Six of Crows

Men mock the gods until they need them, Kaz.”

“They fear you as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”

He thought of Inej’s hand on his cheek. His mind had gone jagged at the sensation, a riot of confusion. It had been terror and disgust and – in all of that clamour – desire, a wish that lingered still, the hope that she would touch him again.

Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he’d promised her so long ago.

The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.

I need a mug of the darkest, bitterest coffee I can find, he thought. Or maybe a real punch to the jaw.

I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl.

er eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbour wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world

“Sure, I’m skinny,” he said as they hurried back through the stables, “but I stay drier in the rain.”

“How?”

“Less falls on me.”

He’d brought Inej here.