Zoya wrinkled her nose. “Live on salt cod and pray to the Saint of Oranges that I don’t get scurvy? I think not.”
“No small part of you wishes for this kind of freedom?” Because, all Saints, he did.
She laughed, tilting her face to the salt breeze. “I long for boredom. I would gladly sit in a drawing room at the Little Palace and sip my tea and maybe fall asleep in the middle of a tedious meeting. I’d like to linger over a meal without thinking of all the work yet to be done. I’d like to get through one night without…”
She trailed off, but Nikolai understood too well how to finish her thought. “Without a nightmare. Without waking in a cold sweat. I know.”
Zoya rested her chin in her hands and looked out at the water. “We’ve been promised a future for so long. A day when the Grisha would be safe, when Ravka would be at peace. Every time we try to grab for it, it slips through our fingers.”
Nikolai had sometimes wondered if it was in his nature to be restless, in Zoya’s nature to be ruthless, and in Ravka’s nature to be forever at war beneath the Lantsov banner. Was that part of what drew him to this life as king? He longed for peace for his country, but did some part of him fear it as well? Who was he without someone to oppose him? Without a problem to solve?
“I promised you that future.” He wished he’d been able to make that dream come true for both of them. “I didn’t deliver.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she clipped out, haughty and imperious as a queen. But she didn’t look at him when she said, “You gave Ravka a chance. You gave me a country I could fight for. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Gratitude. Was that what he wanted from her? Nevertheless, Nikolai found he was pleased. He cleared his throat. “I believe we’ve arrived.”
The crew lowered the gangway, and Nikolai and Zoya strode up the Fifth Harbor dock.
Zoya planted her hands on her hips, surveying the tangle of people and cargo around them. “Of course Brekker couldn’t be bothered to meet us.”
“Best not to announce our association on the Ketterdam docks.” It would have been safer and simpler to send a delegation on the crown’s behalf, but Brekker had ignored every message until Nikolai had penned the letter himself. He and Zoya had worked with the young thief before. They weren’t friends or even trusted associates, but they had a better shot of winning Kaz Brekker’s help than strangers.
“You are a king.”
“Not while I wear this coat.”
“Even with a pelican on your head, you’d still be the king of Ravka, and it wouldn’t kill that Barrel rat to show a bit of respect.” They plunged into the crowds of tourists and sailors on the quay. “I loathe this city.”
“It’s lively,” he said, switching to Kerch.
“If by lively you mean a rat-infested, coal-dust-covered lump of human misery,” she replied in kind, her accent heavy. “And I don’t like their language either.”
“I like the bustle. You can feel the prosperity of this place; I want Ravka to have a piece of this—trade, industry. Our country shouldn’t always have to be the beggar at the door.”
Zoya’s face was thoughtful as they turned onto East Stave, both sides of the canal lined with gambling dens, some grand and some squalid. Each facade was more garish than the last, meant to entice tourists looking for fun. Barkers shouted from every doorway, promising the biggest pots and the liveliest play.
“You don’t agree,” he said with some surprise.
Zoya eyed an imposing building that Nikolai could have sworn had been called the Emerald … Empire? Palace? It had once been done up in Kaelish green and gold. Now it was outfitted in heaps of fake jewels, and a sign over the door read THE SILVER SIX.
A barker shouted at an old panhandler, chasing him from his roost beside the door. “Go on with you! Don’t make me call the stadwatch.” The man hobbled a few steps off, nearly toppling over his walking stick, his old body twisted by time and trouble.
“Spare a coin for an old fool what’s lost his luck?”
“I said go! You’re scaring off the pigeons.”
“Easy now,” said Nikolai. “We’re all someone’s uncle.”
“I don’t have no brothers or sisters,” said the barker.
Nikolai tossed a folded kruge into the old man’s cap. “Then let’s all give thanks your parents didn’t make more of you.”
“Hey!” snarled the barker, but they were already moving on.
“That’s what I mean,” said Zoya as they crossed another bridge. “This city is all about the next bit of coin.”
“And they’re richer for it.”
The energy of the Barrel felt contagious—the street vendors hawking paper cones full of sizzling meat and syrupy stacks of waffles, two-bit magicians daring passersby to try their luck, drunken tourists outfitted as the Gray Imp or the Lost Bride, and smooth-limbed creatures of impossible beauty, bodies clad in bare scraps of silk, cheekbones dusted with glitter, luring the lonely or curious across one of the many bridges to the pleasure houses of West Stave. The sheer amount of money passing through this place, the endless tide of people—there was nothing like it in Ravka.
She shook her head. “You see this city from the position of a king. A prince who came here as a student, a privateer who rules the seas. From where I stand, the view is not the same.”
“Because you’re Grisha?”
“Because I know what it is to be sold.” She gestured to the busy street and the canal teeming with gondels and market boats. “I know we need this. Jobs for our people, money in our coffers. But Ketterdam was built on the backs of the vulnerable. Grisha indentures. Suli and Zemeni and Kaelish who came here for something better but weren’t permitted to own land or hold positions on the Merchant Council.”
“Then we take what we like from the Kerch and leave the rest. We build something better, something for everyone.”
“If fate gives us half a chance.”
“And if fate doesn’t give us the chance, we steal it.”
“Ketterdam is rubbing off on you.” A small smile curled her lips. “But I think I believe you. Maybe it’s the coat.”
Nikolai winked at her. “It’s not the coat.”
“Come closer so I can push you into the canal.”
“I think not.”
“I do want prosperity for Ravka,” said Zoya. “But for all of Ravka. Not just the nobles in their palaces or the merchants with their fleets of ships.”
“Then we build that future together.”
“Together,” Zoya repeated. Her expression was troubled.
“What doomsaying is happening behind that gorgeous face, Nazyalensky?”
“If we survive the war … Once peace is struck, you should station me elsewhere.”
“I see,” he said, unwilling to show how much those words bothered him. “Did you have someplace in mind?”
“Os Kervo. We’ll need a strong presence there.”
“You’ve thought it all out, then.”
She nodded, two quick bobs of her chin. “I have.”