Chapter Text
Part Two: The Seas
The Moon is distant from the Sea –
And yet, with Amber Hands –
She leads Him – docile as a Boy –
Along appointed Sands –
-Emily Dickinson
Six Months Later
The package arrived wrapped in thick butcher paper, topped with a bow tied with fraying twine. Kaz traced the address with a single gloved fingertip. He immediately recognized the graceful handwriting, the elegant pen strokes dancing across the paper. The wrappings bore the purple stamp of harbor master, the edges torn by careless hands. The customs agents had done a rather poor job of disguising the evidence of their inspection, no doubt keen to catch him in some wrongdoing.
Kaz found some small measure of satisfaction in imagining their disappointment.
Inclining his head towards the door, he produced a single gold coin to pay the runner—a young boy who earned his keep running messages for the gangs. The runner watched the coin dance across gloved knuckles, his pale eyes gleaming hungrily. Kaz recognized that expression. He had seen it in the eyes of feral cats snarling over scraps. He scowled, flipping the coin into the air. The runner caught it greedily, scurrying out of the attic without further prompting.
Kaz didn’t open the package immediately. Instead, he plucked another ledger from the stack on his desk. He had stolen them the night before from a locked cabinet in the Exchange building. Ignoring the congealing mug of coffee near his elbow, he studied each row of numbers, committing them to memory before turning to the next page. The ledgers, at first glance, seemed to count crates of kvas purchased on the Ravkan coast, but he knew better. He had been monitoring the kvas warehouses for months, tracking each shipment from the harbor.
The numbers didn’t make sense—unless the merchant council was trafficking in something other than liquor.
Jordie peered over his shoulder, saltwater drip, drip, dripping from his curls. The dark ink blurred as each damning droplet bled through the paper.
There was a sudden knock at the door.
Kaz blinked as the numbers shifted before his eyes. He slowly ran his pointer finger down the paper. Through the slits in the fingers of his gloves he could feel that the parchment was bone dry. The droplets of seawater had vanished along with his brother’s ghost. His head ached dully, the echo of distant waves crashing in his ears.
Shaking his head, he cleared his throat. “Come in.”
Kaz lifted his head as the door opened revealing an absurdly long-limbed teenager.
Jesper Fahey was dressed from head-to-toe in clashing colors, including a chartreuse overcoat that would have been better suited for the ringmaster of a high-top circus tent. He was peering into the attic, his hands resting on the pearl-handled revolvers holstered on each hip. His gaze lingered curiously on the unopened package, his head tilting to one side like an inquisitive bloodhound.
Kaz snapped the ledger he had been examining shut. “What business?” he prompted. “I distinctly remember requesting not to be disturbed before twelve bells, and yet this is the second intrusion this morning.”
Jesper lounged against the doorframe. “I thought you might want to know that Specht’s finally returned from his jaunt to the countryside,” he said with a shrug, “but clearly I was mistaken.”
Kaz sat up straighter in his chair. “Is he downstairs?”
“Fresh off the browboat,” Jesper confirmed, his fingers drumming against his revolvers. “It’s strange, isn't it? Seeing him dressed in respectable attire instead of the usual flash. He was wearing a straw trilby. A trilby! Fresh from some country milliner, no doubt." Jesper laughed. "He would look like proper pigeon if it weren’t for the neck tattoos—”
“Spare me the lesson on provincial fashions,” Kaz interrupted, reaching for the familiar heft of his cane. “Just send him up before he decides to abscond to the countryside once more.”
Jesper studied him for a long moment, his expression a little mulish. “I can see my sparkling wit is wasted on you at the moment,” he muttered. “In case you needed reminding, I didn’t abandon my university education to be your personal messenger boy.”
Kaz found his cane, his gloved fingers curling around the crow’s head. He squeezed it so tightly he could feel the metal beak digging into his palm through his soft leather gloves.
No, he thought darkly. You abandoned your university education because you were fool enough to forget that the house always wins. You were fool enough to love the cards more than luck loved you in return.
He could hear the damn water drip, drip, dripping again.
You were fool enough to throw everything away on a reckless wager, Jordie.
Jesper sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know why I bother sometimes. It isn’t as though you actually—” He broke off abruptly, letting out an embittered laugh. His hands had dropped to his sides once more, fiddling with his revolvers. “Look. It’s fine. I’ll send him up straight away.”
Then he disappeared through the doorway without another word.
Kaz pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, squeezing his eyes shut. The roar of the breakers was even louder now, the waves crashing as though he had pressed his ears against the hollow of an abandoned whelk. It was his brother again—it was always his brother these days—but he longed to feel her leaning over his shoulder instead. She might whisper into the shell of his ear, her voice the quiet murmur of smallboats bumping against their moorings.
You know he cares about you, don’t you? Inej had once asked him. Would it hurt you to show a little care in return?
Now, he chuckled bitterly. “My little Suli idealist, of course, it would hurt.”
He strained to remember the little furrow between her eyebrows, the way her dark eyes had narrowed with curiosity. But how could you possibly know?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he drew a shuddering breath, forcing his eyes open. He could still hear that infernal dripping, but perhaps it was simply the rainwater trickling down the shingles. The attic was empty, the gabled windows nailed shut. Shaking his head, he reached for the unopened package. It was heavier than it looked. He dragged it across the makeshift desk, retracing the handwritten address.
He remembered the first time he had seen that elegant handwriting. It had been scrawled across an envelope postmarked in a foreign city, his name written with an unfamiliar alphabet. The moment he realized what it meant, he had hidden the letter in his safe along with his notes from the Yumr ʾidi Suli, refusing to open it for days.
It had been, after all, the moment he realized that he would soon lose the girl he loved forever.
* * *
“You know he cares about you, don’t you?”
It had been early autumn, and the harvest moon hung low amidst the clouds, its belly scraping the nearby rooftops. Inej had been perched on the windowsill, her translucent silks pooling around her like moonbeams. She had been hugging her legs to her chest, her chin resting on her knees as she studied him. Her long hair fell loose around her bare shoulders, smudges of silver paint dappling her skin like fallen stars. She had been staring out the window the entire evening, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
But moments earlier, she had shifted her attention to the doorway, watching curiously as an unfamiliar scene unfolded on the landing.
Jesper had been knocking on the door, drunkenly flirting with danger.
The landing was empty now. Kaz had snarled at him like a wounded beast, sending the sharpshooter fleeing with his tail between his legs. However, Kaz's cheeks had remained unpleasantly warm upon returning to his work. He gripped his fountain pen so tightly he was sure it would snap down the middle. Inkblots blossomed across his ledgers each time he stabbed the paper with a bit more force than strictly necessary.
The last thing he needed at the moment was another lecture.
He stubbornly pointed down at the business expenditures on his desk. “The only thing Jesper cares about is his line of credit at the Crow Club.”
Inej had lifted her chin from her knees as she regarded him. Her kohl-rimmed eyes had narrowed to slits, her lips pursed in distaste. “It just strikes me as strange that—”
“What could possibly be strange about the truth?” he interrupted, slamming his fountain pen against the table.
Inej had sniffed in displeasure. “It strikes me as strange because I never took you for a fool,” she said, casting him a cool glance, “but perhaps I was wrong. I’ll admit that it’s better than believing you could be so careless in your friendships.”
“Jesper is not my friend,” he sneered. “He will never be my friend.”
There had been a long moment of silence between them, only broken by the soft flutter of feathers as the crows roosting beneath the eaves took flight. Inej watched them disappear into the darkness, her hands balled into fists in her silks.
“In that case, I will pray for your soul,” she said, her voice cold. “I’ll pray to the saints that there’s someone left to mourn you when your body burns on the Reaper’s Barge.”
The silver bells shackled to each ankle had been silent as she slipped out the window into the darkness. She had been there one second, gone the next.
Soon, she would vanish forever.
Kaz had picked up his fountain pen once more, furiously scratching through another column of expenditures. He calculated each sum in his head, subtracting business expenses to find the revenue. Following an ill-timed audit from the tax authorities, the old man had been breathing down his neck to ensure that the books were in order. Kaz had longed to turn towards the window, but he finished balancing the books instead, straining his eyes in the flickering candlelight. He managed to disguise the illegal acquisition of several crates of single malt whiskey, adjusting the numbers from the card tables to account for the unexpected windfall. It had been hours before he had been satisfied with his work. Then, at last, he set his pen to the side, stacking the ledgers into an orderly pile.
His back to the window, he had heaved himself to his feet. His right leg ached at the sudden movement, but he had leaned against his desk, reaching for the comfort of his cane. He tucked the ledgers tucked beneath his armpit, crossing the room to the safe hidden behind an oil painting he had stolen months earlier. Removing the painting from the wall, he placed the paperwork into the safe, nestled alongside bright purple banknotes and several stolen library books. His gloved fingers grazed over each item before coming to rest on an envelope. He traced the elegant handwriting:
Kaz Brekker
58 Zuidenstraat
Ketterdam
The Isle of Kerch
Inside that envelope had been the letter he had been dreading for weeks. Inej had died days before her sixteenth birthday, her skin adorned with a garland of purple bruises. Kaz knew, intimately, what would have happened to her broken body in the hours before it burned on the floating barge in the harbor. Indeed, the rotting flesh haunted him each time he glimpsed his brother out of the corner of his eyes. His brother had deserved better. She deserved better. So, when she begged him to write to her parents one morning in early spring, he knew he owed her this one small kindness. He had delivered her letters to the postmaster in the weeks that followed, confident that it was a foolish endeavor.
He had never expected to receive a letter in return.
He had shut the safe door, replacing the oil painting on the wall. He stared for a long moment at the landscape in the painting, examining the intricate brushstrokes. It was a pastoral scene. On a high bluff over the water, shepherds tended flocks of sheep, their soft bodies like clouds on a summer morning. In the distance, a ship sailed onwards, its purple flags unfurling in the breeze, departing for uncharted waters. He reached out, tracing the sails with his fingertips before turning back towards the window, an apology on his lips—
But the window ledge had been empty.
* * *
Specht had been drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey the night he was first recruited to the gang. His crumpled court summons still in hand, he had passed out drunk as soon as he emptied the bottle, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Kaz had pocketed the papers shortly thereafter, scanning the list of charges in private. The court summons would have been damning to any respectable employer.
Kaz had seen it as an opportunity. The next day, he greased the palms of the judge.
Specht had walked free, albeit without his pension. But he hadn't complained. He earned a tidy sum forging documents for the Dregs, and he was paid even more kruge for his discretion.
Kaz had always planned to make good on that investment. Now, he would collect what he was owed.
Listening for the sound of approaching footsteps on the stairs, he opened the heavy package on his desk at long last. Jordie stood solemnly at his elbow, saltwater pooling on the floorboards at his feet. The dripping water grew louder and louder, keeping pace with his heart. Kaz ignored it. Instead, he peeled back the butcher paper like the rind of an orange, prying open the wooden lid with his cane. The box was crammed with glass jars. He ignored the containers of honey and spices, chutneys and dried tea leaves. He was seeking the letter nestled at the bottom of the package. He pulled it out just as he heard the floorboard creak on the second floor. He flipped through the pages, smiling grimly when he spotted it. The graceful handwriting confirmed what he already suspected...
The famed kvas distillery in Arkesk had burned to the ground in a Fjerdan raid.
“Boss?” Specht was standing nervously in the doorway, his straw hat tucked beneath his armpit. “Fahey said you sent for me? But I don’t know what I—”
Kaz lifted a single gloved finger. “Have you returned to the city with a guilty conscience?”
Specht shook his head. “No, but—”
“If you don’t have a guilty conscience, then stop blubbering like a child. It is unbecoming in a man of your age,” Kaz rasped. “I called you here because I require your… particular set of skills.”
Specht narrowed his eyes. “What skills?”
Kaz swallowed, remembering the promise he made months earlier on the edge of the harbor.
“Tell me,” he said. “How do you feel about a life of piracy?”