In a cold and rainy city, comes the story of two unlikely individuals. A criminal prodigy and a Grisha. The boy, known more commonly by the alias he shared with his brother, together they were the "bastards of the barrel." His brother was Dirtyhand...
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Both Inej and Lanying knew the moment Kaz and Kasper entered the Slat. Their presences reverberated through the cramped rooms and crooked hallways as every thug, thief, dealer, conman, and steerer came a little more awake. Per Haskell's favoured lieutenants were home.
The Slat wasn't much, just another house in the worst part of the Barrel, three storeys stacked tight on top of each other, crowned with an attic and a gabled roof. Most of the buildings in this part of the city had been built without foundations, many on swampy land where the canals were haphazardly dug. They leaned against each other like tipsy friends gathered at a bar, tilting at drowsy angles. Inej and Lanying had visited plenty of them on errands for the Dregs and they weren't much better on the inside - cold and damp, plaster sliding from the walls, gaps in the windows wide enough to let in the rain and snow. Kaz and Kasper had spent their own money to have the Slat's drafts shorn up and its walls insulated. It was ugly, crooked, and crowded, but the Slat was gloriously dry. Inej's room was on the third floor, a skinny slice of space barely big enough for a cot and an trunk, but with a window that looked out over the peaked roofs and jumbled chimneys of the Barrel. When the wind came through and cleared away the haze of coal smoke that hung over the city, she could even make out a blue pocket of harbour.
Lanying was located on the third floor was well right across from Inej. Like Inej's room, there wasn't much room. Only space enough for a cot, a trunk and a table. In Lanying's room, behind a false panel on the wall, there was a shrine, courtesy of Kasper, where Lanying's figurines of the Six Soldiers were arranged. It was so that at anytime Lanying wished, she could pray in the privacy of her room.
Though dawn was just a few hours away, the Slat was wide awake. The only time the house was ever really quiet was in the slow hours of the afternoon, and tonight everyone was buzzing with the news of the showdown at the Exchange, Big Bolliger's fate, and now poor Rojakke's dismissal.
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Inej and Lanying had gone straight from the conversation with Kaz and Kasper to seek out the card dealer at the Crow Club. He'd been at the tables dealing Three Man Bramble for Jesper and a couple of Ravkan tourists. When he'd finished the hand, Inej had suggested they speak in one of the private gaming parlours to spare him the embarrassment of being fired in front of his friends, but Rojakke wasn't having it.
"It's not fair," he'd bellowed when she'd told him Kaz's orders. "I ain't no cheat!"
"Take it up with Kaz," Inej had replied quietly.
"And keep your voice down," Jesper added, glancing at the tourists and sailors seated at the neighbouring tables. Fights were common in the Barrel, but not on the floor of the Crow Club. If you had a gripe, you settled it outside, where you didn't risk interrupting the hallowed practice of separating pigeons from their money.
