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Kaz Brekker sat at one of the tables of the Crow Club, positively fuming. He didn’t know why he had let Jesper talk him into a gambling night with Wylan and Matthias, but with every new move he found himself growing more and more irritated.
“Kaz.”
Kaz looked up from the table he was brooding at to stare Wylan down.
“Do you have any…” Wylan looked at his cards, biting his lip. “Sixes?”
Kaz looked at the deck in his hands. He did indeed have three sixes in his hand
“Go fish.”
As Wylan reached into the pile, looking put out, Kaz glanced around the Crow Club. Everything seemed to be in order: there was a customer he had his eyes on, a Merch who Kaz suspected was using counterfeit coins, but he had posted guards to keep an eye on him. He had wanted Inej to tail him, but before he could ask, Nina had informed him that the two of them were going out for a “girls night.”
“Where are you going?” Kaz demanded.
“We’re just getting waffles.”
Kaz ran a hand through his hair. Tonight was not a good night for waffles. Of course, in his opinion, no night was a good night for waffles, but Nina seemed to think the perpetual opposite.
“What time will you be back?”
“We’ll be back when we’re back. Calm down.”
“Can you--” Kaz struggled for the words. “Can you make sure Inej doesn’t get hurt?”
“She’s perfectly capable of that on her own.”
“I know that, I just...” There was a smile on Nina’s face as Kaz grasped for how to get his point across without exposing his feelings. “I just worry about her is all.”
Nina’s smile grew into a wide smirk. “You care about her.”
“I protect my investments,” Kaz snapped. “And I can’t do my work without her.”
“Kaz.” Jesper’s voice brought him back to the present.
He snapped to look at him.
“Any sixes?”
“I just asked if he had any--” Wylan protested, but Kaz was distracted, and tossed Jesper one of his three sixes.
“Cheers,” Jesper grinned, while Wylan gaped at him.
“You said you did have any sixes when I asked!” Wylan protested.
“Did I?’ Kaz looked over his head at the Merch he was tailing, but his mind wandered to Inej. Had Nina told her what he’d said about investments? She probably had. Logic told him he shouldn’t care. After all, what he’d told her was the truth, but still…
“You’re a cheat and a demon,” Matthias growled.
“At least he knows who his true friends are,” Jesper said, adding the six to his hand with a wink. “Your turn, Kaz.”
But Kaz had had enough.
“Fold.” He put his cards face-up on the table.
“You can’t fold in Go Fish, Kaz,” Jesper protested.
“Watch me,” Kaz snapped. He grabbed his cane and stood up. “I’ve had enough gambling for tonight. And you have too, Jesper.”
“I’m just getting started!” Jesper protested.
“You’re done.”
“What? Just because you’re not having fun means that nobody can?”
Kaz glared at him, and Jesper cocked a defiant eyebrow.
“You’ve lost enough money to Matthias already. I don’t want to inflate his head any more than it already is.”
Matthias scoffed. “Ironic that I keep winning, because I’m the only one who plays by the rules.”
“I play by the rules,” Wylan said quietly.
“Fine,” Jesper leaned back. “Fold.” He flipped over his cards to reveal a terrible hand. Kaz rolled his eyes and began to walk away. Behind him, he heard Jesper yawn.
“You want to go out tonight, Wylan?”
“Sure.”
Kaz stopped abruptly and raced back to the table. “How did you do that?” he demanded.
Jesper raised an eyebrow.
“How did you do that?” Kaz repeated, more forcefully, fire in his eyes.
Jesper and Wylan exchanged bewildered looks, and Matthias was looking at him as though he was mad, but Kaz didn’t care. He had been facing a terrifying task for the past several months, aware that he needed to complete it, but struggling with a solution, contemplating every angle from which to approach it, and here was Jesper, seemingly at ease with it all.
“Do what?”
“Ask--” Kaz lowered his voice to a deadly whisper. “Ask Wylan out.”
Jesper stared at him for several seconds, then his shoulders started shaking, his lips caved in on each other, visibly holding back a laugh.
“This is serious, Jesper.”
Kaz heard a snort behind him and he turned to see Matthias snickering. Even Wylan was stifling a giggle behind his fist.
“Why are you all laughing ?” he growled.
“Okay, okay, calm your dick down,” Jesper said, laughter in his tone and a smile on his face. He folded his hands in the shape of a spade, his fingertips pressing against each other as he gestured to the chair. “Sit down, Kaz. I’ll teach you the art of wooing men.”
Kaz scoffed. “I don’t need to know the art of wooing men.”
“My mistake. I’ll teach you the art of wooing Inej.”
Kaz’s ears turned red. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jesper pointed to the chair.
“Sit.”
Reluctantly, Kaz sat down. “I’m not interested in wooing Inej,” he said quickly.
“Right, and I don’t have gambling problem,” Jesper agreed. He winked at Wylan, who shook his head in exasperation. “The first thing to know about wooing anyone is how to be cool .”
Kaz stared at him. “Cool?”
“Yes, exactly. Case in point.” He leaned back in his seat and messed his hair, winking at Wylan. “You’ve got to be confident. Think of it like a business deal,”
“Or a high-stakes dinner party,” Wylan cut in.
“Or an interrogation,” Matthias concluded.
Jesper snapped his fingers. “Exactly. That level of confidence. You should be--”
“Violent?” Kaz prompted.
Jesper gave him a look. “No.”
“Aggressive?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Cold?”
Jesper inhaled sharply. He shared a look of hopelessness with his partners in crime, and exhaled. “Okay, let’s forget about confidence for now. Your idea of confidence is a little fucked up.”
Kaz looked down at his gloved hands. Oh, he thought sadly.
“Let’s move on. You also have to be smooth.”
Kaz cocked an eyebrow. “I have to be cool and smooth?”
“Yes.”
“Like a refrigerated egg,” Matthias suggested. Kaz, Jesper, and Wylan stared at him. “Cool and smooth,” he explained.
Jesper shook his head, turning back to Kaz. “Okay, so the coolness is in your posture, but the smoothness is in your tone.”
Kaz stared at him. “In my tone,” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Jesper nodded, smacking his lips. “For example,” he turned to Wylan, leaning back and rubbing a thumb across his lip. “Excuse me,” he said in a voice like salted caramel, “I seem to have misplaced my heart. Oh,” he looked Wylan up and down, “found it.”
Kaz’s eyes followed Jesper throughout the encounter, and, when he had finished and turned to Kaz with a raised hand and a meaningful look, Kaz nodded. “I should tell her I lost my heart?”
“Well, maybe not like that,” Jesper winced. “That was more an example of the tone you could use. You could say anything with that voice and whoever you’re talking to will fall for you.”
Kaz nodded slowly. He turned to Matthias. “I hate you,” he said in as smooth of a voice as he could manage. Matthias raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. Kaz tapped his fingers on the head of his cane threateningly. “Now FALL!” he barked.
“Okay, nope,” Jesper cut in. “Coolness and smoothness are clearly not the places to start.”
Kaz turned to him, bewildered. “I did the voice, though.” He glanced at Matthias. “Was it convincing?”
“No.”
Kaz crossed his arms over his chest. “This is stupid.”
“That’s because you told him you hated him, Kaz,” Jesper pointed out. He was starting to lose his patience, Kaz could tell.
Fine by me, Kaz thought. I’m losing my patience as well.
Jesper ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s work on the actual text that you’re saying. Then we’ll go back and work on the subtext.”
Kaz narrowed his eyes. “Fair enough. What do I say?”
Jesper leaned back in his chair, chewing on his lip as he thought. “Well, first you need a conversation starter.”
“Okay.”
“This can be any observation about the environment. Make sure you find a romantic environment! And then you can comment on anything: the music, the food, the lights. Try to avoid the weather though, that’s cliche.”
“Why is the weather cliche?” Kaz asked, bewildered.
“It just is,” Jesper said with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, once you’ve established the conversation, you can move into a compliment.”
“A compliment.” Kaz repeated.
“Yeah,” Jesper nodded. “Something that you like about her. You know, her hair, her eyes, her smile...” Jesper gestured for Kaz to jump in, but Kaz’s ears turned red instead.
“Compliment her. Understood.”
Jesper shrugged. “Yeah, and then show interest in something she’s interested in.”
“Okay.”
“Then you can let that conversation carry you,” Wylan explained. Kaz turned to him. “Just asking questions and stuff.”
“Right,” Jesper nodded. Kaz turned back. “and then you talk a little about yourself, just a bit.”
“Specifically why you care for her, and what you believe you can offer her,” Matthias suggested. Kaz turned to him.
“Some light teasing or jokes don’t hurt either,” Jesper continued. By now, Kaz’s head was spinning.
“Not so much that you’re an asshole, demon,” Matthias reminded.
“Just enough to keep it light and playful,” Wylan explained.
“Just enough to make her blush,” agreed Jesper with another wink. “And then, once you’ve done the back and forth courting, do a bit a chemistry check.”
“A chemistry check?” Kaz asked, bewildered. He turned to Wylan. “What is this?”
“It’s not actual chemistry,” Wylan said quickly.
“You sure about that?” Jesper winked.
“A chemistry check is where you temporarily pause the flirtation to test the waters to see if she is interested in you in that way,” Matthias explained. “Generally, that could be a light shoulder touch or an arm around the neck--”
“Arm around the shoulder, Matthias,” Jesper corrected, “do you often put Nina in a headlock?”
Matthias grumbled something about speaking more languages than all of them combined, but Kaz felt something clench in his stomach. A light shoulder touch , he thought. He felt like he was going to be sick.
“Or if she has a hair in her face, you can brush it behind the ear,” Jesper continued. He leaned in, grinning. “And if she reciprocates, you know, if she smiles or if she touches you back--”
Kaz felt the sudden urge to vomit.
“Then you know that she’s also interested in you, and you can go in for the kill,” he snapped his fingers, making finger-guns.
Kaz looked up at him in horror. “I don’t want to kill Inej.”
“No, no, it’s a figure of speech, Kaz.”
“Oh.”
“It means that you can ask her what she’s up to Friday night,” Jesper explained.
“She’s spying on Dreesen the Mercher.”
Jesper pressed two fingers to his temple. “Okay, then ask her what she’s up to a night that you don’t know what she’s up to.”
Kaz thought for a second. “Okay.”
“And then if she says ‘I’m free’, you’re in.”
Kaz waited for Jesper to elaborate, but he didn’t, so he turned to Wylan and Matthias in turn, dumbfounded. “In where?”
“It means you can ask her out,” Wylan explained.
“What have I been doing this whole time?” Kaz demanded. He could feel the irritation bubbling up inside him. “I thought I was asking her out.”
“You’ve been flirting,” Jesper clarified, “testing the waters, engaging in the high-speed, high-stakes chase of courtship. But once she says she’s free, you ask.”
“Ask what?”
Jesper leaned back in the chair once more. “Well, what do you want to do on your first date?”
Kaz stared at him intensely for several seconds. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about what he’d wanted to do with Inej on a first date. Quite the contrary, he’d had several ideas over the past several months, but he pushed them away telling himself that they were unreasonable, stupid, trivial. He didn’t have the courage to tell Inej. He certainly didn’t want to tell Jesper, Wylan, and Matthias. “What do people normally do on their first date?”
“Nina and I huddled for warmth,” Matthias offered.
Kaz felt his stomach knot uncomfortably. “Any other ideas?”
“Wait, was that actually your first date though?” Jesper asked, “like was that your first official date, or was that just how you first met?”
“We first met when she was a captive on the ship I was assigned to.” He thought for a second. “But technically our first official “date” was getting waffles in the University District.”
Jesper nodded approvingly. “That makes more sense. Wylan and I’s first official date was gelato and the sunset.” He sighed wistfully.
“And a gunfight,” Wylan reminded.
“Oh! Yeah, but that was spontaneous.” Jesper must’ve noticed Kaz’s look of concern, because he leaned forward again and spoke gently. “Look, anything you think you and Inej would enjoy, just ask her. The most important thing about a date is that you spend time with each other.”
“And that you be vulnerable,” Matthias cut in.
Kaz felt his stomach twist uncomfortably. No thanks.
“That’s essential, Brekker.”
“And be yourself,” Wylan pointed out.
Slowly, Kaz turned to look at him. Now I’m just confused.
“I don’t think we brought that up,” Wylan bit his lip, “but it’s really important, both in the flirting process and on the date itself.”
“Yes,” Jesper said hesitantly from the other side of the table, and Kaz turned for some more realistic advice, “but also do all of the things that we told you to do.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Be cool. Be smooth. Flirt like a pro. Chemistry check. Go in for the kill.” Jesper raised a precautionary hand at the look on Kaz’s face. “Figuratively speaking, that is. And yeah, if you do that,” he winked, “you may just successfully woo Inej Ghafa. Any questions?”
Kaz blinked. Many, he thought, but he didn’t want to say so. Instead he stood up from the table, leaning on his cane to address them. “Less of a question and more of a word of advice.” His voice was deadly, dangerous, careful not to betray any of the mounting anxiety that was climbing up his throat. “If any of you speak a word of this to anyone, you’ll be spending that Go Fish gambling money on a casket.”
Wylan’s eyes widened, Matthias’s glare hardened, and Jesper drew back. “Secret’s safe with me, lover boy.” Kaz sent him a lethal look. Jesper swallowed. “Understood, boss.”
He glanced over the tables, not wanting to have this conversation anymore, scanning the room for Dreesen. But Dreesen wasn’t who caught his eye. It was a flash of red and a loud laugh from someone sitting at a table near the front.
Grabbing his cane, eyes wide, Kaz made his way through the crowd until he reached her. “Nina,” he said.
Nina turned at his voice and grinned. “Kaz. Good to see you survived one night without us.” She turned back to the table. “I would’ve brought you waffles, but I ate them all.” She put down a flush, earning several groans from the others at the table.
Kaz leaned down. “Nina, where’s Inej?”
“In the slat,” she said simply. “She didn’t want to be in a crowd right now.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. We’re just both very full,” Nina laughed. Kaz saw her glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “We had a good talk though about… a lot of things.”
“Hmm.” Kaz straightened and eyed the door. If Inej had gone to the slat, had she seen Dreesen when he’d exited? He silently cursed himself for letting himself get distracted enough to let the Merch leave unfollowed.
“The Slat you say?”
Jesper’s voice made him jump, and Kaz resisted the urge to hit him sharply with the cane.
“That seems like a perfect opportunity,” Jesper winked at Kaz.
Kaz was so shocked that he almost forgot to be upset with Jesper for speaking about their conversation in front of Nina. “Tonight?!” he demanded, gaping at Jesper in utter shock for his words.
“Well, yeah. I mean, if not tonight, when?”
“I was thinking in a few… months. Maybe a year.”
Jesper stared at him in disbelief. Then, he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Tonight, Kaz. Do it tonight.”
“Ooh, do what tonight?” Nina asked, turning around in her chair and raising an eyebrow at Kaz.
“Nothing,” he snapped, his ears red.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.” Nina smirked, “Matthias will.”
Great, Kaz thought, grabbing his cane, glaring at Jesper and Nina in turn, and leaving the crowded hall of the Crow Club. Just fantastic. In your desperation to figure out how to ask Inej out, Jesper, Matthias, Wylan, AND Nina all know how you feel about her. Soon, all of Ketterdam will as well. Nice going, Kaz…
Outside of the Crow Club, the East Stave was just as Kaz remembered it. Crowded streets. Gritty buildings. Dreary fog. He thought about returning to the Crow Club, but a part of him knew that Jesper and Nina (who now inevitably knew everything) would not let him. Besides, he had the courage to ask Inej now . He wasn’t sure if he would tomorrow.
Heart pounding, he walked down the streets of the East Stave until he reached the Slat, the lopsided, three-story house that members of the Dregs inhabited. He walked inside, greeting no one, and ascended the stairs. When he came to the third floor, he strongly considered continuing to ascend to the attic, where he could sit at his desk and plan his next heist, instead of getting caught up in something he so desperately wanted but also so desperately feared. With a surge of courage, Kaz stepped off the stairs and onto the landing.
Inej’s room was only about fifteen feet from the staircase, but it seemed to take an hour for Kaz to reach her door. His gloved hand shook as he raised it to knock. What am I doing? He thought, lowering it. He thought of how the other Dregs would react if they found out he had gone soft and asked Inej out. He thought about how awkward and mortified he would feel if this didn’t go as planned. And then, he thought about Inej. He thought about her laugh and the way her mind worked when she encountered a problem, quick-on-her-feet. He thought about her compassion and the way she believed in something greater than the Barrel, than Ketterdam, than Kruge. He thought about how he felt around her, and then, guided by feeling more than logic, he knocked.
It took all of a millisecond of silence for Kaz to panic.
Nope, he thought, and he darted for the stairs, running as fast his leg and his cane could carry him, and he had almost made his escape when the door opened.
“Kaz?”
Kaz whipped around, terrified. Inej Ghafa stood in the doorframe, dressed in all black and staring at him with wide, brown eyes.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“No,” he croaked, before he could stop himself. Kaz cleared his throat. “Yes. Everything’s fine. Sorry to disturb you.”
“It’s okay,” Inej said quickly. They stared at each other in awkward silence for several, soul-crushing minutes, before Inej spoke again. “Did you want to talk?”
Kaz went to speak, but his mouth had suddenly gone dry, so he merely nodded. “Not here,” he said briskly. “Too many ears.” Kaz gave her a meaningful look. “Upstairs.”
She nodded, and, when she slipped back into her room, Kaz climbed up to the fourth floor. This is ridiculous, he told himself. You don’t actually have to ask her out. You can just… keep things as they are. She doesn’t need to know your feelings. You don’t even need to acknowledge them. Just push them back down with the traumas and the fears and everything else that makes you weak. A smaller part of him pushed against that though, telling him that the feelings and the traumas and the fears did not make him weak, but that they made him strong, and it was this part of him that brought him to the attic where he knew Inej would be waiting.
When he first entered his room, all was silent. Kaz looked around. Between the dust, the crates, and the papers strewn about, it wasn’t a particularly “romantic environment” as Jesper had put it. He inhaled sharply, blessed (or more likely cursed) with an incredibly reckless idea.
“Inej?” Kaz called. She was nowhere to be seen. He walked briskly to the window. It was large, but not unscalable, only about four or five feet, and logic told him the roof should be right above it. Inhaling sharply, Kaz opened it, and, stunned by his own stupidity, he took a step onto the sill with his good leg.
He was right, the roof was within reach of window, and it was flat like most of the roofs in Ketterdam. With a sudden burst of courage, Kaz flung himself onto it. He scrambled for a second, terrified, but managed to safely pull himself up.
The night air was cooler up here, a welcome relief from the humidity and stench of the rest of the barrel, and the breeze ruffled his hair as he looked out over the rooftops. He understood now why Inej spent so much time up here. Kaz Brekker was not one to find beauty in the mundane, but the view of Hell was certainly better from above.
Leaning over, he saw a window on the third floor open, and he watched as Inej crept soundlessly to the open window of his attic room. She paused when she saw it was open and glanced inside, bewildered. That was when Kaz whispered, “Inej.”
Inej looked up, startled, and squinted at the sight of him on the roof. She climbed up quickly, with far more grace than Kaz had displayed in his attempt, and when she landed beside him, she looked at him curiously. “Kaz, why are we on the roof?”
“The environment,” Kaz said vaguely.
Inej raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on, Kaz? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said. He glanced at her face, and their eyes locked. Kaz’s breath hitched in his throat. “I have something to ask you.”
“Yes?”
Kaz’s heart pounded. Now was the time. The time to put it all into action. All of the lessons that he had learned from Jesper, Wylan, and Matthias would now be put to use.
Be cool.
Kaz leaned back (against nothing in particular, which, he was sure, in any normal, non-flirting situations must’ve looked very strange) and crossed his arms.
Be smooth.
Kaz cleared his throat, preparing to speak in a voice an octave lower than he normally spoke.
First, you need a conversation starter. Jesper’s words rung in his head. “This can be any observation about the environment: the music, the food, the lights. Try to avoid the weather though, that’s cliche.
Of course, there was no music, there was no food, and there were no lights, so, beginning to feel flustered, Kaz said abruptly. “The weather.”
Inej stared at him, confused.
“The weather,” Kaz continued, clearing his throat. “Is cold.”
“It is…” Inej agreed, nodding slowly. “Kaz, what--?”
“But you are not cold, Inej Ghafa. You are warm.”
Inej raised an eyebrow. “I am warm?”
“Emotionally warm,” Kaz backtracked quickly, leaning forward. “You’re not physically warm. You may be, actually. I don’t know. I don’t touch people.”
“Right…”
The silence flooded between them, and Kaz’s mind raced. Does that count as a compliment? Should I keep giving compliments or do I move on to showing interest? He decided to opt for the second. He didn’t want to appear any more vulnerable than he already was.
“I like knives.”
Inej stared at him. Kaz glanced at her quickly, then, just as quickly, he looked away, his ears red.
“They’re… they’re good weapons.”
“I like knives too,” Inej said hesitantly.
Again, silence. Kaz nodded slowly. “Good,” he said, and he meant it. That had been a conversation. It had carried them. Time to move on. Talk about yourself was the next step, and Kaz swallowed, the anxiety growing.
“I also like…” he glanced at her, and she stared back at him, wonder in her eyes. Panicking, Kaz looked down at his hands. “Kruge.”
Inej sighed. “I know, Kaz.”
He cocked his head, not meeting her eyes. Why did this feel so forced ? Did flirting always feel this forced? How come Jesper was able to make it look so natural?
“I’m not picky though. I like any kind of money.”
“I know.”
Kaz nodded. That was enough information about him, surely. What came next? Teasing and jokes, he remembered, and then his panic rose. He had forgotten to ask Jesper how exactly this teasing was carried out. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do?
“Kaz--” Inej started, but at the same time, he blurted, in his normal voice,
“Knock-knock!”
Inej blinked. “Knock-knock?”
“Yes, knock-knock.” He still couldn’t meet her eyes. “You’re supposed to say who’s there,” Kaz explained. It was the only non-cynical, light-and-friendly joke style he knew, and he had learned it from Jesper many years ago.
“I know how a knock-knock joke works, Kaz,” Inej said pointedly.
“Then say who’s there.”
Inej sighed. “Who’s there?”
Kaz froze. He was always one to plan ahead. Always. But this time, he had not. “Pekka Rollins.” It was the first name that had come to Kaz’s mind, but he wasn’t sure where this joke was going.
Inej inhaled slowly. “Pekka Rollins who?”
“Pekka Rollins is dead.”
Inej’s eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. “Is he really?”
“No, sorry, that--” Kaz ran a hand through his hair, his ears a bright red. “That was a joke.” Inej looked positively bewildered. This was not going well. “I-- I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to tease, so I resorted to a joke, and I’m not even a refrigerated egg anymore.”
“You’re not… an egg?”
Kaz nodded. “I’m not cool or smooth.”
Inej blinked. “Why are you trying to be cool and smooth?”
“I’ll keep going. Hang on.”
“No, please, Kaz. I’m so confused right now--”
Next is the chemistry check, he thought. Light shoulder touch. Arm over neck. Hair behind ear. Kaz realized that the first of the three was the far less painful. Light shoulder touch, he told himself, focusing his attention from Inej’s face to her shoulder. Light shoulder touch. Light shoulder touch. His hand seemed to move in slow motion, shaking as he raised it to her shoulder, trying desperately not to panic. He started at her shoulder intensely, eyes boring into the black cloth that covered it. At least there was cloth on her shoulder, and cloth on his glove. At least it wouldn’t be skin touching skin.
At the thought of skin touching skin, Kaz balked. He drew his hand back quickly and grabbed it with his other hand, comforted by the distinct abioticness of the leather. This was not going well at all.
“Kaz, what’s going on?” Inej asked quietly.
Kaz chewed on his lip. There was still a chance. He hadn’t gone in for the kill yet. “On Friday, you’re tracking Dreesen, but what are you doing on Saturday between the hours of eight and eight-fifteen?”
“ Kaz .” Inej’s voice was forceful, and he met her eyes. Their eyes locked, and he felt a little bit of the rules, the pressure, and the panic from earlier leave his body. “What’s going on?”
He sighed. “Jesper… gave me some advice.” He turned away, bitterly. “I’m not sure it was very good.”
“Advice on what?”
Kaz looked up, not daring to look towards Inej, chewing on his lip, running the words over in his mouth before he said them. “He asked out Wylan so easily,” Kaz muttered, speaking out into the streets of Ketterdam, “and Nina asked out Matthias even easier. Which is stupid, because they hate each other, they don’t even like each other as much as—“ he stopped abruptly, swallowing. “Jesper always seems so cool, and smooth, and funny, and suave, and flirtatious, and—”
“Have you brought me up here to tell me you like Jesper?” Inej asked.
“No, I—” Kaz turned to her. There was a smile on her lips. He swallowed again. “I’ve come up here to tell you that I…” he inhaled, his breath shaky. He felt a little woozy. The skyline of Ketterdam around him was unfocused, a blur of stone and fog and gloom, but Inej’s face before him was crystal clear. “I like you .”
Inej blinked, taken aback, and instantly, he felt a surge of regret. She doesn’t feel the same way, he thought, running a hand through his hair and turning away. Of course she doesn’t, why would she? This was a mistake. I can never look her in the eye again. I have to leave the Dregs. I have to leave Ketterdam.
“I like you too.”
Kaz whipped back around, staring at Inej in shock. She was biting back a smile.
“I’ve liked you for a long time, Kaz Brekker.”
“That’s probably dangerous.”
“I don’t care.” She stared at him, her gaze intense, piercing into his. “I’m done hiding my feelings.”
Kaz inhaled, nodding. “As am I.”
The silence that passed between them was not as awkward as before, and then Kaz, throwing all caution, all anxiety, and all of Jesper’s advice to the wind, asked, “do you want to get tea on Saturday? Just you and me?”
“I’d love to.” Inej said, and Kaz saw her smile come through in its full light. And as much as every bone in his body was screaming for him to look away, to pull back, to clamp down, he didn’t.
And then, Kaz Brekker felt his facial muscles twist in a way they had not twisted for a long time. He smiled.
A few meters away, crouched behind the boiler of the Slat, Jesper grinned as well. “There you go, Brekker,” he muttered. “You awkward, awkward fuck.”