Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,37

constant companion since she was a child, had simply ceased to beat. All she could think of was parem , the exhilaration, the ease, as if the universe lay at her fingertips.

“What are you waiting for?” said Jesper.

Alerted by some sound or simply their presence, one of the guards glanced in their direction, peering into the shadows. He lifted his rifle and signaled to his companion to follow.

“They’re headed this way.” Jesper’s hands went to his guns.

Oh, Saints. If Jesper had to shoot, the other guards would be alerted. The alarm would be raised, and this whole endeavor might go straight to hell.

Nina focused with all her will. The hunger for parem seized her, quaking through her body, digging into her skull with determined talons. She ignored it. One of the guards faltered, went to his knees.

“Gillis!” said the other guard. “What is it?” But he was not foolish enough to lower his weapon. “Halt!” he shouted in their direction, still trying to support his friend. “Identify yourselves.”

“Nina ,” Jesper whispered furiously. “Do something.”

Nina clenched her fist, trying to squeeze the guard’s larynx shut to prevent him from calling for help.

“Identify yourselves!”

Jesper drew his gun. No, no, no. She was not going to be the reason this went wrong. Parem was supposed to kill her or leave her alone, not stick her in this miserable, powerless purgatory. Rage swept through Nina, clean, perfect, focusing anger. Her mind reached out and suddenly, she had hold of something, not a body, but something. She caught a movement from the corner of her eye, a dim shape emerging from the shadows—a cloud of dust. It shot toward the standing guard. He swatted at it as if trying to drive away a swarm of mosquitoes, but it whirred faster, faster, a nearly invisible blur. The guard opened his mouth to scream and the cloud vanished. He let out a grunt and toppled backward.

His compatriot was still balancing woozily on his knees. Nina and Jesper strode forward, and Jesper gave the kneeling guard a whack to the back of the head with the butt of his revolver. The man slumped to the ground, unconscious. Cautiously, they examined the other guard. He lay with eyes open, staring up at the starry sky. His mouth and nostrils were choked with fine white dust.

“Did you do that?” said Jesper.

Had she? Nina felt like she could taste the dust in her own mouth. This shouldn’t be possible. A Corporalnik could manipulate the human body, not inorganic matter. This was the work of a Fabrikator—a powerful one. “It wasn’t you?”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but this was all you, gorgeous.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him.” What had she meant to do? Just keep him quiet. Dust dribbled from the corner of his parted lips in a fine line.

“There are two more guards,” said Jesper. “And we’re already running late.”

“How about we just knock them over the head?”

“Sophisticated. I like it.”

Nina felt a strange crawling sensation all over her body, but the need for parem wasn’t screaming through her any longer. I didn’t mean to kill him. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t right now. The guards were down and the plan was in motion.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get our girl.”

I nej spent a sleepless night in the dark. When her stomach started to growl, she suspected it was morning, but no one arrived to remove her blindfold or offer her a tray. It seemed Van Eck didn’t feel the need to coddle her anymore. He’d seen the fear in her clearly enough. That would be his leverage now, not Bajan’s Suli eyes and attempts at kindness.

When her shivering had passed, she had struggled over to the vent, only to find that it had been bolted firmly shut. It had to have been done while she was in the theater. She wasn’t surprised. She suspected Van Eck had left it unsecured just to give her hope and then snatch it away.

Eventually, her mind had begun to clear, and as she’d lain in the silence, she’d made a plan. She would talk. There were plenty of safe houses and hideouts that the Dregs had ceased to use because they’d been compromised or simply stopped being convenient. She’d start there. Then there were the supposedly secure places that belonged to some of the other Barrel gangs. She knew of a converted shipping container in Third Harbor that the Liddies occasionally used. The Razorgulls liked to hole up in a dingy hotel