016; BRICK BY BRICK
"I SWEAR TO THE SAINTS ONE OF THEM FOUND US BY SMELL."
"Is that even possible?" Inej asked, horror etched across her features.
Even Onyx squirmed uncomfortably in her stiff seat. It was one thing to believe the Shu could manage to use parem-addicted Fabrikators to physically alter the human body, it was even easier to believe it was the work of heavily advanced tailoring, but it was another thing altogether trying to accept they could be tracked by scent. To any passersby, Grisha walked and talked and were for all intents and purposes exactly the same as everyone else on the outside. It was that fact that made it so easy for Onyx to hide herself for so long.
"That makes me feel horribly uncomfortable," Onyx muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's not actually possible, is it?"
"I've never heard of a Grisha giving on a particular scent," Nina answered. "But I guess its possible. If the soldiers' olfactory receptors were improved-- maybe its a scent ordinary people can't detect."
"I don't think this was the first attack," Jesper said. "Wylan, remember how terrified that Squaller in the rare books room was? And what about that merchant ship Rotty told us about?"
Kaz nodded a few times, confirming. "It was torn apart, a bunch of sailors were found dead. At the time, they thought the crew's Squaller might have gone rogue, busted out of his indenture. But maybe he didn't disappear. Maybe he was captured. He was one of old Councilman Hoede's Grisha."
"Emil Retvenko," Nina confirmed with a nod.
"That's the one. You knew him?"
"I knew of him. Most of the Grisha in Ketterdam know about each other. We share information, try to keep an eye out for one another. The Shu must have spies here if they knew where to look for each of us. The other Grisha--" Nina stood up, then lurched suddenly, grasping the back of her chair as if she might faint.
Onyx jumped up, followed shortly by Inej and Matthias. She looped her arm through Nina's. "Are you okay?"
"Splendid," Nian responded. She shot Onyx a less than convincing smile of reassurance as Inej looped her arm around Nina's on her opposite side. Onyx shared a brief glimpse with Inej over their friend's shoulders. "But if the other Grisha in Ketterdam are in danger--"
"You're going to do what?" Jesper asked, an uncharacteristic edge to his words. "You're lucky to be alive after what happened today. Those Shu soldiers can smell us, Nina." He spun on Kuwei. "Your father made that possible."
"Hey," Wylan cut in, "go easy."
"Go easy? Like things weren't bad enough for the Grisha before? What if they track us to Black Veil? There are four of us here."
Kaz rapped his knuckles against the table. "Wylan's right. Go easy. The city wasn't safe before and it isn't safe now. So let's all get rich enough to relocate."
Nina scoffed. "Are we really talking about money?"
"We're talking about the job and making Van Eck pay up."
Inej glanced briefly to Nina, then to Onyx as she slipped into her previous perch, kicking her feet up as she did so. The Suli girl slipped up behind her chair and slid her arms over Onyx's sore shoulders. "I want to know what we can do to help the Grisha who are still in Ketterdam. I'd also like to know how we're going to make Van Eck suffer."
Onyx pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. For years, she'd felt caught in between two pieces, two versions, two facets of her being-- the part of her that wanted to fall into the power she'd harnessed when summoning lightning, and the stronger part that had honed an amoral, deadly killing artistry. And even now, she felt caught between those two pieces of her person; torn between the safety she'd killed four in order to keep her secret, and the brazen, arrogant persona she'd grown into that would ensure no one would attempt to take her down because she was a Squaller.
"I'd like to know how we're making Van Eck suffer as well," Onyx amended with herself. She crossed her arms loosely. "I have a few ideas stored up as a result of lonesome captivity. But getting the Grisha out of Ketterdam would also be a nice, added bonus."
"There are bigger issues here," Matthias said.
"Not for me," Jesper responded. "I have two days to get right with my father."
Onyx raised an eyebrow. That was new information. "Your father?"
"Yup. Family reunion in Ketterdam. Everyone's invited."
Inej twisted a loose strand of Onyx's hair between her fingers. "It's a loan."
"Oh, interesting." Her head tilted to the side ever or slightly. "So there's more debt than just gambling debts, I'll take it."
Jesper rested his hands over his revolvers, much in the same way Onyx habitually felt for the taut string of her bow across her chest. "Yeah. So I'd really like to know just how we intend to settle this score."
Kaz adjusted his grip on his cane. "Have any of you wondered what I did with all the cash Pekka Rollins gave us?"
"Wait, wait, wait." Onyx's boots slid off the table with a loud thud, echoing around the tomb. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her blood ran with a terrifying cold chill. "I don't believe I just heard you correctly. You went to Pekka Rollins for a loan? Are you actually as dense as I think you are right now?"
"I would never go into debt with Rollins," Kaz retorted. "I sold him my shares in Fifth Harbor and the Crow Club."
Anger, a deep, disbelieving anger, ran through her. She stood abruptly from her chair. "You stupid son of--"
"Calm down."
No longer were his eyes the light shade of brown she'd admired and praised only hours before, sitting perched atop bolts of cloth, wondering why the hell she'd become enraptured with someone like him. They were dark, and dangerous. The kind of dangerous Onyx knew well. The kind of dark that matched the bitter coffee she'd offered him aboard the Ferolind. His fiery irritation met her cold, icy anger halfway across the tomb. It reminded her of the way their eyes had met in the Crow Club, when Matthias had just been broken out of Hellgate. She slowly sat.
He leaned into his cane. "Where do you think the money went?" Kaz repeated.
"Guns?" Jesper suggested.
"Ships?" asked Inej.
"Bombs?" Wylan inquired.
"A hit on Van Eck?" Onyx murmured hopefully.
"Political bribes?" Nina offered. They all looked to Matthias. "This is where you tell us how awful we are," she whispered.
He shrugged. "They all seem like practical choices."
"Sugar," Kaz spoke. Jesper leaned forward and nudged the sugar bowl at the center of the table towards him. He rolled his eyes. "Not for my coffee, you podge. I used the money to buy up sugar shares and placed them in private accounts for all of us-- under aliases, of course."
"I don't like speculation," Matthias spoke.
"Of course you don't. You like things you can see. Like piles of snow and benevolent tree gods."
Matthias' expression twisted into a scowl. Onyx hummed. "You know, I never thought I could miss that scowl."
"Besides," Kaz cut in, "it's hardly speculation if you know the outcome."
"You know something about the crop?" Jesper inquired.
"I know something about the supply."
"The silos," Wylan spoke up, slowly straightening out in his chair. "The silos at Sweet Reef."
"Very good, merchling."
Matthias's eyebrows drew together. "What's Sweet Reef?"
"Its an area just south of Sixth Harbor," Inej answered as she twisted a few strands of Onyx's hair in a loose braid. "It's where they keep molasses, raw cane, and the processing plants to refine sugar."
Onyx remembered seeing Sweet Reef in the distance, towering over the warehouse district like artificial mountains built into the city. Sweet Reef's security was some of the most secure in the city, and for good reason. "We were near there earlier today. I assume that wasn't just a lucky coincidence?"
"No," Kaz replied, crossing his arms. "Most sugar cane comes from the Southern Colonies and Novyi Zem, but there won't be another crop until three months from now. This seasons crop has already been harvested, processed, refined, and stored in the Sweet Reef silos."
Wylan tilted his head. "There are thirty silos."
Onyx felt the pieces of the plan falling into place like the final parts of a puzzle. Her lips twitched. "And Van Eck just so happens to own ten of those silos."
Jesper gave a low whistle. "Van Eck controls one-third of the worlds sugar supply?"
"He owns the silos," Kaz reiterated, "but only a fraction of the sugar inside them. He maintains the silos at his own expense, supplies guards for them, and pays the Squallers who monitor the humidity inside the silos to make sure the sugar stays dry and separated. The merchants who own the sugar pay him a small percentage of every one of their sales. It adds up quickly."
"Such enormous wealth under one man's protection," Matthias said, considering. "If anything were to happen to those silos, the price of sugar--"
Jesper hopped up to his feet and began to pace the length of the tomb. "Would go off like a cheap pair of six-shooters."
"This price would climb and keep climbing," Kaz confirmed. "And as of a few days ago, we own shares in the companies that don't store sugar with Van Eck. Right now, they're worth about what we paid for them. But once we destroy the sugar in Van Eck's silos--"
Jesper was practically vibrating with excitement. "Our shares will be worth five -- maybe ten -- times what they are now."
"Try twenty."
"Don't mind if I do."
"We could sell at a huge profit," Wylan said. "We'd be rich overnight."
Onyx's fingers danced over the tabletop. A house in the Zelver District danced across her memory. The house was long gone by now, its remnants nothing but a foundation beneath a new family home. It didn't have window boxes anymore. Her father's shop, nothing more than an abandoned building nestled between a coffeehouse and set of stacked apartments, hadn't been touched since their deaths. She passed it occasionally. She never dared venture inside. She wasn't even sure if anyone owned it. Surely all the weapons inside had been looted and taken long ago.
"Thirty million kruge rich?" she heard Inej ask.
That much money could buy her a new home in the Zelver District, near her childhood home, away from the Barrel, and her father's old shop.
"Give or take a million."
Wylan gnawed at this thumbnail nervously. "My father can weather a loss. The other merchants, the ones who own the sugar in his silos, will be hit worse."
"And I can't mess with the humidity in the silos without it looking like one of the Squallers sabotaged the sugar in the silos," Onyx chimed in, drumming her fingers over the tabletop. "And like Wylan said, anything targeting the sugar will inadvertently hit the other merchants worse."
"True," Matthias hummed. "And if we destroy the silos, it will be clear Van Eck was targeted."
"We could try and make it look like an accident," Nina proposed.
"It will," Kaz said. "Initially. Thanks to the weevil. Tell them, Wylan."
Wylan eagerly sat up, drawing a vial from his pocket. "This version works."
Onyx's eyebrows drew together. "A weevil?"
"A chemical weevil," Jesper clarified. "But Wylan still hasn't named it. My vote is for Wyvil."
"That's fantastic." Onyx snorted, amused. "I vote for Wyvil as well."
Wylan frowned. "That's terrible."
"It's brilliant." One of Jesper's eyes dropped down into a wink, and Onyx couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Just like you."
"I helped as well," Kuwei added.
Wylan nodded. "He did help."
Onyx raised an eyebrow. "Who actually cares?"
"We'll make him a plaque," Kaz interjected. "Tell them how it works."
"I got the idea from cane blight-- just a little bit of bacteria can ruin a whole crop," Wylan explained, leaning his elbows on the table, the vial balanced between his fingers. "Once the weevil is dropped into the silo, I will keep burrowing down, using the refined sugar as fuel until the sugar is nothing but useless mush."
Jesper's eyebrows raised in question. "It reacts to sugar?"
"Yes, any kind of sugar. Even trace amounts if there's enough moisture present, so keep it away from sweat, blood, saliva."
"Do not lick Wyvil. Does someone want to write that down?"
Onyx reached for a sheet of parchment. "Way ahead of you."
"Those silos are huge," Inej pointed out. "How much will we need?"
"One vial for each silo."
"Truly?"
"Tiny and ferocious," Jesper said, winking again. "Just like you."
Onyx gave a mock gag and Nina burst out laughing. She heard Inej exhale a laugh behind her as her nimble fingers twisted the final pieces of a thick braid together and laid it over Onyx's shoulder. Being amongst friends again felt like coming home, like crawling into her bed after hours on a rooftop or putting salve and bandages on healing wounds. Some part of her was uncoiling after years of being hidden and locked away behind what she once believed were impenetrable locks in her soul. Had she really been so lonely? And had she simply gotten used to it?
"The weevil makes the destruction of the sugar look like an accident," Wylan said.
"It will," Kaz said, "until the other merchants learn that Van Eck has been buying up sugar that isn't stored in his silos."
Wylan's eyes went wide. "What?"
"I used half the money for our shares. I used the rest of purchase shares on behalf of Van Eck-- well, on behalf of a holding company created under Alys' name. Couldn't make it too obvious. The shares were purchased in cash, untraceable. But the certificates authenticating their purchase will be found stamped and sealed at his attorneys office."
"Cornelis Smeet," Matthias exhaled in disbelief. "Deception upon deception. You weren't just trying to figure out where Alys Van Eck was being kept when you broke into his office."
Onyx kicked her feet up on the table once more and raised an accusatory eyebrow. "You broke into Cornelis Smeet's office?"
"Surprised?" Kaz asked.
"Not particularly. Just confirming."
"You don't win by running one game," Kaz said, swiveling his attention back to the rest of the group. "Van Eck's reputation will take a hit when the sugar is lost. But when the people who paid him to keep it safe find out he profited from their loss, they'll look more closely at those silos."
"And find remnants of the weevil," Wylan concluded.
"Destruction of property, tempering with the markets," Inej murmured. "It will be the end of him. Could he go to prison?"
Onyx hummed at the thought. "He'll probably be charged with violating a contract and attempting to interfere with the markets," she explained. Given the nature of her work, Onyx had a decent understanding of the law-- every kind of law. "And according to Kerch law, which as we all know frowns greatly upon market interference and broken contracts, there is no greater crime. The sentences for contract violation and market interference are the same as for murder, meaning he could possibly hang."
Wylan's eyes slowly trailed up to hers. "Will he?"
"I doubt he'll swing," Kaz said. "My guess is they'll saddle him with a lesser charge. None of the Merchant Council will want to put one of their own on the gallows. As for whether or not he'll actually ever see the inside of a jail cell?" He shrugged. "Depends on how good his lawyer is."
"But he'll be barred from trade," Wylan said, his voice almost dazed. "His holdings will be seized to make on the lost sugar."
Kaz crossed his arms over his chest and for a split second, Onyx watched his eyes flit over to her's across the table as he spoke. "It will be the end of the Van Eck empire."
Onyx, decidedly, liked the sound of that. She liked the sound of his empire crumbling to bits at his feet, broken apart in the same way he was going to break her arms and bleed her dry less than twenty-four hours prior. The thought of his empire falling apart at the seams because of her and her friends, because Van Eck chose the wrong Barrel trash to quarrel with, was only going to become sweeter when she had her chance at him with the tip of her bow or the sharpest knife she had. Perhaps it would be a tedious fight. Perhaps not everything would go as smoothly as they wished it to.
But at the end of the day, it would be her hands that were stained red with Jan Van Eck's vile blood.
─────
They worked well into the night, squabbling over the Grisha that Nina wanted to get out of the city, going back and forth about Inej walking a high wire between the silos at Sweet Reef, and finally, making adjustments that, at least on the exterior, seemed to coincide with everyone's wants and interests. Nina and Matthias had ventured on to secure their portion of the plan at the Ravkan Embassy, while Jesper and Wylan did the same for their portion. And for the first time in days, Onyx slept. She rested until her body became too anxious to sit still, and until her mind got the better of her. It was hard to rest when every time she closed her eyes, she saw the mallet flying though the air and felt that same overwhelming fear all over again.
She'd taken up residence outside, desperate for a break from what was becoming a very crowded tomb, when Jesper and Wylan returned. They head for the tomb together and seemed to stay there for some time, before Jesper ventured back out to her perch under one of the willow trees. He approached rather silently, but Onyx heard the crunch of dead grass beneath his boots before he had time to announce himself vocally.
Onyx leaned her head back against the trunk and offered out a steaming mug. "Coffee?"
Jesper silently took the mug and slid down next to her, their shoulders flush. He leaned his head against hers. "Have you rested?"
"I did, until I couldn't anymore." She tugged at a loose piece of her bandage, unsheathed a knife at her waist, then cut the piece free. It caught on the wind before she could stuff it in her pocket. "Did Wylan find out about his mother?"
"You knew?"
"Jesper, dearest, I know everything."
The silence was deafening. "How?"
"Jan Van Eck makes a rather charitable donation to Saint Hilde every single year, and has since Marya Hendriks died. No one pays that much money for the upkeep up a grave." Onyx pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed through her nose. "I knew Wylan was in the Barrel before Kaz did, so there's also that."
"Of course you did." Jesper exhaled a laugh and slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling her snuggly into his side. "You know, fun fact, when you showed up at the Crow Club after we'd sprung Matthias, I kind of thought you'd taken the job to work your own job in the background."
She snorted. "You thought someone hired me to kill all of you?"
"Mostly Kaz but, I didn't particularly want to be left out either."
"You would be jealous of not having a hit on your head."
"What can I say? I want to feel wanted, even by you and your arrows, my dear."
Onyx shook her head, but there was a small, ghost of grin tugging at the corners of her lips. "I could still make it happen, you know. If you'd like to feel included."
His eyes narrowed skeptically. "You would never."
"Do you know that for a fact?"
He scanned her face over, trying to decipher her deadpan expression. "Sometimes I forget how utterly terrifying you are."
Onyx hummed. "I've been told that's one of my most charming and robust qualities."
"I see why a certain individual finds that attractive."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that."
Jesper set his cup aside and exhaled a laugh. "Denial isn't a good look for you."
"I'm not, denying anything."
And there it was, out in the open, in a way she never should've allowed it to be. And again, Onyx found herself caught between the thrill of falling into this new, wild feeling, and hiding it away, locking it up, pretending it wasn't real. It didn't help that she never truly knew what Kaz was thinking, or how he felt from minute to minute, second to second, because he kept his emotions close to his chest, hidden behind a stone cold facade. But then there were those moments-- those moments that took her aback and made some girlish, innocent part of her soul flourish, if only for a few seconds.
Her mother warned her, when she was young, there would be boys that would do nothing but break her heart. They would look as sweet and beautiful as a rose, but their intentions were like piercing thorns. If only her mother knew that her heart chose a boy that was sharper and deadlier than any piercing thorns, and did not look as sweet and beautiful as a rose, but was magnifying and cunning, just as she.
Jesper leaned over and draped an arm over Onyx's shoulders. "I know," he sighed, as if somehow sensing her unspoken words. "I know, my love."
The sound of dead grass crunching beneath new set of boots caught Onyx's attention before someone cleared their throat from behind. They both turned and found Wylan slowly approaching, hands stuffed into his pockets as he ducked under a low hanging branch.
"Matthias and Nina just got back," he told them. "I figured you'd want to know what happened as well."
Onyx jumped up to her feet and hurried off toward the tomb in search of her friends. Jesper and Wylan followed behind at a much slower pace, but Onyx, quite frankly, didn't care. There was always a chance that leaving Black Veil could spell trouble for them. It was a relief to see Jesper and Wylan back on the island, of course, but they hadn't been the ones traversing the Government Sector and dodging stadwatch patrols, either.
"Welcome back," Onyx hummed as she entered, sliding into a seat at the table next to Inej. Nina slid in on her other side. "Did you have fun?"
Matthias grimaced. "I think we have a different definition of 'fun.'"
"I could've told you that weeks ago. Your version of fun is praying to delicate tree gods and making ridiculous ice sculptures of wolves," she responded. "But that's besides the point, did you manage to contact the refugees?"
"Everything went smoothly," Nina reported. "Aside from breaking a few windows and nearly getting shot."
"Big trouble in Little Ravka?" Jesper asked.
"Nothing we couldn't handle," she responded with a shrug. "Please tell me there's something to eat."
"You're hungry?" Inej asked, surprised.
"Yes, yes, Nina Zenik is hungry. Now will someone feed me before I'm forced to cook one of you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Jesper chuckled. "You don't know how to cook."
Onyx scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "You've never seen her desperately hungry then."
"What happened at the tavern?" Kaz asked, as Inej and Onyx passed down their dwindling, meager stockpile of food to Nina.
"The refugees are hiding at the embassy," Matthias answered. "We met--"
"Their leader. They'll be waiting for word from us." She shoved a few crackers in her mouth and grimaced. "These are awful."
"Slow down," Matthias warned. "You're going to choke."
"Worth it."
"For crackers?"
"I'm pretending they're pie. When does the boat leave?"
"We found a shipment of molasses headed for Os Kervo leaving at eleven bells," Inej answered. "Specht is working on the documents now."
"Good." Nina reached into her pocket and produced crumpled up piece of paper. She laid it out on the table, smoothing it out as best she could, until a sketch of Matthias was staring back up at them. "We need to get out of town as soon as possible."
"Damn it," Jesper complained, shaking his head as he gestured to the posters plastered to the wall. "Kaz, Onyx, and Wylan are still in the lead."
Everyone was there, except for Nina and Kuwei. Onyx doubted Van Eck would risk posting Kuwei Yul-Bo's face all over the Ketterdam in the same way he was plastering everyone else's, but there was still the false pretense of a distraught father supposedly searching for his hostage son at play as well. She eyed her poster. It popped up only hours after the scene on the Stave. She commended the artist for the accuracy of the sketch, which even depicted the hood of her cloak over her head.
Matthias sauntered up to the posters. "One hundred thousand kruge!" His scowl morphed into something hinging on disbelief when he turned toward Kaz. "You're hardly worth that."
A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of Kaz's lips. "As the market wills it."
"Tell me about it," Jesper sighed. "They're only offering thrifty thousand for me."
"Hey, ninety-five thousand for me," Onyx remarked, propping her chair up on its hind legs as she examined the posters from afar. "The city of Ketterdam really knows how to make a girl feel wanted."
"Your lives are at stake," Wylan said, astonished at their nonchalance. "How can you act like this is a competition?"
"We're stuck in a tomb, merchling. You take the action where you find it."
"Maybe we should all go to Ravka," Nina suggested. "It isn't safe for you to remain here."
Kaz shrugged a shoulder. "It's not a bad idea."
"You'd go to Ravka?" Inej asked.
"Not a chance. I'll lie low here," Kaz responded. "I want to see Van Eck's life come apart when the hammer falls."
"But you could come," Nina said to Inej, a small smile threatening her lips. "Jesper? We could bring Colm." Her eyes drifted to Onyx next. The look in her eye was so familiar, in so many ways. It brought her back to the moments where their conversation would drift to the what ifs and the fantastical idea that Nina had of Onyx joining the Second Army. "Onyx, you could come too. You'd learn so much at the Little Palace."
Perhaps she could. Perhaps she could learn from the greatest Grisha teachers in the known world and begin to harness her abilities in new and undiscovered ways. But fighting in an army, for a country she held no loyalties or ties to beside distant familial connections, it would never be the path she chose for herself. Onyx Vissier was not a solider in an army, fighting for a King she didn't know, harnessing abilities she'd never asked for in the first place.
Besides, she wanted to see the curtains close on Van Eck's empire and reputation. She wanted to see him in ruin, alongside Pekka Rollins. Both deserved a bloody end, no doubt. However, Onyx found the crumbling of a generations old empire a more satisfying revenge for a man like Van Eck. His empire and reputation, his standing in the markets and his plans for a replacement heir, they would be shattered, broken, torn to pieces, in the same way he vowed to break her arms and flay her open.
"Onyx?"
Her eyes drifted back up from where they'd descended to her lap, where her fingers twisted and turned a loose thread on the seam of her trousers. Nina was looking at her expectantly, and judging by the look of everyone else seated or stationed near the table, they'd been waiting on an answer from her from quite some time.
She shook her head. "I've got a lot of business to finish up in Ketterdam before I decide to move on. I'd like to be here to see which way the scales tip."
Kaz drew his watch from his waistcoat. "We're coming up on eight bells. Van Eck is gathering the Merchant Council at his house for a meeting tonight."
And as much as Onyx wanted to be the one slinking in Van Eck's home with Wylan and Kaz, or keeping Inej safe on the high wire at Sweet Reef with Nina, she was tasked with helping the refugees to safety. She knew the best routes around the city, on the ground and on the rooftops. She knew where the stadwatch would be patrolling and at what time and the best ways to avoid them. And, well, Onyx would have an easy enough time taking out any of the officers if need be without raising the alarm.
It was being apart of this facet of the plan that wore at her impatience. After being cooped up in a tomb, on an island full of the dead and their decaying headstones and tombs, Onyx was anxious for a fight. She was anxious to see the ground crumble beneath Van Eck's feet. She was anxious to see the fear in his eyes when she descended upon him, weapons at the ready, bloodthirsty and drunk on vengeance. That wicked, amoral thing inside her reared it's head. The impatience inside her flared into an expertly controlled anger. Just a little more time, and the Reaper's sharpened blades and feathered arrows would find their targets and deal their death blows.
AUTHORS NOTE
hi hi hi everyone :) apologies, again, for the later than intended update. crooked kingdom is a bit harder to format than six of crows was, so forgive me. that and work has been draining me :,) but i do have news, which. mayo or may not involve a shadow and bone based book, which would also be a kaz x oc. i'm hoping to put together the first few stages of it in terms of description, teaser, and graphics soon, so be on the look out for it !