Chapter Text
Out of all the ways Kaz’s day could have changed, he never would have imagined this:
It started with Anika bursting into his office.
He was about to yell at her, and he might have actually done it, if he hadn’t looked up to see her looking far too stressed to be scolded. Before he had the time to even properly throw her a glare, she was gesturing outside of the office towards the stairs. “The Wraith is here,” she said. “She told me to get you.”
And if there was one way to ensure Kaz Brekker went someplace, it was by telling him that his Wraith was calling for him.
She’d been back for a few weeks from her latest voyage at that point. Lately, she’d been spending more time at The Slat than usual--to be fair, he’d also been splitting his time between the headquarters and the Van Eck mansion--and her time being split had also meant she was now doing some more jobs for the Dregs than she did while staying at the Van Eck mansion. That was good for him, but bad for his blood pressure. She’d been spending her days with him and the Dregs and the nights at Wylan’s, so she’d been going out on more jobs alone than with him.
During times like these especially, where he’d sent her out and she’d been gone for hours longer than she said she would. What should’ve been a simple mission had taken her around three hours, now, when it should’ve taken half the time, if that.
This wasn’t promising, when questioning her safety. None of it at all pointed towards her being alright, actually. But if she could still climb, she was alive enough.
So, he hauled ass up the stairs.
He slowed as he reached the landing at the top to the stairs, pulling out a loaded pistol from his waistband. He wouldn’t typically suspect anyone in his rooms, but knowing that she’d been gone for so long and that she’d sent for him rather than coming on her own, he wouldn’t take his chances. He couldn’t help her if she was hurt if he got beaten, too.
The door was just slightly cracked open. He hoped and prayed that it was from when Anika came in, but he quickly realized that there were two sets of breathing coming from inside.
Well, he didn’t have to learn foreshadowing skills for no reason.
He stood outside for a moment, prepping up for a fight. Nothing at all would prepare him to see Inej hurt, but from the sound of the breathing, nobody was too badly injured at all.
That could change, though, the longer he stood there.
He swung the door open faster than he ever had before. The door creaked as it was nearly ripped off the hinges, slamming back into the wall. Immediately, his gun went up, ready to shoot whoever had entered his room alongside his Wraith.
Surely enough, there she stood. She put her hand up, as if that would stop a bullet. “Saints, Kaz!” she exclaimed, looking at him with wide and angry eyes.
He didn’t have time to say anything before he laid eyes on the other person in the room. A man, standing beside her with his hands in his pockets.
It was then that it hit him; a tidal wave of uncertainty, one that he never felt unless something was amiss. Unless something was about to happen.
“Kaz,” the man breathed, stepping forwards. Kaz stepped backward, catching himself as he nearly stumbled. Something in him told him to run. Another thing told him to step forwards. All logic went sideways as he looked at the man, as he tried to let what he was sitting settle in.
Immediately, he felt he needed to go back in time. He needed to undo the years he’d spent killing, and stealing, and cheating.
Because Inej Ghafa was indeed standing in his room, unharmed. But beside her was a man. A man who looked far too much like his mother, a man who used to look like him, back when they were small.
A man who, in another life, may have been Jordie Rietveld.
But last he had very thoroughly checked, Jordie Rietveld was long gone.
Inej stepped forwards, putting a hand out as if he was a startled horse. “Kaz,” she said warily, as if that could prevent the amount of red he was seeing, the amount of blood he wanted to shed.
He loves her. He knew this. But at that moment, all trust was gone as he realized that she had brought this person. Not only had she brought this person into his headquarters, into his home, but into the home of his entire crew. And for as much as she knew of his story, there was no way this man could be his brother.
As much as she knew, as much as he knew, he’d left his brother floating in Fifth Harbor. This man standing before him looked everything and nothing like that boy.
He wasn’t sure exactly when he started to panic, but it was around the same time that she took another step closer. “Kaz, let him explain,” she said softly, “I promise he can explain.” Her hand was lowered now, but still half-outstretched, as if she wanted to reach for him.
As much as he loved her, he was not one to listen to people who said things like that.
“Get out,” he said to the man, pointing to the window.
He stepped forwards, and Kaz stepped backwards once again. “Kaz,” the man repeated, looking at him with sad eyes.
No, Kaz was so angry he could murder someone.
“Get out,” he seethed, gripping his cane hard enough that he might have drawn blood, if he had been holding it by the beak of the crow’s head.
“Kaz Brekker,” Inej reprimanded, “stop.” For a moment, he wanted to bite back at her. But she stood with her hand on her hips, doing a perfect recount of what Jesper called her ‘‘Ma’ stare’, and if it had been any other moment, he may have laughed.
The man approached slowly as he looked over at her, stopping just far enough away that he was out of reach. He fought the urge to step back, to run away from the two of them, both staring at him with wide, cautious eyes.
But as the man stood there, their eyes met. He could see even from a distance that he had eyes to match the soil, just like he did. Just like Jordie had.
“We’re from Lij. We grew up on a farm with our Da,” the man started. He moved to stand by his desk, leaning against it, hands resting on the edge of it as if to keep himself grounded. “You used to give the chickens people names, since you couldn’t come up with any animal ones. You tried to save every hurt bug that you ever found,” he listed, with a hint of a Southern Kerch accent.
The man continued to go on, but he’d realized after what he’d said about the animal’s names what he was doing. He was trying to prove himself, to get Kaz to believe who he was.
And maybe calling the man in front of him ‘the man’ in his head instead of by his name didn’t help any, to help him accept what he’d known since he laid eyes on him. He’d known it was his brother instantly--because he looked just like their Da, now. He didn’t remember as much as he should, from before the harbor. But he remembered the faces of his brother and of his father.
It took a while longer for him to force through the lump in his throat. Jordie kept talking as he stood there, trying to battle his emotions down into the ground. When that didn’t work, he spoke up in between another set of facts that he still hadn’t stopped listing.
“I know who you are,” he said, and he didn’t want it to look like he wasn’t angry, because he was. But one time, his friend--who he’d learned to call a brother, after so many years--had asked him what it would take to earn his forgiveness. Back then, Kaz had responded with rage.
He would not do the same to this brother, as well.
This is what my forgiveness looks like, Jes, he thought.
Jordie looked down, shyer than Kaz had ever seen him. Maybe embarrassed, even.
The next thing Kaz knew was that he was launching himself into his brother’s arms, trying his absolute damndest not to cry. The waters rose, but they stayed low enough that he could breathe. This skin felt familiar, but not like it had on Reaper’s Barge. It felt like he hugs he’d gotten from his father as a boy, like the arms that had wrapped around him during the nights spent in Ketterdam before he lost everything.
At one point, Jordie pulled him closer, squeezing him extra tight. It was just enough to remind him that he was alive, somehow.
He was alive, but there’s no way that Kaz had made up what happened before. Not unless the rumors spread throughout the Barrel of his ruthless insanity were much truer than he’d thought.
The thought was enough to have him pulling back, stepping back far enough that they weren’t even close enough to touch anymore. “What happened?” Kaz all but snarled at him, because he was angry. He wanted to show his brother forgiveness, he really did. But he needed to earn it, first.
That would be a good enough way to start.
He watched as Jordie took a deep breath, only slightly put off by Kaz’s ire.
“After I went to sleep that day, I was found in the harbor, up by the docks,” he started. “A Corp-corpora- a whatever Healer. She said it was for some test to see how much she’d be able to fix. It took a few days, but she was able to fix everything, and then she brought in a Squaller to bring me back. However you do that,” he huffs, leaning back against the desk as he had been before their hug.
“Lightning, probably,” Kaz said dryly, thinking back to the Auction. The one that had nearly killed Matthias and had actually killed Kuwei, before Zoya Nazyalensky had shocked him back to life.
Jordie shrugged, “It doesn’t mean much to me. I’m alive, aren’t I?” Kaz shot him a small glare. How he could be so mindless about his own life, after it had nearly been lost--to Kaz, it had been--was lost on him.
“After that, they took me to the Little Palace for the Healers to practice on; also, for the Tailors, but there’s not as many of them. Anyway, I was there for three years, until that uprising happened with Alina Starkov,” Jordie said.
The idea of them having both been around for that, having both maybe even met Alina Starkov, was mind-boggling to him. Absolutely strange, given that he’d been thinking about how his brother was missing those things every time something like that happened. “I left after that and went back home, to the farm. It got bought while I was there; by you, I’d bet. After that, I came back to Ketterdam to look for work, since there didn’t seem to be much of it anyplace else. Then a few weeks ago, I got a letter from your friend here,” he said, looking over at Inej and smiling. She smiled back, and Kaz could’ve just about melted right there. “Telling me that she wanted me to come with her back here to meet you.”
After he was done explaining, Kaz looked to Inej, hardly concealed annoyance in his eyes. “You knew and didn’t tell me?” he asked through his teeth. A few weeks ago would’ve made sense, if she was on the sea. But they’d been writing to each other that entire time, and she’d been docked for long enough now that she could’ve found the time.
“You would’ve told me not to bother,” she defended.
Kaz scoffed. “Who else could you have found named Jordie Rietveld?” he asked, gesturing to the man standing in front of him.
“I’m not even really named Jordie Rietveld,” he shrugged, looking at Kaz and then back towards Inej.
“Yeah, you’d be surprised how many Ravkans are named Jordan Rietveld.”
Kaz let out a sigh. If this was how they acted together, he was in for a long and difficult time for the rest of his life. “Both of you, stop it,” he interrupted, “you should have told me, Wraith.”
“Maybe next time,” she teased, walking over to stand closer to the two of them, nearly on the opposite side of the room from her.
He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. Already, they were managing to work together to give him a headache.
Jordie looked around the room, then. “So, is all you do here really just paperwork?”
Kaz smirked, rolling his eyes. “Remind me to never introduce you to Jesper.”