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The problem came a week into their trip.
They were halfway to Fjerda on Kaz’s madcap plan to break into the Ice Court and stick it to Rollins, and after her brush with death, Inej was dealing with a different kind of disaster.
Every time a job took her away from Ketterdam for more than a few days, she made sure to feed fully in anticipation of the sudden loss of a food supply. She’d watch the rows of pleasure houses in the West Stave from the rooftops, and when someone stumbled out of one into the street, usually a man, always a human, she’d follow them silently for a few blocks until they stepped too far into the shadows, and she’d strike. One monster hunting another.
There had been a time, in the first few months after she’d been stolen and changed, that she had considered herself one. She’d lie awake in her bed in the Menagerie, still shaking from a visit with a client, and wonder if her Saints would accept her as she was now, with fangs and a bloodlust that never faded. Inej had learned, since then, that real monsters weren’t the girls like her, trembling in the silver shackles that Heleen kept them in even as their skin blistered under the metal. Real monsters were men with bags of coin and women with diamond chokers. She could drain them dry and leave their bodies to rot and her Saints would not abandon her.
The problem, this time, was that Inej hadn’t counted on being stabbed.
The man she’d drained the night before leaving for Fjerda should have kept her well enough for the two weeks at sea, but that was before Oomen had staked her in the stomach and she’d lost half her blood on the cobblestones. The hunger hadn’t hit at first in the cloud of pain that followed her eventual return to the waking world, but now it gnawed like a wild beast.
It was not nearly as maddening or intense as it had been at the Menagerie, a byproduct of Heleen starving her girls and pumping them full of sedatives to keep her eternally youthful and resilient workforce complacent, but it hung over Inej like a haze, and she knew she was only a day or two away from losing her tightly-held control. If she attacked part of her crew, it wouldn’t matter if the Saints forgave her. She would never forgive herself.
Inej stepped out onto the deck of the Ferolind, the sun having finally set, and considered her options. She would not feed on her crew. That was non-negotiable. Half of them weren’t even a possibility to begin with. Wylan was fae, and Nina’s Fjerdan “friend” was a werewolf, neither of which could sustain her. As witches, Nina and Jesper were technically edible, but that was out of the question. Of the eight men they’d hired to sail the ship, she knew one was a witch and two were selkies. That left seven humans, counting Specht and Kaz, who were also off limits.
The calculations were making her dizzy. She did not feed on those who didn’t deserve it. That was the deal she had made with her Saints, the way she let herself sleep at night with a full belly. Attacking the men who visited the Menagerie and the other pleasure houses with enslaved indentures would not mark her soul. Biting a sailor who’d agreed to help them would.
You wouldn’t have to kill him. Just take enough to survive. Inej shut the idea down immediately. I don’t attack innocent men. She knew too well what it was like to have your body taken from you to even consider doing that to someone else.
She was still turning the problem over in her mind when Jesper sidled up next to her. They stared down at the water together in silence for a few moments before he spoke.
“You missed quite the argument between our sailors today.” This had become a tradition of sorts in the short time they’d been sailing. The perpetual gloom of Ketterdam meant that she could still leave the Slat during daylight hours most days, provided she was careful, but at sea, the sun beat down relentlessly, and she was confined to stay belowdeck from sunrise to sunset. Jesper had taken to filling her in on everything she might have missed, from the foolish mercher things Wylan said, to the truly impressive number of times Matthias had managed to be sick over the side of the boat.
It was a ritual she enjoyed, and she loved Jesper for thinking of her, but she was having a very hard time focussing on his words. Every time she looked at him, all she could see was the fluttering pulse in his throat. She studied her hands instead. Her bronze skin had taken on a grayish cast, and if she could see her reflection, she knew her face would be drawn and pale.
Inej had asked Nina once, in a moment of vulnerability, what she looked like. She hadn’t seen her own face in anything clearer than a murky puddle for two years. The Peacock had turned her a few months shy of her 15th birthday, and while vampires didn’t technically age, she knew she did not look as young now as she did then. She was still slight, but the prolonged starvation and exposure to silver had robbed her face of any of the softness of childhood. It was strange, to want desperately to be the girl with the round cheeks again, and yet still be glad that her appearance had changed with her. Nina had studied her closely, then cradled her cheek.
“You look like a survivor. And a friend.” She had smiled and pulled her into a hug.
Dangerous, Kaz had once called her. If she could not be the girl with the soft face, she was glad at least to be the girl with a blade in her hand and a crew at her back.
Inej felt like the wrong kind of dangerous now. A headache had settled itself just behind her eye two days ago, and the hunger was coming with waves of dizziness. She thought she’d done a good job hiding it, but Jesper was eyeing her strangely.
“Are you feeling okay? Should I get Nina?”
“It’s alright, I’m fine.” He didn’t look convinced.
“I don’t want to be rude, but you look awful.”
She flicked his arm. “Thanks Jesper, not rude at all.”
He grinned back at her, but concern was still etched on his face. “I’m serious, I think—”
“Wraith.” Kaz’s low rasp rang out across and the deck and Inej and Jesper turned to face him as he made his way over. He was leaning heavily on his cane, had been since the fight on the docks, and Inej was finding it a little hard to look him in the eyes. Things had been strange between them since they’d spoken two days ago. “I had a lot of things.”
“We need to go over the plan again. Wylan gave me another sketch of the incinerator shaft you need to review.”
Jesper gave her another concerned look, but she waved him off. “Lead the way.”
They’d barely made it to his cabin when Kaz stopped and turned to her.
“You need to feed.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, and then immediately bumped her shoulder into the doorframe at another bout of dizziness. Kaz raised a dark brow. “…There’s no one for me to feed on.” She wanted to cringe at how weak her voice sounded. It was destabilizing, to feel her body betray her like this. It felt too much like being in the Menagerie again
Kaz’s expression was unreadable. He held her gaze for a moment before turning to his desk and running a gloved hand over one of the sketches scattered across is. When he spoke, his voice was impassive. “I’m human enough. Bite me.”
“What?” She thought the hunger was making her hallucinate, but he shrugged, the casual gesture greatly at odds with the ridiculous offer he was making.
“I know I’m not your usual fare, but something tells me your Saints wouldn’t particularly mind. We hit land in three days. Just take enough to tide you over until then.”
If she wasn’t so distracted by what he was proposing, she might have refuted the idea that he was anywhere near as bad as the men she fed on, but the dizziness was making it hard to focus on more than one thing at a time. “I’m not going to do it.”
Kaz rolled his eyes. “There’s work to be done, and I’ve spent too much time on this plan for you to murder a crew member and then immolate yourself in the sunlight out of shame. You can bite me now, or explain to Jesper’s dear old Da why his son isn’t coming home after you accidentally tear his throat out the next time he talks to you. Your choice.” She wasn’t sure if he was trying to piss her off so she’d want to bite him, but if so, it was almost working. Much more frustrating than his attitude was the fact that he was right. She wouldn’t make it until they hit land.
“This is ridiculous.”
“It’s completely practical.”
“Do you want me to bite you?”
His bitter coffee eyes were steady and unwavering. “What I want,” he rasped, “is to finish this job. If I have to lose a pint or two to do it, then I’ll give it up gladly.”
She held his gaze silently. This was a terrible, horrible, awful idea.
“You’ll need to eat something first. So you don’t get lightheaded.”
Kaz nodded and pulled some bread and hard cheese from behind his desk. Of course he prepared for this.
“Do you actually need to discuss the plan with me, or was that just a ploy to get me down here?” He didn’t bother answering around the food in his mouth. Inej already knew what he would have said anyway. She definitely wanted to bite him.
“You’ll also need—” he set a roll of bandages on the desk. He had apparently already thought of everything. Kaz finished the last of the bread and took a long drink from a canteen before studying the room.
“It’s probably best if we’re seated.” He snagged the wooden chair from behind his desk and limped over to the small bunk. Inej settled herself on the edge of the bed. They were facing each other, but set slightly to the side, so he could hold his arm up next to him and she would have easy access to his wrist. It was a practical choice, given how small the room was. It also meant that their legs were pressed together halfway up her outer thigh.
The reality of the situation hit her the moment Kaz started to roll up his sleeve. The crow and cup stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin. It was odd, to see a tattoo that aged on someone so young. The ink had blurred over the years, the image distorting slightly as he’d grown and his skin had stretched. A jagged white scar ran through the bottom of the cup. Inej focussed her attention on the ink, tried not to think about what she was about to do. For once, it wasn’t revulsion or guilt that turned her stomach, but the feeling that this would change things somehow. She and Kaz had always had a quiet sort of closeness. She trusted him, and she knew he trusted her, but there was an unspoken glass wall between them that they had carefully maintained over the years. This felt like taking a hammer to it. If the pounding of his heart was any indication, he thought so too.
“I’m not draining you, so you won’t change unless you die in the next day or so,” she said, mostly just to say something.
The look he gave her was bordering on exasperated. “Then I’ll avoid pissing Helvar off too much. Let’s get on with it."
Inej knew Kaz didn’t like to be touched. She didn’t know why or what happened, but she of all people could understand that feeling. He extended his arm to her, bare from the elbow down, and she pulled her sleeves over her hands before gently wrapping her covered fingers around it. She slowly brought his wrist up to her mouth. His hummingbird pulse was like a siren song, but when her lips brushed his arm, just under his tattoo, she made herself pause. Kaz had gone completely still, every muscle in his body tensed at once, and his breath was like thunder in the small cabin.
“Kaz,” she murmured against his skin, “do you want me to stop?”
Her voice seemed to ground him against whatever storm plagued his thoughts, and he deliberately unclenched his jaw.
“Go on,” he rasped. She opened her mouth and bit down.
Normally, when Inej fed, all she could taste was the bitter tang of fear, caustic and unpleasant on her tongue. She didn’t always kill her victims, not if she didn’t need to, but the moment she pounced, their systems flooded with the hormones and adrenaline of near-death that left a sour taste in her mouth. It eased the hunger, but it wasn’t particularly enjoyable.
This was nothing like that. The fear was still there, faintly, but it was covered by a warm, heavy sweetness that she’d never had before. It reminded her of the ripened fruit she used to pick from trees the caravans passed in the summer, rich and warm, like she could taste the sunlight on his skin after standing on the deck of the ship. Inej could feel the headache she’d been fighting for days ease as she drank, her strength returning with every mouthful, her grip on Kaz’s arm tightening.
Kaz let out a noise from the back of his throat, drawing her gaze up to his face. His eyelids had fluttered half shut, features loosened to an unfamiliar expression. He had relaxed completely into his chair, and with the haze of hunger fading, Inej was very suddenly aware of the fact that she was sitting in a small cabin with Kaz Brekker’s wrist in her mouth. She’d heard older vampires talk about feeding before, how it could be violent and messy, yes, but also intimate and strangely pleasurable. It had sounded like foolish nonsense then. Now, she wasn’t sure.
The thought was enough to shake her from the delicious warmth in her gut, and with a final swallow, she gently pulled her teeth from his skin. She could feel the flush of blood in her cheeks, the slight swelling of her lips that came with feeding. She would need to eat again before the Ice Court, but this would hold her off until then.
Kaz let out a shaky breath. Her covered hands were still holding his arm.
“Are you alright?”
“I wasn’t expecting it to feel…like that.” The rasp of his voice was like gravel, like he’d just woken up. His eyes were still foggy when he looked at her. There was something unreadable in his expression.
“Like what?”
He didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to. A trickle of blood had oozed from the small punctures in his wrist, and on instinct, she caught it with her tongue. Whatever calm had been on Kaz’s face vanished and he yanked his arm back hard enough to scratch himself on her nails, shooting unsteadily to his feet.
“I didn’t—” she started to apologize, but he cut her off.
“Go make sure Nina has what she needs for the cloaking spell. We’ll be in range of Fjerda soon and if someone spots us, this whole plan will be over before it even starts.” His tone was brusque and cold, the clinical detachment he always used when discussing a job, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, and when he moved to wrap the bandage around his wrist, his hands were shaking. She slipped out without a word.
Inej knew the direction to find Nina was really just to get her out of the room, but she went to see her anyway. The witch was rifling around in the galley, a tin of biscuits in one hand and a pot of jam in the other. Inej stepped heavily on the creaking floor to signal her presence. Nina turned from the cabinet at the noise and beamed.
“It’s good to see you finally looking like yourself again. How do you feel?”
Inej swallowed thickly. She could still taste honeyed sunlight of Kaz’s blood on the back of her tongue.
“Never better."