“Sten! ” one shouted in Fjerdan, ordering her to halt as they fumbled for their guns. Nina threw out both hands, fingers forming fists, and watched the guards topple backwards. One fell flat on the landing, but the other tumbled down the stairs, his rifle firing, sending bullets pinging against the stone walls, the sound echoing down the stairwell. Kaz was going to kill her. She was going to kill Kaz.
Nina hurtled past the guards’ bodies, down one flight, two flights. On the third floor landing a door flew open as a guard burst into the stairwell. Nina twisted her hands in the air, and the guard’s neck broke with an audible snap. She was plunging down the next flight before his body struck the ground.
That was when the Elderclock began to chime. Not the steady tolling of the hour, but a shrill clamour, high and percussive – a sound of alarm.
Inej looked up, into the dark. High above her floated a small, grey patch of evening sky. Six levels to climb in the dark with her hands slippery from sweat and the fires of hell burning below, with the rope weighing her down and no net to catch her. Climb, Inej.
Bare hands were best for climbing, but the incinerator walls were far too hot to permit that. So Wylan and Jesper had helped her fish Kaz’s gloves from the laundry bins. She hesitated briefly. Kaz would tell her to just put the gloves on, to do whatever it took to get the job done. And yet, she felt curiously guilty as she slid the supple black leather over her hands, as if she had crept into his rooms without his permission, read his letters, lain down in his bed. The gloves were unlined, with the slenderest slashes hidden in the fingertips. For sleight of hand, she realised, so that he can keep contact with coins or cards or finesse the workings of a lock. Touch without touch.
There was no time to acclimatise herself to the oversized feel of the gloves. Besides, she’d climbed with covered hands plenty of times when the Ketterdam winters had turned her fingers numb. She flexed her toes in her little leather slippers, revelling in the familiar feel of them on her feet, bouncing on her nubbly rubber soles, fearless and eager. The heat was nothing, mere discomfort. The weight of seventy feet of rope coiled around her body? She was the Wraith. She’d suffered worse. She launched herself up into the chimney with pure confidence.
When her fingers made contact with the stone, she hissed in a breath. Even through the leather, she could feel the dense heat of the bricks. Without the gloves, her skin would have started to blister right away. But there was nothing to do except hold on. She climbed – hand then foot, then hand again, seeking the next small crack, the next divot in the soot-slick walls.
Sweat coursed down her back. They’d doused the rope and her clothes in water, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. Her whole body felt flushed, suffused with blood as if she were being slowly cooked in her own skin.
Her feet pulsed with heat. They felt heavy, clumsy, as if they belonged to someone else. She tried to centre herself. She trusted her body. She knew her own strength and exactly what she could do.
Another hand up, forcing her limbs to cooperate, seeking a rhythm, but finding only an awkward syncopation that left her muscles trembling with every upwards gain. She reached for the next hold, digging in. Climb, Inej.
Her foot slipped. Her toes lost contact with the wall, and her stomach lurched as she felt the pull of her weight and the rope. She gripped the stone, digging into the cracks, Kaz’s gloves bunching around her damp fingers. Again, her toes sought purchase, but only slid over the bricks. Then her
other foot began to slip, too. She sucked in a gust of searing air. Something was wrong. She risked a glance down. Far below, she saw the red glow of the coals, but it was what she saw on her feet that shocked her heart into a panicked gallop. They were a gummy mess. The soles of her shoes – her perfect, beloved shoes – were melting.
It’s all right, she told herself. Just change your grip. Put your weight in your shoulders. The rubber will cool as you go higher. It will help you grip. But her feet felt like they were on fire. Seeing what was happening had somehow made it worse, as if the rubber was fusing with her flesh.
Inej blinked the sweat from her eyes and hauled herself up a few more inches. From somewhere
above, she heard the chime of the Elderclock. The half hour? Or quarter till? She had to move faster.
She should be on the roof by now, attaching the rope.
She pushed higher and her foot skidded down the brick. She dropped, her whole body stuttering against the wall as she scrambled for purchase. There was no one to save her. No Kaz to come to her rescue, no net waiting to break her fall, only the fire ready to claim her.
Inej canted her head back, seeking that patch of sky. It still seemed impossibly distant. How far was it? Twenty feet? Thirty? It might as well have been miles. She was going to die here, slowly, horribly on the coals. They were all going to die – Kaz, Nina, Jesper, Matthias, Wylan – and it was her fault.