“Just how long are we going to be kept waiting?” a man in wine-coloured velvet asked. The guards ignored him, but the other guests clustered by the entry with Inej grumbled their frustration. “I came here at great expense,” he continued, “and it was not so I could spend all my time hovering by the front door.”
The guard closest to them recited in a bored monotone, “The men at the checkpoint are dealing with other guests. As soon as they’re free, you’ll be taken back through the ringwall and detained at the checkpoint until your identification can be cleared.”
“Detained,” said the man in velvet. “Like criminals!”
Inej had heard variations on the same exchange for the better part of an hour. She glanced out at the courtyard that led to the embassy’s ringwall gate. If she was going to make this plan work, she had to be smart, stay calm. Except this wasn’t quite the plan, and she definitely didn’t feel calm. The certainty and optimism she’d felt only a short while ago had all but evaporated. She waited as the minutes ticked by, eyes scanning the crowd. But when the three-quarters chime sounded, she knew she could wait no longer. She had to act now.
“I’ve had enough,” Inej said loudly. “Take us to the checkpoint or let us go.”
“The guards manning the checkpoint—”
Inej thrust herself to the front of the group and said, “We’re all sick of that speech. Take us to the gate and get on with it.”
“Be silent,” commanded the guard. “You are guests here.”
Inej jabbed a finger into his chest. “So treat us like guests,” she said, mustering her best Nina imitation. “I demand to be taken to the gate immediately, you big blond lump.”
The guard grabbed her arm. “You’re so desperate to go to the gate?
Let’s go. You won’t be coming back through.” “I only—”
Then another voice echoed across the rotunda. “Stop! You there, I said stop!”
Inej smelled her perfume – lilies, rich and creamy, a dense golden smell. She wanted to gag. Heleen Van Houden, owner and proprietor of the Menagerie, the House of Exotics, where the world was yours for a price, was pushing her way through the crowd.
Hadn’t she said Tante Heleen loved to make an entrance?
The guard came to a startled halt as Heleen shoved in front of him. “Madam, your girl will be returned to you at night’s end. Her papers—”
“She is not my girl,” Heleen said, her eyes slitting viciously. Inej stood perfectly still, but not even she could vanish with nowhere to go. “That is the Wraith, right hand of Kaz Brekker and one of the most notorious criminals in Ketterdam.”
The people around them turned to stare.
“How dare you come here under the auspices of my House?” Heleen hissed. “The house that clothed you and fed you? And where is Adjala?”
Inej opened her mouth, but panic rose up, tightening her throat, choking the words before they could come out. Her tongue felt useless and numb. Once more, she was looking into the eyes of the woman who had beaten her, threatened her, bought her once, and then sold her again and again.
Heleen grabbed Inej by the shoulders and shook her. “Where is my girl?”
Inej looked down at the fingers digging into her flesh. For a brief second, every horror came back to her, and she truly was a wraith, a ghost taking flight from a body that had given her only pain. No. A body that had given her strength. A body that had carried her over the rooftops
of Ketterdam, that had served her in battle, that had brought her up six storeys in the dark of a soot-stained chimney.
Inej seized Heleen’s wrist and twisted it hard to the right. Heleen yelped, her knees buckling as the guards surged forwards.
“I threw your girl in the ice moat,” Inej snarled, barely recognising her own voice. Her other hand seized Heleen’s throat, squeezing. “And she’s better off there than with you.”
Then strong arms were tugging at her, pulling her off the older woman, hauling her back.
Inej panted, heart racing. I could have killed her, she thought. I felt her pulse beneath my palm. I should have killed her.
Heleen got to her feet, whimpering and coughing as onlookers moved to help her. “If she’s here, then Brekker is as well!” she shrieked.
At that moment, as if in agreement, the bells of the Black Protocol began to sound, loud and insistent. There was a stunned second of inertia. Then the entire rotunda seemed to explode into action as guards rushed to their posts and commanders began calling orders.
One of the guards, clearly the captain, said something in Fjerdan. The only word Inej recognised was prison. He grabbed the silk of her cape and shouted in Kerch, “Who is on your team? What is your target?”
“I will not speak,” said Inej.
“You’ll sing if we want you to,” spat the guard.
Heleen’s laugh was low and rich with pleasure. “I’ll see you hanged.
And Brekker, too.”
“The bridge is closed,” someone declared. “No one else is getting on or off the island tonight!” Angry guests turned to anyone who would listen, demanding explanations.
The guards dragged Inej through the courtyard, past gaping onlookers, and out of the ringwall gate as the bells continued to toll. They did not bother with gentleness or diplomacy now.
“I told you you’d wear my silks again, little lynx,” Heleen called from the courtyard. The gate was already lowering, as the guards sealed it in accordance with Black Protocol. “You’ll hang in them now.”
The gate slammed closed, but Inej could swear that she still heard Heleen’s laughter.
