and not the work of Djel. What if both things were true? What if Djel worked through these people? Unnatural. The word had come so easily to him, a way to dismiss what he did not understand, to make Nina and her kind less than human. But what if behind the righteousness that drove the drüskelle , there was something less clean or justified? What if it wasn’t even fear or anger but simply envy? What did it mean to aspire to serve Djel, only to see his power in the gifts of another, to know you could never possess those gifts yourself?
The drüskelle gave their oath to Fjerda, but to their god as well. If they could be made to see miracles where once they’d seen abomination, what else might change? I have been made to protect you. His duty to his god, his duty to Nina. Maybe they were the same thing. What if Djel’s hand had raised the waters the night of the wrathful storm that wrecked the drüskelle ship and bound Matthias and Nina together?
Matthias was running through the streets of a foreign city, into dangers he did not know, but for the first time since he’d looked into Nina’s eyes and seen his own humanity reflected back at him, the war inside him quieted.
We’ll find a way to change their minds , she’d said. All of them. He would locate Nina. They would survive this night. They would free themselves of this damp, misbegotten city, and then … Well, then they’d change the world.
I nej twisted, breaking the clawlike grip on the back of her neck. She scrambled to stop her fall. Her legs found purchase on the silo roof and she yanked herself free, pushing away from the hatch. She rocked back on her heels, knives already released from their sheaths, deadly weight in her hands.
Her mind could not quite make sense out of what she was seeing. A girl stood before her on the silo roof, gleaming like a figure carved of ivory and amber. Her tunic and trousers were the color of cream, banded in ivory leather and embroidered in gold. Her auburn hair hung in a thick braid laced with the glint of jewels. She was tall and slender, maybe a year or two older than Inej.
Inej’s first thought was of the Kherguud soldiers that Nina and the others had seen in West Stave, but this girl didn’t look Shu.
“Hello, Wraith,” the girl said.
“Do I know you?”
“I am Dunyasha, the White Blade, trained by the Sages of Ahmrat Jen, the greatest assassin of this age.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I’m new to this city,” the girl acknowledged, “but I’m told you are a legend on these filthy streets. I confess, I thought you’d be … taller.”
“What business?” Inej asked, the traditional Kerch greeting at the beginning of any meeting, though it felt absurd to say it twenty stories in the air.
Dunyasha smiled. It seemed practiced, like the smiles Inej had seen girls give customers in the gilded Menagerie parlor. “A crude greeting for a crude city.” She flicked her fingers carelessly toward the skyline, acknowledging and dismissing Ketterdam with a single gesture. “Fate brought me here.”
“And does fate pay your wages?” Inej asked, sizing her up. She did not think this ivory-and-amber girl had scaled a silo just to make her acquaintance. In a fight, Dunyasha’s height would give her a longer reach, but it might impact her balance. Had Van Eck sent her? And if so, had he sent someone after Nina too? She spared the briefest glance below but could see nothing in the deep shadows of the silos. “Who do you work for?”
Knives appeared in Dunyasha’s hands, their edges gleaming brightly. “Our work is death,” she said, “and it is holy.”
An exultant light filled her eyes, the first true spark of life Inej had seen in her, and then she attacked.
Inej was startled by the girl’s speed. Dunyasha moved like painted light, as if she were a blade herself, cutting through the darkness, her knives slicing in tandem, left, right. Inej let her body respond, dodging more on instinct than anything else, backing away from her opponent, but avoiding the silo’s edge. She feinted left and slipped past Dunyasha, managing the first thrust of her own.
Dunyasha whirled and evaded the attack easily, weightless as sun gilding the surface of a lake. Inej had never seen someone fight this way, as if she were moving to music only she could hear.
“Are