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The cat appeared on his windowsill on a cold and rainy afternoon.
Kaz had just sat down at the desk in his room - still the old door mounted on piles of books even though there was a beautiful imported desk from the Wandering Isle in his office downstairs. His chair creaked under his weight and the cushion was worn to shreds, but it was comfortable. He preferred to tend to his more private matter in the privacy of his bedroom. So when he received the latest missive from Inej, he decided to take it upstairs.
He’d barely written Inej’s name on his reply when the scratching at the window began. At first, he didn’t think much of it - he didn’t even bother to look up from his letter. Even with Inej’s absence, the crows had continued their visits to his stoop. Sometimes Kaz ignored them, but more often than not he fed them just as she once did. So when the scratching continued, he reached for his cane and the small bag full of breadcrumbs from his bookshelf. But when he looked up, it wasn’t a crow he found at his window.
It was a cat.
For a moment, all Kaz could do was stare. How had a cat reached his window on the top floor of the Slat? Animals in the Barrel were crafty, they had to be to survive. Still, he found it hard to believe. Nonetheless, he crossed to the window and swung it open to the cool air outside. The cat immediately bounded in, landing on his floor with a soft cry. Her dark fur was soaked through, already creating a puddle around her feet, but she didn’t seem to mind. All she did was stare at Kaz with her dark brown eyes that almost reminded him of Inej. There was something in the cat’s slicing glare that also reminded Kaz of Inej, almost as if the animal was daring Kaz to let her stay. Everything in Kaz told him to pick the cat back up and place her back outside, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So, with a sigh, Kaz closed the window and watched as the cat curled up on the floor. She seemed happy with Kaz’s choice, so it seemed there was nothing he could do about it now.
Kaz actually quite liked cats. Growing up on the farm, he was always fascinated with the barn cats - begging his father to let him bring them into the house when the nights got cold. He often visited them, watching as the kittens rolled around in the hay and the older cats pounced at mice. When he was a bit older — only a few months before the accident — Kaz’s father gave in to his begging (as he often did) and brought home a kitten. Kaz was immediately enamored with the creature. Until it scratched him, and his cat promptly became Jordie’s cat.
In Ketterdam, it wasn’t unusual to see cats roaming the streets, especially near the docks where the fishing boats brought in their hauls. Sometimes, he and Jordie would sit on the curb and watch the cats running through the vendor’s stalls at Fifth Harbor, chasing rats or each other. Kaz would throw them his scraps while Jordie would half-heartedly scold him. When the plague hit the city, the cats roamed the streets of Ketterdam freely. Kaz, with fever and blurred vision, would watch as they passed by the Nest, dreaming that he was back at the farm, safe with the barn cats.
When he saw cats now, he didn’t often pay them any mind. But if one happened to brush up against his leg while he was staking out for the night he let it be instead of kicking it to the curb like others might do. There was even a stray that liked to hang around the Crow Club - catching pests and eating scraps thrown out back.
In his bedroom now, Kaz looked down at the intruder before returning to his desk to finish his letter to Inej. The cat would have to wait for now, he had more important matters to attend to.
-
The cat stayed.
No one in the Slat seemed to notice when orders of tinned fish began to appear in the kitchens. The Dregs turned their gazes when Kaz, his jacket covered in fur, emerged with a large bag that squirmed ferociously one afternoon. When a bill arrived from the veterinarian later that week, no one said a thing. Jesper simply narrowed his eyes at Kaz when he asked if Wylan had ever had a cat growing up (no, his father was allergic and forbade animals from coming inside the house despite Wylan’s insistence. His mother, on the other hand, loved cats). If anyone noticed, and Kaz was sure they did, they didn’t dare mention it to him.
Kaz actually found himself growing fond of the cat. When he returned to his office at the end of the day, she would greet him with a soft cry and rub up against his legs. While he worked long into the night, she curled up on the edge of his desk and slept. He would strip his gloves and run his hands over her fur. When the crows visited, she pawed at the window until Kaz rose to offer them food. The two of them eventually fell into a rhythm, and Kaz didn’t fight it.
About two weeks after the cat arrived at his window, the Dregs headed out for a job deep in the Barrel. It was supposed to be quick and easy, but one of the runts — a young kid fresh off the boat from Novyi Zem — got himself shot, and they had to drag him back to the Slat to get him bandaged up. Kaz watched from the doorway of his office as his medics stitched the kid up. When things finally settled down and Anika sent everyone off, it was close to dawn. With the day yet to start, the Slat was finally silent.
Kaz hadn’t slept in days, so he dragged himself up the stairs and into his room. It was dark, his curtains drawn and lanterns turned low. Pain pulsed from his knee, and when he sat at the edge of his bed, it nearly buckled beneath him. Kaz rubbed a hand across his face, then stripped his gloves, shoes, and jacket.
It took him a while to settle, as it always did — his back pressed firmly against the wall, eyes open until he couldn’t stay awake any longer. Except the moment his eyes did close, a weight dropped onto the bed near his feet. Without sparing a moment to think, Kaz reached for the knife stored beneath his pillow, ready to grab whoever had broken into his room, before completely freezing. He had forgotten about his new roommate who was now curled up at the foot of his bed, purring.
It took a while for Kaz to fall asleep again.
-
“Who is this?”
Kaz wasn’t expecting to find Inej in his room, and he certainly wasn’t expecting her to be perched on the edge of his desk with the cat in her lap.
“Hello Inej,” Kaz greeted from the doorway. “It’s good to see you too.”
He paused for a moment, taking Inej in. She had only been at sea a few months, but the changes were already noticeable. Her skin was darker, her frame still wirey but her muscles had filled out. She bore new scars, but her grin was wider than Kaz had ever seen. There was a new knife at her hip, catching the light as it shone in through his open window.
“Hello Kaz,” she replied. “Who is this?”
“My roommate,” Kaz shrugged, stepping into the room. He shut the door behind him but found that he couldn’t quite get himself to step closer to Inej. He had spent months missing her, worrying about her, and now she was in his office. Some part of him was afraid that if he moved closer, she might disappear.
“And what’s your roommate’s name?” She ran her fingers through the cat’s fur. The cat was purring loudly, completely enamored by Inej. Of course.
“She only showed up the other day,” Kaz lied. “I haven’t had the chance to name her yet.”
Inej tilted her head - she saw right through Kaz’s lies, she always could. Kaz didn’t know why he even bothered.
“Jesper told me that you’ve been acting especially strange since last month and Annika said that you started placing strange orders for a few weeks now, which is when I’m assuming is when your roommate showed up.”
“You saw already Jesper?”
“Don’t change the subject, Kaz.”
Kaz stepped toward the desk, hands resting on his cane. “I never thought to come up with one.”
The truth was he didn’t want to come up with one. Names made things important, labels made things permanent - and that was the last thing Kaz needed. He knew better than that. If he gave the cat a name, then that meant she mattered to him. And Kaz had found that when things mattered to him, it never lasted. He looked at Inej now - she meant something to him, but she hadn’t stayed. As proud as he was to see her take on the slavers, his heart still stung with bitter anger. He needed to work on that.
“Perhaps you should give her a name,” Kaz shrugged, hoisting himself up on the desk next to Inej with a grimace. He didn’t have his gloves on today, so he left some space between them. Still, the warmth radiating off of Inej’s body was enough to give him goosebumps.
Inej looked at him, then down at the cat. The cat looked up at Inej, then at Kaz. Kaz only watched Inej as she thought.
“Maggie.” she eventually said.
“Maggie?”
The cat let out a small huff - which Inej must have taken as a sign of approval because she smiled.
“I pray a lot to Sankta Margaretha - I have ever since I arrived in the Barrel,” Inej began.
“Is she the saint of stray cats?”
“No,” Inej said. “Thieves. Thieves and lost children.”
Inej’s conversations about her religion always made Kaz feel vulnerable, too vulnerable. He didn’t like it. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but he couldn’t ignore the tightness in his chest or the ringing in his ears when Inej spoke. She wasn’t afraid to penetrate the armor he put up, and she was good at it.
Kaz shook his head “You’re hoping your saints will look over a lowly thief like me?”
“I don’t have to hope, Kaz. I know that they already have. The cat is your reminder.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. All Kaz could manage to do was stare at Inej - at her thick lashes fluttering against her wind-bitten cheeks, her long hair frizzed at the edges from the salty air, her sparkling eyes as she spoke.
“I didn’t think they watched people like me,” Kaz whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse. He reached down to run his fingers through the cat’s fur. Instead, his finger just barely brushed up against Inej’s. He tensed automatically but was quick to calm the flaring panic in his mind. Still, he could tell that Inej had noticed - she offered a slight dip of her chin but didn’t pull her hand away.
“They do, Kaz,” Inej replied. “They always have.”