BARDUGO, Lee

Six of Crows

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No matter what they thought of him, they’d walk a little taller to night. It was why they stayed, why they gave their best approximation of loyalty for him. When he’d offi cially become a member of the Dregs, he’d been twelve and the gang had been a laughingstock, stret kids and washed-up cadgers running shell games and penny- poor cons out of a rundown house in the worst part of the Barrel. But he hadn’t needed a great gang, just one he could make great— one that needed him.

Now they had their own territory, their own gambling hall, and that rundown house had become the Slat, a dry, warm place to get a hot meal or hole up when you were wounded. Now the Dregs were feared. Kaz had given them that. He didn’t owe them small talk on top of it

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“I’ll talk to Pim,” Kaz said. “He can pick up the slack while I’m gone.” Inej frowned. Just where was Kaz going? He hadn’t mentioned any big job to her. And why Pim? The thought shamed her a bit. She could almost hear her father’s voice: So eager to be Queen of the Thieves, Inej? It was one thing to do her job and do it well. It was quite another to want to succeed at it. She didn’t want a permanent place with the Dregs. She wanted to pay off her debts and be free of Ketterdam forever, so why should she care if Kaz chose Pim to run the gang in his absence? Because I’m smarter than Pim. Because Kaz trusts me more. But maybe he didn’t trust the crew to follow a girl like her, only two years out of the brothels, not even seven teen years old. She wore her sleeves long and the sheath of her knife mostly hid the scar on the inside of her left forearm where the Menagerie tattoo had once been, but they all knew it was there.

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