𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑹 | 𝑘.𝑏.

38

Heleen grabbed Inej by the shoulders and shook her. "Where is my girl?"

Inej looked down at the fingers digging into her flesh. For a brief second, every horror came back to her, and she truly was a wraith, a ghost taking flight from a body that had given her only pain. No. A body that had given her strength. A body that had carried her over the rooftops of Ketterdam, that had served her in battle, that had brought her up six stories in the dark of a soot-stained chimney.

Her task was to find a gem strong enough to deal with their creative liberties. Kaz never said what side of the party she had to get it from. Inej knew she'd made the right choice.

Inej seized Heleen's wrist and twisted it hard to the right. Heleen yelped, her knees buckling as the guards surged forward.

"I threw your girl in the ice moat," Inej snarled, barely recognizing her own voice. Her other hand seized Heleen's throat, squeezing. "And she's better off there than with you."

Panting, heart racing, Inej didn't so much as feel the arms that removed her as she felt the absence of Heleen's terrified pulse from beneath her palm. I should have killed her.

Heleen got to her feet, whimpering and coughing as onlookers moved to help her. Always playing the fair lady, the damsel in distress. As if she didn't deserve a bloody, mangled end.

"If she's here, then Brekker is as well!" Heleen shrieked.

At that moment, as if in agreement, the bells of Black Protocol began to sound, loud and insistent. There was a stunned second of inertia. Then the entire rotunda seemed to explode into action as guards rushed to their posts and commanders began calling orders.

One of the guards, clearly a captain, said something in Fjerdan. The only word Inej recognized was prison. He grabbed the silk of her cape and shouted in Kerch, "Who is on your team? What is your target?"

"I will not speak," said Inej.

"You'll sing if we want you to," spat the guard.

You're thinking of the Siren, but even she does not sing just any song.

Heleen's laugh was low and rich with pleasure. "I'll see you hanged. And Brekker, too."

"The bridge is closed," someone declared. "No one else is getting on or off the island tonight!" Angry guests turned to anyone who would listen, demanding explanations.

The guards dragged Inej through the courtyard, past gaping onlookers, and out the ringwall gate as the bells continued to toll. They did not bother with gentleness or diplomacy now.

"I told you you'd wear my silks again, little lynx," Heleen called from the courtyard. The gate was already lowering, as the guards sealed it in accordance with Black Protocol. "You'll hang in them now."

The gate slammed closed, but Inej could swear she still heard Heleen's laughter.

•    •    •

The full weight of what Nina was doing hit her. She was alone with one of the deadliest men in Fjerda, a man who would gladly torture and murder her if he knew what she truly was. But perhaps they were both meant to survive that shipwreck for this moment. Perhaps she was destined to trick Fjerdans over and over.

"This should do," Jarl Brum said with a bow. "A bit of privacy and a bit of charm."

Not much charm in this laboratory — plenty of torture though.

Nina winked and sashayed past him. She'd expected some kind of office or retiring room for the guards. But there was no desk, no cot. The room was completely bare — except for the drain at the center of the floor.