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He couldn’t sleep.
Rain pattered against his bedroom window loudly. A night like this left Ketterdam without the chatter and constant noise of the Barrel at night, without the noises he had grown so used to lull him to sleep. Without it, the city had been plunged into a deep silence with nothing but the rain and Kaz’s never-ending thoughts to occupy his mind, and he couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard he tried.
He sat up, glaring at the window splattered with the offending rain. Such a heavy fall could clean the horrible grime of the city away. Kaz slipped out of bed with a sigh, grunting quietly when his leg throbbed in disapproval. Rain could wash away dirt and grime, but it would never wash away the sins Ketterdamn had been built upon.
Those first nights in Ketterdam as a boy, he would lie in his bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes that burned, begging to close. The noise outside his window was unbearable, and he craved the silence of a little farm abandoned in Lij. Now, a man, he found he could not rest without the sound of life just outside. With the noise came distraction, but with silence, Kaz was forced to suffer the affliction so common for his fellow man.
His thoughts.
Kaz limped to his window. His leg ached badly tonight, keeping him away with the constant inability to get comfortable, and he could hardly take lying in bed, miserable, for another moment. He watched the rain fall in heavy, fat droplets, splattering against the rooftops and streets below.
What a miserable night, he decided, with the chill of the early winter months making it even colder and now the rain only making it worse. He pitted the drunken fool stumbling home from the tavern for having to walk in such weather.
He pulled away from the glass, a hand holding onto his armchair for support. There would be no sleep tonight, certainly not with the throbbing yet somehow dull and pounding pain in his leg.
Kaz sat down at his desk, fingers grazing over the documents, demanding his attention, and sighed again. He supposed that if he couldn’t sleep, it would only make sense for him to drown himself in whiskey and work. Despite his obligations to business dealings, the Crow Club, deals, dregs, all that came with the rule of the Barrel, he would rather stare at the rain and lose his mind than look at those damned papers.
He glanced at a contract to be signed for a Ravkan brewing company. He hoped to sell their product exclusively at the Crow Club. As his eyes trailed across the words repeatedly, the words meltin together, Kaz was struck with thoughts that only plagued him on nights like this.
What if…
He could have been a farmer.
He could have gotten an official education in the small schoolhouse, maybe even gone to a small university, and become a businessman in the city. He could have made his fortune without the blood that stained his coin. He could have built a lovely home, taken a wife, or had a child. He would have never stepped foot into the damned town he now called home, and he would only hear stories of its infamous nature.
What if…
He was shaken out of those thoughts with another sharp stab of pain in his leg, clenching the pen in his hand.
They were pointless to think about now, useless little daydreams that brought no value. He wouldn’t get lost in those thoughts. He had to focus on what he had now: a contract to sign and an ache desperate to be calmed. He’d never be able to focus on his work without dealing with it first.
If laying and walking weren’t comfortable, then sitting about would probably be no good either. He pushed himself too far the day before, and his leg protested his desire for productivity now. He’d have to find another distraction.
A cup of tea…
Yes. A cup of tea sounded nice.
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He didn’t expect anyone to be in the kitchen at this hour. He had no desire to speak to anyone else, wanting nothing more than to find a cup of hot tea and rest his pain without having to put his mask back on, the illusion of a cold, cruel, and unfeeling man. As he walked into the kitchen, someone shifted, hidden in the darkness, and Kaz stiffened.
He turned, his leg hitting the doorframe hard enough to ache and he hissed in pain. He wouldn’t be sleeping, not with this pain. He sighed, glancing up where the candlelight illuminated a figure sitting in the window, staring out, and he calmed almost instantly. Of anyone who would interrupt his solitude, at least it was her.
Inej.
She sat up, startled by his intrusion and yet statuesque in the large curved window, her knees drawn to her chest, and he wondered, briefly, if she was cold. Inej didn’t like the cold. She basked in warmth like a cat. With the flimsy night clothes she wore, she had to be chilled and he realized that her discomfort bothered him. She stared back at him, the candlelight flickering shadows across her face. If he did not speak, neither would she. If he moved in silence and continued his mission of getting tea, she wouldn’t disturb him.
“Are you alright?” He asked softly, not wanting to startle her, but he found himself desperate to know. One glance at the clocktower outside his bedroom window told him how late an hour it was. She shouldn’t be down here, alone in the dark and cold. She should be upstairs tucked warmly in her bed with kind dreams to think about. She turned back to the window, a roll of thunder breaking her concentration.
He limped to the cupboard, the ache in his leg momentarily forgotten. He searched, pulling out a threadbare blanket that would be better than nothing. He handed it to her, clearing his throat so she’d look his way once more. When she turned, he shivered inwardly.
Of course, he saw Inej. He saw her daily, his eyes constantly drawn to her even when he wished it wouldn’t. He couldn’t afford to stare at her like a lovesick schoolboy, but he’d be a fool not to at least acknowledge it. She carried herself with a grace only matched by her skills as the Wraith. He could look at her until the end of his days, but as she sat before him, her hair - usually kept nearly in a braid - fell down her shoulders in an inky black waterfall. Her face bare of her usual expression, her brow normally furrowed ever so slightly, in thought, now smoothed as he saw him.
Beautiful.
Inej was beautiful.
He gathered a hint of courage to drape the blanket over her shoulders, careful not to touch her skin as he adjusted it. Giving his work a slight nod, Inej’s fingers played with the frayed edges, watching him with her unwavering gaze.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She finally spoke, her words mimicking his own feelings, and he wondered how long she had been down here alone, not adequately dressed for a frigid night. What thoughts kept her from sleep? What worries tormented her mind?
Did the silence the rain brought pull her deep into her mind as it did him?
“Nor could I.” He admitted. Only with her could he truly be honest. He didn’t need to reapply the mask he wore so well. Only with her did the lies that came so quickly cease to come. “It’s too quiet.”
“I’d think you’d prefer silence.” She mused, “Ketterdam is so noisy. It’s nice to have a break from it.” On the contrary, he thought. He needed that noise. It comforted him, knowing that the world never truly stopped just outside his bedroom walls. He could hear everything, and it brought him a small comfort. Silence forced itself into his mind, breaking down the walls it had no business touching.
She returned her gaze to the window, lightly fogged. She didn’t seem tired. She hid her true thoughts so easily; like a difficult puzzle, he celebrated every piece that fell into place. He relished every bit of her inner mind that came to light.
The silence between them was far more comfortable, a reassurance that no words needed to pass, they were safe in each other’s company.
Kaz walked back to the cabinets, rifling through until he found a small wooden box containing Inej’s rather impressive collection of teas. He didn’t know the flavours by heart, but he smelled them frequently enough when she drank them to know which she preferred and which times. He searched, rifling through little packages of loose leaf bags until he found the one that smelled sweet, like a flower. It would suit the evening, he decided.
He warmed the water, the heat from the fire warming his fingers. No matter the tea, Inej always put a spoon filled with honey. When the water heated sufficiently and the tea steeped as he thought she’d like, he poured her cup, stirring the honey. He made himself a cup as well, then returned to the window, quietly offering the tea to her.
A small part of him was filled with pride when she took a sip and smiled. She liked it.
“It’s wonderful Kaz.” She said happily, holding the cup in her hands, warm steam dancing around her face. “You knew how to make it just right.”
“I make it my business to know everything.” He sipped at his own tea, lip curled into the smallest of smiles. Not a smirk, not a sneer, but a tiny little smile. She brought that out in him, something no one else possibly could. He didn’t have to be the Bastard of the barrel, not with her.
Inej rose a brow, glancing his direction. “About your marks, yes, but I did not think you knew how I take my tea.” She teased, and he returned her glance with a coy little grin.
“As I said, everything.”
It was… important to him that he knew how she took her tea, what leg she favoured when she climbed, or what book she read by candlelight late at night when she couldn’t sleep. All those little hints of Inej without her mask, unhidden. No one bothered to stop and truly study her, to unravel the truths she kept locked away. He savoured the information he knew, those tiny parts of her that only he had become privy to.
She returned her gaze to the rain, seemingly enraptured by it, which Kaz didn’t fully understand. To him, it was nothing more than water making itself a nuisance, but Inej saw the world so differently than he. To her, there was still beauty to be found, and she still hoped for salvation, a feeling Kaz had long since abandoned. They watched a young man duck under the awning of a small cafe, his coat draped over him as a makeshift shield against the weather before he darted back into the downpour.
‘Poor bastard’, Kaz thought, ‘ to be caught out there.’ He briefly wondered where the man had come from and where he was going. The young man might even get to his destination safely with the usual criminals, thieves, and low-lives out and about. Perhaps this storm did have some sort of benefit, for Kaz didn’t think a man that looked so out of place in the Barrel, dressed in a fine suit and white gloves, would make it safely without the protection of rain keeping everyone inside.
A city like this could only be satiated by bloodshed and coin, but tonight even Ketterdam took a rest. From merchant to servant, lord to criminal, they all rested tonight and a strange, foreign peace took over the entity that Ketterdam had become.
The sound of rainfall didn’t do much to drown out his thoughts, but what the storm could not silence, her voice could.
“The rain is so beautiful, don’t you think?” She asked, and he fought not to laugh. He wouldn’t dare belittle her. He laughed because finding beauty in a storm was such an Inej thing to do. What to him seemed mundane and rather ugly, more of a bother than much else, she found beautiful. A city that Kaz knew to be doomed from the moment of its conception, Ketterdam could never be saved. It was too filthy, corrupt, and filled with sin, yet Inej found a glimmer of worth. He could not say he felt the same.
She turned to face him now, a bewildered smile gracing her lips. “Are you laughing at me?”
It felt so easy to smile with her like this, completely removed from everything they knew, away from Dirty Hands and the Wraith. They could laugh here, joke and tease here. Just Kaz and Inej. Just a boy and a girl.
“I find the rain cold, wet, and positively miserable,” He said, “But your ability to find beauty in the littlest of things never ceases to amaze me.” He spoke in truth. She amazed him in every aspect of her being.
She studied him, her eyes boring into whatever was left of a soul within him, and he wished for a little more light so he could properly see the endless depth of them. With the dim light, he strained his eyes, memorizing her every detail.
Another sip of her tea, and she held the cup in her hands, the heat of the liquid keeping her warm.
“I have to find beauty in this world.” She spoke quietly, her gaze shifting, her mind far away once more and he wondered where those thoughts had taken her. Perhaps to the false luxury of a bedroom under Helene’s watch, or perhaps somewhere else, somewhere sacred to her that Kaz had not yet known. “If I don’t, I think it may swallow me whole.” She paused. Whatever place those thoughts took her, he hoped they didn’t bring her pain. If they did, she did not show it.
“You probably think I’m a fool for thinking it.” She continued. “It goes against all of your rules, does it not? Beauty turns no profit, and Ketterdam is a hell built upon its own greed.” The playful smile returned to her lips and the teasing tone warmed her voice, pulling her away from whatever thought plagued her. She was the only person Kaz truly let tease him without him lashing out in anger or irritation. He supposed she brought the best out in anyone, even him.
“So you do listen when I talk.” He snorted, shaking his head. However, Inej hadn’t been entirely wrong. In his earthy days as Dirty Hands, a young man climbing the ladder of Ketterdam’s criminal underworld, he had strict rules and an unwavering mentality. All in all, when looking back, he had been a tad melodramatic, something Jesper made certain to remind Kaz every opportunity he got.
He couldn’t deny that this city was… well, undeniably ugly. Even without its dreadful residents, from the filthy streets of the Barrel to the horribly gauche false luxury of the merchant’s district, there wasn’t much to enjoy looking at.
“Not entirely true.” He admitted, probably thinking just a hair too long about his answer. Inej hummed, their eyes locked in one another. She waited for his answer, waiting for him. “There’s some rather pretty Ravkan architecture in the bars and clubs on this street. I’d even say that the Crow Club is rather visually appealing.” He smirked, reveling in the eye roll she sent his way. “The chap who owns it has some skill in interior design, don’t you think? Not at all dramatic, though I’m not sure it’s to your taste.” Kaz grinned behind his cup.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Kaz?” She laughed, “Teasing me like that. I never thought I’d see the day!”
Her words were so simple, yet his breath caught in his throat hearing them. Her Kaz… he refused to belong to anyone, and he knew she felt the same. They belonged to only themselves, no others who tried to control them. Kaz and Inej, entirely alone in the world…
Weren’t they? They had both found safety, a home, a family. They found belonging, and if he were to truly belong to anyone, he would give himself freely to her if she had him.
Perhaps he even dared to hope that she would.
“I’ve been known to crack a joke or two, every once in a while, my darling Inej.” He said, rather proudly, that even with all she knew of him, he could surprise her still. A great honor indeed. “I’d even go as far to say I’m rather funny!” She laughed, and if joking like this meant she’d laugh like that again, then he would fancy himself something of a comedian.
“The most notorious man in Ketterdam, a comedian?” She snorted, and the innocence of that laugh, free of any darkness or malice, could heal whatever ailment a sick man had. “I’ll have to call the papers.” Inej leaned forward, elbow placed gracefully on her knee, resting her chin in her hand and watching him.
“No one will ever believe you.” He purred, and with the untainted taunt, he was struck with the sudden understanding that she was his closest and dearest friend. She saw him in a way no other ever could, and he found himself quite alright with that knowledge. To be known by her, to be seen, well, that was a blessing that Kaz wouldn’t dare take for granted. “They’ll all think you’ve gone absolutely mad.
If he were a braver man, a man less burdened with himself, he would reach for her. He’d tuck the strand of hair that had fallen into her face behind her ear. He’d ask her if she were cold, and offer her warmth. Maybe he’d even walk her back to her bedroom, and kiss her hand like a gentleman, wishing her goodnight and replaying these moments over and over again in his head.
Kaz Brekker was not a brave man, and the very idea of touching her skin utterly terrified him. The murky waters constantly threatened to drown him and punish him for his sins of being merely alive. What if they did succeed? What if he did touch her, and he drowned in his own mind? Even worse… what if he reached for Inej now, what if he held her hand and nothing terrible happened? What if everything remained as it were, and he simply held her hand?
What then?
He did not move to touch her, and once again, Kaz cursed his limitations. The waters rising, the anxiety and dread he could for the most part handle. One had to be used to the cruelties of life in his line of work. The idea of Inej’s touch silencing it all, calming him, grounding him? Kaz wouldn’t know how to even begin imagining such a reality.
So, he did not try, instead choosing the far safer option of simply observing her in the dim light. To see her like this, intimacy he doubted any others had the honor? That was enough.
“You know, I could never think of you as a fool.” He said thoughtfully. Her brow furrowed, the ever so slight hint of confusion passing over her expression. “You mentioned it,” He continued, “that I would consider you foolish for finding beauty here.”
Her lips wrapped around a silent ‘Oh.”
“I can’t say I can find much worth looking at in this damned city. I think a great many things about you, Inej, but I could never think of you as a fool.”
The silence, once comfortable and hardly noticeable, felt thick with the words. Inej stared at him, and he wondered, as he so often did, what she was thinking. He didn’t lie, however, Inej would know if he tried. He admired her really, as one soldier did another. He very rarely met someone he would consider an equal. In a city so filled with desperation, he felt almost giddy when he met an adversary worthy of his time and intellect. He welcomed it, wanted the challenge that tugged at his lust for power he worked so hard to attain.
But to find a true equal, another person who knew his steps, his mind, who listened to every word? Who had woven themselves into the very fabric of his soul? Well, that terrified him.
“And what do you find beautiful, Kaz?” She leaned forward, candlelight flickering light and shadow across her skin, eyes shimmering with curiosity, perhaps even anticipation of his answer. She tilted her head just slightly to the left, just enough that the loose waves of her hair shifted, cascading into a curtain down her shoulder.
For a moment, he couldn’t exactly think. No matter the walls he built to keep him safe, hidden away from the world, he was just a man, and she was beautiful.
“Trees, " he answered, swallowing his thoughts away. She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest, her back pressed against the wall. Kaz nodded, more sure in his response. The tall, endless ones.” So tall, they blocked out the sunlight with only scattered, fractured rays spilling through, carving out a path. A forest of trees that he could be lost in for eternity. Yes, Kaz decided, trees. “I think those are quite pretty.” It seemed odd to him to use such a flippant word to describe something far older, far grander than himself. Nonetheless, Kaz found them rather pretty. He liked trees. He liked the steady solitude they brought.
She looked at him, and he saw the faintest hint of surprise behind her calm neutrality. The Bastard of the Barrel, finding something beautiful in the world he loathed and manipulated? Impossible.
But on nights like this, he didn’t find himself feeling much like Dirty Hands, and he didn’t feel much like Kaz Rietveld either. Instead he sat somewhere in between. A boy, just a boy, lost in a never-ending forest.
He felt completely at ease.
Thunder rumbled low outside the window, Kaz felt it in his bones like the purr of a cat. He reached for his tea, which had long grown cold. His leg didn’t ache anymore and he wondered when exactly it stopped, he had completely forgotten about it.
They lingered there in the quiet, Kaz tracing his finger along the mug’s rim, lost entirely in a mosaic of rain drops pattering against the window, steady, unhurried by anything more than their own desire to fall. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there in the stillness, the night folding around them like the fabric of a well-worn coat.
Only when Inej stood, stretching her long arms over her head, did his eyes open. At some point, he must have drifted off to a half-sleep.
He watched her, her movements a calming ritual in the dark. Every move she made, every step so calculated, yet so natural. She cleaned his mug, setting it to the side to dry and tucked her blanket, neatly folded, away in the cabinet as if she had never disturbed it to begin with. With her silence, she must have thought him to be asleep.
She would return to her bedroom, close the door behind her and the night would end. Perhaps they would never speak of these quiet moments again. Would it draw them closer, or would they continue to stand six feet apart, reaching but never quite touching?
Kaz sat up, his blanket falling from his shoulders. He cleared his throat just as Inej walked towards the door to leave, and she spun, those dark eyes filled with surprise to hear him.
The seconds trickled ever onward, neither looking away from the other and for a moment the sound of the rain vanished with the rest of the world. He wasn’t Dirty Hands, and she wasn’t the Wraith. They weren’t even Kaz and Inej. Just a boy, just a girl.
“Do you ever think about how things could have been?” He asked, the words spilling from his lips and he didn’t bother to control them. “If things had been… different?”
A small crease folded in between her brows. She glanced away, breaking the consecration, her head tilted just so, lost in her own thoughts and he wondered what imagined world she had gotten lost in, what red string of life she followed. “Inej-”
“I think… I would have been an acrobat, like my mother.” She answered, her voice so quiet, her mind far away, and he hoped that wherever life she imagined, she would be happy. He imagined her there, dancing on a tightrope as graceful and beautiful as ever, preforming with a smile for adoring crowds rather than sneaking through the dirty streets of Ketterdam looking for secrets. She seemed happy in his imagination. Good, he wanted her to be happy.
“I would have traveled with my family, people would come for miles to see us.” She bit down on her lower lip to stop the small smile that threatened to escape and he hoped she would allow it to come, he found her smile rather infectious.
“Do you think…” He swallowed, not feeling brave, but feeling something akin to it that held him here in this conversation, something he never wanted to escape. “Do you think you would have ever come to Lij?”
Oh but the look in her eyes could melt the frosted sea, could stop a soldier before he struck the killing blow, could make him breathe and suffocate all at once.
She smiled at him, not a blinding grin, but something much softer, a warm refuge rather than a burning delight and like a moth to the flame, he was pulled into her light.
“I think we would have.”
Kaz nodded, turning away from her to hide his face, to hide the utter joy and relief he felt in those words. Even in her imagined life, if she had never known pain or heartbreak, she would choose to find him. She would always find him.
“Goodnight, Inej.” One final look, one final meeting of the eyes, a silent understanding.
“Goodnight, Kaz.” She gave him a gentle nod, bidding him goodnight before she left, back to the warm comfort of her bedroom.
He returned to the rain, resting his head on the wall behind him as the drop began to slow, the storm outside passing overhead. He wrapped the blanket back around himself once more, simply existing in the darkness.
And the world continued to turn once more.