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Life at Wylan’s house flowed pleasantly, filled with song and chatter, water in a river. They would go to bed when they wanted and wake up when they did; and often they went to bed late, not because of business but because they would gather in the music room and Wylan would play the piano for them and sometimes Jesper would sing old Kaelish songs his father taught him, and Inej would curl up on the window sill or on the armchair by the fireplace and watch them steal glances from each other.
Jesper and Wylan made it so easy to forget she was, essentially, a third wheel; they never withdrew to be alone beside bedtime and never gave her the impression she was anything but welcome –no, not only welcome, desired – to spend time with the two of them. And they would not hug or kiss in front of her either. But there were glances, fleeting, stolen between them, and they grew more frequent and obvious as the hour grew late.
They would be missed to another observer, probably, but not the Wraith. A thief knows another.
But neither of the boys ever suggested withdrawing early; these days would not last forever, all three of them knew that well enough, and once Inej had sailed away there was no telling when they would meet again. So they bottled up the moments, turning them to memories as soon as they had passed, for all of them to recall on later.
But one gray morning –how fast the Ketterdam summer ended, swapping suffocating humidity for the bone-piercing cold! – she woke up to a maid informing her she was invited to break fast with Wylan and Jesper in their room, and she slipped out of bed and into her silk robe and slippers and walked, feet over carpet over hardwood over carpet again, into their bedroom. It was getting too cold to bother getting out of bed, Jesper had said last night, and it was a waste to warm up the whole dining room just for the three of them; now Wylan, apparently, humored him.
When Inej walked in their bedroom warmth hit her cheeks first, and she walked toward the fire mesmerized, fingers outstretched, soaking into it like a house cat, her lapis robe dyed in splashes of orange, when a sleepy “Goodmornin’, gorgeous,” came from somewhere bedward.
Sure enough, Jesper was still in bed, rubbing his eyes, his new silk pyjama sleeves sliding up his long arms as he stretched.
“Where’s Wylan?” Inej asked, shooting an inquiring glance at the empty half of the bed on his side.
“Uuum. Unclear. Footman called him… he’s seeing to something. Oh well. It did not require my attendance, so…” he shrugged and made a face that indicated It can’t be that bad since we’re not in need of shooting people; paying no further mind is advised.
As for Marya Hendricks, she usually missed breakfast most days; she only resurfaced from her rooms after Wylan paid her a visit in the late morning; whether that was because she liked to sleep in or some other reason Inej did not know; it did not feel polite to inquire.
“Get us some coffee, love, will you?”
He smiled and winked in a way that would’ve been perfectly smackable on any other man and perfectly endearing on Jesper, because he was Jesper. Her Jesper, she thought, and then pushed the thought away, embarrassed, but would let it resurface later. Her Jesper, her Wylan. Her boys.
Breakfast for three was already set up for them on the table in the middle of the room and there she poured a cup of coffee for Jesper and a cup of tea for herself and carried them both to the bed with all the grace and precision expected of the Wraith, not spilling a single drop, and she was holding out the coffee cup to the bundle that was Jesper, but instead of a single hand emerging to take her offering, there was a pair of warm arms around her waist that dragged her down into the soft bedsheets along with him.
“Jesper!” she giggled, holding the cups up above the tangle of limbs and sheets that was their scuffle.
Touch; unexpected touch; it still made her recoil sometimes, but not this time, she realized as they brawled and giggled. He was warm, and firm, and all of him loved her as she loved him; his touch did not hurt and it did not push.
That was the boy who had trained her to fight in dusty alleys, sweat glistering down his bare torso, the whole world a blur of golden sunlight and summer heat around them, the whole world their little corner of the Barrel in those hot afternoons; his height and wide movements contrasting her small frame and faster, quicker attacks. But there was no time to recoil or flinch as they brawled in the alley. There was only time to try to throw him off his balance, exploit his weaknesses, turn his strengths around.
And now?
Now there was time; time for anything; and yet Inej did not find herself pulling away. It did not burn to sit on the bed next to him. So maybe she was only a guest here and didn’t really have a home in this city anymore; yet she was grounded; she was here; she was alive; she was so far from the Menagerie. The world changed and she changed in it, too.
“You beauty,” Jesper said gratefully, taking the steaming cup of coffee from her. He took a long inhale over the steaming mug before the first sip, eyes closed as if in prayer. Inej wanted to laugh at his dramatic gestures, wanted to tear up at his joy in the small things; she missed Nina all the time, but she missed her the most when she saw him in Jesper. So Inej didn’t laugh and didn’t tear up; she only watched him while he still kept his eyes closed, a foolish grin on her face. She did not rearrange her features to a more neutral expression when she caught herself grinning; it did not matter if Jesper saw.
She concentrated on the cup of tea nested between her hands. She had not spilled a single drop despite their shenanigans, of course.
It was colder on the bed, far away from the hearth, so when Jesper parted the covers she huddled beneath them gladly. The mattress was warmer there, Wylan’s outline almost palpable among the sweet smelling sheets.
They sipped their beverages silently, watching the tiny slice of the city offered to them through the window wake up; pigeons flew by a couple times, boats slid past in the canal below, the rooftops visible to them in the distance were splashed with golden light.
“Do you think Kaz is already up?” Jesper asked.
“If he slept at all.”
They chuckled, and fell back into comfortable silence. It wasn’t like them, bringing Kaz up casually. Then again, he was an excellent gossip subject. Maybe they should talk about him more.
“Do you think he’s having breakfast like us right now? Or just drinking coffee?”
“Look at you. You’re just drinking coffee right now, Jesper Llewellyn”
“Hey, don’t throw Llewellyn around for nothing!”
“Sure, Mr Jesper.”
“Hey now, Mr Jesper is my father. Call me Jesper.”
“I thought your father was Mr Rietveld?”
It was a silly joke, but it got the both of them and they giggled stupidly for way too long. And then they fell into comfortable silence, again.
“He’s probably just having coffee,” Inej said to the dawn at the window.
“If he’s having anything at all,” Jesper said, lifting his cup to his mouth and then, smiling at catching himself, “I know, I know, I’m not much better.”
“You’re on your first cup,” Inej said fairly, “Kaz is probably on his third.”
“And that’s only the beginning for him!”
“Another new day for Mr Brekker.”
“One time he had ten coffees during the day. Remember?”
“Ten in a day? Once he had eleven by noon.”
“That man’s insides are fucked for life.”
Inej hummed in agreement. They both sat there, listening to the sounds of the house around them, creaking with footsteps and running water in the pipes, and let their thoughts fly off over the rooftops to the Barrel and Kaz, like the crows do.
“Remember when he called me Jordie?”
Inej’s breath caught in her throat, but she only turned to his direction and said nothing. Jesper’s brow was furrowed, and he seemed to be chewing the inside of his lip, almost as if he was turning over the words in his mouth before saying them.
“He said… told me Jordie was someone he trusted. Someone he didn’t want to…”
“Lose. Yes.” Inej agreed. And then she took a sip of her tea that she turned over in her mouth before swallowing because it was her thought to contemplate her next words.
In earlier days when they did not know Kaz as well, when they were not certain of where his heart stood (where not certain he had a heart at all, in fact), theorizing about Kaz’s past had been a favorite pastime and bonding activity of theirs. But there had been a point where it had seemed intrusive, even sanctimonious, to theorize any more.
And now they were past this point. Kaz, their friend, who wouldn’t open up, who wouldn’t tell them – but in his way, he already had. Would it be gossiping, then? Or something they owed to him, and to each other, to compare notes and figure him out? Everyone deserved to be talked about behind his back by his closest friends, after all, even Dirtyhands. Even Dirtyhands had friends.
Inej let her sip of tea roll down her throat, studied the aftertaste it left in her mouth.
“He told me, once, on the boat to Fjerda,” she confessed at last, “Pekka Rollins killed his brother.”
“He had a brother?” Jesper gasped and then, quieter, “Jordie.”
Jesper held her gaze, the steam from their cooling cups and the truth hanging in the air between them.
“Jordie Rietveld,” Jesper said abruptly, breaking the settling silence.
Kaz would do anything to see a job through. It didn’t mean anything, having Colm go by the Rietveld name. Yet he had been elusive about who really held that name. Yet he had called Jesper Jordie. He had been polite to Colm; he, too, had changed. Maybe in a few years he would change more; they all would; and they would meet again.
“Wylan will take his mother’s name, you know?” Jesper said.
“Wylan Hendriks?”
“Yeah. He – well, it’s not exactly a secret, not from you, but maybe you should act surprised when he tells you,” he said and they both giggled.
“Oh, his father would hate that. I’m so proud of him.”
“Right?”
Jesper giggled along but his gaze was faraway, peering into the dawn out the window with a look of indescribable fondness on his face. Inej drank in the sight of him like that, in profile and uninhibited and soaked in blue light and in love.
“He still got his heir,” Jesper mused at last, and Inej, who could follow his thoughts with the skill of a spider shifting from Wylan to Van Eck to the practicalities of life again, understood who he was talking about.
Sure, the new Van Eck heir was not in the world with them yet but Alys, still staying at the Hendriks summer house, was due any day now. The irony of Vac Eck’s heir being born in his ex wife’s house was not missed in Inej, but it probably was to Van Eck himself; if not for nothing else, he was probably busy adjusting to life in prison to have much time to appreciate such turns of fate.
And very far from where Van Eck was, in the house that used to be his but was not anymore, the sun was breaking through the windows now painting the bedroom walls in growing slices of gold and on that moment Wylan walked in, robe thrown over pyjamas, curls still tangled in a bedhead, and he stood blinking in confusion at the empty table in front of him for a moment before his eyes trailed the room to the bed where Inej and Jesper were visible only from the nose up, suppressing giggles.
“What are you up to?” he asked, beaming wide, and he ran to them and jumped up and on the bed next to Inej. The impact shook all three and Inej fell into Jesper, who held fast and pushed to the other direction, bumping them both against Wylan and they got lost in an explosion of white sheets and pillow feathers and sunlight as they scuffled and giggled their hearts out.
She had definitely spilled more than just a bit of tea by that point and that was not Wraithlike, but none of her was in that moment, shaking with laughter and braid coming undone. The light turned Wylan’s hair to liquid gold and Jesper’s smile put it to shame.
This city was her home, and after everything it put her through, just as she was about to leave, she stumbled on this golden hour with these boys, just as she was about to leave it. So far from the Menagerie now. Yet so far from where she had to go still. It was not fair; she had just begun to know them; she was sailing away still. But she let things be simple for a little bit longer, let Wylan braid her hair again and Jesper bring them breakfast in a tray and sprawl all over the bed to have breakfast as if they were on a picnic. And then the moment would be gone and already a memory and then she would be sailing away and leaving them behind, but when that day would come Jesper and Wylan would be on the harbor watching her go and she would be watching them grow smaller from the deck but for as long as they could still see each other they would wave and wave and wave.