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It didn’t do one any good to be jealous. It was, much like so many other things, a weakness that could be exploited by one’s enemies. Kaz had always prided himself on having an grip on his emotions tighter than his grip on the Dregs, and that was no mean feat. Still, every time he looked at someone touching Inej a familiar pain ran through him, settling in the pit of his stomach. It was in part because it was Inej, who he knew he valued more highly than she was objectively worth. The other part that was that others could so easily touch her. They did not bear the scars that he did, didn’t have to fear the rising water every time someone got too close. But there was nothing Kaz could do about it but look at her across the room, wondering what she was thinking.
It didn’t do one any good to be jealous. It only made one less happy, and ruined what little they did have in this horrible city. Inej had always prided herself on seeing the best in things, despite the city in which she lived. Still, every time she looked at Kaz, she envied the idea of others getting close to him. The idea that he might value someone higher than her, that someone might one day help him, be more to him than she was made her stomach churn. No one else was quite like him, and she knew that despite all of his anger and ruthlessness, there was sadness and agony. She wanted him to talk to her, to explain all of the things he had kept hidden, and to let her in. She crossed the small room to sit next to Kaz, on the other side of the sofa in the small apartment they were hiding in to spy on some house down the road. Kaz was perfectly positioned on the couch to see the house.
“What business, Inej?”
What was her business? She hadn’t anything to report to him, or any good reason.
“None.”
“Very well.”
The silence stretched onward, building up in the apartment until the pressure grew so great that Inej couldn’t ignore it.
“What are you going to do once you’ve done whatever it is you aim for? It’s clear you have one goal, when does it end?”
It was probably the most personal question she’d ever asked him, but it was so heavily hypothetical that she hoped he would reply. She wished she could see what he was thinking, try to understand him.
Kaz didn’t know how to reply to her questions. He wanted to tell her that he needed to kill Pekka Rollins, and although he knew it would not help, really. He wanted his revenge to cure his fears and agonies, to make him whole again. Then maybe he could admit what he felt. But that would never happen.
“I don’t know when it will end, but when it does, I’ll burn this city to the ground.”
“I don’t believe you.” She was so sure. He didn’t know how she could be. He prided himself on being cruel and unpredictable, his only good trait his undying dedication to the deal.
“I can’t think what would lead you to believe otherwise.” He tried to keep his attention on the house down the road, but his eyes flickered over to Inej.
She was looking at him, her dark eyes examining his face, as if taking the chance that he had provided her in resolutely looking away to properly look at him. He found, to his surprise, that he didn’t begrudge her taking the opportunity. It was what he would have done.
“You saved me from Tante Heleen, you didn’t have to do that.” She shivered as she said that horrid woman’s name.
“Only because you could help me.”
“You never have one motive alone. You did not have to give me a knife as valuable as Sankt Petyr. You didn’t have to train me yourself, you could have left that to someone below you.”
“Perhaps I saw that you would be better off trained by me, that you would be worth that effort.”
“I will not pretend that you didn’t see value in me, but I also think you saw someone abandoned by the city, like you, someone who could grow into someone like you. I do not think you are heartless, because no matter how much money you thought I could make you, you wouldn’t have persuaded Haskell to pay off my indenture for that alone. You are more than you want to appear.”
“I do not think I am, anymore,” Kaz confessed. He didn’t really know who he was anymore, even why he did anything beyond a blind desire for vengeance and money. He hoped she would attempt to reassure him, but he held no assumptions that she would.
Inej disagreed with him. She didn’t think he was truly unforgiveable. He was seventeen, he hadn’t even reached the age of majority. He was powerful and dangerous, and would one day find his freedom.
“Then you must find out. There is a place where you draw the line, I know. You have to work out why you do.”
She didn’t know what other advice she could give him, how she could get closer, how she could help him get everything off his chest. She was only one girl, and she couldn’t push him, lest he never opened up to her again. She was once again walking the tightrope back at the caravan. She closed her eyes to imagine the scene, wishing she could reassure him more.
She closed her eyes, and Kaz took his turn to look at her. She looked as peaceful as she ever did, lying on the small sofa, head leant back. Her neck was exposed, and Kaz had the strangest desire to lean forward. He knew his heart was beating faster than it should, but it wasn’t because of her. It couldn’t be. No, it was because he was meant to be watching the house and he wasn’t.
Still, she had attempted to comfort him, and he felt as if he owed her something for it, as if the deal were incomplete on his end.
“I know no better person than you, Inej, I do not know how you stay so right in this city full of the damned.”
“I have hope. I have somewhere I want to be. One day, I will escape this city. Just as one day, you will too. We can escape together if you want, leave all this behind and find ourselves.”
How could he reply to that?