Chapter Text
KAZ
The day had gotten off to an excruciatingly rough start. The usual hustle and bustle on streets of Ketterdam was louder and more intense than normal. Kaz’s gait with his cane was exceptionally challenging, as if each step seemed to scream, Stop. Stop. Stop.
Kaz rounded the corner onto the street where the Kaelish Prince stood, its high walls still boarded up from quarantine. Even though he wanted to stop and take it all in - this brick on Pekka Rollins that was like the first gallon of water released from his lungs - he willed himself to continue limping further down the street. He passed merchants of all sorts, selling knives, fruits, newspapers, basically everything except sugar. The silos still had not recovered, and the thought made him wince in remembrance of how that plan had gone: Inej with her arms bloodied from the weapons of the White Blade, a look of terror in her eyes that he had not seen in a long time.
But then he thought of what became of that plan: the cool tile of the bathroom floor, the fresh white bandages, the bright red blood that oozed from Inej’s arm, the electricity that crackled every time their skin made contact. He found his mind fixated on the moments that followed: him pulling back, holding up a hand, the concerned yet gentle look on her face.
Tell me. Please.
He’d kicked himself every day since then for not telling her, which only made his bad leg worse. He wanted to tell her everything, wanted to make her see why it was so difficult for any touch. He knew well why it was not easy for her. And if he could hunt down every man who had seen her in the Menagerie and hang them over the edge of the boat, beat them senseless, until they begged for death and he finally obliged, he would waste no time. That was a part of her that he knew.
She had never pushed for him to tell her why he was the way he was. But then again, no one had ever thought to ask the Bastard of the Barrel why he couldn’t touch anyone. And why would they? No girls were lined up outside the Slat every evening, trying to use words or glances to make him feel flirtatious. No young woman left him chocolates or a red rose with a love letter tied up with a black ribbon on his doorstep. No set of parents looking to marry off their daughter followed him a little too closely to see if he was good enough. Everyone knew to keep their distance and not ask questions when Kaz Brekker came limping. So why had Inej?
I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.
The usual clouds that covered the sky darkened. The realization came to him the second the first raindrop on his hat. She wanted him without armor. Telling her was how he’d finally get what he had wanted, wished, thought about for so long.
He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even registered walking into the Slat. He unlocked the door with a key that flicked out from his gloves. He made his way down the hall to his office and stopped at the door to his chambers, placing a gloved hand on the door to push it open. But something compelled him to stop. The water outside had turned into a torrential downpour, and the floorboards creaked and moaned with the swaying of the wind outside. He heard a crack in the wood, and rushed out of his office into the hallway to follow the sound.
His eyes trailed to the top of the stairs and stopped at the door to his old room. The room had not been occupied for years, but tonight, he could see a small beam of light, probably from a lamp, dimly snaking through the bottom of the door.
And then all he saw was darkness as the head of a crows’ head cane came crashing down on his skull.
INEJ
The walls of the Slat were alarmingly dry as dusk turned into evening. Inej had been ordered by Kaz to spy on a new resident, a frequenter of the Crow Club who seemed exceptionally demanding when he asked to stay in the top room of the Slat. It was no secret that the top room was the nicest of them all, but something about his demeanor felt off to Kaz.
“You think everyone’s demeanor is off,” Inej had remarked when he’d explained why.
“It’s better that way,” Kaz had said, turning away to look towards the canal where the last of the sickboats were being unloaded for that day. “If you’re suspicious about everyone, nobody catches you by surprise. Nobody can touch you, or trick you, or play you like a fool.”
Inej hadn’t known what he’d really meant by that, but she didn’t feel like asking. Besides, it was perfectly clear he wasn’t in the mood to share secrets, since the last time she asked for him to reveal a part of his past, he’d held up a hand and walked out of the room. She thought about that moment in the bathroom every day since it happened. It was strange to see such vulnerability in Kaz - and in herself, too - but it was a step in the right direction. It was another glimpse to make her believe once more that beneath his cold facade, Kaz was a broken boy, reborn into a monster, resurfaced from the depths of a place darker than the Fold and colder than the iciest mountains in Fjerda.
As she reached for the next handhold in the brick wall, she couldn’t help but find herself wanting to know more about that place. She wanted to understand at least a piece of what he’d gone through. Something deep inside her yearned to heal the wounds deep inside him.
Suddenly the dim light of dusk was snuffed out. The first raindrop hit her like she was being kissed by- no, she thought. Foolish thought. Keep climbing. She lost sight of the next handhold, but she knew exactly where it was. She reached for it, her long arm stretching the tight bodice that secured her knives around her waist, and hoisted herself up, pushing off the foot ledge she’d found moments earlier. She was two handholds away from the top room window, and she knew she had to get there before the rain began to make the already-slick brick even more slippery.
“Are you sure he’ll be there tonight?” a rough voice called out from below.
Inej almost lost her footing. She pressed herself against the wall, a trick her father had taught her when she needed to regain balance. “The wall may be your challenge,” he’d said, “but it hugs you right back, tighter than the ground.” Now firmly against the wall, she turned her head slightly to the left and dared a glance down below.
Three men bearing top hats and long black wool coats stood below. The one in the middle held a cane that looked almost too close to Kaz’s own crows’ head cane. Inej peered closer and saw the faintest corner of a symbol with a lion traced in the middle.
“For sure, Mister Hertzoon. The boy’s notorious for making an appearance on the weekends. It’s the only time his sharpshooter has time for him anymore, what with all that wedding business.” Jesper. How in the world did Pekka’s intelligence know about Jesper and Wylan’s upcoming wedding? They’d done their best to keep it a secret. She would yell at Jesper about it over cakes and wine later. Right now she had to find out why Pekka Rollins was back - and at the Slat, of all places.
The rain came harder, as if her saints had sensed Pekka in the area and begun to fire little water bullets down on the city. She glanced upward and a raindrop caught in her eye, blurring her vision. She would have to scale the remainder of the wall without looking up. She reached up and felt around the brick until her left ring finger caught a dip in one of the bricks. Gripping with everything she had, she grasped that brick and hoisted herself further up. One more handhold.
“Good. There will be no mercy this time. Keep him alive for as long as it takes for me to speak his brother’s name.” The door to the front entrance of the Slat slammed shut.
Her breath caught as the walls of the Slat shook in the aftershocks of the door slam. She didn’t realign herself before pushing off to grab the last handhold, and her fingers slipped. She slid down fast, hard, hands frantically searching the wall, looking for something to grab. Finally, she found a handhold a few feet down that was big enough to grip onto, and she let out a small wince as her arm was almost pulled out of its socket. She found the foot ledge under the handhold, and her breathing slowed.
The rain was a downpour now, and she had no choice. She had to get inside. If she tried to climb up, she’d no doubt slip again, and if she tried to climb down, she might risk being seen, much worse by one of Pekka’s crew. So she inched left along the brick to the closest open window and unlatched it, climbing inside, and closing it softly.
She whirled around and, with a start, she realized where she was. Kaz’s old room. It hadn’t changed much since he’d moved downstairs, and few had occupied it since. Luckily, no one was in here tonight, so she strode over to the desk in the far side of the room and lit a lamp. She shook off her slippers and unwrapped her head scarf, letting it fall onto the chair. She tugged at the knife in her braid and let it uncoil down her back. She had just begun to unbutton her bodice when she heard a whack.
Within seconds she had vanquished the light and pulled on her slippers. She opened the door to the hallway without a sound and caught the tail end of Kaz’s muddy black boots being dragged towards his office.
KAZ
When he came to, Kaz felt blood in his mouth, so the first thing he did was spit it out on whatever - or whoever - was closest. Which happened to be Pekka Rollins’ face. What a nice surprise.
“I must say, for a boy who survived a dump in the canal, it takes an awfully long while for you to wake up,” Pekka laughed, baring his white teeth.
Kaz looked him directly in the eye, just as he’d done the last time they’d spoke, when Pekka was on his knees instead of Kaz. “What business, Rollins?”
“Oh no no no,” Pekka’s voice dropped to a gruff whisper. “We don’t call me that here. Here, I am Mister Hertzoon. You’re familiar with the name, aren’t you, boy?”
Suddenly, the water was rising faster than ever before. Stop. Stop. Stop. Had Pekka really remembered? Was this it? Was this how it ended? Was Pekka’s face really going to be the last thing Kaz saw before he joined his brother?
“You see, I had time to think about what I would do to you the next time I saw you. The logical reason would be to kill you quickly, one and done. But then I realized that there’s something worse I could do, that could make you truly regret what you did to me. Because you see, Brekker, you not only ruined my family. You ruined my reputation.”
“Like you ruined mine?” Kaz snarled, not leaving Pekka’s gaze. “Interesting to see it from the other’s point of view, isn’t it? Helpless, defenseless, struggling for survival, pleading to someone who doesn’t care whether you live or die?”
“Ah, but there’s the catch, Mister Brekker. You do care. You care about me dying. You care that a knife carves out my heart while you continue to limp around on that hideous cane of yours. Well I have news for you,” Pekka said. “Your little Wraith whore will never come near me again. I will eliminate her so fast that you won’t even have a second to glance up at her before she falls from whatever perch she’s on. And you’ll be standing there, in chains, unable to move to catch her as she plummets.”
Stop. Stop. Stop.
“Or,” Pekka continued, crouching down so that he was inches from Kaz’s bloodied face. “You let me kill you and she walks free.”
Suddenly, Kaz felt the circulation in the room shift slightly. He hung his head so that Pekka would believe he was contemplating what to do, and in the second that Pekka turned away laughing, he dared a glance upward. Inej was peering through the vent, her dark brown eyes trained on him, hand on the thumb of her knife. He gave the slightest nod of his head.
Knives flew out of the vent at lightning speed, driving into the throat of one guard and the stomach of the other. They keeled over, clutching their wounds. Pekka whirled around just in time for a third knife to strike his left shoulder.
“Aha. Caught you, Wraith,” Pekka yelled, looking in the direction of the knife. But Inej had already concealed herself inside the vent, crawling backwards into the shaft. Pekka’s eyes widened in frustration. He grunted as he pulled the knife from his shoulder, and he hurtled at Kaz.
But Kaz already had his cane, and in one swift motion, knocked the blade out of Pekka’s hand and into his own. Kaz backed Pekka into the corner and held the knife up to his neck.
“You’re right,” Kaz said. “I do care. I care that you suffer. So I will let you live in order for that to happen, if you will only speak my brother’s name.”
Beads of sweat dripped down Pekka’s forehead. But he managed a smile with his pearl-white teeth stained red from the blood of his guards. “Jordie,” he said. “Your brother’s name was Jordie. I remember now. I remember everything.”
Kaz pulled the knife back, leaving a tiny slit on Pekka’s neck. “Leave. Come back when you know a way to kill me. Oh, and Pekka?” he called as Pekka turned to go. “If you ever call my Wraith a whore again, I will make certain that everyone and everything you love suffers a horrible fate, and that you have to watch it all, just before you do the same.”
INEJ
The front door slammed and Inej slipped out of the vent into the hall, just in time to see Kaz nearly topple. She slid underneath his arm, picked up his cane, and helped him hobble up the stairs into his old room. When he protested the stairs, she said, “If there are any more visitors, they won’t expect you up there.”
They slugged into the room and Inej locked the door. She released Kaz down onto the cot by the floor and kneeled down in front of him to inspect the damage. He’d taken a blow to the temple, and blood was oozing out of it. His lip was swollen, and there was a small gash below his chin. His breath was shaky as if he’d taken a punch to the gut several times.
“I’ll have to start with your temple. Take off your hat,” she said plainly, and he obliged. She pulled a bandage out of the bottom drawer of the desk, the same place he used to keep all of his first aid equipment in case of an emergency. Carefully, she wrapped the bandage around his head, her fingers grazing his hair every other pass. Instantly, the memory of the previous time bandages had been involved flooded back to her. Well, she said. I guess now’s as good a time as any.
“Kaz,” she started.
He didn’t move or look up, just said wearily, “Hmm?”
She crouched down again and saw he was staring at the ground, searching the wood floors for something she knew was out of his reach. Gently, she reached a damp hand under his chin and placed a small bandage where the gash was swelling. His breath caught, but she knew what had to be done. She engaged the muscles in her fingers and lifted his chin so that his eyes met hers.
“Tell me what happened to you.”
KAZ
The burden of Jordie had built walls higher than the Kaelish Prince inside of him so that no water could rush in and fill his lungs, make him struggle for breath. And yet, just one look at Inej made those walls crumble. Not brick by brick, but all at once, falling into a pile of rubble that tumbled out of him, vanishing before it hit the floor.
He’d pushed the inquiry away before. Maybe he could do it again. More than anything, he didn’t want the burden of his past forced onto her. If he could keep it hidden away, it would spare her the pain - and Saints knew she’d been through enough of that. But the way she looked at him told him that she wouldn’t be burdened with the pain; she’d only help ease it off of him. And then he might be able to live a freer life. Maybe he’d even deserve her.
He nodded slowly. “I was a young boy, and I had an older brother named Jordie.”
Stop. Stop. Stop.
The room began to spin. As he spoke Jordie’s name, the water closed in on him faster than ever. He was being pulled under, Jordie’s lifeless body drifting on the surface, as the memory shackled to his ankles and dragged him further into the dark depths.
He was fighting to maintain consciousness when he felt small, strong arms wrap around him. He didn’t have the strength nor the desire to pull away, so he fell forward into Inej’s arms. Her strength was like a wall, hugging him tighter than the ground. Sobs rocked his body, but he felt her uncoiled braid pressed against his cheek, catching his tears.
“It’s okay, Kaz,” Inej said softly. “I’m here.” He drew in a breath, shifting back only slightly out of Inej’s embrace, and looked down at the floor. She was here. Despite everything, she was here. The monster in him didn't scare her. He knew how much good this would do. And he realized it was time to let go. Without letting go, Inej slipped around to sit next to him on the cot. Her arms were a crow, strong and slim, pulling him out of the water and up to the fresh air. He could do this for her.
“Go on,” Inej said.
He drew in another shaky breath. And then he told her everything.