Our Fractured Souls | Kaz Brekker

[07]

7

Nina

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 Ketterdam harbour disappearing behind them and the steady splash of oars in the water.

Beside her Kaz adjusted his mask and cloak, 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 Imperjum, 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 herself.

Why anyone would want to live in a city like this was beyond her.

Muzzen hummed happily as he rowed. Nina only knew him in passing - a bouncer and enforcer, like the ill-fated Big Bolliger.

Nina avoided the Slat and Crow Club as much as she possibly could.

Kaz had branded her a snob for it, but she didn't much care for what Kaz Brekker had to say about her tastes. She glanced back at Muzzen's huge shoulders.

She wondered if Kaz had brought him along tonight just to row, or because he expected trouble.

Of course there would be trouble.

They were breaking into a prison.

It wasn't going to be a party.

So why were they dressed for one?
She'd met Kaz 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 as they sampled the excesses of the Barrel.

Kaz had a big orange cape with a Madman's mask perched atop his head; Muzzen wore the same. 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.

She was about to give in and ask why the costumes were necessary when she realised 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?

Kaz had refused to tell her the specifics of his plan, and when she'd insisted, he'd merely said, "Get in the boat."

That was Kaz all over.

He 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 trying to talk him into breaking Matthias out of jail for the better part of a year. Now he could offer Matthias more than freedom, but the price would be far higher than she expected.

Only a few lights were visible as they approached the rocky shoal of Terrenjel. The rest was darkness and crashing waves.

"Couldn't you just bribe the warden?" She muttered to Kaz.