CHAPTER TEN
vol i — bloody fjerdans!

"DON'T POKE THE BEAR, NINA," KAZ SAID "We need him friendly. When does this party take place?"

"It's seasonal," Nina said. "on the spring equinox."

"Two weeks from today," Dinara noted, lifting her head from her knife. Kaz cocked his head to one side, his eyes focused on something in the distance.

"Scheming face."
"Definitely."
"100 percent."
"Is the White Orss sending a delegation?"
"I didn't hear anything about it."

"Even if we go straight to Djerholm," Inej said. "we'll need most of a week to travel. There isn't time to secure documents or create cover that will bear up under scrutiny."

"We're not going in through the embassy, are we?"
"We aren't. Always hit where the mark isn't looking."

"Who's Mark?" Wylan asked. Dinara shook her head good-naturedly. Wylan was out of his league here.

Jesper burst out laughing. "Oh, Saints, you are something. The mark, the pigeon, the cozy, the fool you're looking to fleece."

Wylan drew himself up. "I may not have had your... education, but I'm sure I know plenty of words that you don't."

"Also the proper way to fold a napkin and dance a minuet. Oh, and you can play the flute. Marketable skills, merchling. Marketable skills."

"No one dances the minute anymore," Wylan spluttered out.

"What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?"

"Knife to the throat?"
"Gun to the back?"
"Poison in his cup?"
"No. You put your boobs in view, make 'em stumble."
"You're all horrible."
"We know. It's part of the charm."

Kaz rolled his eyes. "Di has a point, but no. The easiest way to steal a man's wallet is to tell him you're going to steal his watch. You take his attention and direct it where you want it to go. Hringkälla is going to do that job for us. The Ice Court will have to divert resources to monitoring guests and protecting the royal family. They can't be looking everywhere at once. It's the perfect opportunity to spring Bo Yul-Bayur." Kaz pointed to the prison gate.

"It's hard to keep track of all your wisdom."

"At the prison, they won't care about who's coming in, just anyone trying to get out." His gloved finger slid sideways to the next sector. "At the embassy they won't care who's going out, they'll just be focused on who's trying to get in. We enter the prison, leave through the embassy. Helvar, is the Elderclock functional?"

Matthias nodded. "It chimes every quarter hour. It's also how the alarm protocols are sounded."

"It's accurate?"
"Of course."
"Quality Fjerdan engineering."
"Then we'll use the Elderclock to coordinate our movements."
"Will we enter disguised as guards?"
"Only Nina, Matthias and probably Dinara speak Fjerdan."
"I know enough of it. Perks of men thinking you are a whore."

Kaz's fingers clenched at the thought of men thinking of her like that. He didn't know why she was still in the Barrel, when she could get herself out of this god-forsaken city. Kaz had previously questioned why she hung out with the Dregs, but he figured it out when she showed up covered in blood. There was no sign of shock on her face, disbelief that she had killed someone, it was more of relief. Dinara craved the chaos that came with death, it made her feel alive at the prospect of almost dying herself. She only picked men twice her size — wanting a fair fight. He knew that he was lucky that she had managed to stick around, minus the dent in his bank account every week.

"I speak Fjerdan."
"Schoolroom Fjerdan, right. I bet you speak Fjerdan about us as well as I speak moose."

"Moose is probably your native tongue," Wylan mumbled. Despite the whole situation, Dinara let out a laugh, making Kaz lift his head up, squaring his shoulders. Her head was tilted back, her hair hanging off her shoulders, exposing her collarbone. When Dinara picked her head back up she glanced at everyone's faces, murmuring a sorry, but Wylan cracked a small smile, happy someone was on his side.

"We enter as we are," Kaz said. "As criminals. The prison is our front door."

"Let me get this straight. You want us to let the Fjerdans lock us in jail. Isn't that what we're always trying to avoid?" Jesper asked.

"Criminal identities are slippery. It's one of the perks of being a member of the troublemaking class. They'll be counting heads at the prison gate, looking at names and crimes, not checking passports or examining embassy seals."

"Because no one wants to go to prison," Jesper said.

Nina rubbed her hands over her arms. "I don't want to be locked up in a Fjerdan cell." Kaz flicked his sleeve, and two slender rods of metal appeared between his fingers. They danced over his knuckles then vanished once more. Dinara's eyes zeroed in on his hands, trained on the way his knuckles moved as he did a trick with the metal rod. "Lock picks?" Nina asked.

"You let me take care of the cells."
"Hit where the mark isn't looking."

"That's right," said Kaz. "And the Ice Court is like any other mark, one big white pigeon ready for the plucking."

"Will Bo Yul-Bayur come willingly?"
"Probably not."

"Van Eck said the Council gave Yul-Bayur a code word when they first tried to get him out of Shu Han so he'd know who to trust: Sesh-uyeh. It will tell him we've been sent by Kerch."

"Sesh-uyeh," Wylan repeated, trying the syllables clumsily in his tongue. "What does it mean?"

Nina examined a spot on the floor and said, "Heartsick."

"This can be fine," said Kaz. "and we're the ones to do it." The mood shifted once again, making Dinara shuffle in her seat. Sure, she believed in Kaz's plans, but this was a complete suicide mission.

Maybe Matthias sensed it, too, because he folded his huge arms and said, "You have no idea what you're up against."

"But you do, Helvar. I want you in the plan of the Ice Court every minute until we sail. No detail is going small or inconsequential. I'll be checking on you regularly."

Inej traced her finger over the rough sketch Wylan had produced, a series of embedded circles. "It really does look like the rings of a tree."

"No," said Kaz. "It looks like a target."

( ...⛓... )

"WE'RE DONE HERE," KAZ TOLD THE
others. "I'll send word to each of you after I find us a ship, but be ready to sail by tomorrow night,"

"So soon?" Inej asked.

"We don't know what kind of weather we'll hit, and there's a long journey ahead of us. Hringkälla is our best shot at Bo Yul-Bayur. I'm not going to risk losing it." Dinara could tell that he was going to be thinking about the plan on the way there. There were lots of details to think through, ones that would determine how successful they would be. Dinara was slightly nervous about the whole thing. Sure, she was okay with dying, she just preferred to choose when she could die. She wanted to go out fighting, with a blade in her hand, and someone dead in front of her. She wasn't okay with dying at the Ice Palace. It wasn't an option in her mind. "Keep Wylan out of trouble," he told Jesper as he dismissed them.

"Why me?" Jesper whined.

"You're unlucky enough to be in my line of sight, and I don't want any sudden reconciliations between father and son before we set sail."

"You don't need to worry about that," Wylan said.

"I worry about everything, merchling. That's why I'm still alive. And you can keep an eye on Jesper, too."

"On me?" Jesper said indignantly.

Kaz slid a black wolf panel aside and unlocked the safe hidden behind it. "Yes, you." He counted out five slender stacks of kruge and handed one over to Jesper. "This is for bullets, not bets. Wylan, make sure his feet don't mysteriously find their way into a gambling den on his way to buy ammunition, understood?"

"I don't need a nursemaid," Jesper snapped.

"More like a chaperone, but if you want him to wash your nappy and tuck you in at night." He ignored Jesper's stung expression and Dinara's small snort. Kaz doled kruge out to Wylan for explosives, and to Nina for whatever she'd need in her tailoring kit. "Stock up for the journey only," he said. "If this works the way I think it will, we're going to have to enter the Ice Court empty-handed." He turned towards Inej. "I'll need you to get cold weather gear. There's a shop in the Wijnstraat that supplies trappers — start there."

"You think to approach from the north?" asked Helvar.

Kaz nodded. "At the Djerholm harbor is crawling with customs agents, and I'm going to bet they'll be tightening security during your big party."

"It isn't a party."
"It sounds like a party."
"It isn't supposed to be a party."

"What are we going to do with him?" Nina asked, nodding at Matthias. Dinara tilted her head, wanting to figure out what exactly happened between the two. She knew Nina messed up somehow, due to the fact Matthias was going to strangle her, but she didn't know what.

"For the moment, he stays here at the Crow Club. I want you dredging your memory for details, Helvar. Wylan and Jesper will join you later. We'll keep this parlor closed. If anyone playing in the main hall asks, tell them there's a private game going on."

"We have to sleep here? I have things I need to see at the slat," Jesper says.

"You'll manage," Kaz said. Dinara knew how false that was. Jesper loved to gamble, making the whole no-gambling, a very hard feat he had to do. "Not a word to anyone. No one is to know you're leaving Kerch. You're working with me in a job at a country house outside the city. That's all."

"Are you going to tell us anything else about your miraculous plan?"
"On the boat. The less you know, the less you can talk."
"And you're leaving Helvar unshackled."

"Can you behave?" Kaz asked the Fjerdan. Matthias' eyes looked murder, but he nodded. "We'll be locking this room up tight and posting a guard."

Inej considered the giant Fjerdan. "Maybe two."

"More like three. Helvar could take them all down with a swipe of his hand," Dinara said, playfully swiping her hand across the air.

"Post Dirix and Rotty, but don't give them too many details. They'll sail out with us, and J can fill them in later. And Wylan, you and I are going to have a chat. I want to know everything about your father's trading company."

Wylan shrugged. "I don't know anything about it. He doesn't include me in those discussions."

"You're telling me you've never snooped around his office? Looked through his documents?"

"No," Wylan said, his chin jutting out slightly. Dinara couldn't believe it. Why wouldn't you go snooping, find out a few secrets? It all seemed a little unreal, but studying his posture, she realized that he was telling the truth.

"What did I tell you?" Jesper said cheerfully as he headed through the door. "Useless."

"Dinara, go and get yourself some warmer clothes and knives." She tilted her head, wondering why he was sending her to treat herself. "I owe you one. I have a feeling that you are going to want something because of the things you'll do during this heist. Go and treat yourself now."

"Alright. Thanks, love. I'll try not to buy anything too flashy. Don't want you getting distracted on the job by my boobs." Kaz slightly flushed at her comment, waving her off with her hand. Dinara enjoyed the color on him, wanting to see it more, making it her personal mission, she was going to make Kaz Brekker blush like an idiot.

they are so soft for each other