Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,63
covered Inej with a light wool blanket. For now, all Nina could do was monitor her pulse and breathing. As she settled Inej’s arms beneath the blanket, Nina saw the scarred flesh on the inside of her forearm. She brushed her thumb gently over the bumps and ridges. It must have been the peacock feather, the tattoo borne by members of the Menagerie, the House of Exotics. Whoever had removed it had done an ugly job of it.
Curious, Nina pushed up Inej’s other sleeve. The skin there was smooth and unmarked. Inej hadn’t taken on the crow and cup, the tattoo carried by any full member of the Dregs. Alliances shifted this way and that in the Barrel, but your gang was your family, the only protection that mattered. Nina herself bore two tattoos. The one on her left forearm was for the House of the White Rose. The one that counted was on her right: a crow trying to drink from a near empty goblet. It told the world she belonged to the Dregs, that to trifle with her was to risk their vengeance.
Inej had been with the Dregs longer than Nina and yet no tattoo. Strange. She was one of the most valued members of the gang, and it was clear Kaz trusted her—as much as someone like Kaz could. Nina thought of the look on his face when he’d set Inej down on the table. He was the same Kaz—cold, rude, impossible—but beneath all that anger, she thought she’d seen something else, too. Or maybe she was just a romantic.
She had to laugh at herself. She wouldn’t wish love on anyone. It was the guest you welcomed and then couldn’t be rid of.
Nina brushed Inej’s straight black hair back from her face. “Please be okay,” she whispered. She hated the frail waver of her voice in the cabin. She didn’t sound like a Grisha soldier or a hardened member of the Dregs. She sounded like a little girl who didn’t know what she was doing. And that was exactly how she felt. Her training had been too short. She’d been sent out on her first mission too soon. Zoya had said as much at the time, but Nina had begged to go, and they’d needed her, so the older Grisha had relented.
Zoya Nazyalensky—a powerful Squaller, gorgeous to the point of absurdity, and capable of reducing Nina’s confidence to ash with a single raised brow. Nina had worshipped her. Reckless, foolish, easily distracted. Zoya had called her all those things and worse.
“You were right, Zoya. Happy now?”
“Giddy,” said Jesper from the doorway.
Nina startled and looked up to see him rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Who’s Zoya?” he asked.
Nina slumped back in her chair. “No one. A member of the Grisha Triumvirate.”
“Fancy. The ones who run the Second Army?”
“What’s left of it.” Ravka’s Grisha soldiers had been decimated during the war. Some had fled. Most had been killed. Nina rubbed her tired eyes. “Do you know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found?”
Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his guns, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motion. “Never gave it much thought,” he said.
“Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories.” Follow the tales of witches and goblins, and unexplained happenings. Sometimes they were just superstition. But often there was truth at the heart of local legends—people who had been born with gifts that their countries didn’t understand. Nina had gotten very good at sniffing out those stories.
“Seems to me if they don’t want to be found, you should just let them be.”
Nina cast him a dark glance. “The drüskelle won’t let them be. They hunt Grisha everywhere.”
“Are they all charmers like Matthias?”
“And worse.”
“I need to find his leg shackles. Kaz gives me all the fun jobs.”
“Want to trade?” Nina asked wearily.
The frenetic energy of Jesper’s lanky frame seemed to drop away. He went as still as Nina had ever seen him, and his gaze focused on Inej for the first time since he’d entered the little cabin. He was avoiding it, Nina realized. He didn’t want to look at her. The blankets shifted slightly with her shallow breaths. When Jesper spoke, his voice was taut, the strings of an instrument tuned to a too-sharp key.