Six of Crows: Cloaked in Shadow

Chapter 23 - Kaz

"Are you... D'you think you could..."

"Yes, Wylan," Kaz had said exasperatedly, "I am offering to teach you how to pick locks."

"I don't want to waste your time, though."

"Then we'll make a deal. I teach you lockpicking, you teach me... something that I haven't thought of yet."

"Well," Wylan had said shyly, "If playing the piano makes you good at picking locks, then surely picking locks would make you good at playing the piano?"

"You want to teach me, the Barrel of the Bastard, how to play the piano."

"Why not?"

He wasn't good at playing the piano. Not at first. Even now, he struggled with nearly everything Wylan tried to teach him. It was enjoyable, though he wouldn't admit that to anyone else. It made him forget about the Suli girl halfway across the True Sea, and the aching longing he felt for her. But Wylan was actually good at lockpicking. And he got better.

Kaz shook his head, dispelling the memories. He had to concentrate. The Barrel wasn't a good place to tune out. And there was a fog building. Tendrils of thick grey mist coiled sluggishly around houses and licked at Kaz's feet. Clouds rose from the canals, and soon all that could be seen of the rows of crooked buildings were hulking black silhouettes. Kaz flicked the safety off his gun and started to limp quicker. His eyes flicked from shadow to shadow.

Movement.

Something in the fog, flurries of cloud billowing in its wake. Kaz turned in a slow circle, looking. A flash of dark hair. The glint of a knife.

"Raven," he said.

She stepped through the fog. Her eyes were wide, darting from Kaz to the roiling clouds. She grabbed him so tight it hurt, face taut with panic. "Go. Run."

"Wha–"

"Mister Brekker," said a horribly familiar voice. "How good of you to join me. And look, you even brought my little bird back. Very thoughtful."

Kaz didn't waste words. He pointed his gun into the fog. Raven stepped closer to him, her own blades drawn. The Mask emerged from the mist, and Kaz pulled the trigger.

Or tried to.

His muscles froze. He couldn't move, a puppet suspended on strings. He knew this feeling. "Heartrender," he gasped, then his jaw snapped shut. Unable to talk, unable to move, barely able to breathe, Kaz waited, trapped, as the Mask approached him.

A knife at his throat, metal cool and threatening against his fluttering pulse. Raven met his gaze, eyes unreadable. "Don't move," she said.

"There's no chance of that," the Mask said. Beside him, a red-robed woman stood silently, hands raised, and next to her stood a muscled thug. "You can step away, Raven. Even the best escape artist can't break out of a Heartrender's hold." He made a gesture. "Release his mouth. I want to hear what he has to say."

The force keeping his jaw locked loosened. Kaz sent the Mask his most hate-filled glare, struggling in vain against the invisible bonds that gripped his muscles. "I thought you'd wait for a little before our next encounter. It's the way villains usually play it, and you're nothing if not a cliché."

"But you wound me, Mister Brekker! I find that the villains in the stories are awfully lenient in the way they attempt – and fail – to get their revenge. Always giving the heroes the chance to recover. Always procrastinating until the hero's friends can save them, never doing any lasting damage. So naïve." He sighed rather mournfully. "I am considered intelligent, but I cannot comprehend why you did not take my offer when I first gave you the opportunity, instead deciding to trick me. What I am going to do to you is merely business, an eye for an eye. I am not a villain."