Chapter Text
Kaz was sitting in his office, as he so often did these days. The rain outside didn’t only meddle with his increasingly worsening mood, but it also made his leg ache horribly, turning the climb to his room from a horrible, painstaking task into an impossible one. The Dregs also seemed to be hit with the melancholy of the weather because they not only screwed up one perfectly simple task, they screwed up two.
A vicious fight broke out last night in the Crow Club, chasing away whatever customers were unfortunate enough to be there to witness it, and it was started by none other than a few drunk members of his own gang. And a week before they let dozens of very well-fed pigeons slip through their incompetent fingers and right into enemy territory, giving them the joy of plucking easy cash from oblivious rich farmers.
They were mistakes that he couldn’t afford, not because he couldn’t take the insignificant monetary loss, but because slip-ups were more often than not accompanied by more slip-ups, and if he had to take any more of this stupidity he was sure someone was going to find themselves on the wrong side of his cane.
But he had to admit it wasn’t just the Dregs that were feeling out of their element, he did as well. Pieces of elaborate information fitting into plans were as always moving around in his head, yet unformed thoughts sat aside, waiting for him to make some sense of them, to give them shape and form and weight, but not all of it was veiled over by impatience and tints of worry.
She was supposed to be back by now.
Those few words pushed everything aside and demanded he give them his constant, undivided attention. He was by now used to Inej being gone for months on end, to that special corner in his head that was always dedicated to thought of her and only her, to the tightening of his heart whenever she sailed away from view on that ship of hers and the easing of it in relief when she showed up on the window of his room or when he saw a letter asking him to come to the Van Eck mansion on his desk, but this was different. She was gone nearly a year now with no message to speak of, not even the short and simple ‘No mourners, no funerals. W.’ that she sent when she was gone for longer than she anticipated.
He stood up slowly, heavily leaning on his cane as he put on his coat and hat and headed for the exit. The Dregs didn’t even try the bare minimum of dragging him into conversation that they usually would, and Kaz didn’t care if that was because they were afraid of his wrath after their failures, or because they too weren’t in a mood to play friendly, he just didn’t want to associate with anyone right now.
The rain refused to stop like Inej’s saints themselves had decided to punish the city for its sins, and the already screaming pain in his leg turned to agony with every step. Still, he went on, heading away from the noise coming from inside gambling dens and pubs and towards the docks.
He slowed down when he passed by the Menagerie, or what it used to be. He remembered when it fell apart, when it could no longer hold the financial debts that he had caused when he had Nina put the fake plague there, and when Kaz put in... certain efforts into making sure it will never recover. He also remembered the pure shock and that satisfying fear and damnation on Tante Heleen’s face when she was forced to put those tortured souls into Inej’s hand for a pitiful amount of money just to survive herself, the way Inej watched her from above even short as she was. She looked fierce and fearless and so undeniably, breath-takingly beautiful, almost as if she was more than human. But that night in the Slat she collapsed in his room, trembling and weeping until she was but only an 18 year old girl who had to face her biggest nightmare and had no courage left in her small body. That time he could not ignore her tears, so he sat by her, staring out into the night through the window until her hiccups receded and she fell into fitful sleep.
Now it was just a pile of burned, black remnants of a building it used to be. When they watched it burn from a nearby roof, she squeezed Kaz’s hand like that was the only thing keeping her tied to this plane of existence, and even when water started crashing in his head, threatening to break the dams he had been building piece by painful piece, he said nothing.
He walked on toward the 5th Harbour, not even knowing why he was going there. It was as if some foolish part of him, the happy, hopeful boy inside of him that reared his small head when he was unwanted, expected to see Inej clinging to the mast with that smile worth all the stars on her lips, waving at him, calling his name, as if her sole presence would stop the storm raging on Ketterdam. Even sensing his stupidity, he couldn’t stop his legs taking another and another and another step.
It was in moments like this, when desire to see her, be near her, even touch her, that he would have sold everything he owned if she would just sit on the windowsill looking at him with sun in her hair again, if she would just be close enough for him to get that familiar feeling, that innate knowledge she was there.
The harbour was as he knew it would be. Ships tumbling on the surface of the unsteady sea, barely contained by the Council of Tides, one or two tourists stupid enough to still be outside in this weather running for cover, grey clouds rumbling. He allowed himself one tiny moment of outward weakness, a shout swallowed by the storm, and then he straightened up, breathed in and turned around to go back to his empty office and the Slat devoid of the Wraith.
***
Inej spit out blood onto the wooden planks of the ship, holding her bruised stomach. Threads of black hair stuck to her face wet with sweat and rain, but even without them obstructing her view, she couldn’t see from the tears that blurred the swaying floor below her.
“Do you not tire of this daily routine?” asked the man who stood somewhere to her left. She knew him as Derry Pollet, one of the most prominent slave traders in the True Sea. He caught whoever he came upon, regardless of their ethnicity and gender, which made hunting him down an almost impossible task. He not only had no pattern in prey, but also in which ports he stopped in, which pubs he visited, which places he frequented. Pollet sold his catch to whoever offered most, filled up on supplies and was back on the water in a matter of a couple days.
It took Inej two years and dozens of favors returned before she managed to find him, and even then everything went right to Hell. She didn’t expect him to have so many people, so many weapons, and she definitely didn’t count on the five Grishas he employed that no living soul knew of.
The next kick hit her broken arm and she winced, barely containing the scream in her lungs.
“Come now, Wraith of the Sea, I am sure we can come to an agreement.”
She wanted to tell him what he can do with his proposal, but didn’t dare open her mouth. She feared that if she did, she would either start shouting, or much worse, crying.
One of the ruffians, whichever got the task to abuse her this time, kicked her again. She would say nothing, and as became her habit when she wanted to escape the pain of reality, she thought of Kaz. The sharp plane of his face, those unreadable eyes that would every so often soften when they were alone, the way his hair just barely curled in the wind, the scars on his hands.
She didn’t regret going after Pollet, not one bit, but she did regret that she didn’t have more time to scout and think of a solid plan and two instead of jumping right into action. If she had, he may now be in custody, the poor people on this ship free, and she would be catching up with Kaz on how his operations were going, sharing information they had gathered on their respectable fronts that the other is in need of.
And maybe they could be sitting on the roof of Wylan’s home, fingers entwined, leaning on each other, watching the stars and slowly relaxing, getting used to the proximity after all that time they were apart. She would slowly press her lips to his throat then, breathing him in, waiting, until he either moved away if it got too much or, the outcome she preferred, he’d kiss her. Some days they would kiss for a few minutes, others one or both of them couldn’t stand any contact, but their slow progress seemed to bring both of them happiness.
Another kick, even though it was losing on intensity, shot Inej back into reality. She wasn’t sure how long she was already a captive on the Illion, Pollet’s ship, but from the days she managed to count it must have already been at least a month and a half, maybe two. She prayed even now, after so long, that her crew made it to land safely, along with the damaged Wraith and the few people that helped them in a previous job and asked for a ride back to Kerch. Dorian could fix the ship, Oliander would take care of the injured and Freya, the Grisha that insured they made good time when the winds weren’t on their side, could take them to where they needed to go.
If they survived the stormy sea, they’d get back on their feet, and Loe, her first mate, would take over the jobs they had already planned. She trusted her with the lives of all those people suffering right now, waiting to be reunited with their loved ones and freedom.
“Very well then. Jung, cut her up.”
Inej scrambled backwards, awakening terrible aches with every movement. She was starved, tired, beaten, and her body refused to cooperate. She urged it, begged, cursed, but no muscle moved anymore.
Jung yanked her healthy arm up painfully, flicking open a small knife and pressing it into yet untainted skin just below her elbow. The place tattoos would mark who you belonged too.
A new kind of panic set in, an old one she hasn’t felt in years. It shook her body, put her mind into a frenzy, awakening animal instincts that made her trash her body with new-found energy, a futile attempt at getting away. When Jung let her go, she curled into a ball, closing her eyes.
“You have time to think about how you are going to behave tomorrow. Then I afraid we are going to have to start doing this seriously- your feet, maybe, or fingers. I wonder which will go first.” She heard Pollet say, in a voice so similar to Tante Heleen’s that she tried to shut her eyes even tighter. It was that almost apologetic voice, like he felt sorry he had to do this but she simply left him no other choice.
Now look what you made me do, Little Lynx.
Inej wished with all her heart she had her knives now. Their familiar weight would ground her, running her fingers over them and naming them one by one, a silent prayer, would give her strength. But she only had the cold, receding steps of her captors and the slam of the door that held her hostage in this small, dark space. Soon her slow breathing - more like a wheezing really - , was the only company she had.
She didn’t know how long she lay there motionless, mind blank, before she crawled over to where the small bowl of water lay. She slowly gulped, taking breaks after each time she swallowed to give her stomach time to get used to it. She still held an annoying aversion to it ever since a week ago they tried to get information out of her by almost drowning her in a bucket of sea water.
She had to get out of here, and had to do it very soon. All the plans she had made when left alone were only half-finished, bordering with those of an amateur, but she had no choice. Pollet was going to start upping his game, and she couldn’t afford to lose what he wanted to take, or any chance of escaping would go down the drain.
She dug out a piece of glass she snatched from a pile when the boy who was bringing her food ‘accidentally’ fell down and broke his captain’s mug that shouldn’t even had been on that tray in the first place from a crack in the boards, along with a thin pick Kaz had gifted her that was weaved through her shirt for emergencies. There were supposed to be two, but the other must have fallen off during the fight.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. Enough, if her Saints looked upon her.
Sankta Alina, Sankt Petyr, Sankta Marya, Sankta Anastasia, Sankt Vladimir, Sankta Lizabeta.
She rested her back on one of the walls and started thinking. She was Inej Ghafa, Wraith of the Seas, Hunter of Slave Traders, the Ghost Ship Captain, and she will find her way back home.