Kaz hung back now, feeling the delicate weight of his lockpicks like an insect cradled in his palm.
Wasn’t this what he wanted? To see Pekka brought low, humiliated, miserable and hopeless, the best of his crew dead on pikes. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe all he needed now was for Pekka to know exactly who he was, exactly what he’d done. He could stage a little trial of his own, pass sentence, and mete it out, too.
The Elderclock began to chime the three-quarter-hour. He should go. There wasn’t much time left to get to the basement. Nina would be waiting for him. They all would.
But he needed this. He’d fought for this. It wasn’t the way he’d imagined, but maybe it made no difference. If Pekka Rollins was put to death by some nameless Fjerdan executioner, then none of this would matter. Kaz would have four million kruge, but Jordie would never have his revenge.
The lock on the door gave up easily to Kaz’s picks.
Pekka’s eyes opened, and he smiled. He hadn’t been sleeping at all.
“Hello, Brekker,” Rollins said. “Come to gloat?”
“Not exactly,” Kaz replied.
He let the door slam shut behind him.
PART 5
THE ICE DOES NOT FORGIVE
EIGHT BELLS
W here the hell is Kaz? Jesper bounced from foot to foot in front of the incinerator, the dim clang of alarm bells filling his ears, rattling his thoughts. Yellow Protocol? Red Protocol? He couldn’t remember which was which. Their whole plan had been built around never hearing the sound of an alarm.
Inej had secured a rope to the roof and dropped down a line for them to climb. Jesper had sent the rest of the rope up with Wylan and Matthias, along with a pair of shears he’d located in the laundry, and a crude grappling hook he’d fashioned from the metal slats of a washboard. Then he’d cleaned the spatter of rain and moisture from the floor of the refuse room, and made sure there were no scraps of rope or other signs of their presence. There was nothing left to do but wait – and panic when the alarm started to ring.
He heard people shouting to each other, a hail of stomping boots through the ceiling above. Any minute, some intuitive guards might venture down to the basement. If they found Jesper by the incinerator, the route to the roof would be obvious. He’d be damning not only himself but the others as well.
Come on, Kaz. I’m waiting on you. They all were. Nina had come charging into the room only minutes before, gasping for breath.
“Go!” she’d cried. “What are you waiting for?”
“You!” Jesper shot back. But when he asked her where Kaz was, Nina’s face had crumpled.
“I hoped he was with you.”
She’d vanished up the rope, grunting with effort, leaving Jesper standing below, frozen with indecision. Had the guards captured Kaz? Was he somewhere in the prison fighting for his life?
He’s Kaz Brekker. Even if they locked him up, Kaz could escape any cell, any pair of shackles.
Jesper could leave the rope for him, pray the rain and the cooling incinerator was enough to keep the bottom of it from burning away. But if he just kept standing here like a podge, he’d give away their escape route, and they’d all be doomed. There was nothing to do but climb.
Jesper grabbed the rope just as Kaz hurtled through the door. His shirt was covered in blood, his dark hair a wild mess.
“Hurry,” he said without preamble.
A thousand questions crowded into Jesper ’s head, but he didn’t stop to ask them. He swung out over the coals and started to climb. Rain was still falling in a light patter from above, and he felt the rope tremble as Kaz took hold beneath him. When Jesper looked down, he saw Kaz bracing himself to sling the incinerator doors closed behind them.
Jesper put hand over hand, pulling himself up from knot to knot, his arms beginning to ache, the rope cutting into his palms, bracing his feet against the wall of the incinerator when he needed to, then recoiling at the heat of the bricks. How had Inej made this climb with nothing to hold on to?
High above, the Elderclock’s alarm bells still clanged like a drawer full of angry pots and pans.
What had gone wrong? Why had Kaz and Nina been separated? And how were they going to get out
of this?
Jesper shook his head, trying to blink the rain from his eyes, muscles bunching in his back as he rose higher.
“Thank the Saints,” he gasped when Matthias and Wylan grabbed his shoulders and hauled him up
the last few feet. He tumbled over the lip of the chimney and onto the roof, drenched and trembling like a half-drowned kitten. “Kaz is on the rope.”
Matthias and Wylan seized the rope to pull him up. Jesper wasn’t sure how much Wylan was actually helping, but he was certainly working hard. They dragged Kaz out of the shaft. He flopped onto his back, gulping air. “Where’s Inej?” he gasped. “Where’s Nina?”
“Already on the embassy roof,” said Matthias.
“Leave this rope and take the rest,” Kaz said. “Let’s move.”