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QUOTES
Nina threw herself into a chair at the table and wriggled her feet out of her jeweled slippers, digging her toes into the plush white carpet. “Ahhh,” she said contentedly. “So much better.” She shoved one of the cakes from the coffee service into her mouth and mumbled, “What do you want, Kaz?”
“You have crumbs on your cleavage.”
“Don’t care,” she said, taking another bite of cake. “So hungry.”
Kaz shook his head, amused and impressed at how quickly Nina dropped the wise Grisha priestess act. She’d missed her true calling on the stage.
She turned the lump of gold over her in her hands, then wrapped her dressing gown more tightly around her and curled up at the end of the settee. Again, Kaz marveled at the transformation. In these rooms, she played the part her clients wanted to see—the powerful Grisha, serene in her knowledge. But sitting there with her brow furrowed and her feet tucked under her, she looked like what she truly was: a girl of seventeen, raised in the sheltered luxury of the Little Palace, far from home and barely getting by every day.
“You’ve seen him?” Her green eyes were wide, eager. There, thought Kaz, the Barrel hasn’t beaten the hope out of you yet.
She knew Pekka Rollins’ name well. He was the reigning king of the Barrel, the owner of not one but two gambling palaces—one luxurious, the other catering to sailors with less to line their pockets—and several of the higher-end brothels. When Nina had arrived in Ketterdam a year ago, she’d been friendless, penniless, and far from home. She’d spent the first week in the Kerch law courts, dealing with the charges against Matthias. But once her testimony was complete, she’d been unceremoniously dumped at First Harbor with just enough money to book passage back to Ravka. Desperate as she’d been to return to her country, she’d known she couldn’t leave Matthias to languish in Hellgate.
She had no idea what to do, but it seemed rumors of a new Grisha Corporalnik in Ketterdam had already circulated through the city. Pekka Rollins’ men had been waiting for her at the harbor with the promise of safety and a place to stay. They’d taken her to the Emerald Palace, where Pekka himself had leaned heavily on Nina to join the Dime Lions and had offered to set her up in business at the Sweet Shop. She’d been close to saying yes, desperate for cash and terrified of the slavers who patrolled the streets. But that night, Inej had crawled through her window on the top floor of the Emerald Palace with a proposal from Kaz Brekker in hand.
The crowd continued to boo as guards entered the arena to remove the prisoner’s remains, tendrils of smoke still curling from his ruined flesh.
“Why are they complaining?” Nina asked angrily. “Isn’t this what they came here for?”
“They wanted a fight,” said Kaz. “They were expecting him to last longer.”
“This is disgusting.”
Kaz shrugged. “Only disgusting thing about it is that I didn’t think of it first.”
“These men aren’t slaves, Kaz. They’re prisoners.”
“They’re murderers and rapists.”
“And thieves and con artists. Your people.”
“Nina, sweet, they aren’t forced to fight. They line up for the chance."
“Helvar doesn’t … Helvar doesn’t fight in the arena, does he?”
“We aren’t here for the ambience,” Kaz said.
Beyond slappable. “Are you aware that I could waggle my fingers and make you wet your trousers?”
“Easy, Heartrender. I like these trousers. And if you start messing with my vital organs, Matthias Helvar will never see sunshine again.”
Nina blew out a breath and settled for glowering at no one.
“Nina—” Inej murmured.
“Don’t you start in on me.”
“It will all work out. Let Kaz do what he does best.”
“He’s horrible.”
“But effective. Being angry at Kaz for being ruthless is like being angry at a stove for being hot. You know what he is.”
Nina crossed her arms. “I’m mad at you, too.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know yet. I just am.”
Inej gave Nina’s hand a brief squeeze, and after a moment, Nina squeezed back. She sat through the next fight in a daze, and the next. She told herself she was ready for this—to see him again, to see him here in this brutal place. After all, she was a Grisha and a soldier of the Second Army. She’d seen worse.
Nina looked Muzzen up and down. “This is going to hurt just as much as if you’d been in the fight yourself,” she warned.
He scrunched up his face, bracing for the pain. “I can take it.”
She rolled her eyes, then lifted her hands, concentrating. With a sharp slice of her right hand over her left, she snapped Muzzen’s ribs. He let out a grunt and doubled over.
“That’s a good boy,” said Kaz. “Taking it like a champion. Knuckles next, then face.”
Nina spread bruises and cuts over Muzzen’s knuckles and arms, matching the wounds to Inej’s descriptions.
“I’ve never seen firepox up close,” Nina said. She was only familiar with illustrations from books they’d used in their anatomy training at the Little Palace.
“Count yourself lucky,” Kaz said grimly. “Hurry it up.”
She worked from memory, swelling and cracking the skin on Muzzen’s face and chest, raising blisters until the swelling and pustules were so bad that he was truly unrecognizable. The big man moaned.
You don’t know this boy. And it was true. The boy she knew might have been the scaffold, but something new had been built upon it.
She touched his shoulder gently. “Helvar,” she said. He didn’t stir. “Matthias.”
A lump rose in her throat, and she felt the ache of tears threatening. She pressed a kiss to his temple. She knew that Kaz and the others were watching and that she was making an idiot of herself, but after so long he was finally here, in front of her, and so very broken. “Matthias,” she repeated.
“Nina?” His voice was raw but as lovely as she remembered.
“Oh, Saints, Matthias,” she whispered. “Please wake up.”
His eyes opened, groggily, palest blue. “Nina,” he said softly. His knuckles brushed her cheek; his rough hand cupped her face tentatively, disbelievingly. “Nina?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Shhhh, Matthias. We’re here to get you out.”
Before she could blink he had hold of her shoulders and had pinned her to the ground.
“Nina,” he growled.
Then his hands closed over her throat.
He would have worn the silver wolf’s head that marked an officer of the drüskelle. It made her sick to think of it. Congratulations on your recent advancement to murderer of rank. The thought helped remind her just who she was dealing with. She sat up straighter, chin lifting.
“Hje marden, Matthias?” she asked.
“Don’t,” he said.
“You’d prefer I spoke Kerch?”
“I don’t want to hear my language from your mouth.” His eyes flicked to her lips, and she felt an unwelcome flush.
With vindictive pleasure, she said in Fjerdan, “But you always liked the way I spoke your tongue. You said it sounded pure.” It was true. He’d loved her accent—the vowels of a princess, courtesy of her teachers at the Little Palace.
“Don’t press me, Nina,” he said. Matthias’ Kerch was ugly, brutal, the guttural accent of thieves and murderers that he’d met in prison. “That pardon is a dream that’s hard to hold on to. The memory of your pulse fading beneath my fingers is far easier to bring to mind.”
“Try me,” she said, her anger flaring. She was sick of his threats. “My hands aren’t pinned now, Helvar.” She curled her fingertips, and Matthias gasped as his heart began to race.
“Witch,” he spat, clutching his chest.