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There’s no preamble, no much-needed prelude to soften the blow when Kaz breaks the news to her.
"It's been decided," he says simply. “You need to leave Ketterdam. Now.”
The words slip out easily enough -- easier than he’d thought they would.
And yet, when he finally meets her eyes again, Inej looks nothing short of aghast.
“And what, leave you?” she says. “After everything that’s happened?”
(So much -- too much -- and yet, once again, they’ve run out of time.)
“Yes,” he says simply, because as much as he’d like to, he cannot humor her with the explanation she really deserves, not now. Not when it’s her life on the line, too.
But oh -- he’d been foolish, oh-so foolish to think she’d obey his commands without question. The Wraith was never one to go down without a fight.
“No, Kaz,” she hisses out. “I won’t leave you. Not for this.”
Her loyalty is well-intentioned but infuriating at once. He grits his teeth to avoid releasing the shout that so desperately wants to escape his chest.
He can do this, he swears he can. Just a few moments longer.
Kaz shoves a thickly padded envelope into her hands, the movement clumsy and furious.
“There’s enough money in there for three months at least. You can finally get out of this city, join your brother to finish the search for your parents.”
A small pause, a moment of mourning for something he’d never had --
“You can still get your family back together. Have a real shot at a better life.”
A tantalizing promise to give her, he knows it. And yet, she still looks resistant as ever, dark eyes wide with confusion and pain and fury --
“Kaz, I don’t want a better life --”
“No,” he says, and the sheer venom in his voice doesn’t surprise him, but it clearly surprises her. “You do.”
He draws nearer, and there are alarm bells in his head screaming danger, warning him not to come closer, but he needs to make her listen to him. Whatever it takes.
“You haven’t exactly had trouble leaving me before,” he snaps, and maybe it's something of a low blow but it's true, damn it. “What's changed?”
She looks rightfully furious at that, a sharp gleam in her eye.
“Don’t you dare -- this is different. Very different.”
Her voice is lowered to a harsh whisper, then, like she can’t stand to say the words any louder than she needs to:
“Pekka Rollins is roaming free in the streets, sniffing for your blood, and you want me to leave?”
“Yes,” he says. “This is not a fight either of us will walk away from, do you understand?”
His next words come out, short and harsh in their finality --
“This feud is between me and him and no one else .”
That should be the end of it. This is his battle to lose.
The high, dark flush on Inej’s cheeks, the look of pure murder in her eyes tells him it’s far from it.
“And what would you have me do when you’re dead and gone, Kaz?”
Her face, her beautiful face, moving ever-closer to his.
“Meet a nice man, marry him? Have his babies ?”
The words are perfectly crafted to hit him where it hurts the most, to send a thousand desperately hoarded images into his feverish mind. It’s a perfect storm of anger and hurt and desire shooting through his veins, but he pushes it all back with his very last vestiges of self-control.
“Yes,” he rasps out, and it’s like a sudden madness takes over him, but what does he have to lose, really? “You could find someone else. If you wanted.”
“Saints, Kaz.” She’s a picture of pure wrath and pain both, dark brows furrowed in frustration, and for one brief, split second he has the insane urge to smoothen it out for her. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?”
And oh -- he’s lost, Kaz knows he’s lost. A force without direction, a moon without a planet.
There’s nothing happening in his brain, and it feels like someone’s knocked the air out of his goddamn chest.
What has he missed? What could he have possibly missed?
Someone else says the words that make it past his lips --
“Figured out what?”
A moment of silence, then. The pause before the fall.
“There’s no one else,” Inej whispers, like a promise, like a prayer. “No one else for me but you.”
And in one fell swoop, she’s ruined him. Tilted the axis of the earth beneath his feet.
He comes back to himself at the sound of her voice, pitched frantic and low:
“Please, Kaz, please, ” she’s begging. “Say something, anything.”
There’s so much else to focus on, so much else to say, but suddenly all he can focus on is her face beneath his. The dark swoop of her lashes, the delicate juncture of her neck, the tiny drops of sweat beaded there.
And oh, he wants.
After all this time -- after all that has happened, all that never will -- somehow, he still wants.
His eyes meet hers, then, in a silent question. He sees the quiet understanding pass across her features, watches as her lashes flutter shut.
Kaz lowers his mouth to her neck, as if in a daze. So close, and yet so far away.
He can’t cross this final juncture. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t --
“Go on,” she whispers, voice calm as daylight. “Finish the story.”
And with that, his lips finally touch her neck, some fleeting semblance of a kiss.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
His movements are slow, cautious each time. Desire courses through him, even as the familiar harbor waters rise around him.
Kaz struggles against it all as best as he can: the conflicting sensations of desire and disgust, the water and the heat of her skin, the sound of his own racing heartbeat. His hands grip tightly at the edge of the counter, knuckles going white.
The only thing anchoring him is her. He feels the way she relaxes beneath him, slowly but surely. The way one leg comes up seemingly-idly against his, her own internal fight no less vicious than his.
“Kaz,” she murmurs, low, breathy, unrecognizable. “Kaz, please ...”
And he knows before it even fully registers, but the sudden realization that she has to beg him for something he should be able to just give her causes something inside him to snap.
So he kisses her, then. Pours everything into it, even though he doesn’t know how, because he’s as good as dead and he can’t do this without her knowing.
He’d walked towards Pekka, towards his possible death without doing this once before.
Once was enough.
And he’s doing it all wrong, he must be doing it all wrong, but for a moment it’s just right: she’s soft and warm and alive beneath him, one hand grappling at his collar, the sweet taste of citrus balm on her lips.
It’s only a few seconds, but it’s enough: her mouth moves against him, wanting and eager, and when one gloved hand comes to her chin she makes a little sound in the back of her throat that he thinks he would happily die to earn again.
Kaz pulls away before anything can snatch this moment from him. A stubborn thief to the very end.
Her eyes are still closed when he draws back, an image he’ll always remember: the way she looks right after she’s been kissed.
Slowly, her eyes flutter open. Like she’s awakening from a dream.
Mindlessly, he moves a strand of hair that’s come loose from her braid out of her face. One final act of leftover tenderness, even if it will ruin him. Will ruin them both.
“I hope we both survive this, then,” she murmurs.
And there’s a little defiance in her words, like she’s challenging him still. A bit of familiarity, too.
We never stop fighting, he’d told her once. Long before that: No Saint ever watched over me. Not like you have.
If he could kiss her again, could know for certain the harbor waters wouldn’t rise with it, he would.
For now, the memory will have to do.
He has her, he has this. The promise itself is enough.
“Yes,” he says simply. “I really hope we do.”