Work Text:
He was there when The Wraith touched the dock at berth twenty-two, hidden in the shadows of the crates lining Fifth Harbor. Far enough away that, were she anyone else, she might not have been able to pick out his outline in the blue-toned haze of a rapidly approaching night.
Far enough away that there was deniability, if needed. That he could convince someone he was simply making his way through the Lid and back to the Barrel. Far enough away that Inej could pretend she didn’t see him and head the other direction towards the Van Eck Mansion, and nobody would think to question why the Wraith Queen left the Bastard of the Barrel alone in the shadows.
Inej calls to her crew and grabs a line, hopping down to the dock and tying off the bow. She spares a glance over her shoulder towards the crates as the rest of her crew finishes securing lines and makes their way off the ship. He’s there—cane, hat, his dark tailored vest and jacket. Gloves. Unmoving, waiting; he decided that he wasn’t just passing through, then.
She lingers on the dock as her crew departs. They’ll be here for a few weeks, give or take. Enough time to careen and repair some damage to the hull, to replace some of the worn canvas and garner more supplies. Maybe more than enough time. She tells herself that there’s no particular reason she chose Ketterdam for their interim—her few Fabrikators and Tidemakers could have done their jobs anywhere, and she has connections in most ports south of Fjerda that could have helped them resupply—and the truth is that Ketterdam wasn’t nearly the closest port to where their last scuffle occurred. The truth is that the last letter she received was when they were docked near Weddle in Novyi Zem, and that in the time since then, they’d been down to Red Harbor and across the True Sea to Os Kervo. The truth is that she meant what she said all those months ago on this very dock—that she wasn’t done with Ketterdam, that she wasn’t ready to give up on it just yet.
She will not spend her life waiting for Kaz, for letters, for the life she wants for herself. But the truth is that she will always find her way back here, to this berth, to this harbor. The truth is that Suli may not have a home, but somewhere between then and now, somewhere between the high wire and the open sea, this place had become hers.
Her crew peters out and Inej sits, swinging her legs over the edge of the dock. She didn’t mean it as a test, or maybe she did. Maybe it was a series of questions, ones she didn’t want to speak out loud: Where are you? How many walls stand between us? Should I have pretended? Should you have turned around?
An answer comes in the form of light feet, an uneven gait, the sound of a cane’s gentle thump against the heavy wood of the dock.
Kaz casts a shadow over her, looking down at the water lapping against the pilings for a few seconds. But then he lowers himself to the dock, lets his legs swing down next to hers. He sets his cane off to the side, removes his hat and pins the edge to the dock with the weight of the silver crow handle. He leans back slightly, bracing himself with his hands, a little tense.
Inej looks down at the hand between them, quickly enough that he may not have seen her. But he does; he always sees her. He turns his head towards her and she lets her gaze drift back between them, then up to his eyes.
“Hello, Inej,” he says. It’s barely more than a whisper. It doesn’t need to be; they’re close enough that she can feel him, warm from even a few inches away.
“Hello, Kaz.”
Something in him eases up at the sound of her voice, some of the tension falling away from his shoulders. He angles himself towards her ever so slightly, shifts his weight to the hand between them.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she says. It’s not a lie. With the lack of letters in the past few weeks, she wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when she arrived in Ketterdam. Nothing good.
His eyes scan her now, her face, the braid that falls from its coil and down over her shoulder, then down to her forearm to catch on the gash there. Her Heartrenders take care of most of the damage her crew receives, but Inej doesn’t bother with the minor injuries. These scars are ones that she welcomes, ones that remind her of the fights that matter, each one another step closer to her goal.
He doesn’t answer her directly. “I hear you’re a force to be reckoned with.” His eyes are still on the gash. “I hear every slaver is on high alert, and yet The Wraith still manages to catch them by surprise. A phantom ship that appears out of nowhere, and a captain that’s just as wily.” There’s a smile playing at the edges of his lips.
She mirrors his position. “Good.” His eyes finally let go of the gash and trail back up to meet hers. “I want them to be afraid. I want them to know there’s nowhere they can hide.”
They settle back into silence. Not uncomfortable, not after the years they spent working together, but not strictly familiar, either. Questions linger in it, unspoken but present. And he’s still looking at her, but his eyes are unreadable. She’d been so close, once, to knowing what he was thinking just by looking. Now, with months of miles between them, she wasn’t so sure she could.
There was a time not too long ago where they’d stood at these same docks, promises made in the way his fingers intertwined with hers, in the way he had followed behind her, ungloved hand reaching out to greet her mother and father.
Where are you?
Kaz shifts his weight off of his hands, sits up a bit straighter and looks out over Fifth Harbor.
Where did you go?
Her eyes drop to his hands, folded up in his lap. He flexes them once, twice, and then a gloved finger fiddles with the edge on his wrist, slips just underneath.
“What about you?” he asks. “How are you?”
“It doesn’t hurt.” She assumes he’s asking about her arm. “I did a lot more damage to him.”
Another hint of a smile pulls on the corner of his mouth. “Good. But that’s not what I asked.”
She pulls her legs up, folds them underneath herself, and turns to face him. “I’m great,” she says. It’s the truth. “I feel like this is what I was meant to do.”
He nods, fingers still fiddling with his gloves, indecisive. “How long are you here for?”
Inej pulls out one of her knives, Sankta Alina’s familiar weight giving her hands a way to occupy themselves as she twirls the handle about.
“A few weeks, maybe.” Maybe less. Her next words are out before she can stop them, brought forth by the courage her blades give her. “I haven’t heard from you.”
Kaz inhales deeply, but even, like he was expecting her to say that. “I wasn’t sure you wanted to.” Her blade stills in her hand. “I hear new stories of The Wraith on each ship that makes its way to Ketterdam,” he says, pulling his good leg up and turning towards her. “You’re doing it, Inej. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
Dark eyes meet dark eyes. “How did you know I was coming?” Have you found a new spider?
“I didn’t. I saw your sails about an hour ago from the Silver Six.” He always sees her.
She’s silent for a moment. The Kaz she knows wouldn’t stop everything at the drop of a hat to come greet her. Not without a reason.
“What business?”
Kaz shakes his head. “No business.” She must not look convinced, because he takes a breath like he’s steeling himself, looks down at his hands, flexes his fingers. “I…” He closes his eyes, and Inej watches as he slips the buttons of his glove loose, one hand, then the other. He grabs the tips, one at a time, works the leather off of his fingers. And then the gloves are in his hands, and he’s setting them on top of his hat.
Inej can’t help herself; she tracks every moment of his hands, pale and bare, hesitant, trembling slightly. She knows he’s watching her watch him, but she doesn’t have it in herself to care. It’s an answer to one of her questions: he’s here. He’s trying. It’s the only answer she really needed.
“I missed you,” she says into the silence, low and quiet.
Bare fingers press into his palms, release. And then he’s reaching out across the space between them, grabbing Sankta Alina gently from where she was still clutching the bone handle. He sets it down beside his gloves.
Without armor, she had told him. If those leather gloves were his armor, then these knives were hers.
“I don’t know how to tell you that I missed you,” he says.
Inej smiles, laughs a little. “I think you just did.”
Kaz smiles back at her, a little crooked, a little unsteady, but real in a way she hasn’t quite seen before. “Maybe I did.”
She moves forward, closer, just slightly, and she hears his breath catch in his throat. But his eyes stay trained on her, and he exhales, inhales, exhales, and then his hand extends, knuckles brushing against hers.
She wonders if he can feel the way her blood thrums quicker when he curls his fingers around hers, if her racing heart betrays the stillness of her body, if the heat of her skin is burning him in the same way he’s burning her.
“Inej,” he whispers. It sounds like a prayer coming from his mouth, careful, reverent.
She moves closer still, slowly, intentionally, until her knee knocks against his. No walls, she thinks. Nothing between us.
“Inej,” he says again. He brings his free hand up cautiously, reaches out towards her. The tips of his fingers brush her cheekbone as he pushes a loose strand of hair out of her face, behind her ear. His thumb stills on her cheek, fingers at her jaw, palm still hovering. She feels him shake, but he doesn’t pull away. He’s still looking at her, dark eyes even darker in the shadows of night.
Tentatively, she lifts her head, moves her cheek towards his palm.
He meets her halfway.
Her eyes flutter shut, head tilted into his hand, lashes brushing his thumb. The fingers of his other hand tighten around hers, squeezing once, gently.
She doesn’t know how long they sit there, how long she lets herself lean into his hand, how long it is before she opens her eyes once more.
Inej brings her free hand up to the one on her cheek, fingers grazing the back of his hand. Another tremble, but he doesn’t try to pull away.
Something tugs at the corners of his mouth, a light in his eyes despite the darkness, and she smiles at him, bright and genuine, and she knows that her saints had guided her back here for a reason. She may have been able to resupply anywhere in the world, but only Ketterdam could have given her this.
Kaz squeezes her hand once more. “Welcome home, Inej.”