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INEJ
This wasn’t the first time Inej arrived, late at night and unannounced, to her room at Wylan’s house. But she was surprised each time to find the bed made up, the furniture clear of dust, a generous stack of clean, fluffy towels atop the wide, empty dresser. At least, she thought with a fond smile, they hadn’t gone so far as to refresh the hot water in the pitcher. In the chill Ketterdam winter air, it would have gone cold in the matter of an hour.
And they needn’t have bothered. She was perfectly capable of fetching her own hot water, especially at this time of night. And in any case, she found herself surprisingly wide awake. Her last few weeks trailing close behind a slaving ship that had been making its way up the northern Shu coast had been as invigorating as it had been successful, in the end.
Coming back to Ketterdam always opened up her senses, but it seemed improbable that the eternally muggy air could somehow feel refreshing. More likely, Inej mused, old habits died hard, and her body was merely reawakening itself to the specific flavor of danger the city always had on offer.
Even as she lifted the pitcher to go seek out a fresh batch of hot water, her steps down the hall were as shadows, her senses attuned to every bump and creek elsewhere in the house. She was aware of Jesper and Wylan’s absence that night, and she had no desire to frighten Marya or the servants by catching them off-guard. She would make her presence known in the morning.
Inej smiled to herself, ducking around a corner as a servant passed by with an armload of laundry. Like a normal person.
There were no close calls. The servants’ routines had barely changed in the year since she’d first arrived here as a guest, and she had added them to the intricate web that was her mental map of Ketterdam. She was soon back at the door to her room without spilling a drop of the gloriously hot water in her jug.
Inej paused.
A gentle creak sounded on the other side of the door, a blot on her map that didn’t belong there. Of course she was aware of the squeaky floorboard just under the window, but for that to make noise, something needed to be pressing on it. So either someone in the house had noticed her presence, and had taken it upon themselves to check on the state of her room, or…
A knife dropped into her hand, a comforting weight regardless of what had caused the noise. It might be nothing. But a servant would leave the door open if they’d gone to check on the room. Marya, too, wouldn’t have bothered to shut it behind her. Inej’s vision seemed to widen, her ears pricked like a hunting dog’s. But no other sound came from inside.
Inej put up her hood and set down the jug.
The door to the room opened soundlessly, revealing the darkened hallway and nothing else. From her vantage point, Inej could see the window at the other end of her dimly lit room, but everything else that was visible was as she had left it. No one called out. No one said a word.
After a calculated period of time, Inej dropped into the doorway, landing in a crouch, her blade shining in the dull light. A moment later, she straightened and returned her knife to its home.
Kaz Brekker was seated at the center of her room, completely at ease, with his cane perched on one crossed knee. His eyebrows were raised.
“Don’t make that face at me.” With a huff of a breath, Inej dropped her hood and went to retrieve the jug of water from just outside the door. “What did you expect, sneaking in like that?”
For a moment, she almost tricked herself into thinking she’d seen a smile curl the edge of his lip. It had to be the flickering of the light. “I warned Wylan months ago to upgrade these locks. Take it up with him.”
“As if anything he could switch to would stop you.” Inej returned the jug of water to its place beside the basin, with the fleeting but potent feeling that if she wanted to wash with warm water tonight, she was likely to have to retrace her steps. “You know they’re out, right?”
“That’s never stopped me before,” Kaz shrugged. “Or you.”
“If you just came to speak to me, you could have waited until tomorrow.” She lingered beside the basin but turned, tilting her head so the heavy braid of her hair hung perpendicular to the floor. “You know I would have come see you.”
“You always do.” Kaz’s gaze had drifted to the wainscoting along the far wall, just past where Inej stood before him. He seemed to be considering. “If you’re tired, I can leave you to settling in.”
“Not so tired that I’m not curious what you couldn’t wait until tomorrow to talk to me about.”
“It’s not a matter of impatience.” Inej watched as his gaze traveled down the wall, along the floor, and up to the tip of the beak of his crow-headed cane. Was he avoiding looking at her? “I have something I wanted to show you. It’s easier at night.”
“At night?” Inej took a step closer, hoping to catch his attention off-guard. He remained staring at his cane.
“More crowds. Less conspicuous.”
She smiled. “Had enough sneaking around for one night?”
“One must never have too much sneaking around in Ketterdam.”
Inej’s eyes narrowed, more out of curiosity than suspicion. As usual, Kaz’s expression and demeanor betrayed no hint of his intentions, and Inej could not fathom what could be so important that he show her practically the moment she descended from The Wraith . But none of this was particularly unusual. Kaz Brekker revealed his secrets only in due time, when they would have the greatest impact.
“I can come back tomorrow.” The offer hardly had time to linger in the air before Kaz had his cane gripped tighter in his hand and halfway to making contact with the floor. In the flash of motion, Inej caught a glimpse of his hand, pale skin reflecting the dim candlelight flickering in the room.
If she had come to him the following morning at the Slat, his gloves would have been securely in place when she arrived.
“Tonight is fine.” Her voice rang a bit strangely in her ear, as his had, as if they were both dangerously close to missing their timing cues in some sort of play and were struggling to keep up. “How could I possibly sleep now?”
Kaz paused, the tip of his cane hovering just above the floor, watching her. The darkness of his eyes swallowed the little light in the room, and Inej found their depths frustratingly difficult to unravel, even after all this time. Eventually, he rose, leaning on the top of the cane only lightly.
Then he held out a hand.
Inej didn’t know where to look. The vision of his bare hand, offered so casually, was a novelty she could hardly bear to turn away from. But his eyes had locked onto her, and escaping his dark gaze seemed equally impossible. Finally, she took a step forward, allowing the hand to remain a pale, blurry shape at the edge of her vision as she watched his face. His skin was chill against hers as she slipped her hand into his grasp. The candles in the room banked, as if a sudden wind had fluttered through the room, making the shadows on his face shift just briefly. Or else he had flinched, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat. Inej wasn’t sure which. His grip on her hand remained steady, a light pressure that insisted of his own comfort while leaving her free to remove hers at any time. Inej squeezed once, gently, and left her hand in his.
To her surprise, he moved toward the back of the room instead of to the door. Inej’s lips tilted up. “You don’t have to sneak back out , you know.”
Kaz glanced at her, and again the candles seemed to bend to his will, casting shadows where a smile might have been. “That’s not a habit I intend to break.”
✶
An unmanned canalboat had been waiting by the back of the Van Eck house, and Kaz had begun to paddle them west himself. Perched on the edge of the boat, Inej allowed her eyes to stray generously between Kaz’s dark form and the equally dark silhouette of the Church of Barter as they passed it on their way out of the Financial District.
“How long are you staying in Ketterdam?” he asked, his own gaze never straying from the canal ahead.
“Only a week and a half. Maybe two. We’re just resting and restocking supplies.”
“Your last letter mentioned a big lead.” That had been a month ago, in a hastily scrawled, heavily coded note sent via several different Kerch trade ships from the Shu Han coastline. “Have you been tracking it this whole time?”
“Until a couple days ago. Nasty band of slavers promising safe passage for Grisha and their families hiding in the small villages in southern Shu Han. They were told they would be ferried north to a free life in Ravka. But most of them were destined for the Kerch black market.” Inej’s features darkened. “Some of the Grisha, they turned right around and sold them back to the Shu.”
Kaz kept to the shadows as they wound their way down the canal. To their right, the Ravkan embassy loomed, dark and empty at this late hour. “They sound slippery.”
“I’ve been trying to track them down on mostly rumors since The Wraith made her first passage. It was only through other captures that we were able to find any solid information on them at all.”
“Brick by brick.”
Inej glanced up at the back of his head as he continued to pole their boat through the water. Was that a hint of pride she’d heard in his voice?
“So how did you catch up with them?”
“We’d been trailing them for weeks, trying to get around them without them knowing. When I realized they were trying to lose us, it came down to a contest of speed and stamina.”
“And the Wraith got her quarry?”
“She always does.” Inej stretched her arms over her head, relishing in the cold and damp of Ketterdam if for no other reason than the novelty of it. “How much farther are we going, Kaz? Do you want me to steer for a while?”
“Not much longer. We’re leaving the boat just inside East Stave.”
Inej shot a questioning look up at him, but as his gaze was still turned away from her--and, as usual--she got no immediate response.
“So you brought those passengers to Ravka yourself?”
“I offered to take them west. To Kerch, as free people, or further if that was what they wanted.”
“I didn’t hear about any large arrivals from Shu Han this evening.”
Inej frowned. “I don’t think any of them expected to have their pick of destinations. When I gave them the choice, most of them just wanted to go where they were promised in the first place. So we stopped at the border before heading back.”
“But not all of them?”
“All but one. A fourteen-year-old boy who’d tried to get to Ravka before, over the Sikurzoi, and was turned away. He was happy to hear that wasn’t his only option.”
“So you brought him to Ketterdam?”
“He only stays here as long as The Wraith does.” Inej leaned back and gazed up at the dense clouds overhead, allowing a smile to tip back into her expression. “It’ll be handy having a Squaller on board.”
Ahead of her, Kaz gave a satisfied tck as he dipped his pole deep into the canal. They took a sharp right turn, leaving the building that had once been the Emerald Palace behind them, and headed up towards Fifth Harbor.
Just before the canal opened up into the True Sea, it passed beneath a bridge, and that was where Kaz steered their boat and tied it up along the shallows. He traded the pole back for his cane and climbed onto land. Inej followed closely behind him, eyes sharp for any signs of difficulty, but Kaz moved with his usual ease, planting his cane conservatively and with great precision. A set of steps carved into the side of the bridge led up to street-level. At the bottom, Kaz once more held out his hand.
“Not much farther.”
The shadows here were even trickier than those back in her room at Wylan’s, but Inej was sure this time that when their skin touched, his face and gaze remained as schooled as ever. Hesitantly, she stretched out her fingers and twined them with his; a moment later, he gave her hand a squeeze.
Together, they ascended the steps.
The Lid was in full swing at this hour, full of tourists and dock hands finding places to test their skills and their luck, revellers who had had too much, and the more unfortunate breed who had not yet had enough. Inej put up her hood and Kaz lifted his cane from the road, and somehow Dirtyhands and his Wraith disappeared into the bright lights and promises of the Lid. They continued southwest.
Their pace had slowed, and talk was more difficult here. Inej focused on the way Kaz’s skin felt on hers, how it grew warmer within the heat of her own, how stable it seemed even as the minutes stretched longer, even as occasional crowds pressed in on them as they passed. He wove expertly to avoid becoming consumed by them, but their presence did not seem to otherwise affect him.
By the time they’d crossed over another bridge, Inej lost track of the minute changes in Kaz’s grip. Memories had begun rising up like buildings on all sides, leaving her feeling bile in the back of her throat before she could help it. Though she had returned fairly often to Ketterdam in the last year, there were places she had avoided walking, especially at these dark hours. She swallowed, trying to flush out the acrid feel of her mouth. Her brain flailed for other memories, flooding out those old, cracked pages with more recent ones of the scent of the sea, of freedom, of justice.
Kaz’s grip grew powerful, tethering her solidly in the present. She squeezed back, briefly hoping to crush his fingers. “Why are we going this way?” she hissed.
He turned, his dark eyes trying to pierce the depths of her hood. “I have something I’d like to show you,” he repeated, from years and miles away. Her gaze was hard. “...Would you rather go back?”
Inej forced her chest to expand, to breathe, to move on. Her grip on his hand must have been uncomfortably strong by now, but he did not flinch or pull away. He just let her anchor herself to him, here, at this moment.
“Trust me.”
She must have blinked at the wrong moment, for she didn’t see his lips move when he said the words. Had he even said the words? She shook her head, as much to clear it as to answer his question. “We’ve already come this far.”
Kaz watched her a moment longer before turning slowly and beginning to walk again, feeling her presence close beside him. She forced her brain to accept everything her eyes and ears and nerves were experiencing at that very moment: the bright faces of pigeons on their way to losing their money on gambling floors, callers conjuring patrons out of the crowd, the cool wet wind whipping out from the bay, and Kaz’s fingers grasping hers just as tightly as she held his.
Just across a final bridge was the building that had once been the Menagerie. In front of its doors, Kaz slowed to a stop.
Not long after Inej had departed on The Wraith for the first time, Kaz had sent news that, in large part thanks to the false plague he’d had Nina manufacture, the Menagerie had gone under. Unable to make her rent payments, Tante Heleen had been forced to close her doors. Last Inej had heard, another brothel had taken its place, several months after the plague scare had turned out to be nothing but a false alarm. Fresh colors, fresh name; same dirty trade. Even most of the Menagerie girls, desperate for work and finding nothing better, fell into the same sharp trap all over again.
But on a night when business should have been booming, the building before them was dark, like an empty space in a mouthful of teeth. Around them, people were even going out of their way to give the building a wide berth, and Inej noticed a tall wall around the outside of the Anvil across the street that had not been there before. She turned to Kaz for an explanation, the numerous lights of West Stave glinting off her confusion even beneath her hood.
He was looking up at the dark building. “Funny thing,” he said, resting his cane on the ground and leaning on it now that they had stopped. “False alarm or no, that plague really put people on edge. It takes just the tiniest coincidence to restart the panic.”
Inej’s eyes widened. “It closed down, too?”
“Its new owner put their last stack of kruge down on this place,” Kaz said, almost musingly. “Was so sure it would pan out. After one of their staff was seen trying to scrub off a large black mark on her arm, they were desperate to take what they could get out of it and run. The new lease owner was offered an incredible deal.”
Her eyebrows raised in addition, giving her the look of an audience member entranced by the performance on the stage before her. “You...bought it?”
“‘Bought’ is a strong word,” said Kaz, shrugging. “With the price I paid, it was a steal.”
A soft snort escaped Inej before she could help it. When she looked back at him from another glance of the building, he was watching her.
“What are you going to do with it?”
Kaz flexed his bare hand atop the crow’s head, feeling the beak jab into his finger. “I haven’t decided yet,” he admitted quietly.
“You bought it without knowing what you were going to do with it?”
“Buying it was what I wanted to do with it.” The brief quiet that followed that statement seemed to still Inej’s heart, which up until that moment had been pounding ever since she’d realized where they were headed. “But it seems like a waste to just let it sit here.” He raised his eyebrows at her, and suddenly she understood. “What would you do?”
She looked away from him, back up at the tall building, and scowled. Once, she had known every one of this building’s flaws, inside and out, no matter how Heleen had disguised them with swathes of cheap satin and the glimmer of false gems. Now stripped of those facades, standing dark and useless when it should have been bursting with the lifeblood of this city, it just seemed...old. Impotent. A shadow of its former self that had somehow been allowed to keep on living, despite the horrible things that had happened inside its walls.
She turned back to Kaz. “Honestly? I’d probably burn it to the ground.”
The glow in this section of the Barrel was bright and steady. It was no trick of the light that molded Kaz Brekker’s features into a brief mask of surprise.
“It wouldn’t matter what I turned it into. A rotten bridge with a fresh coat of paint is still rotten. It will still betray you.”
“...Hm. I suppose that’s one option.” Kaz took a step towards the building; their arms extended as she refused to follow him, but neither let go of the other’s hand. “Pay someone to knock it all down, leave the empty lot here as a reminder.”
“A reminder?” The word tasted sour in her mouth.
“Of what it once was. People still come here looking for the Menagerie. I suppose I thought having something to replace the memory of it with would be more powerful than trying to make time choke it down to nothing.”
Hesitantly, Inej stepped forward, reducing the strain on both their arms. The idea of the Menagerie still living on, in infamy or otherwise, overshadowed the idea that Kaz and Nina had bested it. They couldn’t erase it from existence or memory--not, perhaps, without offering the universe something solid and memorable to replace it. In the early days of her joining the Dregs, Inej had relied more and more on her positive experiences with Nina, with Jesper, to displace bad memories, old reflexes. She didn’t think she could have had the same power over those memories with nothing but the broad, empty stretch of time.
“You have a point.” Maybe with something new here, something better, the word “Menagerie” would finally turn to dust in the minds of those who had once frequented there. “...I’ll have to think about it.”
Kaz tightened his grip on her hand, and held it for some time. Even after the pressure faded, his hand didn’t slip from hers.
“What happened to her, Kaz?”
He didn’t need to ask who she meant. “Fled the city not long after it closed down. I’ve got eyes on her,” he added. “If she makes a move to come back, in one way or another, I’ll know it.” He paused, then glanced sidelong at her. “What would you do with her ?”
Inej bit her lip. To do to Heleen Van Houden what they’d done to Pekka Rollins--deliver unto him fear that the evils he’d committed on the world would return to him tenfold--would not feel right. What Inej had experienced at her hands was not suitable as a punishment, even for the likes of Tante Heleen. “I’ll have to think about that, too.”
With the barest of perceptible nods, Kaz lingered a moment longer, then turned to go. But Inej was standing still, and if he wanted to move, he would either have to wrench his hand free, or drag her along with him. “Inej…?”
“What happened to the girls?”
He turned back to her, a questioning look creeping onto his face.
“It’s a rotten way to make a living, but I’m sure most of them didn’t have a choice. How long before they get drafted by the Blue Irises? The House of Snow?”
Kaz leaned his weight onto his cane a moment, as if in thought. “I may have used my savings on the lot to buy out a couple of contracts. Those who wanted to go home were sent in the right direction.”
“Kaz, I…” Inej’s heart thumped, the sudden onslaught of emotion almost painful, in an echo of the moment he’d handed her her own paid contract.
“I have the addresses of those who chose to stay in the city, or had nowhere else to go. If you stop by my office before you head out again, I’ll give them to you. Maybe some of them would care for a jaunt or two out to sea.”
Inej took a deep breath, then another. The whirlwind of emotions in the past few minutes was beginning to make her feel lightheaded. “I…I don’t…”
“Still haven’t invented the right words?”
She ventured a look up at him. Inexplicably, Kaz Brekker was smiling.
“Did you just make a joke?” Suddenly, it occurred to Inej that she may have been dreaming this entire outing, after having safely fallen asleep back at Wylan’s house.
“A jest, at most.” Only a ghost of his smile remained, but it contributed to leaving Inej feeling oddly unbalanced. Her grip on his hand was suddenly hard, and he had a steadying arm around her waist just before her knees buckled.
Maybe she was more tired than she’d thought.
“Inej?” He’d swapped his smile for a look of concern so thoroughly and immediately that she worried she’d instantly forget what the former looked like.
“I’m alright,” she insisted, desperately willing her knees to remember how to work before he had to set her down on the ground. “This was just…a lot of surprises, all at once.”
“I should have waited until tomorrow, after all.”
He had been impatient. The realization only added to the tumult in her already storm-tossed heart. Impatient to show her something he thought might bring her relief, might give her one fewer thing in this world to worry about, to fear. And maybe in a few days, when she’d had time to process all this, maybe then she could accept all this with a more pure appreciation. For now, the new information, the sudden changes were jarring. “No, I… No. I’m glad you told me. Kaz…thank you. For lack of better words.”
The forced joke came with an even more forced smile. Kaz’s brows furrowed. “What...do you need right now, Inej?” he murmured, leaning close so she could hear. “What would help?”
His question was too broad to hold, too deep to fully comprehend. If she knew the answer to that…
If she knew that, things would be so much different.
Nina used to ask that, too, back before they barely knew each other, before Nina began to discover for herself ways to answer that question. Back then, and often after that, their go-to had been simple. Not a long-term solution, but a quick and effective one.
“Waffles.” Inej laughed, knowing how ridiculous that sounded as an answer to his very serious question. Indeed, Kaz’s eyebrows went up at that.
“I’d say you’ve been spending too much time around Jesper if I didn’t know for a fact that weren’t true.”
“That would help, too.” Inej interrupted herself mid-laugh to say it without thinking, and realized only after the fact how much that really would have made her heart lighter. Her mouth set into a thin, wry line as she maintained Kaz’s gaze.
He was careful to let any hint of disbelief drain from his face before he responded. “Well. He and Wylan aren’t supposed to get back from Novyi Zem for another several hours yet. And no waffle house will be open until around that time, either.”
“That’s really a shame.” With one more deep breath, Inej gathered some measure of strength and sent it into her legs to keep her standing upright on her own. But even as she recovered, Kaz did not remove his arm from around her. “Sometimes you just need a waffle or two in the smallest hours of the morning.”
She watched the moment Kaz’s gaze snapped away from her and off to some mote of light hovering between them and the empty building he had brought her here to see.
“Scheming face,” she whispered. No one else was around to agree with her.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Kaz said, releasing her waist at last with what might have been reluctance to lean back onto his cane. “A waffle house open all night could attract some very high-spending customers.”
“Isn’t that a little...wholesome, for West Stave?”
“Maybe that’s part of the draw.”
“Maybe if some of those girls don’t want to come out to sea, they might care to learn how to make a mean waffle.” And replace some of those bad memories with good ones.
“Well, as impatient as I am to begin making money off of this investment, I don’t think I can have that ready for you in the next twenty minutes.”
Inej laughed again, stronger this time, and flexed her fingers once before tightening them again around Kaz’s hand. “I can wait,” she said, and found that she meant it.
“Maybe tomorrow morning.” Kaz tugged gently on her hand again, and this time she came along with him easily, back through the slowly thinning crowds of the Lid.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Sure.” He paused for the space of a couple steps. “You can invite Jesper and Wylan along too, if you like. If they’re up for it after they get back.”
Inej took a deep breath of the moist Ketterdam air, and wondered for the hundredth time how it was capable of feeling so refreshing. “Sounds great,” she said, her smile accentuating the flush of her cheeks.
He walked with her back to the canalboat hidden beneath the bridge at the edge of East Stave. By the last block or two, he was leaning more heavily on his cane. When he began to lead her by the hand into the boat, she stopped him with a squeeze of her fingers.
“Why don’t you stay with me at the house?” she said. “I’m sure Wylan won’t mind--and it’s a long trip back.”
“I try not to make a habit of spending the night at merch houses,” Kaz replied with the hint of a smile. “No matter whose it is. And especially not if I’m invited.”
Inej returned the smile while suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “Then at least take the boat back down to the Slat instead of going all the way out there.”
“Are you that impatient to be rid of me, Wraith?”
“I’m more interested in you being comfortable tomorrow. Besides, do you really want to risk someone seeing you paddling back from the Van Eck house in the early morning light?”
“...You make a valid argument.”
“I thought you might see it my way.”
“I’ll meet you at the Boeksplein tomorrow at nine bells. We can decide where to go from there.”
Inej was halfway to a nod before she yawned, long and wide-mouthed. “Better make it ten bells. Just in case someone decides they want to sleep in.”
Kaz gave what sounded suspiciously like a snort. “Very well.” He stepped into the boat himself, and they both paused a moment. Standing on the rock edge of the canal, Inej could look him straight in the eye for once, instead of tilting her head up. Together, they slowly released each other’s hands, and Inej leaned down to unhook the boat from its mooring.
“Welcome back, Wraith,” Kaz murmured, as he swapped his cane for the pole and pushed off.
“Good night, Kaz.”
Inej did not leave the bridge immediately, but watched Kaz’s boat drift southward down the canal toward the Slat until both the darkness and the fog had overtaken his form. Only then did the Wraith take to the roofs, and her wings carried her back across the city to her own little window in the Van Eck mansion.
KAZ
The Boeksplein was crowded with students in the late morning sun, and a moderate hum of mingled conversation provided extra cover for the three people seated at a rough-hewn table by the side of a large fountain adorned with the statue of an old man with a long beard and wise eyes. The book he held in his hand seemed just off-color from the rest of the fountain’s stonework.
Jesper was half out of his seat and pointing up at more stone statues high up at the top of the tall building to their left. Wylan, beside him, and Inej across, followed his gesture with their tired gazes. Inej had swapped her usual hood and dark clothing for a scarf and colors more congruous with the mill of students around them, but Kaz was sure the Wraith had found places to keep her knives well at hand. Even in this part of Ketterdam, she knew she couldn’t be too careful.
Kaz slipped around them, staying behind Inej’s back until he could approach from the other side. His cane, temporarily tipped with rubber, landed noiselessly on the cobblestones. While they were distracted, their gazes fixated on a pair of looming gargoyle statues up above, he moved toward the empty seat at the table.
“Good morning, Kaz.”
Wylan and Jesper jumped, as if someone had touched them after rubbing stockinged feet over an especially plush carpet. Inej met his gaze with a quiet smile as he slipped onto the bench beside her. He fought a smile of his own; he should have expected her to hear him, despite his best efforts.
From the clocktower at the center of the University District, ten bells chimed.
Kaz made a show of settling his cane into one of the natural grooves at the edge of the table, while the two recent travelers stuttered out their greetings. Though their voices were bright and cheery, and the Zemeni sun had left them both, especially Wylan, with a novel glow to their skin, Kaz noted the dark circles left under the merch boy’s eyes, the exhausted slump of Jesper’s shoulders.
“Long trip back?”
“Not the smoothest ride,” Jesper said, tilting his head back and forth in an effort to stretch out his neck. “We spent an extra two days trying to keep ahead of a storm halfway through, and even without hitting the worst of it, it still roughed us up pretty bad.”
“It’s not the best time of year to be traveling west,” Inej put in, and Kaz filed another half-smile away for later. She was already speaking the language of the seas as well as that of the Ketterdam canals and streets. In a couple years, she would be positively unmatched.
“Yeah--well--” Jesper grumbled quietly, with a final roll of his shoulders. “It’s not exactly like I got to pick. When a Fabrikator sends word she has a spare couple weeks to train you, it’s not like you can just tell her now’s not the time.”
“It was worth the trip,” Wylan said, pressing his hand over Jesper’s gently. “And now that we’re back we can work on catching up on everything, including sleep.”
“Especially sleep.”
“It’s good to know you’re all this easily swayed by the promise of waffles.” Kaz folded his hands on his lap below the table. “I knew it was a powerful tool, but truth be told I wasn’t sure how many of you to expect this morning.”
“And miss a chance to have a pleasant sit-down breakfast with the fastest rising boss of the Barrel?” Kaz rolled his eyes in an attempt to deflect Jesper’s grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Hey, so that place up by First Harbor finally reopened after their kitchen fire last month. I’ve always been fond of it, it’d be nice to go back there again…”
Kaz leaned back a little, letting the three of them finalize their plans. To him, it didn’t much matter. Research was research, and he would, he supposed, end up observing many of these places eventually anyway. But he listened as they debated the virtues of one waffle house over another: why Wylan found the Golden Nook more worthy of a visit despite admittedly poor service, or why Jesper insisted on the Sticky Mittens in spite of its less than reputable food preparation practices, or how come Inej found the Chipped Dish memorable despite having not stepped foot inside for over a year. In the end, they seemed to compromise on the Geldraad, an establishment on the larger side only two blocks south of where they sat. Instead of ordering specific things off of a menu, servers would wander amongst parties of patrons, carrying insulated platters piled high with hot golden stacks of waffles, and a surprisingly thorough selection of jams and syrups was present on every table.
A single bell marked the half hour, and Kaz reached over to rap his cane once against the side of the table to interrupt the endless back and forth. “Is that what we’ve decided on? I didn’t ask you all here to debate waffle establishments for an hour.”
Wylan ducked his head a little, the small flush of embarrassment no less evident on his freshly-tanned skin. “Sorry. I think that’s the decision…?” He glanced across at Inej.
“Seems so.” Her dark eyes were sparkling with unrestrained amusement. “That way we won’t have to wait for our order to go through.”
“Yeah, but hang on a second,” Jesper said. Kaz actually let a small groan escape his lips. “Just--sorry, Kaz, but…what exactly did you call us here for?”
“ Waffles , you podge,” Kaz snapped, more viciously than he’d meant. He’d been waiting all day for them to wake up and gather so he could eat, and he was quickly losing his patience. “Did Fabrikator training scramble your brain?”
Jesper seemed unfazed by the insults, until his face pinched when Kaz brought up his abilities. “Watch it, will you?” he hissed. “I know we’re here for waffles, Kaz, but let’s be honest: we’ve rarely seen you in the last year, despite living just a few districts over--” he held up his hand as Kaz opened his mouth to interrupt “--and even when I was living at the Slat, you never asked me out for waffles. Or anything else for that matter, unless it involved shooting someone.”
Kaz took a steadying breath. It took every ounce of will in his prodigious collection not to succumb to the impatience his hunger only sharpened. When he finally opened his eyes again, only Jesper had him fixed in an expectant gaze. Inexplicably, Inej was watching Jesper, her eyebrows furrowed; Wylan seemed to be studying the pattern of grooves in the table in front of him. “Inej happened to mention to me how much she missed getting waffles with her friends,” he said, gesturing at her. “I thought I would take it upon myself to facilitate.”
Jesper’s gaze snapped to Inej; their eyes met briefly before she looked away just as suddenly. “So you did this for Inej.”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“Of course not. That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you, actually.”
Kaz felt his patience drawing taut, like a bowstring close to snapping. “I’m so glad you approve,” he ground out. “Can we get going now?” His grip tight around the head of his cane, Kaz slowly rose to his feet.
“Yeah--sure, just--real quick, Kaz--”
“ Jesper. ”
“Not that it makes much of a difference, really, but--”
“Spit it out, Fahey.”
“--Is this a double date?”
Kaz froze, half standing, his eyes like dark, burning coals. Across from him, Wylan’s skin paled as if it momentarily forgot it had spent the last three weeks baking in the Zemeni sun. “ Jes ,” he hissed, grabbing his arm.
“Just thought it would be nice for us all to know your intentions here.”
His vision of Jesper blurred, as if his mind couldn’t fathom the reality in which he had found himself, and a high-pitched whine like a long, slow scrape of the highest note on a violin sounded in his ears. The longer it drew out, the more sure he was that at any moment it was going to come apart in a discordant twang. But through the muddy image of Jesper’s face and the whiny shriek of the note in his ear, he became aware that Inej, beside him, was now also watching him. Waiting. For some kind of answer.
He took another slow, deep breath.
“Inej.”
“...Yes, Kaz?”
In. Out. “Darling Inej, treasure of my heart.”
Jesper groaned softly. Her eyes just narrowed further. “What is it, Kaz?”
“Would you like this to be a double date?”
Kaz was aware that three sets of eyes were staring at him. He returned only one of them, the set to his left, wide dark expanses like a starless sky. He noted the tiniest of moments when they broke contact to glance down, at where his hands rested bare and pale against the black crow’s head of his cane. Then back up.
“Yes. I would.”
He’d never heard her voice like that. On her more recent returns to Ketterdam from the sea, she had been getting close, close to speaking with as much confidence as that with which she scaled a wall, leapt over rooftops, dropped from doorframes to defend the small spaces she’d stolen from the world.
He stood, gripping his cane near hard enough to crack it, as if that could soothe the way her answer made his heart shudder. It didn’t, but it did make him feel moderately better.
“Then there’s your answer, Jesper. Can we go now?”
Kaz began walking, leaving the others to scramble from the table in his wake.
✶
Navigating the crowd between the Boeksplein and the Geldraad would have been nigh impossible had they all tried to remain together. It was better, Kaz thought, trying to do it this way. He had no doubts Wylan and Jesper would manage to reach the waffle house eventually, and he needn’t have worried about Inej. Without seeing her, despite the brighter colors she wore today, Kaz could sense the Wraith’s presence closeby--somewhere to the left. Once he even swore he could feel her hand brush the edge of his sleeve. At least, he hoped that had been her.
Sure enough, by the time the rubber tip of his cane came into contact with the broad white flagstones marking the front entrance to the establishment, Inej was at his shoulder, looking unfazed by the maneuvers it had taken to get here. He found he couldn’t tell if she had arrived just before him, at the same time, or just after.
“You can feel free to ask me yourself next time, Wraith,” he murmured, approaching the host stand.
“Maybe next time you’ll ensure no one will have to ask,” she returned in the same low tones. Then she tilted her head up, smiling at the young man behind the podium. He looked old enough to be a student at the university, when he wasn’t managing patrons at the Geldraad. “Could we get a table for four, please?”
The young man looked behind them for a moment, perplexed, until Jesper managed to pry his long legs through the gaps between the crowd at the entrance, Wylan’s hand gripped tightly in his to keep him from floating away on the tides.
“Thanks for waiting,” Jesper muttered.
“Follow me, please.”
Kaz spared Jesper a glance over his shoulder as he began to trail behind the host. “I think we’ve all waited long enough for this.”
The table they were led to, like each of the others in the establishment, was round, to allow the servers a bit more space to move around and a few less corners to accidentally bang their legs and hips into. The chairs fit neatly around their patrons and under the curves of the tables, their legs even tilted in somewhat to reduce tripping hazards. The center circle of the table was inlaid with a round, rotating disk, which perplexed Kaz for a brief moment until a server came around immediately and set within it a wide platter full of various waffle toppings.
And, blessedly, a pitcher of coffee.
Kaz paid little mind to her explanation of how the Geldraad worked. His attention was focused on the dark liquid she expertly poured out into four separate mugs as she spoke and distributed them one after another by placing the mugs on the rotating center of the table and delivering them with precise motions to each seat. Kaz grasped the hot mug that slid into place before him like an anchor and then, without adding anything to it or even waiting long for it to cool, he took a long, appreciative sip. The echoes of the thin violin string in his head finally faded.
Wylan thanked the young woman before she was on her way off to another table, and the three of them took a moment to doctor their own cups before they went through the process of flagging down their first stack of waffles. Kaz focused on the pleasantly bitter contents of his own and did not need to look up to know how each of them chose to ruin their beverages. Inej plied hers with as much sugar as would fit, while Jesper tipped just a touch of sugar in while reserving the rest of the room in the mug to the effort of making his coffee as white as possible. Wylan was the worst offender, adding both sugar and cream in equally heinous measures until the contents of his mug and Kaz’s could no longer be recognizable as related. Kaz sipped his coffee slowly, exhaling hot air as if it were his own impatience. Hunger still nagged at his insides, but at least it was bearable now.
“So? Storms aside, how was Novyi Zem?”
Jesper cast Kaz a suspicious glance over the rim of his mug, as if he were a wind-up carnival toy Jesper had turned the key on too many times for him not to have sprung by now. Kaz’s expression remained neutral.
“It was a nice break from this cold, that’s for sure,” Wylan put in, still blowing across the top of his very full mug. “Actually, it was a nice break from a lot of things.”
“The rumors your father might have a case to get out of jail are completely unfounded.”
“I--I know that,” the young merch insisted, furrowing his eyebrows. “All his old partners and investors like to bring it up every chance they get, though. It’s a lot.”
“I’m sure it’ll blow over eventually.”
“Sooner rather than later would be nice.”
“And how’s Colm?” Inej wondered, as much to change the subject, Kaz suspected, as to alleviate the suspicion Jesper was still radiating from behind his mug.
Carefully, Jesper lowered his coffee, his mouth slowly untwisting. “...Good. He’s good. The help he was able to hire for the farm with the extra money has really made a difference.”
“And he was fine with you--” Jesper’s brow raised, warningly “--why you were there to begin with?”
Kaz watched the Zemeni boy across from him hold off on his answer with a long sip of coffee. “...It still makes him nervous.”
“He’s coming around,” Wylan insisted. “He’s already seen how much good it’s doing you.”
“Yeah, I didn’t bet on a single card game while I was there.” Jesper swiveled in his seat and raised an arm. Immediately, a stout older woman with a heavy, covered tray in her hands hurried over to allow him to retrieve a tall, golden wheel of a waffle for each of them.
With the others occupied by placing the absurd variety of toppings in their desired combinations upon their waffles, Kaz was able to lean back for a moment and observe. One ear lingered on the conversation at the table, which had turned to what he already knew of Inej’s recent exploits, but the other followed his roving gaze. Servers, patrons, the amount and layout of the other tables, the decor and lighting and how the collective noise settled into a pleasant dull hum--he took mental notes on all of it, while absently cutting into his own un-topped waffle.
His attention came back to sharp focus when the first bite hit his tongue. It was both crisp and light, and delightfully warm, a perfect balance of delicate crunchy outside and a soft, fluffy inside. Granted, it had been a good long time since he’d gone to eat for the pure pleasure of it, but he couldn’t remember waffles tasting so nice. Huh.
“Is that--?” asked Jesper.
“Scheming face?” said Wylan.
Inej smiled. “Definitely.”
“In a waffle house , Kaz?”
“You know you don’t have to steal the syrups, right? They give you as much as you want.”
Kaz rolled his eyes. “I didn’t call you all here for a jam heist, Jesper. I don’t plan on stealing from them--at least, not directly.”
“You lost me.”
“Not difficult.”
“Kaz is thinking of opening up a waffle house,” Inej interrupted.
“Seriously?”
“I bought the building that used to be the Menagerie.” Kaz had been betting on that detail curtailing any further uselessly incredulous questions. He was right.
“A waffle house in West Stave…?” Jesper set his fork down to put a hand to his chin, considering. “I can think of a lot of nights I’d have liked to stop for a pick-me-up on my way back to the Slat.”
“Would you have bet less to make sure you had the funds for it?” Inej wondered, in a voice that said she already knew the answer to that.
Jesper scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, well...I might not have. But other people might’ve.”
Kaz raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be sure to take money up front.”
“Maybe a discount if they just came from the Crow Club?” Wylan suggested.
“Hm. You really have started thinking like a merch.”
Wylan half-flinched.
“In a good way.” Shrugging, Kaz took a moment to dig into his waffle for another bite. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“So you did ask us here as part of a heist. Indirectly.”
Kaz stared straight down at his food, but he could see Inej out of the corner of his eye. “Can’t there be many reasons I asked you here, all of them important and valid?”
“I hope you know this means you need to listen to our equally valid opinions on what makes a good waffle house. Especially since the rest of us have more experience with them.”
“Research is research. But if you’re offering your expertise for free, I don’t see why I shouldn’t take you up on that.”
“I take payment in waffles,” Jesper grinned.
“That seems reasonable.”
“Inej?” Wylan murmured.
Together, Kaz and Jesper turned to look at her. She’d dredged up a small smile in anticipation of the attention, but there was a definite downward cast to her eyes that set Kaz’s heart on edge.
“I’m--it’s fine.” She took a moment to gather herself behind another slow sip of coffee. “I just thought...I had an echo of Nina in my thoughts. What she would say.”
“She’d have a lot of opinions,” Wylan agreed, offering her a wry smile.
“After Zenik was through with me, I don’t know that I’d be able to call it my waffle house anymore,” Kaz noted. But under the table, his bare hand found Inej’s and gave it a squeeze.
Jesper watched them with a tight frown, then stabbed at the quarter of a waffle left on his plate with a sudden movement and held it up on the end of his fork. “To Nina. May she return soon to a Ketterdam richer in waffle options and poorer in people who want her dead.”
Kaz snorted, but raised his own waffle with the others.
“To Nina.”
The four of them took bites in her honor, but even now Kaz glanced around the table to find the gesture hadn’t done much to alleviate the heavy mood settling over their party. He chewed slowly, then swallowed, and with another squeeze of Inej’s hand he half-rose to lift the coffee pitcher back up off the table.
“Pass me your mugs.”
“What? Why?”
“I think Matthias would have appreciated being toasted with something other than waffles.”
Jesper’s eyebrows raised. “That’s debatable,” he insisted, but it was with a small smile that he did as he was told.
Their coffee thus refilled, Kaz remained standing, peering down at the various colors of liquid in their mugs, and at the various shades of appreciation painted on their faces. “To Matthias Helvar,” he said quietly, conscious of the level of noise in the room. “A Crow to the last.”
“May he find peace in what we have done with the world since he was here,” murmured Inej. “And what we continue to do.”
Kaz glanced at her, and found that same sad smile turned up at him. He tilted his mug just a little higher, and around the table, they followed suit.
“To Matthias.”
They drank their coffee to him, at once bitter and sweet and pale and complicated.
“Nina would have appreciated that, too,” said Inej.
“We’ll have to do it again when she’s back.”
He looked down to meet her gaze. Still sad, but changing, like the sun peeking out from behind clouds. “There’s the smile,” he whispered, and sat down again. Beneath the table, her hand slipped back into his and squeezed.
INEJ
It wasn’t the same, perching in Kaz’s new window. It took little effort to get here, and sitting in a ground floor window lacked the charm and mystery--and view--of waiting higher up. But Inej patiently occupied herself, watching the hustle of people outside of the Slat, letting her gaze linger over Kaz’s office, cataloguing everything that had changed since she’d last been here, and everything that had stayed the same. Occasionally, a breeze crept in around her, fluttering at his papers.
Presently, she heard his voice at a distance, answering a question from a voice even further away, and his footsteps began ambling towards his office door. From the sound of it, he was leaning heavily on his cane. Her heart felt as if it were echoing the rhythm of his gait, uneven and hard, and growing louder by the moment. When he paused for longer than a breath right outside his door, Inej felt as if her heart, too, had stopped.
As the door swung open, Inej could see him taking a moment to tuck his gloves neatly into the pocket of his trousers. “Hello, Wraith. It’s hard to surprise someone when everyone can see you on their way in.”
“I’m aware,” said Inej.
“You might as well just walk through the front door at this point.”
She smiled. “This isn’t a habit I intend to break.”
“Good.” He moved the last few steps towards his desk and sat heavily in his chair. Winter was always the hardest, even without his extra jaunts the last few days, and she knew Kaz was feeling it in his leg.
Inej remained in the window just a moment or two longer, watching him as he fished a page full of black scribbles out of his desk drawer.
“The addresses?”
He nodded. “They’re up to date as of last week, but I know some of them have been moving around quite a bit. Not that the Wraith will have much trouble finding them again, I’m sure.”
Instead of standing up again, he held it out to her, and Inej slipped from the windowsill to take it. Their fingers brushed, and Kaz remained steady.
“Thank you.”
“Do send them over if they’re not interested in sea life. I’m sure I can find something for them to do until the Six of Crows is ready for business.”
Inej raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “It’s a working name. I know themes aren’t a normal attribute for waffle houses in the University District, but the Barrel thrives on them. I thought a casino effect might not be too on the nose.”
“It’s perfect.” She smiled her pleasure and folded up the paper he’d given her so she could tuck it into a pocket. “Yesterday was…”
“Awkward?”
“Wonderful.”
“Probably a bit of both,” he admitted.
“I’ll be busy the next few days gathering supplies for our next journey out to sea. It was nice to have a break. For the four of us to be together.”
“I don’t know how frequently that will be possible.”
“That’s fine. I’ll appreciate it all the more when it does happen.”
He turned away a little, hands moving to clear and straighten the things on his desk that had already been cleared and straightened. She didn’t move back to the window. “Kaz. I know...I can guess, at least, at how difficult yesterday was for you. I wanted to thank you, for the effort.”
Kaz reshuffled another stack of papers and stared at it, his eyes not moving. “I didn’t just do it for you.”
“I know.”
“Or for the research.”
“I know.”
“Jesper hasn’t stopped smiling, has he?”
“Wylan, either.”
“I meant what I said. About hearing their opinions. You’re right. The break…” Inej could tell by the strain on his face how difficult he found it to speak the words out loud. “It’s nice.”
He looked up at her as a breeze got caught in the window; it toyed with the stray strands of her hair, pulling them into her face before retreating. Kaz stood slowly, leaning on his desk for support, and reached out to tuck them back behind her ear. Inej held a breath, and his touch lingered against her skin a moment longer than she expected. Then he sat back down suddenly, his eyes fluttering closed.
Inej hesitated. “I...should go. Start finding these girls.”
His breath was ragged when he finally took it, but when he opened his eyes and looked back up at her, she didn’t see a flood rising behind them. She just saw her reflection in his dark gaze.
“May your Saints guide your search,” he said, and Inej felt he maybe meant what he said, just a little.
“I’ll be back to see you again before I leave.” She nodded at him, and then backed slowly towards the window. “Goodbye, Kaz.”
“Until then, Wraith.”
The breeze blew a curtain over the window for a brief second, and then she was gone.