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Kaz had been angry for years. That’s the first thing. He didn’t know how to be anything but angry, a deep and simmering rage that bubbled within him, with every word, every movement, every decision. It was that rage, subtle and deadly as it was, that catapulted him up the ranks, working in The Barrel. It was that rage, bubbling under his skin in a desperate chant of go go go , that kept him alive where Jordie wasn’t. That rage that earned him his name, Dirtyhands . That rage that propelled him, that made him as dangerous as he was.
Everyone in the Dregs—from the lowest ranking members who only just joined up, to Inej, Jesper and Nina—knew of Kaz’s fiery moods. The Crows themselves knew when to push at the anger, they knew how to twist his attention, his anger, to a cause that was helpful, and everyone knew when to avoid him, when to let him fester in his moods on his own. Inej had never bothered with that. She never avoided him, no matter how angry he was, how righteous or how lethal. She wanted to know all parts of him, inside and out, fury and fancy. And she did.
Inej Ghafa held the intricate knowledge of each and every facet that built Kaz Brekker from the rubble and ruin of the Rietveld name, and every part of Brekker that she knew, she knew of Rietveld, too. Inej could spot a bad day brewing over the thrashing sea without lifting her gaze from her own task, and she could navigate the whole of the Dregs through the storm with a carefully timed look, and words spoken soft enough as to not startle Kaz, but not soft enough for him to accuse her of coddling. It was a balancing act. It was a sheer cliff holding back the roiling sea, impossible footholds just barely eroded into the rock. But everyone knew that there was nothing Inej could do better than climb.
So she held him back, the leash to his snapping, feral bite—always knowing, without word, when to give slack and let him gnash his teeth.
Inej’s own rage was different, quieter. She, like Kaz, had been angry for years. Kaz loved when she let her own anger take over, when the leash slipped through her grasp, and he got to pick it up, hold her back for once. Not that he tended to reel her in all that often. Djel hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Kaz sure wasn’t going to stand in the way of The Wraith.
They worked, in an explosive sort of way, both just as volatile as the other. Kaz had never met someone he understood like he understood Inej, and she had never met anyone as interesting or as complicated as him. For all he needed vengeance, and for all her rage against the systems she was forced into, the two of them were linked, they were connected. And for the first time since Jordie died, Kaz didn’t think relying on someone else, relying on her, was a weakness.
Inej could only be his greatest strength.