LANA LIKED TO THINK OF HERSELF AS A DECENT DETECTIVE. She liked puzzles and absolutely adored the satisfaction that came with solving a mystery, but this? She hated this.

She asked Sophia every question there is, and she knew the girl hated herself for not having the answers she needed. Lana went back to where Natalia was lost and asked around for her but as expected, no one knew anything. She retraced their steps and followed possible trails to which Natalia might've been taken to, but there was nothing. Nothing that rang a bell, nothing that looked familiar, no more leads. It's like she just vanished into thin air.

The thought made Lana's sweat turn cold. She didn't like the feeling at all, but she was running out of time. The longer they spent running around nothing trailing false leads is more precious time wasted. Natalia could be dead by now, she could be on her way to the Reaper's Barge, and they'd still be here chasing their tails.

No, Lana thought, I won't allow it.

But who even was she? Svetlana Milkovich, the girl that came back from the dead and fought alongside Sankta Alina? Or Karina Kozlov, the deadly merchant smuggler that made people shiver at the mention of her name?

Maybe she's been going at this in the wrong way, maybe she should retrace their steps again but with a different perspective— every perspective. She's been looking at this like a soldier, an officer searching for a missing person. Maybe she should try a different route because this is fertile.

So Lana returned to the market and stood exactly where Sophia was when Natalia was dragged away. She stared around the buildings from beneath her cloak and counted every opening she was able to see.

Three of them had a direct view of the market, only one was low enough for someone tall enough to reach up and go into it.

Her brain buzzed, and suddenly Svetlana was thinking like a Barrel thug.

She made a beeline to the window, and with a bit of help from a jump into a crate she was able to pull herself up to the balcony railing and over to the room. It was an inn's room, a rental. If someone wanted to nick a person off the streets and keep a low profile for the day, this would be the perfect spot.

She searched the room silently, moving like a ghost. She checked every nick and corner, every crack and line in the walls. Under the tables and bed, between the counters and the walls. She checked everything before moving out of the room and heading towards the doors of the inn.

With a silent gasp, Svetlana realized the inn doors lead her straight into Little Fjerda. The people here were massive, of all shapes and colors, but they were big. The Fjerdan embassy was here, as the Ravkan embassy is in Little Ravka.

Her head was spinning with the possibilities, if whoever took Natalia had been Fjerdan witch hunters— drüskelle, she'd be done for. They would have taken her to the Ice Court, where she would stand an unjust trial that would sentence her to an unfair execution.

She's only a child, Lana's mind screamed at her, she's only a child!

So were we. A voice hissed back at her from the depth of her mind, and she almost flinched at it.

She needed to find Natalia, and she needed to find her quickly.

                  INSTEAD OF CONTINUING HER SEARCH, which would lead to nothing considering she didn't know where next Natalia would be taken to, she went back to Phoenix Bay. She told Sophia about the possibility of Natalia being taken by Fjerdan and the only place they'd take her to would be the Ice Court; they wouldn't let Grisha stand a trial here in Ketterdam. They'd need it to be on their holy ground, by their rules.

Svetlana watched the colors drain from Sophia's face as she turned to Viktor in horror. The boy only pressed his lips together and held her hand as she wept again.

Svetlana had made a vow at that moment, that she would find Natalia, and that she'd bring her home safe and sound, even if that was the last thing she'd have to do.

She laid a hand on Sophia's shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze, "I'll find her."

And before Sophia could argue, before she could fight her on not going to the Ice Court in an absolute suicide mission, Svetlana had sneaked out of the building and to the night.

She'd been in Ketterdam for one day, a single one, and already she found herself following an impossible but important task. She decided she'd burn the Ice Court down if it meant bringing Natalia home safely, she would set everything in her path aflame and she would bring empires to their inevitable destruction and she would become Kings and Queens' worst nightmare. She would be the embodiment of a supernova just to see the girl back in her arms— in Sophia's arms, safe and sound.

Maybe she should've been paying more attention to her surroundings, that way she would've seen the ghost of a boy merging with the walls around her, maybe she'd been prepared for the fight he'd given her, maybe he wouldn't have the element of surprise at his side. But he'd taken her completely off guard, and by the time Svetlana realized what was happening, he had already jabbed a needle into her neck and injected her with its content, rendering her immediately unconscious in his grip.

                         SVETLANA WAS GOING TO KILL SOMEONE.

First of all, she woke up to a stench so bad it made her gag, she later realized it was ammonia. She tried to think, to sit up, but whatever she's been injected with had made her extremely tired and groggy, her senses were glaring, she could hear someone moving around her, but her eyes were blurry, her lids heavy.

She felt a touch on her cheek and she jerked backward, then she was falling and her hands were the first to make contact with the steady ground. The chair she was tied to smashed on top of them and it stung her painfully. She groaned and tried to roll to the side, but she was too tired.

Someone chuckled from beside her, the same person who's touched her she assumed, and it forced her to open her eyes and blink away the blur. The man that came into view was a merchant, Svetlana knew it immediately as she spotted his retreating slick back pale hair and upturned mustache. She saw his perfectly cut frock coat and vest of all Kerch merchants; dark, refined, deliberately staid. A pocket watch and tie pin— heavy links of laurel leaves made up the watch's gold fob and the pin was a massive, nearly perfect ruby.

She scowled. She's heard a lot of things about Van Eck, and she knew loads of his secrets, but she never met him in person. She's going to make him regret ever thinking about tying her down to a chair thinking she'd comply with whatever bluff he was going to let her hear.

She glanced around, noting the mahogany panels dense with carvings of frothing waves and flying fish, shelves lined with books, led windows and a DeKappel hung above the desk.

She was still on the floor, her body weight and chair still pressing on her hands, and she grunted as she tried to move around. Van Eck moved a finger, and Svetlana felt her chair being lifted and pulled back to its rightful position. She realized she wasn't the only one bound to a chair, as the same medik that had woken her was doing the same to a boy in a seat beside her.

He was dressed in dark clothing, a coat clinging to him in perfectly tailored lines, and his dark supposedly slick hair had a few strands loose over his forehead. Even unconscious, Svetlana knew he wouldn't be friendly.

"Get away from me," he rasped, his voice grave and hoarse, Svetlana wondered if he sounded like that naturally, like a rock grazing on glass, or it was just a side effect of being unconscious for who knows how long.

From the single window in the room that overlooked the city, Svetlana could tell it couldn't have been long as it was still nightfall. Or perhaps she's been out a whole day. She doubted it.

Van Eck cleared his throat and pressed his fingers together, "Miss Kozlov, what a wonderful surprise to hear you got back into town." His expression was cleansed of all emotions, but she could tell from his eyes that he was nervous. She knew then that he knew she carried all his secrets, and a smirk slowly pulled at her lips when the satisfying feeling of pleasure and power over weak men rippled through her like gentle beach waves.

"Hmm, I must admit this is not the sort of welcome I was expecting. Care to explain why I'm bound to a chair, Van Eck?"

Instead of answering her, his eyes darted to the other prisoner. "Mister Brekker, I hope you're not feeling too poorly."

"Get this old canker away from me. I feel fine." The boy spat, his voice venomous and dangerous, Svetlana almost giggled at the way Van Eck's  jaw set.

Van Eck gave a nod to the medik and excused him from the room and as he left, the merchant rose from his seat and pick up a sheaf of papers from his desk. He was trying to look professional and busy, but Lana knew he was buying time, thinking he was in control because he had them both bound to chairs. He should've known better with her.

"Van Eck." The boy said, his voice still rasping, his tone still bitter. Svetlana was starting to think this is just the way he spoke. Van Eck nodded, "You know me, then?"

"It's not difficult to figure it out. With that massive ruby on your chest." It's demanding to be stolen. She left that part unsaid.

Kaz glanced at her, seeming to only now give kind to her presence. He tilted his head slightly, "You're one of those merch crusaders always trying to clean up the Barrel."

Svetlana couldn't help the snort that left her. Clean up the Barrel, hilarious. The Barrel is made of years worth of sweat, tears, blood, theft, and murder. You cannot clean out the rats' house.

Van Eck dared to give her a glare and nodded once, "I try to find men honest work."

Lana chuckled as Kaz laughed, it was a harsh cruel sound from him, but she knew exactly what he saw in that merchant's words. She said, "Then you're looking in the wrong places. You won't find any of that in Ketterdam. Better luck elsewhere." She was entertained to say the least, chatting with an airhead such as Jan Van Eck would get her absolutely nowhere, but it was fun to see him all riled up.

"What's the difference between wagering at the Crow Club and speculating on the floor of the Exchange?" Kaz asked.

"One is theft and the other is commerce."

"When a man loses his money, he may have trouble telling them apart."

"The Barrel is a den of filth, vice, violence—"

"Remember where you came from, Van Eck." Svetlana quickly interrupted, leaning back in her chair as comfortably as she could, watching two men with egos the size of the True Sea bicker back and forth. This reminded her of Nikolai and Mal, they used to bicker like this all the time, too.

He sent her a deathly glare, almost tempted to reach over and slap her, but Kaz spoke and his words made her smirk.

"How many of the ships you send sailing out of Ketterdam harbors never return?"

Easy, almost none.

"One out of five, Van Eck. One out of every five vessels you send seeking coffee and jurda and bolts of silk sinks to the bottom of the sea, crashes on the rocks, and falls prey to pirates. One out of five crews dead, their bodies lost to foreign waters, food for deep-sea fishes. Let's not speak of violence." Lana almost shuddered, but she heard worse. Seen worse.

As Van Eck almost lost his temper at Kaz, deciding to ignore his truthful words and calling him names, Svetlana undid the rope ties around her wrists. She was almost surprised at how loose fitting they were, and getting them unknotted was almost too easy. But she wasn't about to jinx her luck, she was going to bide her time.

She glanced over to the boy beside her, and he kept his flaming gaze on the merchant, his lips pulled into a scowl that seemed almost permanent. "Since you didn't bring me here to philosophize, what business?"

She hated making business deals with men, they were always far too arrogant and ignorant for her taste, but she supposed Van Eck thought he had her here against her will, so she might as well pretend and hear what this fool had to say.

"I have a proposition for the both of you. Rather, the Council does."

The Council? The Merchant Council? Fuck no. That is one massive red flag if she's ever seen one, and she's seen a lot. And why her? Why now? She had a mission to complete, a task to do. She didn't have time to do the dirty work of men in higher ranks that she could easily bring down. She wasn't going to leave Natalia for this, even if it meant good kruge.

"Does the Merchant Council begin all negotiations with a beating?"

And there's that. Although she wasn't beaten, she was injected and caught by surprise— Svetlana furrowed her brows for a moment as she tried to remember just who or how the syringe managed to prick her neck, and she remembered the ghost of a boy moving through walls. It sent a cold shiver down her back.

"Consider it a warning," Van Eck said, "and a demonstration."

"Demonstration? Of what?"

Van Eck only smiled at her, "Always asking the right questions, aren't you Miss Kozlov?" She waited for him to go on, but nothing. He didn't say anything. Instead, he flicked through the sheaf of papers in his hands and read aloud.

"Kaz Brekker; you were first arrested at ten—"

"Everyone remembers their first time."

"Twice again that year, twice at eleven. You were picked up when the stadwatch rousted a gambling hall when you were fourteen, but you haven't served any time since."

Svetlana was almost surprised, she's never before heard of this Kaz Brekker, but his criminal record is almost as good as her own.

Kaz shrugged, as best as he could anyway. "I cleaned up," he said, "Found honest work, live a life of industry and prayer." Lana could see the joke in his eyes. He was mocking Van Eck, and it made her force a giggle down her throat.

"Don't blaspheme." Van Eck said mildly, but his stance went rigid. This is so amusing. He turned his rough pale eyes to her then, and a wicked, vile smile pulled at his lips. "Karina Kozlov; first arrested at fourteen for pickpocketing, picked a fight with a stadwatch officer at West Stave the same year, served time in juvie for attempted murder at fifteen, but nothing since."

She grinned back at him and copied Kaz's actions, shrugged slightly, and said, "I've been clean, returned to my Saints for good fortune." From the corner of her eye, she could see Kaz's amused raised brow, she could tell that he found her almost as amusing as she found him. She met his gaze and saw the small twitch at the corner of his lips. She turned back to Van Eck.

He scoffed, then glared at Kaz again. "You run book on prize fights, horses, and your own games of chance. You've been floor boss at the Crow Club for more than two years. You're the youngest to ever run a betting shop, and you've doubled its profit in that time. You're a blackmailer—"

"I broker information."

"A con artist—"

"I create opportunity."

"A bawd and a murderer—"

"I don't run whores, and I kill for a cause."

"And what cause is that?"

"Same as yours, merch. Profit."

This was hilarious, Lana's eyes were jumping from one man to the other like a game of tennis. Albeit she didn't know what tennis was.

"How do you get your information, Mister Brekker?"

"You might say I'm a lockpick."

"You must be a very gifted one."

"I am indeed." Kaz leaned back, sitting the same way Svetlana had been for the past ten minutes. "You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who take the brute's way, but I prefer a gentler approach — the right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It's a delicate thing."

Svetlana smirked at the boy in dark clothing, her brows raised in amusement, the untied rope between her hands as she passed it from one hand to the other in boredom.

"Do you always speak in metaphors, Mister Brekker?"

The boy smiled, "It's not a metaphor."

She saw this coming, right? She undid her binds, why was she surprised he did too? From what she learned about him so far, Kaz seemed to be good at what he does. Of course, he can make it out of these knots.

He had grabbed a letter opener from the desk and held it against Van Eck's throat, the guards in the room pulled out their pistols and swords, and Lana figured she shouldn't hide that she, too, was untied so she rested her hands in her lap. She didn't do anything, didn't make a move, because she knew she could burn this place to the ground and walk out unscathed, but she wanted to see how this will turn out.

"I don't think I need to waste my breath on threats," Kaz said, "Tell me how to get to the door or I'm taking you through the window with me."

That's childish and foolish and quite ridiculous if Lana was being honest. If this is a merchant's house then this room they're in must be at least three stories high. He'd break both his legs before making it to the ground, and maybe his neck too.

"I think I can change your mind." Van Eck said.

"I don't care who you are or how big that ruby is. You don't take me from my own streets. And you don't try to make a deal with me while I'm in chains." His own streets. Right, so he was one of those gang bosses, alright.

Those gang bosses wanted to rule the Barrel. They had this wicked and greedy thirst for becoming the kings of Ketterdam. She's seen a couple try and fail, but not because she stepped in. Oh no, Lana would much prefer running her small shop in peace than becoming the Queen of this place, no it was because they're gang leaders. Unless you know how to plan wars and have a good crew, you're screwed the moment you try to take over another gang's territory.

"Mikka," Van Eck called, and Lana saw as Kaz's pale skin turned even paler staring at whoever entered the room behind her. She turned to see that the boy from earlier was standing right before them. He was pale as a corpse and wore an embroidered blue Grisha Tidemaker's coat with red and gold ribbon at the lapel indicating his association with Van Eck's house.

Her heart stopped at the sight of the boy. Suddenly, Sophia's letter made sense, and her blood ran cold.

Karina,

You know I wouldn't have reached out to you if I didn't think this was a serious matter.

Grisha are disappearing. We're being picked off the streets one by one like a flock of sheep sent to slaughter. I've heard rumors, but I cannot confirm anything to be true. They're saying there's a drug that makes Grisha do unnatural things. It gives them unlimited access to their abilities and turns the Small Science into what I can only describe as merzost's doings. I do not know if it's safe for any of us here anymore, and I really hate bringing you into this, especially since you left so long ago, but please. We need your help.

Come to Ketterdam, come back home. We need you.
Sophia.