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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The sick feeling in Nina's stomach had nothing to do with the rocking of the rowboat. She tried to breathe deeply, to focus on the lights of the Ketterdam harbour disappearing behind them and the steady splash of the oars in the water. Beside her, Kaz adjusted his mask and cloak, Kasper stood slient and brooding as he stared out at sea, while Muzzen rowed with relentless and aggressive speed, driving them closer to Terrenjel, one of Kerch's tiny outlying islands, closer to Hellgate and Matthias.
Fog lay low over the water, damp and curling. It carried the smell of tar and machinery' from the shipyards on Imperium, and something else - the sweet stink of burning bodies from the Reaper's Barge, where Ketterdam disposed of the dead who couldn't afford to be buried in the cemeteries outside the city. Disgusting, Nina thought, drawing her cloak tighter around her. Why anyone would want to live in a city like this w as beyond her.
Muzzen hummed happily as he rowed. Nina knew him only in passing - a bouncer and an enforcer, like the ill- fated Big Bolliger. She avoided the Slat and the Crow Club as much as possible. Kaz had branded her a snob for it, but she didn't much care what Kaz Brekker had to say about her tastes. She glanced back at Muzzen's huge shoulders. She wondered if Kaz had just brought him along to row or because he expected trouble tonight.
Of course there will be trouble. They were breaking into a prison. It wasn't going to be a party. So why are we dressed for one?
She'd met Kaz, Kasper, and Muzzen at Fifth Harbour at midnight, and when she'd boarded the little rowboat, Kaz had handed her a blue silk cape and a matching veil - the trappings of the Lost Bride, one of the costumes pleasure seekers liked to don when they sampled the excesses of the Barrel. Kaz had on a big orange cape with a Madman's mask perched atop his head; Muzzen had worn the same. Kasper had chosen to don the costume of Mister Crimson. All they needed was a stage, and they could perform one of those dark, savage little scenes from the Komedie Brute that the Kerch seemed to find so hilarious.
Now Kaz gave her a nudge. "Lower your veil." He pulled down his own mask; the long nose and bulging eyes looked doubly monstrous in the fog. Kasper pulled down his own mask.
She was about to give in and ask why the costumes were necessary when she realised that they weren't alone. Through the shifting mists, she caught sight of other boats moving through the water, carrying the shapes of other Madmen, other Brides, a Mister Crimson, a Scarab Queen. What business did these people have at Hellgate.
Kasper had refused to tell her the specifics of his plan, and when she'd insisted, he'd simply said, "Get in the boat." That was Kasper and his brother all over. They knew he didn't have to tell her anything because the lure of Matthias' freedom had already overridden every bit of her good sense. She'd been try ing to talk Kaz and Kasper into breaking Matthias out of jail for the better part of a year. Now they could offer Matthias more than freedom, but the price would be far higher than she had expected.
