Heist

     They emerged from the tunnel in an unfamiliar part of the city, and Zoya wondered if Brekker was deliberately trying to disorient them. Brynn talked sometimes, mostly about random stuff. If she was telling them all Brekker's secrets, maybe Zoya would have been more interested.

"Kaz had the tunnels from the Crow Club installed to connect with the ones under the Crow Cafe not too long ago," she said, hand moving with her words. "When we found out about the ones under the Cafe, it was a coincidence, then we realized that tunnels leading to anywhere in the city was a genius idea. So we expanded them."

"This is the Geldin District," Nikolai murmured. "The favored neighborhood of wealthy merchants."

Leave it to Nikolai to have an accurate map in his head. It was as if they'd traveled to a different country, not a different part of town. The streets were tidy and lovely, all neat cobblestones and clean brick facades. Zoya noted the curtains in the windows, a woman walking home with her groceries, a housekeeper sweeping a stoop. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives. They did their shopping, ate their meals, lay down at night thinking of the health of their children or the work waiting to be done in the morning. Could they find a way to give this peace, this ease, to Ravka? Would there ever be a time when Grisha were free to choose their paths instead of living as soldiers. This girl seemed to be fighting for it just as much as they were.

They arrived at an elegant mansion with red tulips painted over the entry. Brekker rapped twice on the front door with the head of his cane.

Zoya recognized the young man who popped his head out—Jesper Fahey. They'd met him when they'd last been forced to work with Brekker's crew. He was brown-skinned and grey-eyed and wore his hair shaved close to the scalp. If memory served, he was some kind of expert sharpshooter.

"I'm not supposed to let you in," Jesper said.

Brekker seemed unperturbed. "Why not?"

"Because every time I do, you ask me to break the law."

A voice from behind Jesper said, "The problem isn't that he asks, it's that you always say yes."

Brynn frowned. "I'm allowed in, right?"

The same voice came again. "No. You always eat our food."

"I can't help myself, it's just so good."

"Don't you own a bakery?" asked Jesper.

"Exactly," said Brynn. "Good tastes recognize good tastes. And look who we brought!"

Jesper gazed at Nikolai. "The man with the flying ships. Come in! Come in!"

Jesper threw open the door, revealing a grand entryway and his shockingly bright combination of turquoise waistcoat and houndstooth trousers. The ensemble shouldn't have worked, but Zoya was forced to admit it did.

"I've been keeping up on your exploits, Captain Sturmhond," Jesper whispered conspiratorially.

Kaz Brekker had sussed out Nikolai's real identity at their first meeting long ago, but Zoya didn't think he'd shared it with his crew. They all still believed they were dealing with the legendary Sturmhond, rather than Ravka's king.

"You should join up with us sometime," Nikolai said smoothly. "We can always use a sharpshooter aboard."

Brynn brushed past them noiselessly, coming to stop next to a boy with ruddy gold curls and luminous blue eyes. She set her elbow on his shoulder.

"Really?" asked Jesper excitedly.

"Are you forgetting how much you hate the open sea?" asked the boy. Wylan... something. Zoya couldn't remember his last name, only that Genya had helped to tailor him as part of their plan to secure Kuwei Yul-Bo and his knowledge of jurda parem.

"I can change," said Jesper. "I'm extremely adaptable."

Brynn hummed a skeptical tune of acknowledgement, until she gasped. Her eyes were on something on Wylan's neck. Then a grin spread across her face. "You two sure have been busy, haven't you?"

Wylan's face turned red and Jesper laughed. "He likes to keep busy."

"I'm sure he does," agreed Brynn. "I'm going to go find something to eat." She was gone before Wylan could protest.

The boy let out a huff and a stream of muttered words. The rest of them followed Wylan and Jesper across a cluttered parlor strewn with musical instruments in various states of repair and a desktop littered with what looked like tiny piles of gunpowder. Through the tall windows, Zoya glimpsed a garden and a woman painting at an easel, and beyond her the slow-moving gray waters of the Geldcanal.

The house had the starchy lines and precision of any rich merchant household in Ketterdam, but it felt as if it had been taken over by a combination of circus performers, street hooligans, and mad scientists. The dining room table was laden with paints and newly strung canvases as well as what seemed to be the bits and pieces of some kind of chemistry experiment.

Zoya picked up a swatch of fabric that looked like the color had been bled from it. "Is there a Fabrikator living here?"

"A friend of ours," said Jesper, throwing his lanky figure frame down in a chair. "An indenture who likes to pop by for meals. Quite the sponger."

"Has he never been trained? The work seems rudimentary."

Jesper sniffed. "I thought it had a certain rustic elegance."

"No," said Wylan. "He hasn't been trained. He's stubborn that way."

"Independent," corrected Jesper.

"Pigheaded."

"But stylish."

Kaz rapped his cane on the floor. "And now you know why I don't visit more often."

Brynn's voice came from the kitchen. "Hey, where'd all the food go?" She came out from a doorway. "What happened to all your glorious food?"

"I hid it," said Wylan.

"Why?"

"You kept eating it. I mean, seriously, don't you have a bakery?"

"Again, I have sweets. Which is great and all, but sometimes I need actual food. You know this."

Kaz rolled his eyes briefly, bringing the conversation back to the matter at hand. "I have a job that requires both of your skill sets."

Wylan sighed, starting to carefully collect some of the half-full glasses around the room. "Kaz, we'd prefer not to do anything illegal."

"That's not strictly true," said Jesper. "Wylan would prefer it, and I want to keep Wylan happy." He paused, unable to hide his interest. "Is it illegal?"

"Highly," said Kaz.

"But the pay is excellent," offered Nikolai.

"We don't need money," said Wylan.

"Isn't it glorious?" Jesper sighed happily.

Brynn took a bite out of another cake she'd stashed somewhere in her jacket. "It's for Inej and Sasha."

Wylan set down the dirty glasses. "Why didn't you say so? What do you need?"

"To break into the base at Rentveer and misappropriate a very large supply of titanium," said Kaz.

"That shouldn't be a problem," said Jesper, clearing a space on the table, as Wylan rolled out a long sheet of paper beside a map of the Kerch coastline. "Their security is terrible."

Nikolai raised an eyebrow. "Mister Brekker led us to believe the job was nearly impossible."

Zoya scowled. "He wanted to drive up his rate."

"Thank you, Jesper," said Kaz sourly.

Jesper shrugged. "What can I say? I have a naturally honest disposition."

"And I have a golden top hat," grumbled Kaz.

"If you did, I would borrow it," said Jesper. "Now, the first question is how we move that many pounds of metal."

"Wait," said Zoya. "Can't Brynn just do her thing and trick everyone there into thinking we're not there, get the titanium out of there, almost as if it had just disappeared out of nowhere?"

"That's not how it works," the girl pointed out. "I can trick a few at most. But a whole base full of guards? Not exactly up my alley. Not yet, at least."

"It should never be up your alley," said Wylan. "That's like trying to breathe underwater or walk on the sun. Nearly impossible."

Brynn pointed at him. "Exactly. Nearly impossible. As far as I'm concerned, there's actually no such thing as impossible."

Nikolai nodded. "Right, then, we have an airship docked on Vellgeluck."

"Of course you do," said Jesper.

"It's equipped with sables and winches and can manage a big cargo load."

Kaz pointed at the map. "The base is located on a scrawny spit of land that juts out into the sea. The weather there is perpetually bad. High winds, rain."

"I can manage that," said Zoya. She could silence a storm as easily as she could summon one.

"The problem is getting any boots on the ground inside the base. There's an armed checkpoint blocking the road in, and we don't have time to gin up fake credentials."

"Not to mention, we're all extremely recognizable," Wylan said.

Kaz lifted a shoulder. "One of the unfortunate side effects of success."

"Is there any chance we can approach by sea?" asked Nikolai.

"There's no safe place to land even if you're flying Kerch flags," explained Brynn. Now, she was all business, her demeanor changed from giddy kid to knowledgeable criminal. "Our only way in is to create a distraction for the guards and disable the spotlights in the towers. Then we just cut through the fence."

"Sounds like an opportunity to be noisy," said Jesper, fingers tapping the table in an eager rhythm.

"Like I said," Kaz said, "we have need of your particular skill sets. Once we enter, we can locate the titanium and signal our people in the air. But we'll need a way to cover the sound of the airship moving into place."

"I can provide some rolling thunder," said Zoya. "How is it you know so much about how to get into this place?"

Nikolai grinned. "Because he was thinking about stealing the titanium himself."

"Truly? What possible use could you have for so much titanium?"

Kaz's gaze was cool. "If someone wants it, I can sell it. It's as simple as that."

Maybe, thought Zoya. Or maybe Kaz was like Nikolai, a boy with a unique mind, a man in perpetual need of challenge. He'd decided the base was a puzzle and he couldn't resist finding its solution.

"One question," said Wylan. "What are you going to use the titanium for?"

"Why does it matter?" asked Nikolai.

"Because unlike Kaz, I have a conscience."

"I have a conscience," said Kaz. "It just knows when to keep its mouth shut."

Jesper snorted. "If you have a conscience, it's gagged and tied up in a chair somewhere."

"Probably somewhere dark, too," added Brynn.

"This is a lot of metal," said Wylan, unwilling to let the subject go. "You're going to use it to build a weapon, aren't you?"

Zoya waited. It was up to Nikolai to decide what to disclose to this little band of monsters. Though the wretched redheaded girl probably already knew everything. Then Kaz Brekker would know everything. It was a mistake to come to them.

To her surprise, Nikolai reached into his coat pocket and tossed a sheaf of papers onto the table. David's rocket schematics.

Wylan unrolled them, his eyes moving rapidly over the plans. "These are missiles. You need the titanium to improve their range."

"Yes."

"And you want to build something bigger."

Now Nikolai looked surprised. "Yes. Maybe."

"This is for Ravka. Because of the bombing at Os Alta. You blocaded Fjerda for them and now you're helping them build a weapon."

"That bombing was a test. It was meant to provoke. If Ravka doesn't respond, Fjerda will know they can't. They'll march and they'll keep marching until every Ravkan is under Fjerdan rule and every Grisha has been thrown into a cell."

"Or worse," added Zoya.

Brynn looked a little uncomfortable. Jesper went to the sideboard and pulled a gun belt from the drawer. He slid twin pearl-handled revolvers into their holsters. "When do we leave?"

But Wylan looked less sure.

"This titanium could stop a war," Nikolai said.

Wylan ran a finger over one of the schematics. "And you can really arm and aim these things?"

"We can. Mostly. Hopefully."

"I have some ideas," said Wylan. "The problem is the nozzles, right?"

"Nozzles?" said Jesper.

"Yes," said Nikolai. "For launching and directing the rocket."

"That is a ridiculous word," said Brynn.

"It's an accurate word," objected Wylan. "And slightly ridiculous. May I?"

Nikolai nodded, and Wylan began to sketch something onto the schematic.

"We should get started," Zoya said briskly. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

It took another few hours to hash out what they intended, get the supplies they needed, and message the Cormorant. The plan seemed easy enough, and that made Zoya nervous. Wylan and Jesper would ride ahead to gather ground intelligence, then meet them at a bay only a few miles from the base. It was the easiest place for Zoya to board the Cormorant so that she and her Squallers could guide it into position over the base once Kaz, Brynn, and Nikolai were inside. It was a risk to have all three of them go inside, but it was a necessary one. Brynn might not have been able to trick every guard in the place, but if they happened to come across one or two, it would be no problem.

"I don't think it's fair that I don't get to ride in the airship," Jesper said as Kaz hustled them out of the dining room.

Nikolai winked. "The king of Ravka will be grateful for what you're going, and he has plenty of airships. Os Alta's gates will always open to you."

"To all Grisha," Zoya murmured as she drifted past. If Jesper wanted to hide his gift, that was his business, but the dragon had smelled his power the minute they'd entered the house. Zoya couldn't blame him for wanting to keep his abilities secret, to live his life full of love and misadventure without forever looking over his shoulder. Maybe someday being Grisha wouldn't mean being a target.