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1.
For a week, Inej hadn’t left the tiny room Kaz had told her was hers.
She knew that she should be out, moving, doing things. Earning the place she’d been given. But her body and heart weren’t on board with this; the most she managed were stretches and easy exercises, relearning her body in this new context, which was an old context, of owning herself.
She had balanced on all manner of objects, all the three pieces of furniture she had, on her feet, then one foot, then, carefully, her hands. Once, Kaz had walked in with a meal tray as she had vaulted onto one hand on the floor, and in her shock she’d tumbled down into a heap. It had been a blow to her pride more than her body. Ghafas do not fall.
His bitten-off exclamation of apology hadn’t meant as much as the fact that he’d never done it again. He always knocked first, after that.
After a week though, Inej forced herself out into the wider space of the Crow Club, staying to the back spaces where customers and clients weren’t welcome. The Dregs stared at her, or pointedly ignored her, and both were bearable, so she bore them, tugging her borrowed sleeve down to cover the peacock tattoo on her arm.
When she finally found Kaz, he was in deep discussion with a Zemeni boy, both of them gesturing furiously. She came to a stop beside the bench they were both straddling. The Zemeni saw her before Kaz did, and his face turned into a question mark.
“So who are you? Are you the new investment Kaz keeps mentioning ominously?” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and Inej’s forehead furrowed; who on earth was this?
By the time Kaz had turned to see her, the dark boy had already extended a hand. “I’m Jesper, Jesper Fahey. Fastest hand with a gun you’ve ever seen. And you are?”
Inej could see how Kaz’s face, its pale, familiar smoothness marred by the hint of a scowl around his mouth, was fighting to be unreadable.
“Inej,” she said to the boy, Jesper. “I don’t know what Kaz has told you about me.” She did not take his hand, but Jesper seemed unfazed by this.
Kaz slid backwards on the bench, making room for her between them. She hesitated, and Kaz immediately stood, going around to the other side of the table and sitting there, leaving his place open for her to sit. Carefully, she placed herself on the bench next to Jesper, feeling the warmth from where Kaz had been only moments before.
She said nothing, and after an awkward, evaluative moment Jesper turned back to Kaz, clearly resuming their discussion. Inej listened and wondered where she could get something to eat; others in the room were eating, but she couldn’t see where the food had come from.
“I’m telling you, it’s impossible,” Jesper hissed. “You can’t get into a building with that many guards, and a locked safe, on the third floor, without being seen. You’ll be killed!” Jesper’s pointed glance down was blocked by the table, but Kaz clearly knew what he meant, and shifted his legs uncomfortably.
“Are you going in on the ground floor, or climbing the outside?” Inej asked without thinking, her mind on the savoury smell of the soup a girl was eating at the next table. The boys turned to her.
“What?” Jesper asked.
“Are you…” she trailed off, unprepared for the focus to be so much on her. She straightened her spine. Inej Ghafa will not flinch. “Are you planning to go in on the first floor and make your way through the inside, or go up the facade and in on the third floor?”
Their faces were incomprehensible, or perhaps only uncomprehending. She went on.
“If you’re going in on the first floor, you’d better know the whole layout, if there are any guards, that sort of thing. If you’re going up the outside, you need a long enough window where no one will be paying attention to make it up and in, and you need to know which window you’re going in. Unless there’s a balcony?”
Their faces had barely changed, but she thought she saw the beginning of a smile twitching at the corner of Kaz’s thin lips. Jesper, though, just looked surprised.
“What?” she asked, defensively.
“Kaz,” Jesper said, not looking away from Inej, “have you brought me someone who knows how to break into buildings?” His voice held barely-contained glee.
“I don’t-” Inej shook her head. “I’ve just spent a lot of time, ah…. Thinking about how to get out of places. And then back in. That’s all.”
Jesper’s face was growing a grin, and it had a kind of brightness that begged for a smile in return.
“Tell me, sweet new girl, would you also happen to know how to pick locks?”
Inej, baffled, shook her head.
“Ah well,” Jesper said, smile not dimming, “that’s a trick you can learn. Right, Kaz?”
And Kaz was watching her with eyes like- like- she had never seen eyes like his, in that moment. He nodded, sharply, once.
“Yes. She’ll learn.”
And that was the first time that Inej glanced from Kaz to Jesper and back and thought, oh, no.
2.
Inej was staring deeply into Jesper’s eyes. To an outside observer, it might have looked romantic, full of tension.
Inej’s hand snaked out, quick as a flash, to tap the end of Jesper’s gun, which he had just begun to draw. “There. You flinched.”
“I did not!” Jesper replied, outraged, but he subsided almost instantly, reholstering his pistol securely. At his makeshift desk, Kaz smiled down at the paper he was reading.
“You did,” Inej said serenely. She was using her years of performance training to not smile at Jesper’s face; the combination of consternation and awe was doing funny things to his eyebrows.
“Alright. You win. Now show me how to fix it! What’s my tell?” Jesper asked, leaning forward eagerly. Inej moved back without thinking, and Jesper pulled himself upright without a word. Inej felt a gentle ripple of gratitude for the way he understood her desire for her own space.
“It’s, ah.” Inej groped for the words to describe what it was about Jesper that telegraphed his intentions.
“Is it my gorgeous eyes? My strong brows? My heartstopping grin?” Jesper’s tone was teasing, now, and Inej didn’t know what to do; was he flirting? She wasn’t- she didn’t-
“Inej, stop being so serious! I mean, I know this is serious business, and I am taking this seriously, but we’re friends, right? I’m not interrogating you, I’m trying to learn from you.”
“Alright,” Inej said. There was a curious feeling of warmth to the fact that Jesper had called them “friends.” She hadn’t had anything like a friend in a very long time.
Her eyes cut to Kaz, sitting at his desk, mindlessly shuffling a deck of cards. No. She and Kaz were not what one would call “friends.”
“It’s your nose,” she said abruptly, tiles shifting into alignment in her mind so that the mosaic of thoughts coalesced into an image. “You nose twitches when you’ve made up your mind to do something. Like draw your gun, or move, or play a hand of cards, I assume.”
“My nose?” Jesper sounded horrified. “My nose is giving me away?”
Inej shrugged; she was not to blame for this.
Jesper went cross-eyed, trying to look at the offending piece of anatomy. “How could you!” he moaned dramatically. “After all I’ve done for you, for you to betray me like this!”
There was what sounded suspiciously like a snort from the vicinity of Kaz’s desk. Inej stifled a smile.
“The treachery!” Jesper cried, his arm coming up to drape across his forehead. “The perfidy of it all!”
And now Inej did laugh, a tiny sound, and Jesper looked triumphant. “I knew it! I knew you could laugh! Pay up, Brekker!”
Kaz, sighing resignedly, flipped a coin, which spun silver through the air to thump into the back of Jesper’s head, clattering to the floor.
“Ow! Hey!”
Inej was looking back from the pale boy to the dark one, feeling a sort of bewildered hurt.
“You placed a bet… on my laughter?”
“Inej, no,” Kaz said, looking at her, and she could feel the intensity of his gaze on her skin. “This reprobate will place a bet on anything.”
“Never tell me the odds,” Jesper affirmed. “I’ll bet against them, probably, and what good have you done me then?”
And Inej, looking between the two, thought for the second time, oh, no.
3.
“Inej, you’re incredible,” Jesper called from the ground. She was making her way across the roofs of three buildings, showing them how her skills had improved; she had been practicing in secret, at night, to learn the ways how this city fit together, and it had paid off. With controlled grace, she descended the empty building she’d ended on, using the odd bits of Ketterdam architecture to lower herself to the ground.
“You’re going to be unstoppable,” Jesper said admiringly. “You’re learning how to pick locks, right?”
“She is,” Kaz affirmed. He’d been silent so far, but Inej could read his praise in the tilt of his head, his grip on his cane. Inej winced; he said this as if her lock picking was progressing, not the fumblings of a child.
“And once I teach you to shoot, you’ll be the scourge of Ketterdam.” Jesper grinned at Inej, but she was instantly tense.
“No.”
“No?”
“I will not shoot guns.”
“Why not?” Jesper sounded hurt, as though her rejection of pistol and powder was a rejection of him.
“I cannot- no.” Inej could not articulate this. She simply knew she did not want that for herself. “You are the fastest shot in Ketterdam, and the best,” she said, pulling the words from a blank space in her mind. “But I am not of that sort. I must be light, silent. Guns are neither and so they cannot be for me.”
She looked from Jesper, who was mulling this over, to Kaz, who was looking off into the hazy sky. “You understand?”
Jesper nodded slowly. Kaz turned to look at her.
“Knives.”
“You’re going to give her knives for a gunfight?” Jesper sounded incredulous, but Kaz seemed firm.
“I’m not sending her into gunfights, Jes, I’m sending her across rooftops and through windows. Knives are light, silent, and good for things others than hurting and intimidating people. Besides, if she’s using them to fight, it’ll be close-up work. Knives are better for that anyway.”
Inej imagined herself slipping into Tante Heleen’s window, one night, padding right up to the woman’s bed and, with a bright flash of steel, slitting her throat.
Her mother would be horrified at the thoughts Inej was calmly contemplating, but. Well. Her mother would be horrified by a lot of things about Inej’s life, now.
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “Knives.” She caught Kaz’s eyes, and they held with a crackling intensity, the sort that said, we understand each other, you and I, and perhaps too well.
Jesper looked from one to the other, shaking his head.
“Alright, then,” he said. “Sure. Knives. Not like those are hard to learn how to use or anything. Or like once they’re gone, they’re gone, unlike guns, which you can reload. Knives. Yeah.”
Inej only smiled, not looking away from Kaz. His mouth quirked upward on one side, and he tugged at one glove.
“Well, Inej. You’ve shown us how handily you can get down. How quickly can you go up?”
And she ran right at the wall, leapt and pushed herself off to grab the ledge of the window across, and pulled herself up bodily, to a whoop of delight from Jesper.
“Brekker, she’s amazing! She’s gonna make us all rich!”
And Inej, scanning for her next hand-hold, thought for the third time, oh, no.
4.
“I’m telling you,” Jesper said stubbornly. “I saw them do it in the show, it’s absolutely doable and Inej, you’re way better at acrobatics than the guy in the show, so you can handle it. It’s gonna look,” he sighed. “so cool.”
“You want me to risk my life and limb,” Inej said, tilting her head in a parody of inquisitivity, “for coolness?”
“And, pray tell, why am I the one who will be tossing her?” Kaz asked, his cutting tone blunted by Jesper’s indifference to it.
“Because she trusts you more than me.”
“She shouldn’t.”
“I don’t!”
Kaz and Inej looked at each other, and there was an undercurrent of- something-
She frowned fiercely at him, and he simply looked at her with the blank face that was becoming more a part of him every day.
“There! You see, you two have chemistry-”
“You’re mistaken,” Kaz said, still looking at Inej.
“Or at least, you know, you’ve got this bond-”
“We do not,” Inej said, not taking her eyes off of Kaz.
Jesper flung his hands up in the air. “Either I’m blind or you’re both lying, and I have the best aim in Ketterdam, so I know which one is more likely, is all I’m saying!”
Inej was looking for emotion in Kaz’s face. Kaz was searching for anything other than the hard intensity that lived beneath Inej’s skin. Neither found what they wanted. They turned, simultaneously, to look at Jesper, and the tall boy barked a laugh at the identical expressions on their faces.
“Well, lie to me if you want, lie to yourselves if you gotta, but let me ask you this: would either of you prefer it were me instead of Kaz?”
“No!” Two voices spoke as one. Jesper’s face was smug as a cat with an entire bowl of fresh cream. Inej and Kaz did not, would not, turn to look at each other.
“There you are, then. Alright. I’m telling you. This is gonna be so great. Here, Inej, you stand…here, and Kaz, stay there…good. Now Inej, you’re gonna run at him, and Kaz, lace your fingers together like this. Yeah, like that. And when Inej gets to you, you’ll be crouching a little, and she’ll put her foot in your hands, uh-huh, and you’ll toss her up, like so, and she’ll be launched up, and if this goes right, Inej, you’ll be positioned to grab that ledge. Everybody got it?”
Inej looked at him with worry.
“I have seen such things done, and they take training and practice. Are you sure-”
“You’ll be fine. If those idiots in the play could do it, how hard could it be?”
Inej looked at Kaz, who nodded; she began moving towards him with smooth, even strides. Kaz’s hands were already together. Jesper held his breath; this was going to work beautifully...
A few seconds later, Kaz lay flat on his back with a bruise already forming on his chin and Inej in a heap just past him. Jesper could only rub the back of his neck sheepishly and think that perhaps he should have taken more care with two of the most dangerous people he knew.
“Ok, so maybe there should have been some padding.”
Kaz’s hand came up in a rude gesture. Inej, laying flat out on the hard cobbles of the alley, could only rest her head on her hands and think, oh no…
5.
It had never occurred to Inej that she had never seen Kaz without his gloves on until one day when she slipped onto his windowsill and found him in such a state. It was the misty greyish light of near-dawn, and he had clearly fallen asleep in the middle of something. He was draped across his cobbled-together desk, his coat was flung over a crate, and his gloves were set to the side.
Silent as the breeze, she slid to the floor and padded closer. She had never seen him without being seen in return; she seized this opportunity greedily, knowing it might be her last. In sleep, Kaz’s sharp face was relaxed, and for the first time he looked his own age, whatever that might have been. When he was awake, he was always alert, always tense, always ready with the next step, braced against the next blow. Now his mouth was soft, his eyelashes fanning his pale cheeks; one hand was balled into a loose fist, fingers twitching gently against the rough wood.
She looked in wonder at his hands, even paler than the rest of him. It was clear they never saw the light of day. They were perhaps the softest hands she’d ever seen, hardly a hint of callus. He must have been wearing gloves for years and years, with hands like that.
She settled back on her haunches, drinking him in. Kaz Brekker, the Bastard of the Barrel, Dirtyhands himself, was pale and young in the faint early light, and his hands were cleaner than anyone’s.
Cleaner than mine, she thought, glancing down at herself. Her education had been hard and swift, and she had learned. How she had learned. And now, with one blade strapped to her thigh and another to her arm, she was indeed one who haunted the night. Like Kaz himself, she thought, looking back. How young he was. How young they both were.
His mouth twitched, suddenly, and she startled; his lips formed a word, but Inej could not make it out. His breath caught in his throat, and Inej came back to her senses all at once, and rose, nearly running back to the windowsill.
What are you doing, silly girl? she asked herself. There is nothing for you here, with him. Or with anyone else, she quickly added.
Kaz’s breath caught once more, getting rougher, less even, and Inej knew that he would not like her to see him this way. Her mind worked rapidly and she slid back out the window, pulling herself up onto the roof, and waited for one of the crows that roosted nearby to return.
As soon as one did, she carefully swung down and gave the shutter a firm kick, slamming it into the frame.
She could hear Kaz coming abruptly awake and swearing. She could picture him, sitting up, rubbing his face, stretching his lean body upwards…she shook her head. He would be pulling on his gloves, straightening his tie.
She waited another minute or so before once more alighting on the sill.
“Good morning, Dirtyhands,” she said. “I have something for you.” The information she’d been sent to retrieve, and more besides. She was earning her keep now in truth.
“Good morning, Wraith,” he replied, and she still hated that name but oh, Inej should not have found the imprint of the wooden grain on his cheek so endearing. “I have something for you, too.”
“Oh?” Inej arched a brow; this was not the usual way of things.
“Yes,” he said, and now a smile crept its way into his eyes, and how rare a sight that was, in a bloodless moment.
Kaz reached beneath his desk and retrieved a wrapped leather bundle. Its rectangular shape gave nothing away; it could have held any number of things. Inej knew, though, what it held. She was sure of it, in her marrow.
“Information first, though.”
Ah. There was the Bastard she knew and- and worked for.
Inej stood comfortably, her back straight and her hands loosely clasped as she reeled off the information she’d gathered. Some of it was merely confirmation, but some of it was new and she saved the best and juiciest bit for last.
“Are you sure?” Kaz asked, his eyes alight.
“Absolutely,” Inej replied. “Read the signed contract with my own eyes.”
“Jan Van Eck is a wealthy man. This is valuable information.”
“I know,” Inej said. “That’s why I gathered it.”
“You’ve more than earned this, by now,” Kaz said, sliding the package toward her. Inej reached for it, tugging the string to let the wrapping fall away.
It was a wooden box. Inside it was lined in dark velvet, and the velvet cradled a knife with a bone handle.
“Oh,” she said. She had known it would be a knife. And yet. And yet.
“Oh?” Kaz asked, and there was something in his tone, something that tugged her eyes from the glint of the blade to his face, and there was a yearning there that nearly knocked her down. He wanted her to like this gift, very badly, and she did not know how to say how much she did.
“She’s beautiful,” Inej said, looking from Kaz back to the knife. She reached out to touch it, the smooth of the blade, the ivory of the hilt.
“She?” The smile danced with Kaz’s mouth, and she did not know what to do with that gift. “How do you know?”
“She,” Inej said firmly, not answering. “Sankta Alina, who wore the antlers of Morozova’s stag. That is who this blade is named for.” With gentle hands she lifted the knife from the velvet, felt the smooth fit of the grip, the perfect balance of it. She raised it, pointed it at Kaz.
Their gazes locked, and in the sun creeping through the shutter slanted over them both, bars of lights catching on the knife, Kaz’s hair, Inej’s eyes. She lowered her arm.
“Thank you, Kaz,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
“You should have beautiful things,” he replied. She could only blink, surprised. Kaz cleared his throat, looking away.
Inej, too, suddenly felt the need to escape. “I’m going to breakfast, then I’m going to sleep,” she said firmly. “I will see you when I wake.”
“You’re tired?” Kaz asked, head tilted. “I thought you didn’t admit to weakness.”
She gave him a slight, sharp smile. “The tiredness of the body is the health of the soul, Kaz Brekker.”
As she slipped out the door and down the stairs, gripping the knife in her hand, all Inej could think of was the ache of yearning on Kaz’s face; all she could think was, oh, no.
And 1.
Inej was racing across the rooftops, back towards the Crow Club; and even now, she could hear the sounds of scuffling ahead of her. She was too late.
As she ran, she plotted her descent and flung herself off the edge of a roof to a balcony to a shed to hit the ground running.
Coming around the corner, she saw Jesper crouched behind the next turn, taking shots at a group of unidentifiable boys.
“You’re late,” Kaz called, and she saw him throw one to the ground, turn and swing his cane to crack another behind the knees.
“Is the Wraith back?” Jesper called, taking aim and bringing another down as he was about to get away, presumably to summon more assailants.
“Sorry,” she called, taking stock. “Unavoidably detained.”
“Who-” Kaz threw another over his shoulder, the boy landing with a snapping sound, and Inej knew that he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. “Who can detain a ghost?”
Inej didn’t dignify this with an answer, instead whistling a birdcall she’d taught Kaz. He turned in time to see her coming, laced his fingers together and- Inej was flying.
“You bastards!” Jesper shouted between shots, taking down two more of the boys in their plain brown coats. “You’ve been practicing!”
Inej had cannoned directly into one of the larger boys, taking him down with his head hitting the ground at a very unforgiving angle. He’d been hanging back, shouting, and she had thought he might be the leader. From the way the rest scrambled when they saw him unconscious on the cobbles, she rather thought she’d been right.
The last of the brown-coated boys escaped down the alley.
“Kaz, want to tell me what that was about?” Jesper was holstering his prize guns, a bemused look on his face. His shirt was torn but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Inej?” Kaz lifted a brow.
“There’s a bounty on Kaz’s head. Some of the bigger players don’t like what he’s been up to,” Inej said, controlling her breathing and taking stock of her knives. She hadn’t had to draw a single one; this group had been extremely disorganized, a blessing considering how unprepared they’d been.
“A bounty? And how much is our boy worth, then?”
“Well, it started out at 1,000 kruge,” Inej said, just to needle Kaz. “Last week it was 5, and now it’s up to nearly 10,000. Might go up even higher, if he goes on as he has been.”
“Is there any chance he’ll stop going on the way he has been?” Jesper asked, his crooked grin familiar now.
“The odds are terrible,” Inej said to him with a straight face.
Kaz looked irritated that they were ignoring him. Jesper winked at Inej.
“Well, let’s get into some more trouble, then,” Jesper said, slinging his arms around their shoulders and turning them to walk out of the alley, leaving the unconscious bodies of the boys who’d come after Kaz behind. “First though,” he said, as Kaz shrugged out of his grip under the guise of straightening his collar, “I think we’ve earned waffles.”
And Inej, looking at these two boys who had become so inexplicably dear to her, as they strode away from a fight towards breakfast, thought contentedly, oh, yes.