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.”