them would give out first, he didn’t know.

“Why did you save me?” he asked finally.

“Stop wasting energy. Don’t talk.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because you’re a human being,” she said angrily.

Lies. If they did make land, she’d need a Fjerdan to help her survive, someone who knew the land, though clearly she knew the language. Of course she did. They were all deceivers and spies, trained to prey on people like him, people without their unnatural gifts. They were predators.

He continued to kick, but the muscles in his legs were tiring, and he could feel the cold creeping in on him.

“Giving up already, witch?”

He felt her shake off her exhaustion, and blood rushed back into his fingers and toes.

“I’ll match your pace,
drüskelle
. If we die, it will be your burden to bear in the next life.”

He had to smile a little at that. She certainly didn’t lack for spine. That much had been clear even when she was caged.

That was the way they went on that night, taunting each other whenever one of them faltered. They knew only the sea, the ice, the occasional splash that might have been a wave or something hungry moving towards them in the water.

“Look,” the witch whispered when dawn came, rosy and blithe. There, in the distance, he could just make out a jutting promontory of ice and the blessed black slash of a dark gravel shore. Land.

They wasted no time on relief or celebration. The witch tilted her head back, resting it against his shoulder as he drove forward, inch by miserable inch, each wave pulling them back, as if the sea was unwilling to relinquish its hold. At last, their feet touched bottom, and they were half swimming, half crawling to shore. They broke apart, and Matthias’ body flooded with misery as he dragged himself over the black rocks to the dead and frozen land.

Walking was impossible at first. Both of them moved in fits and starts, trying to get their limbs to obey, shuddering with cold. Finally he made it to his feet. He thought about just walking off, finding shelter without her. She was on her hands and knees, head bent, her hair a wet and tangled mess covering her face. He had the distinct sense that she was going to lie down and simply not get back up.

He took one step, then another. Then he turned back. Whatever her reasons, she’d saved his life last night, not once, but again and again. That was a blood debt.

He staggered back to her and offered his hand.

When she looked up at him, the expression on her face was a bleak map of loathing and fatigue. In it, he saw the shame that came with gratitude, and he knew that in this brief moment, she was his mirror. She didn’t want to owe him anything, either.

He could make the decision for her. He owed her that much. He reached down and yanked her to

her feet, and they limped together off the beach.

They headed what Matthias hoped was west. The sun could play tricks on your senses this far north and they had no compass with which to navigate. It was almost dark, and Matthias had begun to feel the stirrings of real panic when they finally spotted the first of the whaling camps. It was deserted –

the outposts were only active in the spring – and little more than a round lodge made of bone, sod, and animal skins. But shelter meant they might at least survive the night.

The door had no lock. They practically fell through it.

“Thank you,” she groaned as she collapsed beside the circular hearth.

He said nothing. Finding the camp had been mere luck. If they’d washed up even a few miles further up the coast they would have been done for.

The whalers had left peat and dry kindling in the hearth. Matthias laboured over the fire, trying to get it to do more than smoke. He was clumsy and tired and hungry enough that he would have gladly gnawed the leather off his boot. When he heard a rustling behind him, he turned and almost dropped the piece of driftwood he’d been using to coax the little flames.

“What are you doing?” he barked.

She had glanced over her shoulder – her very bare shoulder – and said, “Is there something I’m supposed to be doing?”

“Put your clothes back on!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to freeze to death to preserve your sense of modesty.”

He gave the fire a stern jab, but she ignored him and stripped off the rest of her clothes – tunic, trousers, even her underthings – then wrapped herself in one of the grimy reindeer skins that had been piled near the door.

“Saints, this smells,” she grumbled, shuffling over and assembling a nest of the few other pelts and blankets beside the fire. Every time she moved, the reindeer cloak parted, revealing a flash of round calf, white skin, the shadow between her breasts. It was deliberate. He knew it. She was trying to rattle him. He needed to focus on the fire. He’d almost died, and if he didn’t get a fire started, he still might.

If only she would stop making so much damn noise. The driftwood snapped in his hands.

Nina snorted and lay down in the nest of pelts, propping herself on one elbow. “For Saint’s sake,
drüskelle
, what’s wrong with you? I just wanted to be warm. I promise not to ravish you in your sleep.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said irritably.

Her grin was vicious. “Then you’re as stupid as you look.”

He stayed crouching beside the fire. He knew he was meant to lie down next to her. The sun had set, and the temperature was dropping. He was struggling to keep his teeth from chattering, and they would need each other ’s warmth to get through the night. It shouldn’t have concerned him, but he didn’t want to be near her.
Because she’s a killer
, he told himself.
That’s why. She’s a killer and a
witch
.

He forced himself to rise and stride towards the blankets. But Nina held out a hand to stop him.

“Don’t even think about getting near me in those clothes. You’re soaked through.”

“You can keep our blood flowing.”