Chapter Text
The Bastard of the Barrel really lived up to his name, because banging on Nina's door at seven bell could not be the making of a man touched by holiness.
Ever since they got Matthias back from Hellgate, she had grown fonder of the Barrel Boss. But not enough to obey silently, so she yelled the best “fuck off” she could, her mouth still half asleep.
“Meeting upstairs in fifteen minutes. Don't be late,” came Kaz's muffled voice. Then, the characteristic sound of his cane, which got fainter and fainter.
And fifteen minutes later, upstairs she was, Matthias close behind her. At last, Jesper and Wylan – who had visibly missed a button on his shirt – entered the room Nina had come to know as Kaz's office. It truly only was a dark room with a big window and a desk, but a boy could dream.
“It better be important,” she said, giving Kaz a pointed look.
“Have I ever woken you up for nothing, Zenik?”
Depended on his definition of nothing, but she did not pushed. Hopefully, whatever that was it would be over in a matter of minutes and she could at least get a descent breakfast to compensate for the lack of sleep.
“So what is it?” asked Jesper.
Kaz sighed. “As we all know, Inej is… gone. At sea.”
They nodded. The Wraith's absence was felt by all. Sometimes, Nina still looked around in hope of finding her eyes or her smile. But it didn't answer Jesper's question.
“I need someone to destroy some important documents. They sit in the office of one of the Merchant Council most illustrious' member: Jan van Eck. Now, I could get any good enough spider there, but I need someone on the inside.”
As the name of the councilman was spoken, the air started to feel heavier, almost stingy. Someone's heartbeat drummed loud and fast. Nina's eyes scanned her friends' face. Jesper trepidated with nervous anticipation. At first glance, Wylan looked as impassible as always, but she could see how he dug his hands in his pockets and slightly leaned on the wall. He reeked of anxiety. Weird. It was not like he would be the one to go; Kaz was a tad too protective over him for that to happen.
By her sides, Matthias, with his usual quiet stillness, was a welcomed contrast. Sometimes, she wondered if he had not directly emerged from the ice. He was as cold, as steady as the Fjerdan permafrost. Maybe once they'll spend more time with the other crows he'd start to melt. Even after two months, he still had a hard time warming up to the one and only Kaz Brekker.
“So what's the plan? Who's gonna go?” asked Jesper.
Kaz smiled and Nina knew he was up to no good. He then stared right at Wylan, who visibly paled.
“Guess it's time for Wylan to pay his daddy a visit.”
Jesper should've seen it coming, really.
The truth was, he had not. Not at all; not from a thousand miles away, not in this lifetime.
Standing there in Kaz's office, the echo of the words breached through the quiet of what had started as a lovely morning. Oh, what a morning! Waking up early, finding Wylan softly sleeping next to him, bathed in early golden sunlight, looking like a god, like a painting, while he, already wide awake and way too full of energy, had done his best to calm down enough to focus on the piece he was working on – a ring, made from a piece of metal he had found at the crow club. The half-made ring was now sitting heavy in his pocket.
How he had silently wished he would not have to be the one going to this fancy-ass house! And now how he hoped the name that had escaped Kaz's cracked lip had been his! Then maybe his stomach would not have turned into lead, and maybe he would be able to look at Wylan without being crushed by disbelief. Wylan, who did not look confused enough to Jesper's liking, only shaken, only a little mad, a little pale, but not denying what had just been suggested. Jesper fought the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he confessed it was just a prank; and how hilarious it was, really, and they will all laugh it away and say saints, you really scared me for a second! And everything will be fine and Wylan will always be the same Wylan he had always known, his sweet, beautiful Wylan, not a mercher's son, not someone who had not trusted him enough to tell him who he was, not someone who should not be here in the streets with them, slumming in the Barrel. A joke! Just a joke! That's all it was, wasn't it?
But no one took the time to disarm the bomb that had just been thrown. Instead, Wylan precipitated the explosion with two simple words: “You knew?”
He clearly was avoiding Jesper's eyes. The sharpshooter was shaking, fingers on his pearl-handled guns, as if their cold edges could ease the pain in his chest. It was supposed to be a quiet morning! A lovely morning! Not a pivotal moment in their relationship! He shoved his hands inside his pockets in hope of finding something to cling to, but his fingertips brushed the ring and retracted like the antennae of a bug.
“Of course I knew,” replied Kaz. Why did you think I brought you here in the first place?”
Wylan said something about being good at demo or something but the sounds came muffled to Jesper's ringing ears. Saints, he was going to have a headache. He felt Nina's eyes on him, but she too remained quiet. Surely she did not know what was happening, did not even know who this Jan Van Eck was, why they were reacting the way they were. He took another look at Wylan, eyes stinging. He had lost the count of how many times he had called him a prince, and now he could only laugh at the irony of it all. He had known. Deep, down, a small part of him had known Wylan was not from their world. That's what he always said, right? That he was otherworldly. But he was not a fae or a prince or the son of a nymph. He was rich, madly rich. He should not have been so blind. So foolish. But he had been. At least enough to think he had finally gotten close to someone, gotten to know Wylan after all this time spent together; after all the vulnerability the ever-confident sharpshooter had laid before their eyes, after giving him a key to his room, to their room; after trying, really trying to get hold of his power, after spending fifteen minutes every morning practicing what Wylan had called a gift.
After doing so much for someone whose last name he did not even know.
His throat closed as a wave of nausea hit him in the trachea. Four sets of eyes stared at him.
“Jesper, I- I can explain, I…” Wylan started, taking a step toward him but Jesper took immediately a step back. He could not. He needed to leave. He needed to get away from this room and then maybe later he'd come back. But not right now.
“It’s stupid, I know, I-” continued Wylan. But Jesper did not want his explanations. An apology, maybe. Someone to hit him so the pain would turn into an ugly bruise, something visible and explicable, yes. A turn of Makker's wheel, certainly. So he turned around and left the room without a word.
In five bells, Wylan was going to see his father again.
Lying on his makeshift bed and clutching at the blanket, an invisible weight sitting on his chest, eyes wide open and thoughts racing, he seriously considered leaving Ketterdam and never coming back.
Maybe he could – maybe he should. He had saved enough kruge to buy a ticket for who knows where. Ravka, perhaps. Or Novyi Zem. Somewhere he'd never, ever, have to worry about hearing his father's awfully calm voice or getting any of his damned letters again.
He never should have agreed to this job. But then, he had not really been given a choice. Kaz had told him what to do. Period. No room for refusing. Or for explanation. Jesper had left the office awfully quiet. Wylan could almost hear the words that had escaped his own lips hours ago, how helpless and ridiculous he must have sounded, how ungrateful. Nothing had worked; Jesper did not want to hear about it, hear about him, probably never will again. And now, shivering in his old laboratory, he truly wondered if there was anything he would truly be leaving behind. But he could not leave. He had a mission. A job.
Going back to the mansion. For a day or two, maybe a week depending on how fast he was.
He turned. Maybe it will be fine. He just needed to get rid of the documents Kaz wanted and live long enough to see the light of day again. Find the intelligence and destroy it. Easy. Something about a plant, jurda parem. Was it a plant? Jurda was. He had never heard of the word parem though, and Kaz had left him in the dark about most of it – as always.
How was he even supposed to find the right documents? How will he know about what they say? Kaz did not know about his… his… deficiency. About anything that had happened in this house. He should’ve told him. But then, if Kaz knew about it, how could Wylan be sure he wouldn't kick him away from the crows? He'd be of no utility. A burden. And Kaz was not the kind of person to tolerate a burden when he could simply get rid of it.
He pulled the blanket under his chin. He had survived sixteen years there. He could manage a few days. But deep inside, he knew if he ever was to step inside this house, he'd die there.
He could die, but was he even going to be missed? At least he could die being of use, getting rid of the right documents and sparing the crows the pain of being in the same room as his father. And what if he made it out alive? What if it made the crows see that even as a merchling he was still useful, still worthy of being part of their crew and not just a spoiled brat who had wanted a change of scenery?
It was starting to rain. He wiped his tear-stained cheeks with the back of his hand.
After Jesper had left, he had heard Nina ask softly who Jan Van Eck was. And when Kaz had told her, she had said “and what if he decides to stay?”. He had not heard Kaz's answer. He did not want to anyway, because he knew if he didn't leave the corridor he wouldn't be able to stop himself from storming inside and yell his head off at the boss of the Barrel, maybe try to lend a punch or two.
He knew his identity could be revealed. But he had always thought he'd be the one to do it, or that one of the crows would find a letter. Not once did he fathomed Kaz knowing all along and using it to his own benefit, not caring about any of the damages such a reveal could make. He had been naïve. Foolish, even. Of course Kaz knew. Of course he'd never have had the opportunity to join the crows in the first place if that had not been the case. Of course he was not simply skilled enough to be worth anything, of course his family name mattered, of course it hadn't drown in the canal with his suitcase but had been dragged to the surface, had stuck on his wet clothes, on his uncut hair, on his skin; no matter how much he had tried to wash it off, to bury it over and over again, deep, thinking it dead and gone, unreachable, even after the first letter arrived and the second and the third, even when he had thrown his mother's last name at the face of everyone who asked, even if he had tried to reinvent himself, to find who he was without the yells and the insults and the shame and the hunger and the long hours waiting and the hits and the opened books in front of him and the shaking the crying the begging, to be more than a scared child who could play the flute, he had failed. Even then, his father's shadow hung over him like a guillotine.
Four bells rang.
In four hours, he'll be standing in front of the door.