It was well past midnight when they reached the financial district. They’d arrived in one of the wealthiest areas of the city, not far from the Exchange and the Stadhall. His father’s presence felt closer here, and Wylan wondered why Kaz had brought them to this part of town. Kaz led them through an alley to the back of a large building, where a door had been propped open, and they entered a stairwell built around a huge iron lift that they shuffled inside. Rotty remained behind, presumably to keep watch over the entrance. The lift’s gate clanged shut and they rode it fifteen stories up, to the building’s top floor, then emerged into a hallway laid in patterns of lacquered hardwood, its high ceilings painted a pale, foamy lavender.
We’re in a hotel , Wylan realized. That was the servants’ entrance and the staff elevator.
They knocked on a pair of wide white double doors. Colm Fahey answered, wearing a long nightshirt with a coat thrown over it. They were at the Geldrenner.
“The others are inside,” he said wearily.
Colm asked them no questions, just pointed toward the bathroom and poured himself a cup of tea as they tracked mud and misery across the purple carpets. When Matthias saw Nina, he leapt from his seat on the huge aubergine sofa and clasped her in his arms.
“We couldn’t get through the blockades to Sweet Reef,” he said. “I feared the worst.”
Then they were all hugging, and Wylan was horrified to find his eyes filling with tears. He blinked them back. The last thing he needed was for Jesper to see him cry again. The sharpshooter was covered in soot and smelled like a forest fire, but he had that wonderful glimmer-eyed look he always seemed to get when he’d been in a fight. All Wylan wanted to do was stand as close as he possibly could to him and know that he was safe.
Until this moment, Wylan hadn’t quite understood how much they meant to him. His father would have sneered at these thugs and thieves, a disgraced soldier, a gambler who couldn’t keep out of the red. But they were his first friends, his only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he’d had his pick of a thousand companions, these would have been the people he chose.
Only Kaz stood apart, staring silently out the window to the dark streets below.
“Kaz,” said Nina. “You may not be glad we’re alive, but we’re glad you’re alive. Come here!”
“Leave him be,” murmured Inej softly.
“Saints, Wraith,” said Jesper. “You’re bleeding.”
“Should I call a doctor?” asked Jesper’s father.
“No!” they all replied in unison.
“Of course not,” said Colm. “Should I ring for coffee?”
“Yes, please,” said Nina.
Colm ordered coffee, waffles, and a bottle of brandy, and while they waited, Nina enlisted their help to locate some shears so that she could cut up the hotel towels for bandages. Once a pair had been found, she took Inej into the bathroom to see to her wounds.
When a knock sounded at the door, they all tensed, but it was only their meal. Colm greeted the maid and insisted that he could manage the cart so that she wouldn’t see the strange company that had assembled in his rooms. As soon as the door closed, Jesper jumped up to help him wheel in a silver tray laden with food and stacks of dishes of porcelain so fine it was almost transparent. Wylan hadn’t eaten off dishes like these since he’d left his father’s house. He realized Jesper must be wearing one of Colm’s shirts; it was too big in the shoulders and too short in the sleeves.
“What is this place, anyway?” Wylan asked, looking around the vast room decorated almost entirely in purple.
“The Ketterdam Suite, I believe,” said Colm, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s considerably finer than my room at the university district inn.”
Nina and Inej emerged from the bathroom. Nina heaped a plate with food and plunked down beside Matthias on the couch. She folded one of the waffles in half and took a huge bite, wiggling her toes in bliss.
“I’m sorry, Matthias,” she said with her mouth full. “I’ve decided to run off with Jesper’s father. He keeps me in the deliciousness to which I have become accustomed.”
Inej had removed her tunic and wore only her quilted vest, leaving her brown arms bare. Strips of towel were tied at her shoulder, both of her forearms, her right thigh and her left shin.
“What exactly happened to you?” Jesper asked her as he handed his father a cup of coffee on a delicate saucer.
Inej perched in an armchair next to where Kuwei had settled himself on the floor. “I made a new acquaintance.”
Jesper sprawled out on a settee and Wylan took the other chair, a plate of waffles balanced on his knee. There was a perfectly good table and chairs in the suite’s dining room, but apparently none of them had an interest in it. Only Colm had taken a seat there, coffee beside him, along with the bottle of brandy. Kaz remained by the window, and Wylan wondered what he saw through the glass that was so compelling.
“So,” Jesper said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Other than Inej making a new pal, what the hell happened out there?”
“Let’s see,” said Nina. “Inej fell twenty stories.”
“We put a serious hole in my father’s dining room ceiling,” Wylan offered.
“Nina can raise the dead,” said Inej.
Matthias’ cup clattered against his saucer. It looked ridiculous in his huge hand.
“I can’t raise them. I mean, they get up, but it’s not like they come back to life. I don’t think. I’m not totally sure.”
“Are you serious?” said Jesper.
Inej nodded. “I can’t explain it, but I saw it.”
Matthias’ brow was furrowed. “When we were in the Ravkan quarter, you were able to summon those pieces of bone.”
Jesper took a gulp of coffee. “But what about the lake house? Were you controlling that dust?”
“What dust?” asked Inej.
“She didn’t just take out a guard. She choked him with a cloud of dust.”
“There’s a family graveyard next to the Hendriks lake house,” said Wylan, remembering the gated plot that abutted the western wall. “What if the dust was … well, bones? People’s remains?”
Nina set down her plate. “That’s almost enough to make me lose my appetite.” She picked it up again. “Almost.”
“This is why you asked about parem changing a Grisha’s power,” said Kuwei to Matthias.
Nina looked at him. “Can it?”
“I don’t know. You took the drug only once. You survived the withdrawal. You are a rarity.”
“Lucky me.”
“Is it so bad?” Matthias asked.
Nina plucked a few crumbs from her lap, returning them to her plate. “To quote a certain big blond lump of muscle, it’s not natural.” Her voice had lost its cheery warmth. She just looked sad.
“Maybe it is,” said Matthias. “Aren’t the Corporalki known as the Order of the Living and the Dead?”
“This isn’t how Grisha power is supposed to work.”
“Nina,” Inej said gently. “Parem took you to the brink of death. Maybe you brought something back with you.”
“Well, it’s a pretty rotten souvenir.”
“Or perhaps Djel extinguished one light and lit another,” said Matthias.
Nina cast him a sidelong glance. “Did you get hit on the head?”
He reached out and took Nina’s hand. Wylan suddenly felt he was intruding on something private. “I am grateful you’re alive,” he said. “I am grateful you’re beside me. I am grateful that you’re eating .”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “You’re better than waffles, Matthias Helvar.”
A small smile curled the Fjerdan’s lips. “Let’s not say things we don’t mean, my love.”
There was a light tapping at the door. Immediately, they all reached for their weapons. Colm sat frozen in his chair.
Kaz gestured for him to stay where he was and moved silently toward the door. He peered through the peephole.
“It’s Specht,” he said. They all relaxed, and Kaz opened the door.
They watched in silence as Kaz and Specht exchanged harried whispers; then Specht nodded and disappeared back toward the lift.
“Is there access to the clock tower on this floor?” Kaz asked Colm.
“At the end of the hall,” said Colm. “I haven’t gone up. The stairs are steep.”
Without a word, Kaz was gone. They all stared at one another for a moment and then followed, filing past Colm, who watched them go with weary eyes.
As they walked down the hall, Wylan realized that the entire floor was dedicated to the luxury of the Ketterdam Suite. If he was going to die, he supposed it wouldn’t be the worst place to spend his last night.