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Having a full night's sleep still doesn’t sit right with him. After years of avoiding it, running away from the nightmares, the voice of his brother, and the waters that still haunt him, his body finds it easier to stay active as much as possible. Even now, nineteen years later, the best he can do is four, maybe five hours of sleep every night. Not always consecutive, but it’s better than the alternative.
So he stares at the ceiling and waits. For his mind to shut down or his brain to start working on something that will keep him occupied long enough to leave his bed at a reasonable hour. It’s still dark, barely two bells, so he knows he has a long way to go, but it doesn’t bother him as much anymore. He enjoys those days when he can linger a little longer in his bed, not feeling so alone anymore, even though he is the only one awake.
Well, at least he thinks he is.
Kaz feels her presence as soon as she enters the room, but he doesn’t move. Perhaps he should; she usually doesn’t come at this time of night, and her mere presence might be a sign of trouble, but still, he stays where he is. This is a game for them, of a sort. Kaz always knows when she’s here and when she leaves and she, persistent like no one else, still tries to sneak up on him and catch him by surprise.
She never manages to.
So, he stays still, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for a while longer and paying attention to the sounds of the night, trying to see if he can hear her approach his bed. Fortunately for her, she’s already mastered the art of walking quietly around people, among many other things.
His five-year-old is entirely Inej. From the dark shade of her skin to the furrow between her brows when she’s annoyed to the way she moves and talks. Inej’s mother tells him every time the Ghafas visit, or they go over to the caravan for a small vacation. Everything is hers, but her eyes. That’s all you, she says, smiling at him.
Inej teases him about it, how their daughter managed to inherit his scheming face, of all things, but Kaz just considers proudly that one of the good things he did in his life has a piece of him, even if it’s that small. Her sibling, on the other hand, is entirely him, except for the shape of their nose and the light shade of their half-Suli skin, although that might change in the next few months, Inej says.
The baby has yet to master the art of being quiet, however, with the constant crying throughout the day. But that night, his daughter seems to have forgotten it as well. His body tenses when he hears her walk towards him, feet heavy and careless. She is not trying to be silent; she’s not trying to catch him off guard. Kaz turns to Inej for a brief second. She’s still asleep, not so easily woken anymore like when they were teenagers and a slight sound had only one meaning: danger. He can’t blame her, though. She is exhausted, having a four-month-old attached to her hip almost every second of the day.
“Da,” he hears her call by the foot of the bed. There are loose strands of hair coming out of the twin braids he did for her before he put her to sleep earlier that evening. Kaz isn’t as skilled with her short hair as he is with Inej’s long hair when it comes to braiding, but he still tries. She beams when she looks like her mother, as if the braids were the one thing stopping her from it.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he says, sitting up and reaching for his cane. She nods, holding her crow closer to her chest, for comfort. Without another word, Kaz stands up and takes her hand, walking back to her bedroom. Inej might be a heavier sleeper at this point, but he’s sure it won’t take long before she wakes at the sound of their daughter telling him what got her out of bed at this time.
Her room is across the hall, fully decorated in colors from the paintings created by her whenever she spends time with Wylan and Marya in their art room, along with many tokens gifted by some of Inej’s family and the crows. Jesper’s bright orange desk, mimicking the one Kaz has at The Slat, is by far the most used one by his daughter, for all of her heist plans to find where Inej has hidden the sweets she so fondly likes, or for her tries at imitating her father’s magic tricks.
Kaz puts his child on her bed in the far corner of the room, pulling the covers up and tucking her in gently, making sure she’s not cold. She watches him in silence, her big, dark brown eyes following his movements, never missing a thing. It’s unsettling sometimes, how attentive she is for her age. How much she reminds him of him growing up, always so curious, always asking questions and needing to know the answer no matter how hard it is for her to understand.
He sits on the floor next to her bed, but that seems to be the wrong choice, because soon enough her tiny hands are reaching for his sleeve, pulling him up to join her in her bed. Kaz hesitates for a second. His daughter knows better now than to touch his skin suddenly. Even after all these years, unexpected touching is still a problem and even expected ones don’t always sit right with him. It’s been years since he had a strong reaction to it, mostly because the few people who are allowed to touch him know better than to do it without his permission.
But his daughter had reached for his sleeve. He hadn’t expected it, but it was still only his sleeve.
The bed is the perfect size for her, but it isn’t as comfortable for the both of them to lie side by side, so Kaz pulls her out of the blankets and lays her on top of him, letting her rest her head on his chest as she clutches his nightshirt in her tiny hand.
“What’s wrong?” he finally asks, pulling up her blanket to cover her back.
“Scared,” she says. “I don’t like being alone in the dark.”
He raises his brows. “Since when?”
“Since now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were never scared of the dark before,” he points out, looking at the child. It’s true. His daughter seemed to like sleeping just as much as Kaz did, constantly waking up in the middle of the night during her first three years of her life. Everyone thought it was hilarious that she inherited that specific characteristic of her father, but neither him nor Inej found it funny. There was a reason why he didn’t sleep, a reason why Inej sometimes had a hard time closing her eyes, and he didn’t want his child to have any troubling thoughts that kept them up at night.
Later it became clear that she was just a nocturnal person, to a point where she learned not to cry when she found herself alone in her crib at three bells in the morning and, instead, found a way to entertain herself until she fell back asleep again. Thankfully, now that Inej was starting to give her acrobatic lessons and give her the opportunity to spend more of her energy than she was used to, she’s started sleeping through the night.
He hopes it stays that way and that this night is just an anomaly.
“What made you scared of the dark?”
“I don’t know,” she repeats. “I just am. It’s scary. I can see the scary shadows on the wall, and I can hear the scary noises and I don’t like it.”
“The shadows are just that. Shadows. The noises outside are from the wind against someone’s window or a tree.”
“No,” she whined, as if Kaz was lying to her. “It’s the monsters.”
Kaz pauses. “What monsters?”
“They hide in the dark. Sometimes under the bed, sometimes in the closet. I know Mama fights them when she’s out on her ship, but I don’t think they’re just out there. They come for little girls, don’t they?”
“Where did you hear that?” he asks. Neither him nor Inej talk about that subject around her, but at some point Inej had to explain why she left on her ship without her and Kaz. To fight monsters, meja, she had said. To keep everyone safe. No more, no less than that.
“I don’t know. But it’s true, isn’t it?” Her voice is so small, full of fear. Kaz doesn’t like it one bit.
He should tell her that she shouldn’t be afraid. That the only monster in this house is her father and he wouldn’t hurt her. He should tell her not to cry or hide, to face her fears, because there is no place in Ketterdam for weakness. He should stand up and leave her alone the rest of the night, to make sure she starts to grow a thick skin and, if needed, to learn how to defend herself because no one else will do it for her. That one day she won’t have her Da or her Mama around to protect her or her brother and no one is going to lend a hand to them if they end up on the streets. He should be Dirtyhands in these situations and not her Da. Because even though her Da loves her, Dirtyhands will shape her in his image so people will tremble at the whisper of her name.
So that she survives.
“It’s alright,” he says instead. “Nothing is going to hurt you. I won’t let it. Nor will your mother.”
“Promise?”
“Yes,” Kaz continues, slowly moving his hand from her back to her head, running his fingers through her hair. It feels just like her mother’s. “You’re safe. Mama has a knife or two under her pillow and I have my cane right next to the bed so, if something happens, we’ll be here to protect you. And, one day, you’ll be able to do it yourself. We’ll teach you to fight, give you a knife or any weapon you like and teach you how to use it. But, even then, we’ll still come for you and make sure you’re safe.”
Kaz feels her relax in his embrace, and it’s an odd feeling for him, sometimes. That someone finds comfort in him, let alone a child.
“Mama sings to me when I’m scared,” he hears her whisper against his chest, and he fights an urge to laugh at the attempt. Inej does do that, usually some Suli lullaby her mother taught her, that he doesn’t know. He doubts that even if he did know it, he’d attempt to sing to her.
“Pity she’s asleep right now. You’re stuck with me, and I don’t sing.”
“You can try,” she tries again. “To scare the monsters.”
“I can, but I won’t. I’m scary enough already,” he says.
“No,” she yawns, closing her eyes, already falling asleep. “You’re not.”
He waits a few more minutes before carefully transferring her from his chest to the bed, making sure she’s secured under the blankets and has the company of her crow before he silently leaves the room. Kaz checks on his baby as well, who seems perfectly happy in their crib, before going back to his own room.
Inej is still lying in bed, her back facing him, but he knows she isn’t sleeping anymore. He joins her and soon enough, she turns to face him, her eyes remaining shut.
“I did not hear you promise a knife to our five-year-old,” Inej says, voice rough from sleep.
“You didn’t,” he agrees. “You heard me say I would find her a weapon she likes.”
“Yes, that is so much better.”
“She needs to learn how to protect herself, Inej,” Kaz says quietly. They’ve talked about this before, what the best age is to start teaching her how to survive in the Barrel. In Ketterdam. Neither of them had that luxury and he wanted to at least give her a chance.
“The only thing she needs protecting from right now is the monster under her bed and, maybe, Wylan’s attempts at showing her how explosives work.”
“Right now, yes. She won’t stay a child forever.”
“I know,” she answers, finally opening her eyes, watching him. “I’m just not ready to let go of her innocence just yet.”
Kaz’s mouth twists. He understands that and, if he’s being honest, he isn’t ready for it either. His child is too smart for her own good, too smart to ignore how people look at them differently, to know her mother’s knives are there for a reason, to know more than she should about the world outside. But she still likes to listen to Inej’s Saints stories, to make up her own heists around the house, to dance with Jesper to the sound of Wylan’s flute and to run around at night at the Van Eck Mansion, pointing to the fireflies that showed up at nighttime. The sound of her laugh carries through the house, and he isn’t ready to let go of that yet as well.
“Soon,” he compromises, reaching for her hand under the covers. She smiles, squeezing his hand back before closing her eyes. “And by that, I mean, the same amount of time your ‘soon’ was when we talked about teaching her how to walk the high wire.”
“She has a net, per your request.”
“She will have a training knife if that’s the weapon she chooses. I won’t let her get hurt.”
He doesn’t mean just with the weapon. And Inej seems to understand that.
“I know you won’t,” she whispers. “You would never.”