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Kaz stretched his bad leg beneath his desk, grimacing in the privacy of the empty office. It’d been bothering him more and more lately. Winter was coming and with it, a certain ache in his bones he couldn’t shake until the weather warmed again. It was a complicated ache, one that came at his bones from every possible angle, including ones he hadn’t thought of, ones he hadn’t even known of until recently. He was still in charge, though, and he didn’t expect that the leg, the winter, and the cold would change any of that. And it isn’t as if Ketterdam would quiet down just because the sea was rougher, because squalls brought snow as well as ice. His work was never done, and he liked it that way.
If he slowed down, he’d think too much about things he didn’t have time to think about. Things that didn’t want his thoughts, things he didn’t deserve to dwell on. He kept them tucked away in a corner of his chest, not in his heart but behind it, where those thoughts and memories could watch his back but be protected by the beating muscle in front of it.
He was getting soft.
When he inhaled again, the room smelled like fresh, crisp air, a hint of smoke and a bit of pine. He looked up at the slim, dark figure closing the window soundlessly. He supposed, in some ways, he shouldn’t be surprised that now, when Ketterdam was at its darkest and coldest, that the only person who brought a little light to the dark would appear in his window. And he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that she still came into the Slat this way, through a window by way of the roof, a window locked from the outside because before she sailed, she’d said it was a risk . To him, or to her, he hadn’t known at the time. But she’d picked the lock without him hearing her. She’d practiced those skills then.
She walked across the room, silent and deadly, and slipped into the chair across from his desk. She tucked her legs beneath her and pulled her hood down, tugging her braid free of her coat. In the dim candlelight, he could see that once, when he’d called her lovely and brave, he’d used words incapable of encompassing all of her in front of him. She wasn’t his Suli girl anymore, and he’d have to cut out the tongue of anyone who called her that. She was still vibrant and strong, thin and wiry, made of long, languid lines, the way birds flew in formation over the city. She was darker now, perhaps from so much time in the sun, so the new scar on her cheek stood out that much more.
He narrowed his eyes at it.
Inej’s smile was small and knowing. “He’s dead now.”
Kaz couldn’t help the way his voice growled. “Is that true?”
Inej tipped her head slightly to the side. “Have I lied to you, Kaz Brekker?”
He had to shake his head. Because though he’d lied to her, treated her cruelly and impossibly, manipulated her and set her up again and again to watch him fail, to bail him out, to be bait and to be baited, she’d never turned the tables on him. She always deserved better than him.
He met her gaze, her dark and curious and beautiful gaze, and refused to let himself look away, even as heat crawled across his skin. “What business, Inej?”
She almost flinched, and he wondered if it was that he used her name instead of her old title here. But she was not his Wraith. Maybe a Wraith for some other world, but not his. And she was not his spider. She hadn’t been just his Wraith and his spider in a long time. She was Inej, now, and he didn’t know how to explain to her that this was something more. That using her name was a moment when he wore no armour.
He peeled off his gloves as she told him about the sea, about the slave ships, about shutting down the ports from which they sailed so they never reached Ketterdam, about the people she’d saved, about her parents making it home, about the siblings she didn’t know she had, about her crew and minor disagreements amongst them. She talked as if she hadn’t talked to anyone in weeks, months, and it’d been so long since he heard her voice in anything but his dreams that he couldn’t bear to interrupt and ask questions though he felt them rising in his chest.
Who touched you?
Who cut your face?
Are you well?
Are you staying?
Is this home?
Her fingers slid across the desk, resting on his papers, just a fraction away from his hands. She stopped, waiting, and he turned his palm to the ceiling. She slid her hand onto his palm. Neither of them closed their fingers or gripped onto each other. Kaz’s skin crawled, but the water stayed at his ankles, and his mind stayed clear. Her hand was small and dry and warm despite that she’d just come in from the outside.
“And the one who did that to you?” He asked, lifting his eyes from her hands--their hands--so he could see her face again.
She lifted her free hand to her cheek. “My mistake.”
His jaw twitched. “And you’re sure he’s dead.”
Inej laughed a little bit. “Yes, Kaz. He’s in little pieces, feeding some fish somewhere over the sea. He was a trader. I wanted him to make him suffer so I drew it out a little long. I didn’t notice that he’d broken the chair in his cell and used it as a weapon. He got the jump on me, but that was all he did. I promise you. I was wondering if I needed to let it heal more before I saw you. But then I decided I couldn’t wait.”
The corner of his mouth trembled, begging for him to let go enough for a smile. He swallowed. “When did you get in?”
“No one told you?” She tsk-tsked.
He shook his head. “There were so many stories of you.”
He glanced at a small wooden box next to his desk, stacked with notes and stories and rumors. Likely in there, perhaps the folded note on the top, was the note informing him that The Wraith had docked this morning. This afternoon. The last time he’d seen someone here in his office.
“You didn’t care to read them,” she stated.
He jerked, pulling back his hand from beneath hers. “I didn’t care to read stories of you.” I wanted you. I had you, once. But he couldn’t make the words come. He managed to say, “Stories of people aren’t the same as people really are. I prefer you to the stories of you.”
Inej tilted her head. “I’ve heard stories of you too.”
He smiled then, grimly. “I’m sure.”
“They aren’t as terrible as you imagine,” she said.
“No,” he said, laughing. “That’s much worse. I always want stories of me to be terrible. That way, people know what to expect.”
Inej stood, suddenly, and he rose too, wincing at the cold lash of pain up his leg and into his lower back. She frowned at him and he schooled his features into something blank and aloof. She was leaving already. This was what he did. He was so incapable of saying everything tied up inside of him, and he could only be the person he’d fashioned himself to be. He didn’t know how to be anyone but Dirtyhands anymore.
“That’s not true,” she said and for a moment, he thought he’d spoken aloud. But then she continued, her voice low and tense, “You want the stories about you to be worse than you are, but that’s only because then your reputation precedes you and you don’t need to be as cruel and wicked as you did once. You want the stories to be terrible so you don’t have to be, Kaz.”
He inhaled deeply, wanting to reach out to her. But the desk between them was an ocean. “That is what I said.”
She opened her mouth to argue with him and then, apparently, remembered his exact wording, and she scowled at him. “Why can’t you say what you mean?”
This time, he knew he was sharing too much in his quiet, tired smile. “Wouldn’t that make this much easier?”
Inej stepped around the desk. “I’m not looking for easy, Kaz.”
She was close enough now that he could see her wind-chapped lips. He wanted to touch them. With his fingers. With his lips. She looked up at him, questions and hope in her face and he knew that she wouldn’t take another step toward him. Not without an invitation. Not without him meeting her halfway. He tried to imagine what would happen if he didn’t. She’d leave, through the window, disappointed but not surprised, and her boat would be gone by morning. He’d see her in a year, maybe, and she’d ask him to call her Wraith again.
He reached out, forcing his hand steady, and entwined his fingers with hers. He exhaled, letting his arm drop and pulling her slightly closer to him. She stepped right against him, her mouth against the throat of his coat and his mouth against her hair. She smelled of snow and the sea and he wanted to bottle the scene so when she’d left, there’d be something here, lingering in her shadow.
He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek into the side of her head. How long are you staying? Is this home? Why are you here? Please don’t leave yet. Things he couldn’t say. He didn’t know how those words tasted on his tongue. But he’d practicing one line, every morning when he woke from dreams of her. “I missed you.”
Her hands pressed against the flat of his stomach. “I wish you could see the sea.”
He smiled. “Tell me.”
So she told him of the horizons and the storms, of the waves that crashed all the way over the deck, of the white caps and of the birds. And while she told him of her new world, he ran tentative fingers up her sides, to the curve of her neck and her warm skin, the back of her neck and down to the slope of her hip again.
She said, “The sea feels endless. I thought I’d love it but sometimes, it overwhelms me.”
He hesitated and then tilted his mouth down, brushing his lip against the soft skin behind her ear. “Why?”
Her voice shook a little. “What if what I’m looking for isn’t out there?”
He heard what she wasn’t saying. His fingers trembled against her cheek as he turned his face and brushed his mouth over the edge of her jaw. “Then you can come back here while you decide where you’re going next.”
Here.
Home.
Me.
She softened, pressing against him. “I don’t know yet.”
He nodded, bringing his free hand, the other still holding hers, back to the safety of her clothed hip. He kissed the side of her head, breathing in her snow and sea scent. “You don’t have to know now.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She yawned and then jerked, trying to stifle it. “I’m sorry. I--I haven’t slept well the last few nights.”
He’d have to go kill the fish that ate that man if the mark on her cheek had anything to do with her lack of sleep. Rest. Think. Talk to me. Please don’t stop talking to me. He stepped back from her a bit so he could see her face but didn’t drop her hand. “Have you seen Jesper and Wylan?”
She hesitated and her eyes darted away from his. “Yes. I went there first.”
Kaz didn’t take it personally. He just had to choose his next words carefully. “If you’re staying out there, I’ll walk you back.”
She tilted her head, eyeing him the same as one of his crows. “I can’t tell if I should be offended you think I can’t get myself to Wylan’s house safely, or amused that you’re fishing for where I’m staying.”
Kaz looked over her head to the window and shrugged. “I won’t be your jailer, Inej.”
“You can ask me to stay without being a jailer, Kaz,” murmured Inej.
He met her eyes. “You can stay here.”
She smiled. “Good. Because there’s a drunk revelry on my ship tonight and I’m far too tired to walk back to Wylan’s house. I’ve gone soft, you know.” She dropped his hand and walked across the office to the corner where there was a golden armchair and a little bed piled with blankets. And now that he watched her, frowning, he could see the way exhaustion colored the edges of her shoulders, slipping them down into shadows. She started for the armchair in the corner and he made a noise of disapproval. She stopped, hesitated, and without looking at him, sat on the edge of the bed.
“I have work to do still,” he said, by way of an apology. “I’ll take the chair.”
She looked up at him, curiously, as she began to unfurl her braid. “You’ve changed, Kaz.”
“I hope so,” he said honestly. “How could I not?”
She nodded a little bit and then rolled over, sliding her feet and only her feet beneath the blankets. He watched her body inhale and exhale deeply. Then, suddenly, he said, “Inej.”
She rolled her head a little bit toward the light and him. “Yes?”
“Be here in the morning?” He asked, his voice hoarse.
She hesitated for just a moment and then said, “Yes.”
He waited until she fell asleep before he blew out the candle and limped back across the room. He pulled the blankets up and over her thin form, careful not to touch her. And then he collapsed into the armchair, resting his head on the winged sides. He watched her until he was sure she was safe, and here, and not leaving, until he fell asleep and this time, he dreamt they went dancing.