Archive of Our Own

Eerste

She knew from the first that he was a fighter—not just from the scars on his face and the chunk missing from his ear, or the way he always limped, but from the acid look in his venom-green eyes. He would have been gorgeous if he belonged to someone, and if he didn’t seem like he wanted to tear the world to pieces. No, Inej conceded, he’s gorgeous anyways. A little scared for him and a little scared of him, she left food and water out on the back porch every night. It was always gone by morning. She wasn’t entirely sure it was him that was benefiting from it, but it had to have been benefiting someone, so she kept to it ritually. Other than that, she left him be. Given the misery of his left ear, she couldn’t tell (given the distance he kept) whether he was fixed, otherwise she might have had thoughts about trying to trap him for TNR. 

Something told her, anyhow, that he was too intelligent and too wary to be trapped.

They stayed like this for about a year, avoiding one another with wary politeness, until the night he turned to her for help. It must indeed have been him who’d eaten the food she left, Inej thought later, if he’d known there was a chance he could trust to her generosity. On the other hand, she was astounded he made this choice over hiding somewhere to die, the way cats often did. 

She woke that night to the sound of scratching and awful, frantic, gravelly yowling at her back door. Half-asleep, she opened the door and in he came, shaking violently and his back right leg mostly dragging. It took Inej a moment to see the red in the white parts of his fur—his paws, his chest and belly—or the horrible laceration on his side. Instantly awake, she ran for towels and her keys. “I can’t have you bleed out before we get there,” she explained, “and I have no qualms about sewing you up myself, but we don’t have anyone here to help me hold you down.” As it was, he wasn’t the greatest fan of her wrapping him up and immobilizing him, even if it was staunching the blood somewhat in the process. For the both of them, she sent up prayers; even in this state, he could probably do her a great amount of damage. It was a good thing the vet was a close drive. “You really were fighting to the death out there, weren’t you?” she murmured to him in what she intended as a calming voice. “I hope it was worth it to you. What do you find worth fighting and killing for, I wonder.” He did calm down somewhat. Inej would have started worrying about him not waking up again, if he’d calmed down entirely.

Thankfully, he did make it through—looking positively miserable in his recovery cage, and spitting violently at anyone who came too close, but undoubtably alive. While he came with no name, at the vet he was given the moniker Killer. Inej wanted to rename him once she got him home, to something with more dignity. She began to research a proper name for him, eventually settling on Kazimieras, “destroyer of peace.” Kaz. He’d have kings and princes as namesakes. It didn’t get much more dignified than that.

She also prepared a spare room for him. At the vet she learned he’d already been neutered, which meant it was possible he had once belonged to someone. Given the cat he was now, it was hard to imagine he’d ever experienced love, but for whatever it was worth Inej found she loved him, even as the cat he now was. She didn’t expect anything of him in return. She just thought he deserved some rest after a life of so much fighting.

It took some time for him to get used to his new circumstances. At first, when he was still in a good deal of pain, he didn’t question it much. Then there was a period of much scratching and marking and more hoarse yowling. Inej assumed this meant he was trying to make the space he found himself in to be more on his own terms, which was only fair. She knew what it felt like to be trapped. She knew that in this case, unlike in hers, it was meant with only kind intentions; she hoped that her judgement of what was best for him was in fact what was best for him. But after a while, he seemed to relax. At this point, she began to spend time in his room with him for longer and longer periods, until Kaz grew comfortable with her presence. This would be another of the mysteries of him, like the way he’d come to her for help that night, because he did grow comfortable, and to Inej it seemed to happen more or less overnight. After days of him hiding and throwing her a deadly glare from behind a stack of boxes, he decided he was fine with her presence and went about his feline business practically as if she wasn’t there. He’d seemed to deduce from a few sessions of glaring that she wasn’t all that bad. She wondered if he remembered that she had saved him; she knew he remembered that she always came bearing treats and toys. If the treat was in her hand, he wouldn’t venture it, and she had no real expectation of him ever letting her touch him, but it still felt like a bond was growing.

“Someday,” Inej said offhand while watching him scarf down the proffered treats, “you are going to let me kiss you on your furry little head, you are.” Kaz looked up at this point, looked at her with a startling intensity, and mrowed in that scrape of a voice that indicated endless battles, endless wrongs done, endless hissing and growling and screaming. So much fighting he’d done, and often (she imagined) simply to be left alone. 

“You can’t be asking me for more, you’re not quite finished yet.” She couldn’t help responding with incredulity to the life-and-death urgency he conveyed with that look.

“Mrrow,” Kaz repeated, even more insistent. Clearly annoyed she couldn’t understand him. 

“You seem to know my language better than I know yours, Kaz,” Inej said with a sigh, reaching for the plastic package. She didn’t see any reason why not to spoil him rotten, so long as he agreed with that arrangement.

She had had no idea he was capable of opening doors until the day she came home to find him asleep under her bed. It was a round doorknob, particularly difficult, so perhaps that’d been part of the ruckus he’d been making all this time, working that out. Inej checked that the front and back doors were locked, then decided to leave him be. It wasn’t like she could reach him from under there, and she would have been breaking their pact of trust if she tried.

After that, he had the run of the house, more or less. It was another few months before Inej woke up in the night to the feeling of something soft (and loudly rumbling) pressing against her hand. “Kaz,” she whispered, so touched she was close to tears. His purr was almost as awful as his meow: something like a lot of gravel and bits of rusty scrap metal being shaken up in a can. It started up sometimes when he looked at her or sat near her, though until this she had interpreted this as a request for food or attention and not as a declaration of love. “I love you, too. I love you so much.” He backed off a bit, embarrassed or overwhelmed, but she was pretty sure he stayed perched on her bedside table for the rest of the night. At least a cat can’t mind that I sleep with a knife, she thought as she drifted off. He has knives in his mouth and his hands, after all.

A couple weeks later, it happened again. And then a third time. Maybe someday, she thought, he’ll sleep right next to me. As it was, he was already perfect—in her eyes alone, Inej suspected, but didn’t care in the least. What was it to her if his otherwise immaculate tuxedo coat was interrupted by scars, or if in his prior life he had indeed been a killer? He was her handsome boy, and she knew they both knew what it was to make it through something unlivable. She loved him utterly. And no matter how much or how little he would become comfortable with her touch (she had the feeling his invisible wounds would take a lot more time still to heal), she knew he loved her right back. “You’re a magical cat, Kazimieras Ghafa,” Inej would find herself saying. “How did you know I could help you? And how did you know I needed you?”

Tweede

Kaz had never seen the cat before. He had no idea how she had gotten in. And yet, there she was sitting on his bed with her long thin tail wrapped around her, looking immensely pleased with herself in that way only cats can achieve. She blinked at him once, as if trying to trick him into believing that somehow or another she had been there all along. She had not been. Kaz sighed, leaned his cane against the nearest wall to free up both hands, and approached. Seeing what he intended, a shiver went over her as if of offense, and she slipped through his grasp like smoke. He turned, could not locate her. He checked the closet, under the bed, limped down the hallway, went back for his cane, and there she was on the bed exactly as before.

“You make no sense. That doesn’t make sense.” The cat squeezed her eyes closed, clearly to show she recognized his observation of her brilliance. Kaz cursed, and her whiskers twitched irritably. Planting his left shoulder into the doorframe, Kaz studied the impossible creature that had chosen to slip into his life, without any care or consideration for what he thought. It wasn’t that he disliked cats, more that he did not particularly care to invest in the attention or money a pet would require. She was looking at him with such intelligence that he decided to tell her the above, aloud, in the hopes that she would get the message. She stretched, displaying the same comfort with her surroundings that she had the entire time. Her message was clear: she wasn’t going anywhere.

Kaz decided, for the moment, to ignore her. But later in the evening, when he wanted to lie down, he went back to the bedroom and made another grab for her, which she evaded the same as before. He scoured the room, shut the door, and went to bed, intending to get to the bottom of it all in the morning.

In the morning, he woke up to discover a small, subtly purring bundle on the bed beside him. She was curled up as close to him as possible without touching him. There was something about this he found very striking, but he wasn’t sure just what. This was also when he noticed how thin she was. Not only lithe, but…yes. He could feel her ribs when he touched her.

She did not allow him to do this long. She woke the instant she felt a hand against her, and, hissing bitterly, fled to who knew where. “Cat!” Kaz shouted, not sure as he did so if he was expressing the depth of his frustration with her sudden presence or calling her to come back. What he did know was that if he named her, that would be the end of the matter, so he vowed not to.

He was unable to find her for the rest of the morning, but he knew better than to think that was it. Sure enough, when he got home late that night, there she was perched in a chair facing the front door. “Off,” he snapped, peeling off his coat; she paid this no attention whatsoever until he got close enough to have swept her off himself, upon which she removed herself from the danger of this indecency. She stared at him judgmentally as he sat in what had recently been her chair, proceeding to take off his shoes. “Does someone feed you?” he asked. She thumped her tail against the ground once, looking at him from her lower vantage with an expression scathing enough to still be called looking down upon. “No, I’m not going to do it. I already told you. You’d best just clear out, and pick on someone with a softer heart. Do you know what I do for a living? Way you’re looking at me right now, maybe you can smell it off me. You really think someone who does what I do would have any kindness left in me even for something as little as you?”

Looking a little insulted, or as if she considered this a dare, the cat stood with a long stretch and walked over to the bookshelf on the other side of the room. She looked, sized up the distance, then backed up a few steps. No, that couldn’t possibly—Kaz reconsidered. If she thought she could make that jump, he wouldn’t doubt her. True enough, she landed gracefully at the top of the bookshelf, from which she got comfortable and initiated a long staring contest. Kaz shouldn’t have obliged, but she was easy to stare at. He’d never seen a cat with eyes that color before—more copper than orange, or almost a shade of brown, like a pair of wickedly smart pennies with black slits cut through their centers. “Good night,” he said at last, and got up. He made sure, when he closed the bedroom door, that she was still at the top of the bookshelf in the living room.

When he woke up, the door was ajar, and she was in the same place as the previous morning. “What’s the purpose of this?” he muttered sleepily. She didn’t stir. He made sure not to touch her, and she stayed…asleep? He didn’t know how to tell if she was actually sleeping, but she stayed the same as she’d been before, at any rate. She stayed the same after he got up, dressed, the rest of it. He wondered what would happen if he tried grabbing her now, but he didn’t feel like doing it. She’d hiss at him and make her feelings absolutely and impressively clear, and even if he got her outside it might not be of any permanent effect. She’d only come back, he suspected, with a look of even greater distaste and no intention of finding a different victim.

“You’re going to get fur all over my house,” he said before leaving. She stayed asleep, or “asleep,” whichever it was. “If you were human, you’d have to pay rent for this.”

When Kaz got home that night, he left her be, opting for a different chair. “I’m calling a truce, okay? Look, this one was further to walk to.” She seemed unimpressed. Kaz went back to ignoring her, as he had a few things to do. The cat stayed where she was. When Kaz went to bed, he left the door open, half of him thinking she’d consider this a trap and would stay in the living room. However, he found her in her usual place the next morning, and wasn’t surprised. He stayed in bed for a while longer than he needed to, watching the fur on her back rise and fall with her breathing. She really was underfed, wasn’t she? Maybe he should—no. His position was as clear as hers was. It may be true that he couldn’t get rid of her, but he wasn’t going to feed her, pay vet bills, or all the rest of it.

This time, when he was leaving, he found her waiting at the door. “How’d you do that, exactly?” he asked, certain he’d left her asleep on the bed as he had the day before. “You sneaky little wraith.” The end of her tail twitched slightly. “See you tonight, I guess,” he said, but she went out through the front door along with him. He shook his head, having by no means anticipated this. “I’m locking the door. I know you claim to have a key, but still.” She didn’t seem disturbed by this declaration in the least, and when he turned, he had no idea where she’d gone.

Kaz had to admit a part of him was relieved to find her in the usual chair when he got home, but mostly he was impressed. “You’d make a brilliant spy,” he informed her. She jumped off to investigate the bag he’d brought with him. “Yeah, I’m home earlier today, so I’m eating here. You can have some if you want it, I guess. It’s people food.” The cat didn’t mind this fact in the least, he found, and she really did eat like she was starving. Where and how had she found food up to this point? Watching her lick her paws and whiskers clean afterwards with a satisfied gusto, Kaz tried and failed to keep from feeling a bit guilty. He shook his head at himself. She was winning him over. Well, it was probably a lost cause now that he’d fed her this once. He’d continue feeling bad unless he continued feeding her, and that meant his fate was officially sealed.

“What should I call you?” he asked aloud the following morning. She breathed in and out, purring softly, her tail wrapped over her nose. “If you like the name, would you let me pet you?” One eye opened rapidly, then closed slowly, as if to say Come again? or maybe it was more of a Don’t even think about it. If so, Kaz supposed he could relate. “How about Wraith?” he asked. The cat stood and jumped off the bed, her timing exquisite in its harshness. Kaz sat up, finding her in the room. (Was he imagining it, or was it getting easier to locate her?) It was probably stupid of him, but he’d never felt so rebuffed in his life.

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad! I’m just a human, remember? And you must already have your own secret cat-language name to compare it to unfavorably. I’m sure it’s really beautiful, just like you. I’m sure it’s one of the most beautiful words in existence. I’m sorry I can’t come up with anything better.”

She blinked at him, as though to accept his apology. “Thank you,” he said. Weird, yet again, how relieved he was. “I’m still adjusting to your decision, so I’m going to mess up on stuff. And probably keep on messing up, since I’m way out of practice with this kind of thing.” What kind of thing? Kaz shook his head. He didn’t know what he was saying.

It was while at the pet store, a list of notes open on his phone, standing in an aisle completely bewildered by the range of options before him, that it occurred to him: Oh. Loving someone kind of thing.

“Is this okay? I heard reports from the cashier that your kind can be picky, but you seemed happy enough with my food yesterday.” To Kaz’s relief, she had no complaints with the cat food he’d picked out. Once she'd demolished the contents of the bowl, she proceeded to investigate the other contents of the plastic shopping bag he’d brought. “Was it presumptuous of me to buy toys? I can return them if you’re not interested.”

Crouched halfway in and halfway out of the bag, the tip of Wraith’s tail twitched madly, and the eye staring at him through one handle of the bag was dilated to its full capacity of blackness. Perhaps it was some effect of the thin, noisy plastic that she now looked positively ready to murder something. “Alright, so you do want to play?” Or…kill? To her, is there a difference? “Everything there is for you to attack, you’re currently sitting on.” Except for me. He nudged her side lightly with the tip of his cane—in self-defense, he felt at the time—and she vacated the bag in high temper, leaving it ripped in two.

Kaz bent over the destroyed bag, considering the options. Which kind of toy was safest? The mice, maybe—he could just toss them her way and leave her to it. The toy involving a feathered object on a length of string on a stick, he’d save for another time. More self-serving and more of a risk, because in holding the end of the stick, he’d be directly involved.

“Wraith? Let me know if you like these, or if the bag was more interesting. Where are you?” She’d ran in the direction of the bedroom, so logic recommended he start there, but the impossibility of her seemed to suggest that was the least likely place she’d be. She might as well have been still in the living room, invisible, watching. Unsure whether rationality or irrationality was the best place to start, Kaz threw the first mouse into the hallway as a kind of middle route. 

Swiftly, noiselessly, she ambushed. Having captured her prey, she lay curled around it, biting and kicking with her back feet. If it was a real creature, Kaz observed with pride, it would be very, very dead. Wraith “killed” the rest of the mice he threw in the same fashion—batting them down the hallway, and sometimes even bringing the prize back to him in her mouth, like a game of fetch except with more steps in the middle. Her energy seemed endless. Kaz returned to wondering how old she was (if she was still a kitten, perhaps, given that she was pretty small) and dreading/plotting the arrangements for the vet appointment he’d scheduled. The only thing he’d bought today that he’d left in the car was the carrier for this intended trip, but how on Earth he’d manage to get her into it, and how long it would take for her to forgive him afterword, was yet to be seen. However, due to a mix of his new feelings of obligation to take care of her and his continued feelings of discomfort in the pervading mystery around her, it was going to have to happen. He wanted to be as informed as possible, but not only in the normal, everyday ways like her age and if she was completely healthy and how worried he should be about her weight (though if she kept eating like this, they were on the right track). For instance, some childish and easily influenced thing in the back of his head needed to hear it from a professional that she really was a cat. That is, not some magical being in disguise, who would turn into smoke if he began caring about her too deeply or for too long.

It was stupid of him, he supposed, but for both normal and abnormal reasons, he needed the solidity of it. He already knew she just wouldn’t believe him if he told her the vet visit was “for her own good,” or something of the sort. He guessed he’d have to tell her the full truth of his reasons. But not tonight, of course.

Maybe if I put something in her food? he thought. The thought to follow it was: You monster.

He’d figure it out by next Friday, in any case.

That night, Wraith carried her mice to bed with her, purring profusely, and head-butted his shoulder through the covers before feeling abruptly weirded out by the action and retreating to the bedside table. Kaz (unthinkingly) chuckled, which seemed to add insult to injury. “My ferocious, bloodthirsty huntress. How could I commit such an offense? But if you spare my life, I’ll be able to accomplish my plan of arranging you a treat taste-testing tomorrow. Oh…and here…” He relocated her mice to the table. She bent to sniff them, then sat back up just as quickly; Kaz had a funny image of them as flowers on a stage, and her bowing after a performance. What would she be, he wondered—a dancer? an illusionist? or maybe one of those knife throwers who skillfully miss the human on their dartboard by a hair.

Then he reminded himself that he’d just moved a cat’s toy mice for her. You’re going pretty soft there, Brekker. He sighed. “Alright, turns out you chose the right victim. You’re going to be one rottenly spoiled creature by the end of this, Wraith.”

It was nice to keep on looking at her as he fell asleep. Curled up, light from the streetlamp outside rippling over her dark fur as it moved.

Knowing Wraith would know something was up if he started acting strange the morning of the appointment, he reorganized his schedule for the days preceding it and trusted to the fact that she’d been around him just long enough to observe that changes in his work, such as the times he left and got home, were nothing new. However, she could still feel something was up. It was giving him a migraine, to be honest: he’d fail to restrain her in the carrier, would have to reschedule the vet appointment to…date unknown, would destroy their entire relationship with a single action and she’d hate him forever and never come back. He’d never even petted her (without getting hissed at or clawed), so picking her up was entirely out of the question. He returned to the idea of drugging her and made another stop at the pet store, where he was pleased to learn that this was something that was done. Less concerned now about the humaneness, but still worried about the efficacy, he kept fleshing out his plan. He solved the problem of bringing the carrier when he remembered a certain empty trunk and fetched it from the safe house he’d left it at on the other side of the city. So long as she didn’t have x-ray vision or mind-reading powers, it was foolproof.

The morning of, he gave her breakfast as normal, along with the gabapentin. It did chill her out somewhat, allowing him to actually get hands on her without her vanishing into thin air. The effect lasted only as long as he needed it to, however, because after the shock and stress of realizing she was being picked up—that was to say being touched (was he projecting somewhat?)—and the indignity of being placed in a tiny fabric rectangular cell, Wraith returned to full alertness, and also to full volume. If he hadn’t already felt guilty, the trip there would have done the trick. Later, he’d realize he was supposed to have given her a dose the night before as well as the morning of.

Kaz would be grateful to himself that he did take her to the vet, however, because of the forewarning it gave him. Not regarding Wraith’s health. (In that area, she passed the examination with flying colors, despite being a bit thin, and drawing at least as much blood from the vet as they did from her. For this reason, she was given a second, stronger sedative; it came a bit late for the vet, but it made the trip home a lot calmer.) But regarding her previous ownership. She’d been microchipped. The chip contained the following information: Species: cat (thank Ghezen). Breed: domestic shorthair. Date of birth: unknown. Implant date: the previous year.

Pet name: Lynx.

“Also, we pulled up the information on the registered owner.”

Kaz took one look at the name, then returned the paper. He already knew Heleen Van Houden’s address. “I’m guessing you can change the registered owner?”

The veterinarian flinched, probably at the change in Kaz’s tone. He already gave off the energy of someone to be careful around, but perhaps being an apparent animal lover had taken off the edge until now. “Of—Of course. You can contact the database company t—to update the information.”

“What about the name on the chip?”

“The pet name is on the microchip itself, I’m afraid, even if she’s now called something different.”

“Can you take it out?”

“That—that—that just isn’t done. It’s so she can be found again if she’s lost. Removal would be counter-productive, and unnecessarily invasive.”

Fine. I’ll just find the right back-alley vet to bother.

Kaz left fuming. A year ago. He’d shut her down a year ago. What was that name supposed to be, then? Some sort of twisted nostalgia? Now, Kaz himself had messed up a lot of people’s lives, but it’s not as if he looked back on it as some kind of high point, unless of course the person in question was a worse sample of humanity than Dirtyhands. Tante Heleen, for example. There was something satisfyingly pathetic about the name choice, as an indication that she just hadn’t been able to emotionally recover from the loss of the Menagerie, but that was beside the point. The point was that she’d implanted that name of all names under a cat’s skin, for the purpose of keeping track of her for all time—not unlike the way she’d once marked “her” girls with her symbol. 

More specifically, she’d done this to a cat who’d showed up at his house, underfed, and with clearly no intention of returning where she came from. All evidence pointed to the creature he was now calling Wraith having renounced the prior identity Heleen had given her. If he could—and he sure intended to—Kaz would help her finish the job. Locating a surgeon with the necessary experience and ethical standing would be significantly more complicated than calling up the nearest vet, but then again, this was Ketterdam. And he was Kaz.

♥︎x♣︎

It had taken Kaz a few days to work out that one of the things Wraith did on the days she wanted out when he left in the morning was to follow him. Depending on where he was going, he didn’t know how she managed to relocate him (he might as well have been the one of them to be chipped), but every now and again, no matter where he was in the city, she just seemed to pop up, like a secondary, cat-shaped shadow. The more he thought about it, the more incredulous it seemed that he’d manage to pull off that visit to the vet. His other concern had been her hurt feelings after returning home, but instead she’d seemed worn out and a little distant. She threw him a few scathing looks, and slept on the bedside table instead of next to him, but something told him her anger was an act somehow: either because she didn’t hold it against him, or because she was still recuperating from the experience. The first option was probably magical thinking, but the very fact that he’d accomplished it to begin with…gave him the sense she’d gone uncommonly easy on him. Kaz just hoped he hadn’t broken her trust completely. But then: there she still was.

She might not be, in the morning. After a good meal and some rest. Maybe this, right now, is the last I’ll see of her.

He found himself blinking back tears, to keep the image clear. She really was the most beautiful, most remarkable being he’d ever known. If I was a cat… he thought, rather sleepily, …or if she was a human… But then he thought again of Heleen, and could too easily imagine some of what Wraith might have lived through before coming here, had she been human. Then again, she clearly mistreats nonhumans in her care, too.

“Did she hurt you?” he whispered. “Is that why…you don’t let me touch you?”

She was sleeping, hadn’t heard him. He could see her whiskers twitch a little in the dark; then her eyes, her paws, her mouth. She was dreaming. Kaz imagined that, in Wraith’s dream, she was hunting something larger and more lively than those mice. Strong, fast, well armed, and she has the element of surprise. He drifted off thinking, semi-lucidly, something about how it’s in a person’s favor to be dangerous.

Wraith was still there the following morning. Sitting much too close to his head and staring at him, which was disarming and kind of scary, but still there. Kaz let himself breathe a sigh of relief. She was in a mood with him for the next few days, doing her feline best to make his life as miserable as possible, but—knowing that she could have just walked out instead—Kaz found it difficult to give a proper performance of being made miserable. (Except, you know, those couple of times she woke him up in the night by clawing him in the face.) He began looking into that “back-alley vet to bother,” and asked a friend whether microchips were really that important. The system had failed in his case, as she would continue to be lost to Heleen, but if she remained his, and partly an outdoor cat? What if she never came home, but it wasn’t because she no longer wanted him in her life? After being made aware of the easy possibility of her going missing and worrying him sick, he did some research on collar tags with tracking devices. After putting in the order, he sent a screenshot of it to Nina with a Thank you. Anytime, she texted back.

“Come on. It can’t be that bad. It’s like…a necklace, or something. Would it put a dent in your stealthiness by rattling too much? Is that the problem?” The collar itself was plain and black and seemed to be a comfortable material—all in all, as little of an imposition as he could arrange—but the tracker itself was, admittedly, bulky. He hadn’t bought a name tag, only what was absolutely necessary, but the metal rings rubbing together still made a bit of noise. Eventually, he got it on her, and immediately filled with dread that it wouldn’t stay that way, as Wraith began scratching at the collar with one of her back feet, turning it all the way around on her neck. She’d forgiven him for the vet by this time (and the fur around her wrist shaved off for the blood draw was growing back in), so now he was thinking it was going to be just one reason to be put out with him, and then the next. He’d contacted an unscrupulous but highly talented surgeon, who’d said she was ready whenever he was. The one thing easing his nerves about getting Wraith into the carrier a second time was the additional planning time, as well as realizing the mistake he’d made with drugging her the last time. Not ideal, Kaz felt, but he wanted to get through the operation in one piece. She’d already begun leaving scars on him; it was a mercy that his hands were already covered most of the time. 

He wasn’t sure he felt more like a cat owner than he did a falconer, but that was neither here nor there.

As for the collar, it stayed on, and left Wraith’s stealthiness completely intact (besides granting him the ability to check her location on his phone). The tracker was ridiculously large on her, with her kittenish frame, but she wore it with a grace he’d never have managed. The only time he ever heard it rattling, after it left his hands, was while Wraith played. She could have pounced on him from the bookshelf and gouged out his eyes without making a single sound to warn him, but with her mice or the feathers-on-a-string, which she must have worked out were both blind and deaf (the felt ears of the mice, in any case, had been long torn to pieces), she was playfully, joyfully noisy.

The feathers-on-a-string, as he’d predicted, was as much Kaz’s toy as his cat’s. He especially loved the opportunity to test out how high she could jump (his chest height), and to witness her twist herself backward in the air and still land on all paws, whiskers forward at attention like wires. When she was worn out, he let her take the toy from him to deposit somewhere, usually on the bed, while he praised her: his acrobat, his huntress, his magical beautiful girl. What would he do without her? With her around, he felt more human, more actually alive. Must be a loving something kind of thing.

But the more alive I am, Kaz thought with a dull, distant apprehension, the more I can be killed. She was asleep (or “asleep,” he still couldn’t always tell the difference), her purring vibrating against his leg. Now that she was here, having clambered right into his heart (with a merciless sense of entitlement to it), he didn’t think he’d’ve been capable of much, without her. He’d have, at most, what? Twenty years with her? That was the length of his entire life thus far, but still. “Come to think of it, I’m a very old man in cat years, Wraith,” he said. Whether awake or asleep, her purr deepened, roughening slightly as if to echo the sound of his voice. “Yet here we are, I’m still going to have you die on me before I do you, so long as nothing goes badly wrong. I know, that’s morbid. You don’t have to think about that. It’s just that…I’ve had someone die on me before.” 

He drifted off thinking about how he’d introduce her to Jordie. At that time of night, it didn’t seem so bizarre at all to introduce a wraith to a ghost, or to explain to his brother that, when she was gone, it’d make him a widower.

It was the next day that, by chance, he came across a missing poster taped to a pole in…yes, this was the neighborhood where she lived now. It’d been up for a while, so the paper was torn and the ink fading, but Kaz recognized the number listed, and the cat in the image as his girl. It wasn’t a very good picture—blurry, probably from cropping a picture that had her far away or in the background—which said something about the pictures of her Heleen had available. On the other hand, she’d gone through the trouble of putting up these posters to begin with. He didn’t like to admit it, when it was his position as Wraith’s human that he felt these posters endangered, but the whole thing got under his skin. How dare that woman continue to lay claim to her?

She was her own, and she’d picked him instead.

Before calming down and thinking it through, Kaz ripped the poster off and stuffed the crumpled paper in his pocket. After calming down and thinking it through, he gave the surgeon he’d found a call. Then he pulled the paper back out, examined it further, and tossed it. An idea began growing in his mind. That night, after sorting through a number of Internet photos and selecting a good picture he’d taken of Wraith’s eyes, he sent Wylan a request. Now all that was left was a way to tip Heleen without her realizing he’d been behind it.

♥︎x♣︎

Thankfully, Wraith recovered well from the surgery (even with her spite for the cone, which he was continually finding under the couch or the bed, rather than around her neck as it was supposed to be; after a couple days of this, he gave it up). Before long, Kaz was already taking off the bandage on her shoulder. The incision had been sealed with glue and not stitches, so there was no need of a return visit. All that was left was the scar, under half an inch long, and the patch of skin around it where, once again, the fur was yet to grow back. He planned to wait for this to happen before he’d set off the chain reaction he’d designed, which would end in Van Houden hearing that Kaz Brekker just so happened to have a black cat like that as well, and who knew when he’d gotten her, or why. Kaz trusted to her bitterness to connect the dots.

While he’d assumed Heleen’s animosity would lead her to a snap judgement, hearing some distinctly hot-headed knocking at his door the morning after he’d set off his tip, Kaz was amused by how quickly she’d taken the bait.

“She’s here,” he warned Wraith. “So we’re on. You ready?” She followed him as he went for the door, although he noticed the fur on her back was standing up. It would still work if she hid, he wanted to tell her, but didn’t want to insult her pride.

“Yes?” he snapped as he opened the door, then, upon identifying his uninvited guest: “I see. It’s you.” He began to close it in her face.

Heleen shouldered her way in. “You stole my cat.”

“Is that right?”

“And look! There she is. That’s Lynx.”

Seeing her step in Wraith’s direction, Kaz blocked her with his cane. He glanced once at Wraith: the orange in her eyes had waned to rings, and her fur was sticking up like a cat on a Halloween decoration. She hasn’t fled the room. 

Alright, then let’s do this.

“Unhand me,” Heleen was demanding.

“You’re the one who barged your way in.” Interesting turn of phrase, I don’t see my hands anywhere near you.

“That’s my cat,” Van Houden growled. “I’d know her anywhere.”

“Is that right. So you’re telling me…that you…have a cat?” He considered her, lingering on the rhinestones at her neck. “Must be some downgrade from those peacocks.”

“Well, look for yourself,” she said, pulling out another one of the missing posters, this one newly printed. Kaz took it, making no visible effort to listen to Heleen’s tirade, and acting like this was the first he’d heard or seen anything to do with it. “Why on Earth would you name a cat that?” he asked finally. “Lynx? That’s disgusting.”

“It’s a species of cat, isn’t it? I thought, ‘why not?’”

“—Like she’s just another one of the girls you abused,” Kaz continued, speaking over her.

“But she’s an actual cat. I thought it was cute. Anyway, she came to me through the last Lynx I had before you shut my business down.”

“You’re welcome,” said Kaz, still looking at the paper. “It was an eyesore.”

“Anyway,” Heleen went on; Kaz let himself smile at the fury in her voice at his last remark. “She was left behind in the commotion, the poor thing, so I did what I could for her. The girl had called her… ‘Inej,’ I believe it was. Of course I had to change it.”

“Inej, you said?” Kaz looked behind him to judge Wraith’s response to this other name. Her ears turned forward, and her whiskers and tail twitched. So that’s it, then, he thought. “Really? I think that name’s much better. But, in any case, this is Wraith, and she’s mine. There must have been some confusion. In any case, the cat in this picture could be nearly any black cat I’ve ever seen.” Kaz acted like an idea had just occurred to him, and he pulled up the image he’d asked Wylan to photoshop. “Here. Let me show you something.” Heleen sniffed, folding her arms, and looked. “See. This was Wraith as a kitten.”

“That could be nearly any black cat, too,” Heleen replied with satisfaction.

“No, not quite.” Kaz zoomed in on the photo. “See the brown spots in her eyes? There’re easy to miss, but…well. She’s one of a kind, isn’t she? Funny how you’ve mistaken her for someone else.”

He let Van Houden take the phone from him. “No. No, I’m not mistaken. My Lynx had eyes just like that.”

Kaz took the phone back, pocketed it. “Without evidence…I can’t possibly be made to believe that. The more viable theory, in my eyes, is that you’re trying to get back at me by taking my cat.” He stepped between Heleen and where he remembered Wraith/Inej to be, behind him. “I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“No, she just—was a climber, you know? And not a lap cat, though I did try.”

“You…tried. Hmm. I wonder what that involved.”

He was hoping for something like, What are you insinuating?, but instead Heleen chose not to acknowledge his comment. “It was hard to get in close, even when offering her food, but I do have other pictures—your picture, I’m sure it has to be false, knowing you, and you can’t expect me to believe—”

At this point, she cut off abruptly. Kaz tried to swallow his shock, hoping none of it showed on his face, the way it was written all over hers as she stared down at his feet. Wraith/Inej was winding between his legs. After a moment, Kaz let himself glance down as well, cooly, as if the signify his irritation that this was all that her fuss was about. “Door’s right behind you.”

“Lynx never did that.” She was shaking her head. “How…? Maybe this is a different cat…”

“Don’t expect me to answer the door to you ever again, Heleen.”

“My apologies for wasting your time,” she said in a thin, confused voice, and saw herself out.

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he whispered. She released him from her figure eights, and finally Kaz could exhale. He went to sit down, and Wraith/Inej jumped up onto the table next to him. “You were incredible,” he told her. “I had no idea you’d do that. It totally scared her off.”

She blinked at him, shifting her feet underneath her, and starting to purr in self-satisfaction.

“So…” he began, and ran a hand through his hair to give himself time. It’d all happened so fast, back there. “Is your name Inej?”

She stared at him for a moment, then squeezed her eyes back shut.

“It is, isn’t it? It’s lovely. And that’s I-N-E-J?”

She sat down more comfortably, in “loaf” form, wrapping her tail around herself.

“She starved you,” Kaz said, voice filling uncomfortably with emotion, “to get what she wanted from you, didn’t she?” My girl... “I’m sorry you got left behind at that place.” His hand twitched. I wish I could pet you. “I know the girl who left you was just trying to get herself out. I’m sure you meant a lot to her, and it probably broke both your hearts.”

He stopped here, finding himself in an odd place. When she’d first appeared in his life, he’d wanted her gone, and now instead he wanted, with every fiber of him, not to let her go. Is that how it works? You let yourself need someone, and then just like that…?

I’m better for having loved her, he realized, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. He wanted to keep on being changed by her presence. But he couldn’t do that, if he was holding onto her unfairly, unrightfully.

“I could track her down for you. It wouldn’t even be that hard to find her name and a picture of her, and from there I’ll contact some people… She’s your family, huh? So I’ve simply got to bring you back together, haven’t I? And yet the funny thing is, Inej…I didn’t at first, but now I want to keep you. Don’t know what I’m going to do without you, in fact. I guess I…fell in love with you. Didn’t I.”

She looked at him, fascinated. Her ears had twitched again at his use of the name.

“I’d do anything for you, even let you go, if that’s what you need me to do.”

Inej sighed, then jumped off the table. She returned bearing one of her mice.

♥︎x♣︎

As promised, Kaz tracked down her original owner, Kesh. She’d been glad to hear Inej was alright, but explained she couldn’t take her since one of her roommates was allergic and, additionally, they would’ve had to go behind their landlord’s back. He sent further pictures—I can’t believe she’s still so tiny! She was maybe six months old when I last saw her—and offered to arrange a visit. Kesh promptly agreed.

One thing you need to know ahead of time, he wrote, is that Van Houden treated her harshly, and she’s still getting used to touch. She’s let me pet her only a couple times, and always with her initiation.

On the other hand, she’s extremely playful and agile. Prepare yourself to witness some amazing feats of acrobatics.

He didn’t mention what had happened just that morning. It felt like something special, something Kaz wanted to keep all to himself.

He’d woken up to the sound of her purring in his ear. She was sitting just behind him on the pillow, and he could feel her fur on the back of his neck. “Inej?” Her whiskers brushed the side of his face. “That tickles a little.” His words were garbled with sleep; in his dream, he thought—though it was now fading fast—she’d been performing on a high wire strung between two spires of the Church of Barter. Magic cat. He turned over to face her, and she stayed where she was. “May I?” he asked softly. Still, she didn’t stir. Kaz planted a kiss just under her chin, at the place her purr was emanating from.

And then they just stayed like that, next to each other. He could see all the details in her eyes.