and that last familiar thing was drifting farther away with every moment.
Matthias felt some small measure of sympathy, but as they trekked through the morning, he had to admit he enjoyed seeing the canal rats shiver and struggle a bit for once. They thought they knew cold, but the white north had a way of forcing strangers to reevaluate their terms. They stumbled and staggered, awkward in their new boots, trying to find the trick of walking in hard-crusted snow, and soon Matthias was in the lead, setting the pace, though Jesper kept a steady eye on his compass.
“Put your…” Matthias paused and had to gesture to Wylan. He didn’t know the Kerch word for “goggles” or even “snow,” for that matter. They weren’t terms that came up in prison. “Keep your eyes covered, or you could damage them permanently.” Men went blind this far north; they lost lips, ears, noses, hands, and feet. The land was barren and brutal, and that was all most people saw. But to Matthias it was beautiful. The ice bore the spirit of Djel. It had color and shape and even a scent if you knew to seek it out.
He pushed ahead, feeling almost at peace, as if here Djel could hear him and ease his troubled mind. The ice brought back memories of childhood, of hunting with his father. They’d lived farther south, near Halmhend, but in the winters that part of Fjerda didn’t look much different from this, a world of white and gray, broken by groves of black-limbed trees and jutting clusters of rock that seemed to have risen up from nowhere, shipwrecks on a bare ocean floor.
The first day trekking was like a cleansing—little talk, the white hush of the north welcoming Matthias back without judgment. He’d expected more complaints, but even Wylan had simply put his head down and walked. They’re all survivors, Matthias understood. They adapt. When the sun began to set, they ate their rations of dried beef and hardtack and collapsed into their tents without a word.
But the next morning brought an end to the quiet and Matthias’ fragile sense of peace. Now that they were off the ship and away from its crew, Kaz was ready to dig into the details of the plan.
“If we get this right, we’re going to be in and out of the Ice Court before the Fjerdans ever know their prize scientist is gone,” Kaz said as they shouldered their packs and continued to push south. “When we enter the prison, we’ll be taken to the holding area beneath the men’s and women’s cellblocks to await charges. If Matthias is right and the procedures are still the same, the patrols only pass through the holding cells three times a day for head counts. Once we’re out of the cells, we should have at least six hours to cross to the embassy, locate Yul-Bayur on the White Island, and get him down to the harbor before they realize anyone is gone.”
“What about the other prisoners in the holding cells?” Matthias asked.
“We have that covered.”
Matthias scowled, but he wasn’t particularly surprised. Once they were in those holding cells, Kaz and the others would be at their most vulnerable. It would take only a word to the guards for Matthias to put an end to all their scheming. That was what Brum would do, what an honorable man would choose. Some part of Matthias had believed that coming back to Fjerda would return him to his senses, give him the strength to forsake this mad quest; instead it had only made his longing for home, for the life he’d once lived among his drüskelle brothers, more acute.
“Once we’re out of the cells,” Kaz continued, “Matthias and Jesper will secure rope from the stables while Wylan and I get Nina and Inej out of the women’s holding area. The basement is our meet. That’s where the incinerator is, and no one should be in the laundry after the prison shuts down for the night. While Inej makes the climb, Wylan and I scour the laundry for anything he can use for demo. And just in case the Fjerdans decided to stash Bo Yul-Bayur in the prison and make life easy on us, Nina, Matthias, and Jesper will search the top level cells.”
“Nina and Matthias?” Jesper asked. “Far be it from me to doubt anyone’s professionalism, but is that really the ideal pairing?”
Matthias bit down on his anger. Jesper was right, but he hated being