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Inej stretched her limbs absently as she took the stairs one at a time, a sense of peace settling within her at finally being back in the Van Eck mansion, making her movements deliberately slow. But her steps were still soundless as she trekked across the plush carpeted hallway towards the muffled voices coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Tell me the one about Sankta Inej again, Papa,” came the high pitched voice that never failed to set her heart to stuttering, accompanied as always by the kind of smile that made her cheeks hurt.
Silent as a ghost, she peered through the sliver of open door at the lean, sharp-figured silhouette and the tiny wisp of a shadow perched atop its knee.
“It’s well past eleven bells,” came the gravelly voice Inej realized she’d been holding her breath waiting to hear. “Your mother will have my hide.”
But the little cherubic figure only giggled airily, no concern at her father’s tone nor at the weightless threat of her mother’s ire.
“Mama lets me stay ‘wake later.” The girl argued, all conviction.
His right eyebrow slanted sharply. Inej bit her lip mischievously.
“Just one more, Papa.” Inej could see the way the little girl lay her head ever so gently against Kaz’s suited chest, her large brown eyes pleading up at him.
“One.” Kaz finally relented sternly, but Inej could hear the current of warmth running its way through Kaz’s voice, no matter how he might sometimes try to suppress it. Greed might bow to him well and good, but Kaz bowed inevitably to the little one in his lap each and every time.
“The deal is the deal,” the girl giggled again wrapping her chubby arms around her father’s neck and kissing him clumsily on the cheek.
Inej studied Kaz’s face carefully but there was no hint of tension; instead his features had melted into the kind of helpless smile Kaz only ever let himself show in front of a handful of people.
“The deal is the deal,” he repeated, stone on stone, an undercurrent of emotion faintly audible...but then it was gone as it fell away into the tone he reserved for sowing the seeds of myths.
“Sankta Inej was a saint amongst men who used the power of all the other saints to keep her people safe...”
Inej shook her head in exasperation fighting the smile inching its way across her lips, unable to help herself. It was blasphemy that Kaz spoke.
She listened as he told their daughter the story of the ghost saint who appeared out of thin air to help those in need, the powerless, the helpless, the needy. Who walked and danced and tumbled over thin air. Who flew up and down the sides of buildings ridding the streets of monsters.
Inej couldn’t fight her smile anymore when she saw the little girl mumbling along to the words; she demanded the story so often she nearly knew it by heart. Her little eyelids fluttered, battling sleep.
“...and now Sankta Inej is called upon by those who need her most, and she heeds their call always.” Kaz’s rough voice petered off as he stared down at the slow rise and fall of his daughter’s breathing, the telltale sign she’d fallen asleep.
He brushed one ungloved hand lovingly over the girl’s brow. Then-
“Wraith.” It was a greeting.
Inej suppressed the urge to roll her eyes; even distracted as he’d been, he'd known.
She slipped through the doorway coming up wordlessly behind him. Just flush with the line of his back. She felt him relax backwards into her.
She let her hands come to rest in his hair and she felt the involuntary sigh he let out, of relief- at her presence- that she’d made it back in one piece from the job- or maybe he was just tired. Inej let her nails scratch at his scalp lightly.
“Hoxton?” He inquired.
“Out.” She said simply.
A slight nod against her stomach.
“I seem to remember being told that I spoil a certain someone too much.” Inej lilted.
“Now bedtime stories are a luxury?” He scoffed.
Inej, lightning quick, plucked the toffee wrapper from between the tiny clenched fist of their daughter and held it up to Kaz’s line of sight.
A muscle twitched in Kaz’s jaw. Careful not to jostle their little one, he reached carefully into his coat pocket, one of the hidden ones meant to conceal valuables from prying fingers. His hand emerged empty.
“She swiped it,” Inej said incredulously.
“She’s a fast learner,” Kaz tried to say bleakly but she knew he was fighting a smug grin.
“Pickpocketing and blaspheme,” Inej mouthed exasperatedly, letting her hip clock Kaz’s side as she leaned over to pull the covers back on the small bed.
Kaz leaned delicately over to lay their daughter gently into her bed. He smoothed the covers over the tiny sleeping form, his lips twitching as he peered down fondly. “I don’t know what you mean,” he told Inej.
But she let him take her hand and lead her back to the bedroom they shared when Kaz wasn’t needed at the Slat, when Inej wasn’t on overnight stakeouts.
“You shouldn’t tell her those things, Kaz.” Inej chided him, wandering over to the large window overlooking the back garden, peering out at the running water of the Geldcanal.
He came up smoothly behind her, his fingers ghosting over her arms. She could feel a whisper of his breath on the nape of her neck. Her cheeks warmed.
“And what, pray tell, did I say that wasn’t true?” His fingers trailed over her wrist and then entwined with hers.
“I’m no saint,” she huffed, but her breath caught when she felt his lips lightly brush the skin of her shoulder as he peeled her hooded tunic off and over her head. She heard it land in a heap somewhere behind them.
His voice had dropped two octaves when he spoke again. “Prove it.”