They laughed, and Inej’s stomach turned. She knew they’d spoken in Kerch to make sure she understood.
She thought she might be able to take them, despite their guns and even without her knives. Her hands weren’t bound, and they still thought they had a disgraced prostitute on their hands. Heleen had called her a criminal, but to them, she was only a little thief in scraps of purple silk.
Just as she was considering making her move, she heard other footsteps headed their way. She saw the silhouettes of two more men in uniform striding towards them. Could she manage four guards on her own? She wasn’t sure, but she knew that if they left this corridor behind, it was all over.
She glanced again at the banner in the glass enclosure. It was now or never.
She hooked her leg around the ankle of the guard to her left. He pitched forwards, and she slammed her hand upwards, breaking his nose.
The other raised his gun. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“You won’t shoot me. You need information.”
“I can shoot you in the leg,” he sneered, lowering his rifle.
Then he crumpled to the ground, a pair of beaten-up shears protruding from his back. The soldier standing behind him gave a cheery wave.
“Jesper,” she gasped in relief. “Finally.”
“I’m here, too, you know,” said Wylan.
The guard with the broken nose moaned from the floor and tried to lift his gun. Inej gave him a good hard kick to the head. He didn’t move again.
“Did you manage to get hold of a big enough diamond?” Jesper asked.
Inej nodded and slipped the massive jewelled choker from her sleeve. “Hurry,” she said. “If Heleen hasn’t noticed it’s missing, she will soon.” Though with Black Protocol in effect there wasn’t much she could do about it.
Jesper snatched the choker from Inej’s hand, mouth agape. “Kaz said we needed a diamond. He didn’t tell you to steal Heleen Van Houden’s diamonds!”
“Just get to work.”
Kaz had given Inej two objectives: nab a big enough diamond for Jesper to work with and get herself into this corridor after eleven bells. There were plenty of other diamonds she could have stolen for their purposes and other trouble she could have made to attract the guards’ attention. But it was Heleen she’d wanted to dupe. For all the secrets she’d gathered and documents she’d stolen and violence she’d done, it was Heleen Van Houden she’d needed to best.
And Heleen had made it easy. During the scuffle in the rotunda, Inej had made sure that she was too focused on being choked to worry about being robbed. After that, all of Heleen’s attention had been devoted to gloating. Inej only regretted that she wouldn’t be there to see Tante Heleen discover her prized necklace was missing.
Jesper lit a lantern and went to work beside Wylan. Only then did she see they were both covered in soot from their trip back down the prison incinerator shaft. They’d dragged two grubby coils of rope with them, too. While they worked, Inej barred the doors set into the arches on either side of the corridor. They had just a few minutes before another patrol came through and discovered a door that shouldn’t be locked.
Wylan had produced a long metal screw and what looked like the handle of a massive winch, and
was attempting to rig them together to form what Inej hoped would be an ugly but functional drill.
A thump came from one of the doors.
“Hurry,” Inej said.
“Saying that doesn’t actually make me work faster,” Jesper complained as he concentrated on the stones. “If I just break them down, they’ll lose their molecular structure. They have to be cut, carefully, the edges assembled into a single perfect drill bit. I don’t have the training—”
“Whose fault is that?” put in Wylan, not looking up from his own work.
“Again, not helpful.”
Now the guards were pounding on the door. Across the enclosure, Inej saw men storming onto the other walkway, pointing and shouting. But they couldn’t very well shoot through two walls of bulletproof glass.
The glass was Grisha made. Nina had recognised it as soon as they’d passed through the display –
Fjerdan might protected by Grisha skill – and the one thing harder than Fabrikator glass was diamond.
The doors on both sides of the walkway were rattling now. “They’re coming!” Inej said.
Wylan secured the diamond bit to the makeshift drill. It made a scraping sound as they placed it up against the glass, and Jesper began turning the handle. The progress was painfully slow.
“Is it even working?” Inej cried.
“The glass is thick!”
Something smashed into the door on their right. “They have a battering ram,” Wylan moaned.
“Keep going,” urged Inej. She toed off her shoes.
Jesper turned the crank faster as the drill bit whirred. He began to move it in a curving line, sketching the beginnings of a circle, then a half moon. Faster.
The wood of the door at the end of the walkway started to splinter.
“Take the handle, Wylan!” Jesper shouted.