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It was a rainy night in Ketterdam where Inej sat on her tiny bed in the slat, listening to the plunk of the raindrops hitting her little window and smelling wet wood.
She needed to stop herself. Kaz had made it clear that he did not care for her, did not see her as anything more than an investment to be protected.
Inej changed out of her black tunic and pants for her linen nightgown, unbound and brushed her hair before immediately beginning to redo her braid.
Are you out there somewhere, Mama? Inej swallowed a lump in her throat as she tightly wove her hair together. Are you thinking of me, wanting me back home? Did you search for me? Do you pray for my return? Have you given up, convinced of my death? She would be right. The happy, carefree girl they remembered was dead, had been ever since her wagon home had been replaced with a bed of silk and tassels, the loving embraces of her family forgotten for the rough hands of Kerch men.
Suli mothers braided their daughter’s hair until they reached maturity. If Inej had never left the caravan, she might have let her down by now, and started to flirt with the boys she’d grown up alongside. But she had left, and now, braiding her hair every day was a way for her to regain her control, to let her not lose sight of her roots. To make her feel like she had at least a little of the girl she had been still inside her, even after all the world had done to her to steal her youth and innocence.
Even if sometimes, she felt like she had been three completely separate people. There was child Inej, a laughing daughter of a close family of acrobats, impatient to be able to walk a higher tightrope or climb a steeper wall. There was Inej now, a small, deadly girl who snuck around the bloody streets of the Barrel with the agility and grace of a cat. This girl had fought, thieved, and murdered. She’d cheated for, lied for, and stolen information for one of the worst Barrel bosses in Ketterdam. And yet, she still prayed to her Saints every night and every day, begging for their mercy and understanding for the choices she’d made. She’d done her best to retain her morality, but she would rather live as a criminal in the Barrel than die every day as a slave in the Menagerie.
And then there was the girl then. Stripped of her name and identity, she was called only by Little Lynx because of the thick dark hair and warm brown skin that marked her as Suli. That girl was a ghost, a past life, someone who had never really existed at all. She was a doll that had been abused and discarded.
Inej clasped her hands together, the splintering wood floor digging into her knees. “Santka Alina,” she whispered. “Santka Marya, hear me and receive my prayers.” Marya, a lost Suli girl far from home. Santka Anastasia, patron saint of the sick. Would she be able to heal her broken mind? She wasn’t able to say it aloud that time, but she knew her saints would understand.
She could hear Kaz’s uneven gait on the creaks of the floorboards downstairs. Slowly up the stairs, creak, creak. The heavy tap of his cane against the steps.
“May you receive me and forgive what can be forgiven,” Inej whispered to her Saints. She tied a knot at the end of her braid and tucked herself into bed.