Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,119

to make sure to keep everything in its place. There had to be some kind of transfer order, some discussion of where they would place such a valuable prisoner. She saw the usual plans and maps, and what looked like a sketch of intersecting parabolas beside a long series of equations. A weapon? A note above it read: Hajefetla. Songbird. There were designs for some kind of helmet, what might be modifications to a repeating rifle, a sea transport.

Nina hesitated. The maps, the plans—more tragedies in the making? If she’d only been able to understand the targets she’d seen on Brum’s desk before, she might have warned Zoya and King Nikolai of the bombing to come. She might have saved hundreds of lives. But if she stole these plans, Brum would know someone had been in his office. There was a good chance she and the Hringsa agents at the Ice Court would be compromised before they ever got the plans where they needed to go, and Hanne could be put in jeopardy too. Nina would communicate all she could remember to the Hringsa, but she had to stay focused. She didn’t have much time, and she’d come here to find Magnus Opjer.

Then she spotted a strange word: Rëvfeder. Foxfather.

Nina’s eyes scanned the page, but she wasn’t reading a transfer order. It was the report of an escape. Magnus Opjer had somehow gotten out of his cell, out of the drüskelle sector, and out of the Ice Court—and taken Queen Tatiana’s letters with him. Well, thank you for bearing the blame for that, Magnus. The next line on the report made Nina’s stomach lurch: A piece of what looked like sharpened bone had been found in the lock of Magnus Opjer’s cell door.

Nina remembered Opjer’s hands gripping her sleeves as he’d begged her to free him. She’d thought it was desperation, but maybe it had just been a performance. Could Magnus Opjer, the most valued and recognizable prisoner in Fjerda, really have escaped the Ice Court?

Wily old bastard. Foxfather indeed. He’d pilfered one of her bone darts and used it to pick the lock of his cage. If she’d needed any further proof that Opjer was King Nikolai’s father, this was it.

So where was he now? Nina didn’t know, and she had no way of finding out. She would call on her contacts in the Hringsa, relay the information to Ravka. For now, she was stuck. There was speculation in the report that he might head back to his home north of Djerholm to reunite with his daughter or even to Elling, where some of his shipping vessels were docked. He is a man without means, said the report. He cannot book passage on a ship. He cannot hope to cross the border into Ravka. It is only a matter of time before the target is reacquired.

Nina wondered. Magnus Opjer wasn’t a noble. He was a self-made man, a shipping magnate with a lifetime’s worth of connections and an established network of sailing craft. And he was Nikolai Lantsov’s father. He might be lacking cash, but if he’d managed to get clear of the Ice Court, he definitely wasn’t short on ingenuity.

A sound from the courtyard below drew Nina from her thoughts. The gate was opening. Could the drüskelle have returned so soon?

She slipped the escape report back among the papers on the desk and hurried out of the office, making sure the lock slid into place. Brum would find his office just as he’d left it.

Nina started down the stairs but heard the sound of voices below. Damn it.

She raced back the way she’d come, dodging down the hall on silent feet, gently trying each door, praying one would be unlocked.

At last a handle turned. She slid inside and shut the door behind her with a click that seemed to echo in her ears.

“What are you doing here?”

She whirled. Joran stood before her in his black uniform, his face furious, his eyes slitted in suspicion. Someone else must be guarding the prince tonight.

Nina’s thoughts skittered wildly through her head, a panicked rush, birds startled from the quiet.

Are you really doing this? She had time to wonder before her mouth blurted, “Commander Brum told me to meet him here.”

She was Mila now, lip trembling, hands wringing.

Joran’s fingers hovered over his whip. “The commander would never violate these rooms with the presence of a woman.”

Nina grasped the bone darts in her sleeve. She didn’t want to kill Joran, but she would