sinner saint ━ six of crows

IV

                   HER HEAD WAS SPINNING, that was the third time it had happened that day. But now for a completely different reason.

Natalia was still missing, and Grisha are suffering. Svetlana didn't know which was worse.

As a high-ranking Grisha, she should put the other Grisha first. But Natalia is a Grisha too, and she's being held by Fjerdan. As Svetlana Milkovich, she should put the girl she's always seen as a daughter first.

The conflict was going to tear her apart.

"What the hell is this?" She heard Kaz hiss. "Let me go and I'll explain."

"You can explain right where you are."

Van Eck was annoyed and scared for his life, he knew the reputation Kaz Brekker held, he knew what kind o man he was, so he decided that he wasn't in a place to argue any further.

"What you're seeing are the effects of jurda parem."

"Jurda is just a stimulant." Kaz said, speaking her mind. Svetlana used to have stashes of jurda in her room back at the Bay, the blossoms used to be her favorite pastime. "It's harmless."

"Jurda parem is something completely different, and it is most definitely not harmless." If this is what jurda parem did then Svetlana figured she should steer clear of its path.

"So you did drug me," Kaz said, and It almost made Lana roll her eyes had she even dared to pull them off Mikka. "Not you, him."

Mikka did look sickly, he looked like he was on the brink of death even. Like he was walking on a high wire between life and death and he was severely imbalanced. He had dark hollows beneath his eyes and the fragile, trembling build of someone who had missed several meals and didn't seem to care.

But he looked so young, fourteen at best, and it shattered her heart knowing the mercy that he deserved, because no Grisha deserved to feel like this, to look like this, or be treated like this.

"Jurda parem is a cousin to ordinary jurda," Van Eck continued, "It comes from the same plant. We're not sure of the process by which the drug is made, but a sample of it was sent to the Kerch Merchant Council by a scientist named Bo Yul-Bayur."

The name shouldn't have had the reaction that came out of her. It was a stranger's name, she can't say she's never heard it before, but he was a stranger. A Shu stranger. A Shu scientist.

She visibly froze, her breath hitched silently and she cursed all Saints when Kaz caught her gaze. He noted her pale form and her sweating brows, the way her eyes widened at the name, and the way her pupils contracted, she had gone rigid.

He was Kaz Brekker, nothing went unnoticed by him.

"Shu." She mumbled, and her voice sounded so small to her ears, and she had never wanted to disappear more than that moment. Van Eck spared her one glance, "Yes. He wished to defect—"

Svetlana snorted, and when Kaz glanced at her again, it was like her weakened form never even existed. She was back to how she was earlier, man spread on that chair with both her hands relaxed in her lap, her back leaning on the chair ever so comfortably. He was almost impressed.

"Shu scientists don't defect, Van Eck."

He ignored her, as usual. "He sent us a sample to convince us of his claims regarding the drug's extraordinary effects."

"'Extraordinary effects'? You tested this drug on Grisha?" She was horrified, but what had she really expected from the Merchant Council? Actually honor the dignity of Grisha? For her people? Every single Grisha in Ketterdam was indentured to someone in a higher position than they are; they've all been kidnapped or enslaved or trafficked somehow. Grisha lived in Ketterdam illegally, and not because they wanted to.