No Mourners, No Funerals

2.✓

Inej left without saying another word to her second-in-command. The aghast expression on his face when he realised Inej referred to Ketterdam as her home didn't go unnoticed, though he was quick to change it. For anyone else it would have been difficult to understand what was going through his head. His skills were appreciable but for someone who spent days reading the Bastard of the Barrel, Caden was like an open book.

It caught her off guard too. Since when did Ketterdam become home?

She took out the hidden knives tied over her leg and was about to go to sleep when a soft voice caught her attention. She stood up from the makeshift cot and followed the voice.

***

Nina shivered in the cold Fjerdan wind and pulled her coat closer around herself, for what little good it did. The cold here seemed to be able to crawl in through every little part or opening of the fabric. It seemed almost alive.

The people around her hustled and bustled to and fro, going about their lives. They called to each other in Fjerdan. Some of the kids laughed and played on the streets between the buildings that blocked out the bottom of the sky, or played in the snow that had been swept out of the way-except this wasn't the soft, fluffy snow that she had played in as a little girl in Ravka. This snow was hard as ice, dirt-stained and slippery.

She was in a town a little north of Djerholm-a port town, which she had been staying at for the past four months. She had told herself she needed that time to organise her finances for the long, dangerous trip further into the heart of Fjerda. She told herself that all the waiting was for a good reason.

She knew, though. She knew why.

She didn't want to say goodbye.
She wasn't ready to say goodbye. Not to Matthias. Not now, probably not ever.

Today, though, today was finally the day. Nina was going, she was going now, and she wouldn't be stopped by anything.

"What do you mean they aren't ready?"

The man shrugged. His hand crept up to toy with his long blond beard, probably a nervous habit. He probably wasn't used to angry teenaged girls yelling at him.

In stilted, heavily accented Kerch, he said, "I will have ready by end of day. Wait here."

He made to walk off, but Nina matched his pace and continued talking, "That wasn't the deal. They were to be ready by this morning, so the expedition could make as much use of the sunlight as possible. That's what I'm paying you for."

The man glowered. Nina had no doubt he ordinarily would have refused to help her for speaking to him in such a way. But her money would provide himself and his men the finances they would need to get through the worst of winter, and the resulting slump in business. He couldn't afford to make her-and her wallet-leave.

"Will go in one hour," he relented. "Meet at tavern."

She didn't need to ask which tavern-this little town was so small it had only one.

"The tavern, one hour," she agreed.

***

Kaz took the stairs in stride, refusing to slow down even as his leg protested the motions. He hadn't gone out much that day, instead worked through mounds of paperwork. He was half-listening to Jesper's constant stream of conversation as he stepped out of the Slat and into the Barrel streets. He cast his eyes around, there was the constant hustle and bustle of pigeons in their masks and cloaks, thinking themselves unseen. Thieves and bruisers collecting in the alleys, the familiar stench of progress and pollution he had long since gone nose blind to, whipping up in the air.