“No names from here on out.”
She was vexed with him. He could hear it in her voice, and he didn’t think it was because he’d been short with the clerk. They paused only so that Matthias could exchange his Madman’s costume for one of the many Mister Crimson ensembles folded into the packages from the furrier. Matthias wasn’t sure if the clerk had known what was stuffed in the brown-paper wrapping, if the costumes had been made in the shop, or if the Golden Badger was just some kind of drop spot. Kaz had mysterious connections throughout Ketterdam, and only he knew the truth of their workings.
Once Matthias found a large enough red cloak and placed the red-and-white lacquered mask over his face, Nina handed him a bag of silver coins.
Matthias bounced the bag once in his palm, and the coins gave a cheerful jingle. “They aren’t real, are they?”
“Of course not. But no one ever knows if the coins are real. That’s part of the fun. Let’s practice.”
“Practice?”
“Mother, Father, pay the rent!” Nina said in a singsong voice.
Matthias stared at her. “Is it possible you’re running a fever?”
Nina shoved her veil up onto her head so he could experience the full force of her glare. “It’s from the Komedie Brute. When Mister Crimson comes onstage, the audience shouts—”
“Mother, Father, pay the rent,” Matthias finished.
“Exactly. Then you say, ‘I can’t, my dear, the money’s spent,’ and you toss a handful of coins into the crowd.”
“Why?”
“The same reason everyone hisses at the Madman and throws flowers at the Scarab Queen. It’s tradition. Tourists don’t always get it, but the Kerch do. So tonight, if someone yells, ‘Mother, Father, pay the rent …’ ”
“I can’t, my dear, the money’s spent,” Matthias intoned gloomily, casting a handful of coins into the air.
“You have to do it with more enthusiasm,” Nina urged. “It’s supposed to be fun.”
“I feel foolish.”
“It’s good to feel foolish sometimes, Fjerdan.”
“You only say that because you have no shame.”
To his surprise, instead of offering a sharp retort, she went silent and remained that way until they took up their first position in front of a gambling parlor on the Lid, joining the musicians and buskers, only a few doors down from Club Cumulus. Then it was as if someone had flipped a switch in Nina.
“Come one, come all to the Crimson Cutlass!” she declared. “You there, sir. You’re too skinny for your own good. What would you think of a little free food and a flagon of wine? And you, miss, now you look like you know how to have a bit of fun… .”
Nina lured tourists to them one by one as if she’d been born to it, offering free food and drink and handing out costumes and flyers. When one of the bouncers from the gambling parlor emerged to see what they were up to, they moved along, heading south and west, continuing to give away the two hundred costumes and masks Kaz had procured. When people asked what it was all about, Nina claimed it was a promotion for a new gambling hall called the Crimson Cutlass.
As Nina had predicted, occasionally someone would spot Matthias’ costume and shriek, “Mother, Father, pay the rent!”
Dutifully, Matthias replied, doing his best to sound jolly. If the tourists and revelers found his performance lacking, no one said so, possibly distracted by the showers of silver coins.
By the time they reached West Stave, the stacks of costumes were gone and the sun was rising. He caught a brief flash from the roof of the Ammbers Hotel—Jesper signaling with his mirror.
Matthias escorted Nina up to the room reserved for Judit Coenen on the third floor of the hotel. Just as Kaz had said, the balcony had a perfect view of the wide expanse of Goedmedbridge and the waters of West Stave, bordered on both sides by hotels and pleasure houses.
“What does that mean?” Matthias asked. “Goedmedbridge?”
“Good maiden bridge.”
“Why is it called that?”
Nina leaned against the doorway and said, “Well, the story is that when a woman found out her husband had fallen in love with a girl from West Stave and planned to leave her, she came to the bridge and, rather than live without him, hurled herself into the canal.”
“Over a man with so little honor?”
“You’d never be tempted? All the fruits and flesh of West Stave before you?”
“Would you throw yourself off a bridge for a man who was?”
“I wouldn’t throw myself off a bridge for the king of Ravka.”
“It’s a terrible story,” said Matthias.
“I doubt it’s true. It’s just what happens when you let men name the bridges.”
“You should rest,” he said. “I can wake you when it’s time.”
“I’m not tired, and I don’t need to be told how to do my job.”
“You’re angry.”
“Or told how I feel. Get to your post, Matthias. You’re looking a little ragged around those gilded edges too.”
Her voice was cold, her spine straight. The memory of the dream came at him so hard he could almost feel the bite of the wind, the snow lashing his cheeks in stinging gusts. His throat burned, scraped raw as he shouted Nina’s name. He wanted to tell her to be careful. He wanted to ask her what was wrong.
“No mourners,” he murmured.
“No funerals,” she replied, her eyes trained on the bridge.
Matthias left quietly, descended the stairs, and crossed over the canal via the wide expanse of Goedmedbridge. He looked up at the balcony of the Ammbers Hotel but saw no sign of Nina. That was good. If he couldn’t see her from the bridge, then Van Eck wouldn’t be able to either. A few stone steps took him down to a dock where a flower seller was poling his barge full of blossoms into place in the rosy wash of morning light. Matthias exchanged a brief word with the man as he tended to his tulips and daffodils, noting the marks Wylan had chalked above the waterline on both sides of the canal. They were ready.
He made his way up the stairs of the Emporium Komedie, surrounded on all sides by masks and veils and glittering capes. Every floor had a different theme, offering fantasies of all kinds. He was horrified to see a rack of drüskelle costumes. Still, it was a good place to avoid notice.
He hurried to the roof and signaled to Jesper with his mirror. They were all in position now. Just before noon, Wylan would descend to wait in the canal-side café that always drew a noisy collection of street performers—musicians, mimes, jugglers—busking for tourist money. For now, the boy lay on his side, tucked beneath the stone ledge of the roof and dozing lightly. Matthias’ rifle lay bundled in oilcloth beside Wylan, and he’d set out a whole string of fireworks, their fuses curled like mice tails.
Matthias settled his back against the ledge and shut his eyes, floating in and out of consciousness. He was used to these long stretches with little sleep from his time with the drüskelle . He would wake when he needed to. But now, he marched across the ice, the wind howling in his ears. Even the Ravkans had a name for that wind, Gruzeburya , the brute, a killing wind. It came from the north, a storm that engulfed everything in its path. Soldiers died mere steps from their tents, lost in the whiteness, their cries for help eaten by the faceless cold. Nina was out there. He knew it and he had no way to reach her. He screamed her name again and again, feeling his feet going numb in his boots, the ice seeping through his clothes. He strained to hear an answer, but his ears were full of the roar of the storm and somewhere, in the distance, the howl of wolves. She would die on the ice. She would die alone and it would be his fault.