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She kept pace with him initially. Walking down to the harbor, he watched as the Suli couple moved closer and closer, the details of their appearance materializing with each step. The gray of the man’s hair creeping in at the edges. The woman’s long braid lying gracefully over her shoulder. Their hands clasped together, tugging each other along as the distance between them and their daughter disappeared. Inej was nearly jumping out of her own skin, but she stayed by his side, only breaking into a sprint when there was nothing but a few feet separating them. It was the most impressive feat of strength he’d seen from her. From anyone, if he was being honest.
They swallowed her whole. Neither were particularly tall, but they towered over her nonetheless, their arms wrapping effortlessly around her delicate frame. As he stepped closer, he could hear them amidst the sobs, the prayers usually whispered under Inej’s breath now spoken loudly and without reservation. Their foreignness was familiar. Kaz might not have cared for gods or saints, for myths and legends, but the sound of their devotion still soothed his racing heart.
He stood back as they held one another. A feeling deep in his gut ignited softly, a spark burning in isolation: not strong enough to turn into a flame, but with enough heat to leave a scar. It wasn’t resentment — he would have given anything for her to have this moment, would have let the rest of the world crumble around them if that’s what it cost — but an aftertaste of something else lingered as he watched them. No matter how often he won, how death defying the odds or complicated the scheme, he’d never have anyone waiting for him when the dust settled. Not like Inej did. Not like Jesper did. His victories had long been celebrated in solitude, and he’d come to terms with that years ago.
Still, the feeling seemed to whisper, a voice in his head that sounded like someone he knew. Still.
“Kaz!” He blinked the thoughts away, straightened his back as they walked toward him. “Mama, Papa, this is Kaz Brekker. He’s saved my life more times than I can count.”
“Your daughter paints me in a better light than I deserve.” He looked at her as he added, “No one has ever protected me the way she has.”
Their eyes were locked, and he saw it again. One of the first lessons Ketterdam had taught him was to read faces as if they were words on a page. Any hand could be won, any man could be manipulated, if one could learn to see beneath the surface. Nobody could hide forever. Their hearts would give them away every time.
Now he was grateful for the lesson. Not for the victories it had led to, or the money he’d won, but for the undeniable truth of what he saw. Adoration. When Inej looked at him, it was as if the entire harbor floated away, and all that was left were the tears in her eye and the smile on her face. It didn’t matter that the real joy had come from her parents; he would use any excuse to be on the other end of that look, regardless of whether he deserved it.
Kaz didn’t even notice her father until Inej stuck her arm out, spoke in quick and hushed Suli. He didn’t have to know the language to understand — Mr. Ghafa had moved to embrace him, until Inej stood in the way. Kaz had been lost in the endless depths of her eyes, drawn to them like a sailor to a siren, so fixated he would have drowned rather than tear his gaze away. Inej, his better in every way that mattered and every way that didn’t, had never lost sight of the world around them. Even now, when the threat came in the form of a grateful father, when her focus should have been at its weakest, she was still protecting him.
He wanted to tell her that he would take it. The touch, and the revulsion that came with it. The gratitude he’d done nothing to earn. He would suffer any pain, subject himself to all kinds of agony, play whatever character she wanted, even the farm boy he knew had died in that river. He would hunt the world for her wretched saints and construct an altar of his own, if it kept that smile on her face.
“Thank you,” her mother said, the words still muddled by the tears that had yet to stop. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
Safety didn’t exist in Ketterdam, and it certainly wasn’t what he’d given her when he’d taken her out of that Menagerie, but he kept his mouth shut, nodded curtly. That wasn’t his story to tell.
“Every day, we searched,” her father said. “They told us to give up. They said you were lost, that those who took you would never let you go. They said you wouldn’t make it no matter where you’d gone, but we said no. Our Inej has angels on her shoulders and wings on her back. She can survive anything.”
If she hadn’t been before, Inej was crying now. With every passing moment, Kaz felt more and more like an intruder. He wondered if it was some sort of retribution for each time he’d sent her to creep in through someone’s window, to become the audience they weren’t aware of. How much had he learned from her being privy to moments like this, so intimate and exposed? What had it cost her to push back the guilt that came with the encroachment?
“I can,” she said. “But I didn’t have to do it alone.”
He listened half-heartedly as she told them about Wylan and Jesper and Nina. The house she was staying in, with a staff and a view and a life that was much more palatable to those unfamiliar with the stench of the Barrel. Painting over their history was effortless with those kinds of tools. The only question was how long it could last.
As they began walking, he forced his face into neutrality, buried any evidence of the thoughts that ran through his mind. They would have to find out eventually. Perhaps not all of it, and ideally not all at once, but in due time the truth would become unavoidable. They spoke of survival as if it was an honorable thing, but where that ship had taken Inej, only those with the sharpest of claws and malleable of morals made it out alive. Dirtyhands may have become his title, but nobody around here could claim cleanliness. Not even the dead.
The path made itself clear, the flip of the final card coming to him with striking clarity. A death blow delivered by the river, turning a winning hand into a losing one in a single fluid motion. They had been looking for their lost child, for a little girl who only ever pushed the limits in a performance. But the secret to the Dregs was that everyone was already dead. They may have called themselves Crows, but like phoenixes born from the ashes of their old lives, rebirth was an entry level requirement. Whoever they’d gone searching for, the Ghafa’s had found someone else. He didn’t know when they’d realize it, when they’d look at their daughter and see a stranger in her place, but he knew the moment would come. And for the first time in his short and miserable life, Kaz longed to be wrong.
Tuning back into the conversation, he caught the tail end of a list of relatives, each one having done their own part in trying to find her. Inej stood in between them as they walked. Kaz let himself fall back just slightly, a pace behind theirs. It was as much privacy as he could give out on the street. Things may have improved for the Dregs in the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean people weren’t still watching, waiting to find them in a moment of weakness, waiting for their chance to steal the throne Kaz and his crew had built from nothing.
“We’ll send a letter as soon as we make it to your friends’ home. Nobody knew what to believe when the messenger came to us with news about you. Half the family were convinced this was all a scam, a ruse to kidnap us as well.”
“Your aunts will start planning the celebration before we even board the ship home,” her mother said with a smile. The tears had eased up, replaced with effortless joy and comfort. “Preparing the food will take half the length of the trip, at least.”
Inej let out a moan. “Nobody in Ketterdam knows how to cook properly.”
Her mother’s smile grew, something he hadn’t thought was possible. “Anything you want, I’ll make. Saints willing, I’ll be cooking for you for the rest of my life.”
“You’re in for a treat,” her father added. “Ever since the circus ended, your mother has been cooking non-stop. Everything will be better than you remember.”
“Wait,” her eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean, the circus ended?”
The smiles faded. “We tried,” he said, his voice tainted with the somber weight of grief that grew heavier over time. “But how could we go on without our star? How could we look to the sky and see someone else walking amongst the clouds?”
“It wasn’t fair,” her mother said softly. “To the family. They needed the performances to survive, but we…we needed every moment to search for you. We needed you to survive.”
They’d slowed their pace, and even though he slowed with them, they now stood nearly side by side. Kaz left a gap the size of a person between him and her father in a pathetic and slightly selfish attempt at disappearing. He’d have pulled an Inej and evaporated altogether, had she not asked him to stay.
“I’m sorry,” Inej said, and he couldn’t see her face clearly but he could hear the tears in her voice.
“For what, zheji?”
“For being the reason you stopped. Performing was our lives. It was everything you’d worked toward.”
“Inej, you are our lives. You are more important than any stage or crowd. You are worth more than any money in the world.” Her mother stopped walking, grabbed hold of her face as she said, “I would walk away from the circus a thousand times if it meant you were safe.”
Inej just nodded. The feeling snuck in again, quick and quiet and sharp; he forced it back down as they started walking again. He refused to let his pitiful, despicable nature ruin any part of this moment for her.
“And who knows?” Her father said, the cheer in his voice somehow both authentic and artificial. “Once you come home, maybe we can put the show back on the road. Perform as a family again.”
Oh. So this was the moment. He’d known it was a possibility when he’d made the deal, but his mind had refused to accept it. The life he led required foresight, examining every outcome for every choice, but he hadn’t found the strength to prepare for this ending: the moment she left.
His step staggered ever so slightly. It shouldn’t have been noticeable, shouldn’t have disrupted the rhythm of their walk, but like a conductor trained to spot the lone instrument out of tune, Inej turned. She stared first at the ground in front of him, then brought her gaze up. Met his. An inquisitive look flashed across her face, as if she was searching for the disruption. Or perhaps she was searching for something else.
He tried to school his features into something legible, to show her the answer she was looking for. The permission, although it wasn’t his to give. The forgiveness, although there was no guilt to absolve. Even when he wanted to fall onto his hands and knees and beg her to stay; even when the thought of her living across the true sea made the air around him grow thicker and his lungs smaller, made breathing a painful, labored thing. He nodded his head slightly even when every nerve in his body fought against it, because if there was anyone who deserved to turn their back on Ketterdam and leave it all behind, it was her. If leaving was what made her happy, he’d send her off without a single word of protest. If she wanted to fly on her own land, on her own accord, who was he to ground her, to tie her wings for the sake of his own spoiled heart?
Inej didn’t say anything, but the look on her face…Kaz wasn’t one to cling to hope, but he grasped desperately to her reluctance, to the way she bit her lip and kept her eyes away from her parents. Even if she also kept them away from him.
—
Jesper had a thousand questions.
He’d spent half of dinner begging the Ghafas for stories about Inej as a child, and the other half endlessly praising Mrs. Ghafa’s cooking. Kaz couldn’t fault him for the latter — Inej and her mother had spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, and what they’d come out with was quite easily the best meal he’d ever had. The way they managed to extract flavors he’d never tasted before from the ingredients he’d had at his disposal for years was an art form in itself, one that rivaled even his own general resourcefulness. And the smell. Envy reared its ugly head at the thought of Wylan and Jesper getting to enjoy the lingering scent long after the meal had been devoured.
“We had a guest faint during one of her performances.” Her father was telling the story with the same enthusiasm as he had with every one that came before. Where Inej was silent and still, her father was big and bold, every move exaggerated and every word announced rather than spoken. Kaz wondered whether it had always been her nature, or whether he was witnessing what Inej might have been had she not been forced into the shadows.
“Faint? Because of Inej?”
“Oh, yes. You see, we realized that we couldn’t make it look too easy. Not that it was easy, of course, but when Inej walks that rope, it looks effortless. So we staged a wobble, a moment for her to pretend to lose her balance. Oh, the way people panicked! They’d hold their breaths and try to hide their eyes, but none of them could ever look away, not until she made it to the other side.”
“Was the woman who passed out okay?” Wylan asked.
Her father shook his head. “You misunderstand. Women never looked away. They stared with intensity, as if their eyes could carry her to safety. The poor man collapsed right there in the front row.”
“He didn’t even see the rest of my act,” Inej added. “That’s the real travesty.”
“Maybe he’ll come back and see how it ends once you’re home.” Kaz saw it again, the feeling streaking across her face like a runaway star. Only this time, it wasn’t reluctance: it was guilt.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what, zheji?”
The first words had come out softly, but when Inej looked up at her father, she spoke with the determination that Kaz had grown used to. “I can’t stay. I can’t rejoin the circus.”
“So you’re out of practice. It’s nothing a little time can’t fix! You have magic in you, Inej. That doesn’t just go away.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t rejoin the circus because I have to come back. Here, to Ketterdam.”
Her mother reached across the table, put her hands in her own. “They took you against your will. Against our will. Whoever stole you can’t stop us from taking you home. Nobody can keep you here anymore.”
“No,” she said, “you’re not hearing me. I want to go home. I want to see the family, to spend time with you. But I also want to come back.”
“I don’t understand,” her father said, and Kaz could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “What could a place like this possibly have that would be worth leaving your family? Leaving your home?”
“Papa, it’s not about leaving you.” Jesper was practically bouncing out of his own skin, and Wylan’s eyes scoured the room in search of anything else to look at, but Kaz kept his gaze fixed on the table in front of them. A part of him knew the noble thing, the polite thing, would be to silently excuse himself, to give the Ghafas this moment alone. But Inej had started it with them there, and Kaz didn’t have the willpower to walk away before he heard her answer.
“Then what is it about?”
“It’s about everyone else.” Inej spoke with fervor, impassioned with purpose and righteousness. It fit her better than being a spider ever had. “There are hundreds of little girls and boys going through exactly what I did. Only they don’t get rescued. They don’t have anyone looking out for them.” She spared a quick glance his way; he pretended not to notice. “I can’t go home while they suffer.”
“So it is us who should suffer, then?”
Inej groaned. “Mama, that isn’t fair and you know it.”
“Life isn’t fair,” her father said. “The world is full of terrible people, Inej. You can’t—“
“Trust me when I say I know the terrors of both men and women alike.” Venom had slipped into her voice. Kaz watched the shock slowly register across her parents’ faces, watched as they blinked at the girl who had replaced their daring but soft-spoken daughter. He wondered when they’d truly process her words. Back in Ravka? On the boat home? Maybe it would come while they lay awake tonight, dreams poisoned by the realization that some version of their worst nightmare had come true. That even though she stood in front of them now, seemingly all in one piece, Ketterdam had still taken something from her, and nothing they ever did could give it back.
“I only meant to say,” her father continued, his tone shifting into something gentler, “that this battle is one you’ll likely never win. There’s no end to greed. Not in this lifetime. Perhaps not even in the next. Every enemy you defeat, every man you force into accountability, will only be replaced by two more looking to use his failure as a stepping stone.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to adjust my aim. Target the root and not the weeds.”
“Why?” Her mother groaned, frustration and terror written all over her face. “Why does it have to be you? Someone else can save the world. Someone else’s daughter can play the hero. Why can’t you just come home?”
“Who, Mama? Who’s gonna save them if not me? Who’s going to watch out for them when their families are told they’re dead and nobody else comes looking?” She turned toward her father. “I know it’s a losing hand. But I’m not the same person I was before. I know how to win with anything now, how to bend the rules so they work in my favor.”
“But you don’t have to,” he begged.
“If nobody ever tries, nothing gets better. I have to try, Papa. I owe them at least that much. I owe myself that much.”
The silence spread quickly. He knew there was nothing in the air, but the tension felt like a gas leak, like one spark could set the whole house ablaze. Kaz watched the way they stared across the table, each waiting for the other to break first but neither one wanting to watch them burn. Even if he hadn’t been a betting man, he would have known who to back in this fight of wills. Whether on the ground or in the air, Inej would hold steady. If nothing else, he could count on that.
Jesper clapped his hands, the sound echoing across the room that felt both overwhelmingly big and suffocatingly small. “So! Who’s up for a little music?”
—
Kaz found her exactly where he expected to. The sound of Wylan’s piano faded as he cracked open the window, pulling himself up onto the roof even when his leg throbbed in protest.
Inej didn’t move, didn’t do anything to acknowledge his presence. She didn’t have to — she always knew where he was, just as he did her. Climbing up to her perch, he let the sounds of the city surround them. It never mattered what time of day it was: someone in Ketterdam was always awake, and therefore, no one was ever truly alone.
“They don’t believe me,” she said softly. He fought the urge to turn toward her; he knew that some words were more easily spoken to something rather than someone. “They think that the minute I get home, I’ll just forget about everything here.”
“Unfortunately, I think Jesper’s singing is going to be permanently ingrained in all our minds.”
He spared a quick glance, caught the corners of her mouth creeping upward. “Who needs to remember? I’m positive the sound will carry all the way across the true sea and into Ravka.”
“We should be grateful for their diminished armies, then. If they had the means, I’m positive this performance would be a worthy cause to go to war.”
She laughed then, just once, but saints the sound was enough to send electricity through his entire body. He’d start a war himself for that sound. He’d crawl into the Ice Court with nothing but his own two hands. He’d try and heal the shattered bits inside himself if it meant he got to hear her at her happiest, if he got to be the one to make her feel that way in the first place.
Kaz wanted to stay like this, to poke fun and let the future disappear, to laugh and let the hard words hide beneath the sound, but he’d never had a habit of doing what was good for him. The dead of night exposed questions that cowered in the light of day, and for all his strength, he couldn’t resist knowing the answers. “Would it be so bad? To forget this place?”
“I could never do that. Not even if I wanted to.”
“You don’t know if that’s true. Time away, back with your family, it could help. It could…heal.”
Inej finally turned toward him, the daggers in her eyes as accurate and deadly as the ones strapped to her wrists. “Do you really think you could just leave and pretend like none of this ever happened?”
Part of him wanted to lie, wanted to believe in a world where the past stayed locked in history and the future could be its own thing entirely. If not for himself, then for her. But while the sentiment may have been foreign to her parents, Kaz and Inej spoke the language of the Dregs. There was a reason people got tattooed when they joined: being a Crow wasn’t something you could ever leave behind.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“Exactly.” She turned forward again, stared at the city as if it could give her whatever answer she was looking for. “All night, I could feel my parents looking for a ghost. They remember a girl whose only dream in life was to walk across air, but there are other things that matter more to me than the fucking applause.” She leaned back without losing her balance. “I don’t think they’re ready to see the person I’ve become.”
“Then they’re missing out on the strongest, bravest, and most honorable person in all of Ketterdam.”
Inej raised an eyebrow at him. There was curiosity in her eyes, and behind it, something more. Something he hadn’t seen on her yet, despite spending a considerable amount of time stealing glances, soaking in the sight of her whenever he could afford to. He couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like pride. “Since when do you care for honor?”
“Since you watched me at my weakest and my worst, and still deemed me a worthy cause for devotion.” He kept his eyes on her now, emboldened by the light of the moon and the truth of his words. “You look to your saints for guidance, but I look to you. So long as you stand by me, I know I haven’t strayed too far.”
As he spoke, he carefully slipped his hand out of his glove; when the only sound left was the echo of his words around them, he reached for her hand, let his own slide into place within it. Immediately the rush came, the concoction of emotions all tangled up and twisted. He squeezed, let the pressure of her reciprocation ground him in the present and on dry land.
Pain would always come first. No matter how much time passed, no matter who he was with, Kaz wasn’t sure that would ever change. For so long the agony had held a chokehold on anything else that might come with it, suppressing desire until it was all but nonexistent. The longer they held onto one another, though, the stronger it became. Inej dulled the anguish until it was no sharper than a blunt knife, until he could feel everything else without being blinded by the blade.
Eventually, she let go, only to shift and drop her head onto his shoulder. She rested largely on his jacket, but there was a sliver, right by his neck, where their skin came together. It set his pulse on fire. It felt like exhaling. Like holding something so delicate in his hands he didn’t dare breathe and risk disturbing it. The weight of her against him sent all his senses up into disarray, and he wondered for half a second if this was what the rush of parem felt like, because with Inej leaning against him. he swore he could see, hear, feel everything. The pain all but evaporated. The world came gloriously into tune, and now that he’d heard the sweet sound it could make, Kaz wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to tolerate a sour note.
“Thank you,” she whispered, the sound nearly blending into the ambiance provided by the sky above and ground below, nearly drowned by the synchronous beats of their hearts. “Thank you for bringing them back to me.”
“Anything,” he responded just as quietly. “No matter the cost nor the reason. If you ask, I’ll do anything.”
“Why?” The question was so genuine, and he wasn’t sure he had an answer. How could he possibly put into words the feeling of needing her happiness as much as he needed air to breathe? What could he give her that could show just how deeply he craved her, and how terrifying and exhilarating and all-encompassing that desire was?
“You asked me earlier about my tell,” he said after a moment. His eyes were fixed on the city in front of him, but he could feel her gaze. This time, it was he who couldn’t say the words to her face. “I gave you a half-truth. My tell, my true vulnerability, the thing that gives me away every time, is you. When you’re by my side, no one else matters. Not the rest of the team, not the job. Nothing.”
“Is that why you…?” She didn’t have to finish her thought. He knew what moments she thought of, the constant battle inside himself she became victim to. The back and forth, longing turning to avoidance that never managed to last. A cycle he had yet to fully break out of.
He nodded, just enough for her to see it. “Van Eck knew. That day he…when he threatened to kill everyone else, he set the trap that I walked right into. In the moment when we were all in peril, he followed my gaze and saw who I couldn’t afford to lose.”
“That’s funny,” she said, and he stared down at her, the confusion written all over his face. She tilted her head back slightly, just enough to look at him without breaking the contact. “Had he turned his eyes to me, he would have seen the same thing. I guess we damned each other that day.”
“It’s not funny.” He desperately tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but control was a fantasy when his mind went back to that night, to the days he spent in fear of Inej being tortured or killed or worse. “I vowed to never let anyone hurt you like that again because of me. Because of what you hurting would do to me.”
The quiet settled back in, as if it had never left, as if their conversation had already dissolved into oblivion. Her head shifted slightly, eyes turned back to the city in front of them. He longed to watch her, to search in her face for the thoughts running through her mind, but she still rested against his shoulder, and he would rather throw himself off the roof than disrupt the comfort she seemed to find there. Patience was something he’d once considered a virtue, but now it was practically nonexistent.
“We can’t control the rest of the world,” she finally said. “Nor can we stop people from coming after us. Torturing yourself to stop someone else from doing it for you doesn’t solve anything; it only guarantees pain.”
“I’m no stranger to suffering. I’d rather withstand self-inflicting wounds. Those I can control.”
“It's not just you who suffers at your own hand.” She broke apart from him, shifted her body until they were face to face. A chill settled in where her head had been.
When Inej was walking above him, traversing through territory only few could manage, he’d allowed himself to pretend she was safe. That her perch protected her from the terrors that struck on the ground. But now, sitting above the rest of the world, all he felt was exposed. He was not Inej. He had no control here; be it to the elements or his enemies, or the one who held his heart in her hands. Every part of him was vulnerable.
“When you hurt yourself, when you consign your life to misery on the basis that it’s coming anyway, you hurt me as well. When you keep your distance, I’m the one who ends up untethered. You want to protect me from suffering on your behalf, but all you're doing is delivering the death blow yourself.”
“I…I never meant—“
“I know,” she said, her voice gentle and calm and everything he’d never deserved. “But I refuse to accept that pain any longer. I can’t love you if you spend all your time demolishing yourself. I’ll go down with this ship, but I can’t stay if you’re the one poking holes in the deck.”
“You won’t have to.” He’d never been one for vows, but he spoke them now, wondered if any of her beloved saints could hear him. If they would even dare listen to someone as depraved as he. “I can’t promise a miracle. I won’t lie to you and spew falsities about changes in morality that I know are nothing more than a cheap trick of the light. You deserve better than that. You deserve better than me. So every moment you choose to stay by my side is one I’ll devote to earning it.”
A crash from below sent them both to their weapons, before the sound of raucous laughter eased their grip. Kaz wondered if they’d ever stop anticipating the fight, if that instinct normally developed at childhood’s end, or if it was simply another consequence of living in Ketterdam.
“I should probably go rescue my parents. We’ve left Jesper and Wylan to their own devices for too long.” He watched as she floated down the roof, as if the surface itself was flat and level, as if the force pulling them down to the ground was only optional. When she got to the windowsill, he expected her to disappear, but instead she stopped, hands gripping the edge of the roof. “You deserve better, too,” she told him. “Better than you’ve got. Better than you’re going to get. One day I’ll make you believe it.”
Kaz didn’t say anything, didn’t so much as breathe, not until she dropped through the window and out of sight. He stared at the spot she’d left behind. There was no trace of her, nothing he could point to to prove she was there. Only the catch in his breath and the chill on his skin.
—
It was something he’d almost gotten used to by now. The smell. Saltwater had been one of the first things he’d learned to endure. Success and revenge both relied on the seas, so he’d spent as much time by the water as he could, until he could tolerate the scent without having to empty the contents of his stomach after so much as a whiff. It had been a lesson, he’d told himself. Every time served as a reminder that in order to beat Rollins, he’d need to leave the broken child behind. He’d need to become something better. Someone new.
He didn’t know if it was the smell now that was nauseating, or the sight of the boat anchored on the harbor carrying Ravka’s double eagle flag. Inej’s parents had already begun making their way to the dock. Jesper and Wylan had given their heartfelt goodbyes back at the house; Kaz had said nothing, but followed a step behind them, just as he had upon their arrival. Inej never stopped him. He took her silence as an invitation.
They’d passed The Wraith on their walk, and now his eyes kept trying to drag him back to it. Her ship turned his body and mind into a contradiction, elicited responses that shouldn’t have coexisted. Pride and fear, joy and sorrow, guilt and righteousness. It tempted him like a puzzle he wasn’t clever enough to solve, made him think that if he just kept looking, he might be able to sort it all out. To find an answer to a question he couldn’t ever ask.
“You’ll watch over it when I’m gone?” He turned to face her, unsurprised that she followed his gaze even when the boat lay out of view.
“Of course. I don’t abandon my investments.”
“Tell Specht he can start trying to put together a potential crew while I’m away. And that he’s got the job as my first mate if he wants it.”
“I’ll pass the word along.”
“Tell him to look into the girls first. The ones from the Menagerie.”
“They may be hard to find,” he said casually. “Now that Heleen is shut down, most are scattered to the wind.”
“Then it’s a good thing he’ll have you.” Kaz raised an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve kept tabs on them. Offered a place in the Slat, a new name and fresh start. Offered them a ticket home, too, if they have one.”
“I work for The Wraith,” he said in response. “She expects me to rid the world of evil women and men. Can’t do that if the girls have nowhere else to go.”
“What a formidable employer.”
Kaz smirked. “Rumor has it she’s got heartsick fools wrapped around her pinky, and slavers and scum crushed beneath her fist.”
“Is that so?”
“If the whispers are to be believed.”
“Sounds like a handful.”
“Only for the scum.”
“And for the heartsick fools?”
Sincerity slipped back in and he let it, forgoed the smirk and the sarcasm entirely. “For them, it’s an honor.”
Her own smile faded, and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. If the price of genuity was her laughter and lack of tension in her shoulders, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to pay it. “When I return — and I will, no matter what my parents tell themselves — who am I going to find?”
He wanted to tell her that he’d be the same person she left behind. That she could dock her ship and they could walk besides one another the way they have before, that nothing had to change if they didn’t want it to. But that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. And maybe, despite his own internal protests, that wasn’t the truth, either.
For as long as Kaz Brekker had been alive, he’d had one singular purpose. Every choice and decision, every move he made, was done in service of that goal, the heist within all the heists. Brick by brick required time and diligence, so much so that it hadn’t left room for an after. It didn’t matter what name he used; the dominance, the relevance, the very existence of Pekka Rollins was never going to survive. Until the dust settled and he was still standing, Kaz didn’t think he would, either.
But here he stood. And here she stood. The waves crashed against the harbor behind her, each one with a different incentive: the threat of drowning, the promise of infinite possibilities, the rueful fate awaiting any who would seek to control them. The sea dragged out what was left inside the infamous Kaz Brekker as easily as it pulled in the tide. In its wake, a rare type of tranquility remained. He had no plan, no scheme. There was only one thing left to give.
“I’m not sure,” he told her. He prayed she could hear the truth in his words. “But I know that each time you traverse the seas, I’ll be here on the shore. And whenever and wherever you decide to land, I’ll be there. Anything you need — support, supplies, a place to lie your head — you’ll have. What’s mine is yours. It always was. It always will be.”
Inej stared at him. If they were other people, he knew this would be the time for desperate hugs, for clinging to one another in some last ditch effort to fight off the sands of time. But they weren’t other people. They were Kaz and Inej. Products of the Barrel. Broken in all the same places. And he wasn’t sure he could handle holding onto her just to let her go.
So they watched. Her eyes held the kind of radiance that the poets preached about. The wind pushed her braid back just slightly, as if it was trying to pull her toward the sea. The hilts of her knives glistened in the sun, peeking out only in places where he knew to look. If he was a religious man, he’d tell her she looked like a goddess, a deity escaped from whatever world lay beyond their own. If he followed the faith, he’d tell her that no saint, not even the one blessed with sunlight, could possibly outshine her. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d confess that he had already begun to pray for her, to beg the water to bend to her will, to keep her ship and her mission and her body and soul all in one piece.
Years of walls crumbled under the weight of her gaze, and he let them with no resistance. He wasn’t sure what she saw when she looked at him, but he hoped she could hear the words he could not say. And the selfish, undeserving part of him wished she’d feel the same.
The blaring horn from the ship fractured the moment. Neither of them flinched, but he watched her turn back, glance behind her at the vessel waiting to take her home.
“I should probably go,” she said, but her feet stayed planted, her eyes already back on him.
Courage came in the form of fear, his desperation to keep her in front of him shoving out words he hadn’t planned on saying. “When you return, who am I going to find?”
“I’m not sure.” She spoke slowly, and he wondered whether admitting it came with the same distress, the same relief, as it did for him. “But no matter what happens, I can promise you that I’ll come back. Not just to Ketterdam, or my ship. I’ll come back to you.”
“Why?” He felt sliced open just asking. No one else had ever had so many chances to destroy him without taking a single one. Part of him wondered when the shoe would drop, when the inevitable would happen and she’d turn her knife against him. How would her face look when she had his life in her hands? How long would it take her to realize he would welcome death with open arms rather than resist her? Kaz could think of no better way to die, no better way to live, than at her mercy.
“A shadow,” Inej answered with a smile, “can only stray so far before the sun pulls it back where it belongs.”
He shook his head. “I’m the shadow; you’re the one who deserves to walk freely of me.”
She stepped closer, and his breath caught in his chest, sat right above his heart in glorious, agonizing anticipation. “Then every night I’ll pray for shade, so us figments of the dark can disappear together.”
Inej reached up, and it was only then that he noticed the gloves on her hands, thin and sleek, the same color black as his own. Despite the barrier, his heart still fluttered when she brought her hand up to his chin. She stood like that for a minute, her eyes searching for permission, and Kaz didn’t know what she was asking for but the answer would always be yes, yes, yes.
Leaning toward him, she turned his head slightly, brought her lips to his cheek. They only touched for a second, maybe two, but it was enough to elicit another internal vow. He would find a way to fix as many of his jagged, shattered parts as he could, because the next time she brought her lips to his skin, he wanted to feel euphoria unburdened by anything else.
“I know I’ve said it before,” she whispered, “but thank you. For all of it.”
Whatever words, whatever courage he might have had, evaporated as quickly as it had come. The ship horn blared again but he kept his gaze steady, stole one last look, memorized the moment before it could fade. Inej lingered, as if she was doing the same, before she took a breath and turned around.
Kaz watched. He watched her board the ship side by side with her parents. He watched her turn back as it began to pull away, the lone traveler facing Ketterdam rather than the endless sea. He watched until the ship disappeared into the horizon, the sight of it swallowed up by the glare of the sun. And even when it was gone, he watched for just a little bit longer, as if his eyes could carry her across the sea and into the safety that only existed in dreams and on a stage.
Turning around still hurt. Part of him longed to stay anchored to the harbor, to wait for her in the very spot she’d left him. But instead, he pulled his watch out of his pocket and began walking toward the Barrel. There was no time for standing around and waiting patiently. Not when he worked for The Wraith. She expected him to scrub their dirty home clean, and despite all his failings, Kaz Brekker refused to disappoint.