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Nights in Ketterdam were different from those at the farm.
When Kaz was still a kid afraid of the dark and the storms came without previous warning, he used to sleep with Jordie. Tempests in the country seemed like they could make the slate roof tiles fly off at any moment. The wind caressed the trees’ leaves that had been planted in their garden, swaying them softly in front of the window like the folds of a ghost’s dress.
Kaz had never told anyone, but nights like those frightened him, so he opened the door of Jordie’s bedroom wide open and, in silent, laid by his side. His older brother was the only one who saw common leaves instead of monsters, who was not afraid about the house collapsing on them and sang louder than thunders so that Kaz would never hear them. They were nights of dreams and fairytales that always ended good, of being tickled in the dim light of a cluttered room and eating waffles for breakfast with dad, staining their mouths with chocolate. His heart had been filled with the most genuine happiness.
In Ketterdam, nights were different. Kaz did not see ghosts in the storm anymore —he just cursed under his breath because that meant the next day his leg would hurt even more as he tried not to slip. The thunders were deafening between the battered walls of the Crow Club and if by chance there were waffles for breakfast, Nina Zenik, that shameless Heartrender who loved to flirt with the most ruthless men of the Dregs, made sure to eat them all before Kaz even finished coming down the stairs.
He sighed and buried his face in his hands, feeling the rough contact of his gloves brush his cheeks. He flinched as the rumble of the storm startled him, then chided himself. He was supposed to have sold the farm years ago, the darkness no longer scared him, and Jordie was dead. Ketterdam had eaten the child that lived within him long ago.
Kaz looked out of the window, where the muted-colored buildings glimpsed beneath the thick curtain of rain that covered the city. Not even the Stave Oriental or the most expensive pleasure houses had opened that night, knowing that no naive tourist would stroll the streets of Ketterdam with that downpour on his head. Kaz felt that familiar fury working its way into the pit of his stomach, and he forced himself to calm down. He could not act too soon. If he wanted to rise above the rest of the Barrel bosses and pluck each and every feather from The Peacock, he would have to wait.
Brick by brick.
He looked over every windowsill, every ledge and chimney in detail, but saw nothing special. His eyes searched for something in the darkness of Ketterdam night, or rather someone.
Losing his patience, he trimmed his long black coat and looked at himself in the rickety bathroom mirror before leaving the room: eyes the color of the most bitter coffee, lips pursed in a line of tension, and the carved cane with the head of a crow steady in his right hand. Everything was where it belonged to be.
He stopped to watch Jesper Fahey, the best sharpshooter of the Dregs, as he reached the bottom floor of the Crow Club.
“Kaz!” he exclaimed when he saw him. He approached with shaky steps and gave a shy smile. “Why do not you sit down with us for a bit?”
He pointed at the Makker's Roulette. Although Kaz did not change his expression, something inside him twisted when he realized that Jesper had had a few too many drinks. He was laughing as if that little old den were the Little Palace —he played believing that that night would be different from others.
Kaz shook his head and stepped off the Crow Club as fast as his bad leg allowed him. He could have advised Jesper to stop gambling, because when you overindulged on alcohol your chances of losing doubled, and if you were Jesper, you never had many anyway even being sober. However, he did not have time to babysit. The Wraith should have been back fifteen minutes ago, and he could not stop thinking about all the ways the mission he had given her could have gone wrong.
If his eyes did not distinguish her slim figure leaping between the rooftops of Ketterdam, Kaz Brekker knew exactly what to do. It did not matter if it rained, that Jesper went broke playing cards, or that damned Ghezen punished all the merchants who swore to do business in his name. He would have crossed the world to go looking for her, even if he never dared to say it out loud.
Inej hesitated a second before thrusting a knife between his eyes.
Kaz always said that was her weak point: kindness. Mercy. That instant of doubt in which she believed the Saints would be merciful and give that man a chance to redeem himself. She had spared too many lives to know that sometimes even that was not enough.
“You have to lose your fear of killing” Kaz had told her the first night he found her crying, her head between her knees, after murdering a man in an alley.
Inej had brushed her tears away, ashamed that Kaz Brekker, the bastard of the Barrel, was seeing her like that.
“You say it as if it were something simple, Kaz” she replied in a muffled voice.
“It is easier than being decent in Ketterdam. You have verified it yourself.”
When he spoke to her with that voice that resembled the snap of two stones, she could not help but shudder. He sounded harsh; he seemed like he did not care about anything or anyone. However, if she narrowed her eyes, Inej could distinguish all those weaknesses that Kaz believed he lacked. She felt him grip his cane tighter, his jaw tightens, and his nose widen with each breath as he waited for her to respond.
“I think I'd rather be a good person than a murderer.”
Kaz had shrugged before turning his attention back to the accounts, debts, and bets being managed on the Crow Club.
“Next time you are about to die because someone points a gun at you or squeezes your neck with a dagger, Inej, make sure you tell them that to see if they change their mind.”
The girl had pursed her lips before carefully closing the door as she left the room. She could not bear to see Kaz turned into Dirty Hands, the bastard from the Barrel, the terror of children's stories. She had seen him put on that mask too many times, his gaze became implacable when ordering a mission and he dealt a deck of cards with an expert hand, winning each game without blinking.
That was Kaz Brekker: leader of the Dregs, the demon who had survived on his account in the streets of Ketterdam, the young man who looked after Per Haskell's business.
However, it was not Kaz Brekker's eyes that she sought when facing an unexpected situation. It was not Dirty Hands the boy who had rescued her from the Menagerie, nor the one who had taught her how to throw a knife effectively. That was Kaz, plain Kaz. The same one who at that moment was approaching from the end of the street, limping, leaning on his staff carved with the head of a crow.
Her throat went dry, but she did not let it show. She still had her arm raised towards the man and the knife she had chosen for the occasion, Saint Vladimir, was not shaking.
She was no longer afraid.
Inej wondered what the girl she had been would think of her. What would her parents say about the lives that she had taken, of the certainty with which she robbed and threatened people —what they would say if they knew that she had become the best Wraith in the Barrel.
In the past, she had preferred to be a better person than a murderer. In the present, she wanted to believe she could be both at the same time.
She noticed that Kaz stayed beside her and ducked his head to examine the scene. She could feel his lips curl into an amused smile.
“If you have come here to laugh at me, Kaz, I do not need you to tell me how to do my job.”
Despite the fact that he narrowed his eyes on her and continued not to meet her own, Inej felt his gaze scan her exposed skin as if he wanted to make sure she had not suffered any harm. She knew he would be thinking that killing that man was not a part of the job, that she had walked off from Ketterdam's fanciest neighborhoods to end up in the worst sector of the Barrel. Though if she expected to hear those words out loud, she never had the opportunity.
“Are you going to do what you want for once, Inej, or are we both going home empty-handed tonight?”
She now understood the reason behind that smile. Kaz had known that she would end there, and he wanted to see if she would back down at the last minute or heed her instincts and end the life of the man who had appeared in her nightmares more times than she could remember.
He had not taken his eyes off her. Even bordering on death, he had the same lascivious look as years ago, when she was just a foreign girl new to Ketterdam. Judging from his red hair and bulging eyes, he must have been Kaelic, but Inej did not care. He was one of many who had laid his hands on her, and he had come out unscathed.
Inej wanted to be the last to be touched like that, as if she were nothing more than a pretty body wrapped in spicy silks. Without allowing herself to think about it any longer, she stopped aiming at his brow and instead lowered her arm to cut off his hand.
The man's scream cut the air. She was unfazed. Screams of pain calling for help and insulting her in the worst ways echoed through the streets of Ketterdam. Inej received each word with joy, each tear with euphoria, and each drop of blood that stained her clothes with veneration. She did not have to worry about the stadwatch coming to stop them, because no one went outside when storms hit Ketterdam.
Besides, she had Kaz. He knew the best hiding places and would made sure nothing happened to them. It was not for nothing that he had spent a good sum of Per Haskell's money to pay for her contract at the Menagerie.
“Next time you want to visit the Tantee Helen girls” she hissed. Her words lost their force due to the clamor of the storm, so she leaned towards him and held his shirt with one hand, lifting him slightly into the air. “Better think twice.”
She released him abruptly and before turning around, she slashed his chest. Although the cut was not one deep enough to be mortal, it surely was quite painful. Inej turned around, letting the rain soak into her bones, and took a deep breath as she heard Kaz footsteps beside her.
They walked in silence for several minutes to the beat of the rain. He was the one who dared to break the silence.
“He deserved to have both of his hands cut off.”
Inej gritted her teeth and blinked away the memories of her days in the Menagerie.
“He deserved much worse than that.”
“Was it your Saints who let him live, Wraith?”
Inej pursed her lips. She hated when Kaz used her faith to mock her. They had argued about it too many times.
“It was me.”
She involuntarily slowed her steps as she realized what that had sounded like. Although she was not a Saint, she had held the fate of that man in her hands and had played with it. What did that make her? She thought of Sankta Alina, who had not been much older than her when she had discovered her power and set Ravka free from the Darkling. There was no point in comparing herself to someone like that when she was just a Suli girl; a walking acrobat who had become the best spider of the most ruthless young man in the Barrel. Of course, she was no Saint.
“Sankta Inej” she murmured to herself to check the resonance of the words. She shook her head, slightly disgusted, and drops of water fell from her lashes with the gesture.
Kaz made a strange sound that could have been a chuckle, but the storm prevented her from distinguishing it clearly. Inej noticed that he was limping more than usual and unconsciously approached, just in case he slipped, and she had to be there to help him up.
“Do not make fun of me, Kaz,” she said through her teeth.
He fixed his dark eyes on the tight bun at the back of her head.
“I never do, Inej.”
This time it was her turn to laugh. If Kaz Brekker never made fun of anyone, she was the princess of Ravka herself.
“Not believing in anything is not something to brag about, you know. Sometimes people need to hold onto something and trust that there is an entity bigger than ourselves.”
Her gaze drifted to his rain-trimmed profile, his uneven waking, and his black hair, wet without his usual elegance. At the time, he was not Dirty Hands, the bastard of the Barrel, or Kaz Brekker himself.
He was just Kaz. The same one she had met that day in the Menagerie and had allowed her to savor freedom and danger.
Her Kaz.
He wanted to tell her so many things.
He did not even know how he would manage to keep quiet when all he wanted to do was explode and confess that he did not believe in Saints nor Ghezen, because no one had been there to heal Jordie from the Queen’s Lady Plague. However, he did believe in her. In Inej and her chocolate-like brown eyes. Inej, who was capable of sparing a man's life even if he should walk straight to hell for having dared to do that to her. He could barely think about it without wanting to go back and cut off each and every of his limbs and then throw them to any hungry dog.
He looked at Inej, his beloved thief of secrets, and verified that she was still there, beside him, safe. Kaz would have given all his ownership of the Fifth Port, his shares on the Crow Club, and all the money in the world to make sure the Wraith did not lose that good that, although he did not fully understand, completely fascinated him.
Kaz might have not believed in many things, but he did believe that Ketterdam could be a better place because of her.
Although he would have liked to be another kind of boy, able to tell her everything he thought so that he could then kiss her in the rain and tangle his fingers in that silk-like hair, the mere thought of that almost made him throw up. Being so close to her, even if they were just walking under the gabled roofs of Ketterdam and the smell of smoke and rot made them dizzy, was unbearable. Even though he wanted to get closer, he knew he could not do it without turning pale and pulling away from her instantly.
He forced himself to look away and increase his pace even when he knew Inej was walking slowly so she would not leave him behind. They arrived at the Crow Club dripping, puffing from the cold that never gave the city streets a break. Kaz nodded to Jesper and headed for the stairs, which creaked with each step. He heard how Inej stopped to talk to the sharpshooter:
“Are you both okay?” Jesper said. “Kaz was very upset and…”
“Kaz?”
“Yes, yes. You should have seen his face. He was worried about you.”
Kaz himself noticed Inej's gaze on him as he climbed the steps, still with one ear set on the conversation raised by the deep laughter and toasts of the night.
“Kaz does not care about anyone, Jesper.”
The boy knew that Inej had the right to think that, but he could not prevent his bad leg from failing when he heard those words. He cursed under his breath and continued up, no longer caring what she and Jesper had to say to each other. He was stupid for letting those things hurt him, and he knew it. He had made built the worst reputation ever over the years, never fondling anyone or ever giving a second chance. The Dregs respected him, the merchants feared him, and the Pekka Rollins-style bosses scrutinized him, carefully, wondering when he would have enough power to catch up with them.
Soon, he would have liked to say. Brick by brick.
If Inej believed he did not care about anything, he could not blame her.
He was taking off his coat when her slim figure appeared in the doorway. Several strands had come loose from the bun and now framed her face in a cascade of damp-curled black hair. He doubted she had noticed how Kaz's breath caught.
“Have you convinced Jesper to stop gambling?” he asked when he recovered. He sat down at the desk and put his raincoat on one of the chairs.
“He was not doing as bad as you think” she replied with a frown.
Kaz looked up and raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Kristoff had all the cards in his favor and Isk Deljel had hired a Grisha who was at the next table. There is no way Jesper will win even one round.”
Inej's eyes widened, and she sat in the remaining chair with her arms crossed. She had that look again, the one that said she had expected something else from him, maybe something better, and at the same time confessed that, deep down, she had already gotten used to those games only Kaz Brekker knew how to play.
“Did you know there's a Grisha playing down there, and you have not even bothered to warn him?”
The boy shrugged. “Inej, darling, I sent that Grisha to Isk Deljel a couple of days ago.” Anticipating what she had to say, unwilling to hear another of her reprimands, he continued. “I knew that Jesper was going to play tonight and that the money he won the other day would give him false confidence. I needed him to remind himself how bad a player he is.”
“That's cruel, Kaz.”
He looked at her over the papers he was sorting out. “I have been called worse.”
Silence settled between them and expanded like the senses of a Heartrender taking control of a foreign body. The soft patter of rain against the glass had subsided in the last few minutes, but it was still rhythmic, almost melodious.
Kaz liked that routine: reviewing the accounts and actions of the last day, seeing Inej's kind smile and dark eyes, the bronze color of her skin, bright under the light of the Crow Club lamps...
He could have gotten used to that. It was the closest thing to a home he had had since he and Jordie left the farm and his life fell apart. It was the best that the person he had become could hope for.
“Can I ask you something?” Inej's uncertain voice brought him back to reality, where the two of them put a table in between and did not dare to heal each other's wounds even if they were fatal.
“I suspect you're going to do it anyway. That's why you are here, right?”
Inej nodded and looked down at the legs of the limping chair. “Why did you come looking for me?”
Kaz held his breath, barely an instant, knowing that was a detail she would not overlook. Because I was afraid for you. Because it scared me to think that you were alone in that storm because of me. Because you were late, Inej, and I have met many men who got lost along the way and never returned. It could not have happened to you too, not to you.
“You were taking too long. The streets of Ketterdam are not safe” he answered instead. It was an obvious lie and although Inej could have detected it for miles, she just squinted with a certain threatening edge.
“I do not need you to protect me, Kaz.”
I know, he would have answered if he were a little braver, if he had a little less fear. I may need you to protect me, Inej.
“It is better that you rest. You must be exhausted, and you have to be up early tomorrow. I want you to stop by the port first thing in the morning and remind Ghelber that he is running late with payments” he said. Although he sounded sharper than he would have liked, the girl got the message on the fly.
“Good night then, Kaz.”
He nodded and watched her go quietly. It still disturbed him to realize that Inej did not have a scent to characterize her. Even on the Crow Club, where everyone reeked of cheap dishonest money or pent-up gunpowder, the Wraith's essence remained unchanged. She did not smell of anything and no one saw her coming, except him. If he had learned to distinguish something over time, it was her steps approaching him, making him feel less of a man than what would be right, but more decent than what the Barrel would ever approve of.
That night, Kaz Brekker dreamed he was dying.
It was not the first time a scene like that had played out behind his eyelids, and a part of him knew it would not be the last. He had dreamed of those insufferable moments when the world was closing on him and below only was Jordie's body, swollen, floating like a boat. Other nights he had seen himself explode and fall from the flying ships said to have fought in Ravka's civil war thanks to Nikolai Lantsov, or fall poisoned by the waffles Nina Zenik left for him on purpose when he had refused to bring a certain Matthias Helvar out of Hell's Gate.
That dream, however, was different. He was the man from the alley where he had found Inej that night, and he was bleeding. Although he had both hands, his entire body ached, and life was leaking between his lips. The Inej of her dreams would crouch in front of him with her face contorted in a panic and put a hand on his side to try to prevent the bleeding, and then he would vomit when feeling her skin in contact with his.
Inej stepped back, scared, and stared at him with those wide brown eyes.
“Tell me what to do for once, Kaz” she demanded, her voice dominated by fear.
“Just stay away” he gasped with difficulty.
“This is no time to be proud, damn it. What can I do to help you? What happened?”
Kaz closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, suppressing a sob of pain. In his dreams, the rain still had not calmed down.
“Tell me about your Saints, Wraith.”
“What? There is no time to...”
“Tell me their stories” he interrupted weakly. “Tell me who were Sankta Alina, Sankta Elizabeta and all the others who give names to your knives. Tell me why they make you so happy.”
Kaz demanded that because he was hoping to discover the key to making Inej laugh. Not a fake, serious or nervous laugh, but a real, sincere one. He wanted to know how to bring that hopeful gleam in her eyes, what kind of stories she liked to listen to when she lost faith in the goodness of the world and yet she still believed that things could improve.
In his dreams, Kaz heard Inej speak of her Saints, so different from those who ruled over Ketterdam: greed, lust for power and cruelty. Inej, however, talked about her Suli Saints with an illusioned voice, with a frightened voice, with a soft voice as her words lost in the rain that soaked Ketterdam and lulled him to sleep. She never got to touch him, but she was there while he died, talking to him while she tried not to cry, and that was enough for him. It would always be enough.
Kaz always woke up before getting the answers to his questions.