“You can abide by propriety or put a weapon in my hand and let me defend myself.”
“Do you even know how to use a revolver?”
With a sure hand, Hanne spun the barrel to make sure it was loaded. “You taught me well.”
“Years ago.”
“I didn’t forget.”
Brum’s expression was troubled, but all he said was, “Be careful.” He and his men vanished through the gate.
Two guards remained on the battlements, but they had their attention turned outward, rifles raised and pointed at whoever might seek to breach the ringwall.
“Go,” said Hanne. “But be quick.”
Nina hurried across the courtyard past the kennels and the wolves, who stared at her silently despite the commotion. She had never regretted her heavy skirts more. Maybe that’s why Fjerdans like to keep their women swimming in wool, she considered, slipping inside the building Hanne had marked on her map of the sector. So they can’t get away too fast.
She tried to keep Hanne’s map in her head as she sped down a long corridor. She glimpsed a huge dining room on the right, beneath a pyramid-shaped skylight. There were long mess hall tables and an immense tapestry hung on the back wall, woven in blue, red, and purple. Her footsteps faltered as her mind caught up to what she’d seen. That tapestry that covered nearly the entirety of the wall—it was made out of scraps of kefta. Blue for Etherealki, a smattering of purple for Materialki, and row after row of red for Corporalki, her order. The Order of the Living and the Dead. They were trophies taken from fallen Grisha. Nina felt sick. She wanted to set the damn thing on fire. Instead she pushed her anger aside and made her feet move. Vengeance would come, retribution for Brum and his minions. But not until she saw this mission through.
Up the stairs—the newel posts capped by snarling wolves—then down another gloomy hallway. She counted the doors: third on the left. This should be Jarl Brum’s office. She grasped the handle of the door and jammed in the key she’d taken from Brum’s key ring that morning.
Nina hurried inside. It was an elegant room, though windowless. The mantel was crowded with medals, awards, and souvenirs that made Nina’s heart hurt—spent bullet cartridges, what might have been a child’s jawbone, a dagger with a woman’s name engraved on the handle in Ravkan: Sofiya Baranova.
Who were you? Nina wondered. Did you survive?
An old-fashioned musket hung above the hearth beside one of the whips Brum had innovated for restraining Grisha.
She made herself focus on Brum’s desk. The drawers and cabinets weren’t locked. They had no reason to be; this was the safest, most secure place in the Ice Court. But Nina wasn’t sure where to begin searching for Queen Tatiana’s letters. She combed through schedules and ship manifests, and set aside entire files of what looked like trial transcripts. There were coded messages she didn’t know how to decipher, as well as detailed plans of the military base at Poliznaya and a city plan of Os Alta. There were markings on both that she couldn’t make sense of. She touched her finger briefly to the squares labeled as the Little Palace, the grounds, the school. Home. Move, Zenik.
But the letters weren’t in the desk. So where were they? She looked behind the portrait of a blond man in antiquated armor—Audun Elling, she suspected, the founder of the drüskelle. Then she felt along the walls, knocking softly, forcing herself to slow down, to be thorough. The Elderclock sounded the quarter chime. She’d been gone for almost fifteen minutes. How much longer did she have before Brum returned or the guards noticed Hanne was alone?
She knocked gently against the wall beside the mantel—there, a hollow thunk. She trailed her fingers over the panels, looking for some slot or indentation, pressing carefully. A fur hat hung from a hook at just above eye level. She pulled gently on it. The panel slid to the right. A safe. The letters had to be inside. She was definitely not a safecracker and hadn’t bothered to study the art while in Ketterdam. But she’d anticipated that the letters might be locked away. She removed the bottle of scent from her coat pocket, opened it, and poured in a few drops from the second vial the gardener had handed her. No more than three drops, he’d whispered, or it will eat through the walls of the safe too. And Nina didn’t want there to be any visible damage. When she was done, all that would remain was the scent of roses.
She pulled a slender rubber tube from her pocket and fitted one end over the nozzle of the bottle, then wiggled the other end through the narrow space between the door of the safe and the wall. She pumped the bulb attached to the bottle, forcing air through the tube, listening closely. A faint hissing came from behind the safe’s door. Whatever treasures lay inside were slowly disintegrating.