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Jesper tried to believe this was inevitable.
This part of the stadhall boasted dingy walls, damp and patched with gray-black moss. The stadwatch officer in front of him carried a lantern. Without it, the hallway would have been nearly pitch dark.
He had spent a few nights in the stadhall. Okay, more than a few. But never this deep. He had spent a few shivering nights in the crowded cells or the overflow yard—the stadwatch was better at locking people up than at housing them.
“Here you are, sir.” They paused outside an unremarkable door.
That was new, too. He was in the stadhall being called “sir”.
“Thank you.”
The officer sorted through his keys.
“Any criminal’s a dangerous man, but this one—be on your guard, Mister Van Eck. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Fahey-Van Eck, but the latter did him more good right now.
The stadwatch officer opened the door, letting Jesper through. He closed and locked it behind him, but Jesper barely noticed, staring at the man in his drab prison uniform. Every prisoner looked unkempt after a few days. With limited water to wash and no way to shave—apparently no comb, either—their circumstances forced them to look like the degenerates the tidier sorts claimed they were.
“Jes.”
“Saints, Kaz.”
Wylan made him bring a lantern. Jesper set it on the table now. The light cast dark shadows on Kaz’s face.
Inevitable. Kaz Brekker was always bound for irons and cells.
But somehow Jesper hadn’t believed it would truly happen. Not to Kaz. Kaz would run forever.
Jesper took a seat opposite a Kaz Brekker wrapped so heavily in irons, he wouldn’t be running anywhere in a hurry. Jesper wasn’t sure how a guy even took a piss with that many restraints. It looked like they were trying to turn his arms and legs into a fancy chandelier for an eccentric with no taste.
“You’re really here,” Jesper said.
Kaz narrowed his eyes. “Plenty of them have been by to gawk.”
“It’s not like that,” Jesper objected, heat rising in his cheeks. He fumbled with a stack of paper so generous it needed four paper clips to keep everything in place.
“Why haven’t you been?”
“I’m here now.”
“You are,” Kaz agreed, giving a slow nod. “They want to hang me.”
“You’re so heavy you’ll snap the rope in all that flash,” Jesper said without thinking. Saints, when did he forget how to string a coherent sentence? He was a Van Eck, but not that Van Eck!
Kaz’s laugh sounded rusty and low.
This was a terrible place for Jesper. He hated the dim, the dank, the dark. But it seemed like just the sort of place Kaz would find useful. Jesper could imagine Kaz planning a meeting here, or working a job—could see Kaz here intentionally. With a spark, he wondered if that was the case now. Maybe Kaz just had a job.
“Here.”
Jesper hadn’t just brought some paperwork from Kaz’s case—he had access. His husband paid the lawyers’ fees. Wylan had taken a personal interest in the case.
Jesper had also brought a lunch pail, which he set on the table. The stadwatch had looked through the contents. They had scoffing and derisive comments about whether or not Kaz deserved food, but he wasn’t hanged yet, and they would only interfere so far with a Councilman’s husband. So most of the food made it inside.
“What was the ante?” Kaz asked, bringing a bite of bread and cheese to his mouth.
“Most of the cookies.”
Kaz nodded.
“I’m glad you came, Jes.”
It was the closest either of them wanted to come to admitting this might be the last time. Jesper had become accustomed, these past years, to the best of everything money could buy. As it turned out, Wylan “we need to budget sensibly” Van Eck had an indulgent streak a mile wide. But even the best lawyers money could buy were only capable of so much. A lifetime of crime across multiple continents made Kaz more than the average criminal.
Jesper wanted to visit before. But he also didn’t want to. He hadn’t been ready to see Kaz this way—not the brilliant man he knew who always had a way out.
Jesper trailed a finger along the tabletop. They were probably being watched, listened to. There was only so much he could say. But then, there was only so much he could say, anyway.
“Gonna miss you,” he said, and felt stupid for it.
“Take care of her.”
Jesper nodded.
“She’s staying with us for now.” He and Wylan would support Inej as much as they could. Losing Kaz would be hard for them, but Inej…
In a way, Jesper lost Kaz once already. Things had never been quite the same between them after the Ice Court job. They were friends, but not the same—and maybe it would have been different if Jesper had chosen the Barrel, but he chose Wylan instead. Jesper didn’t regret that. Not for a second. But he recognized it meant he lost some of his and Kaz’s closeness.
Inej never lost that. She had been the steadiness Kaz needed. Now she might lose him, all at once for the first time.
Jesper looked back to the papers. He knew Kaz before, but this taught him surprising new details. For example, Kaz was a farm boy. He was born not far from Lij. Jesper had been to Lij, visited with Wylan on his way to the apple orchards that ultimately made apple brandy and syrup. It was a nothing spot in a largely bare portion of the map.
Well, that wasn’t how Jesper first described it. When he first saw Kaz’s birthplace on the map, Jesper had turned to Wylan and said, “How’s a guy like Kaz Brekker come from the geographic equivalent of a freckle on your ass?”
Wylan had objected. That was rude, he said. Jesper (exasperated). He objected to any part of Kerch being considered its ass.
Jesper pointed out that he didn’t mean just any ass. He was referring to a specific freckle on a specific ass, and given that ass belonged to a Councilman, was there anything more Kerch? That was the ass of Kerch!
Not that Kaz needed to know how they flirted and bantered over his case. His life.
And…
“Your birthday’s on Coronation Day.”
Kaz narrowed his eyes. “Does that matter anymore?”
“Just interesting,” Jesper said with a shrug. “It’s only the day the Kerch drove out the Shu. Wylan told me,” he explained, from Kaz’s look. Coronation Day wasn’t something Jesper had known about before. In the Barrel, no one really cared why they had a holiday, only that it was another excuse for an extra round of fireworks, an extra drink, a little credit to lure in anyone tasting the Barrel for the first time as a holiday treat.
As a child, Wylan had loved the story of King Gijsbert’s battlefield coronation, the light shining golden on the young king’s shoulders, a quiet sea and retreating ships behind him. Jesper didn’t even point out that Gijsbert had probably been covered in blood and filth, a sweaty mess of meat after a battle like that. Even though he totally would. The holiday was a big deal for the Kerch.
Kaz Brekker was born on the day of days in his country.
Kaz just kept eating.
Maybe talking about his birth didn’t seem so appealing in light of his imminent death. Probably imminent death. They hadn’t handed down the sentence yet.
Jesper ruffled the papers. He didn’t know why Wylan insisted he bring them. Now his throat felt uncharacteristically dry. He didn’t have a word to say. There should be something, some hint in the papers, some clue—if this really was goodbye, how was he supposed to do that? It felt too big to be real. It felt absurd for Kaz to sit there opposite him, eating his lunch like everything was okay.
“Calm down, Jes.”
He thumped the papers against the desk so hard they exploded everywhere, showering both men and the room around them.
Jesper wanted to scream. He seethed, desperate to say something but unable to think of a single non-obscene word, and he didn’t want to have the memory later of cursing out his once-best friend on their last interaction. He physically shook as he gathered up the papers.
“Why, Kaz?” Jesper asked when he stood with his hands full of so many papers he needed three paper clips to hold them all together.
Kaz regarded him steadily for a moment.
“We’re well past that.”
One day, Jesper would punch that face, and if he didn’t do it soon he would run out of days.
Two weeks later, Ketterdam was still buzzing with the news. Doors were locked tight, shutters latched over windows, breaths held and prayers said like any of that would make a difference. All of Geldin and Zelver Districts seemed caught in the collective shiver.
“He’s never bothered them before,” Wylan observed, stirring his tea idly. His was one of the few houses in Geldin District not locked up double-tight with the bogeyman roaming the streets, and he and Jesper lounged in the sitting room without fear.
“There’s an escaped convict on the loose,” Jesper retorted. “He could be anywhere. He could even be right in this very room!”
Wylan laughed. “Jesper, we are both literally escaped convicts.”
“Ah, no, we’re not. We’re both escapees. You were never convicted of anything.”
“True,” Wylan agreed.
There had been more attention on Jesper than he liked—questions about Kaz Brekker’s one-time right hand, his last visitor before he escaped his shackles and fled from that dank hole deep within the stadhall. Jesper told the truth. He didn’t know what Kaz did, nor had he known Kaz was planning anything. They were friends once, long ago. He went to say goodbye.
Wylan brought his teacup to his mouth, then lowered it without drinking.
“Still hot,” he reported.
Jesper gave him a look and sipped his own tea. Well, too-hot tea was the price one paid for being foolish and not having a splash of milk. Then a second splash. Then a generous helping of sugar. Skip those steps and you wound up with a too-hot cup of… well… tea.
“I just hope he’s okay.”
“He’s fine,” Jesper said. “Kaz Brekker always lands on his feet. He may in fact be made of nothing but feet.”
He almost felt silly now. However Kaz managed to escape, Jesper would always feel like a fool for believing Kaz could be caught, let alone executed. Somewhere out there, the Bastard of the Barrel continued his work.