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The freedom of the Barrel still felt foreign and fragile to Inej, even a few months after being freed from the Menagerie. She mostly ran messages at the moment, but she was also becoming more proficient at locks and knives by the day. "We need you to be useful, or else it's both our necks on the block," Kaz had said while he taught her how to wield the knife, tone neutral, but it had still sounded like a threat. Her foot slipped as she ran, just barely but enough to snap her out of her reverie. Shescurried across the roofs, mindful now of the rain-slick tiles. This was the closest to the feeling of the high-wire that inej could find in this town.
Inej arrived at the Slat, and crawled into the little room where Kaz had left her unceremoniously after hashing out their contract on the day she was freed. She paused for a moment and listened to the low ambient noises, trying to decipher who was in the house at the moment. Jesper, the loud sharpshooter around her age, was still in for the evening and so were some of the older members. Most everyone else seemed to be out. She exited her room, and climbed up a set of steps to the attic.
Inej hadn't quite memorized the silent ways up and down, so she let the stairs announce her presence with their noise and pushed the door open.
"Inej you're back. I was waiting," Kaz said shortly, not even looking up from whatever he was writing. Inej was mildly annoyed, but not enough to actually get mad.
"I delivered your message. The contractor said he should be ready to start work on the new pier this week," said Inej. For all that Kaz vexed her, she could respect what he was trying to do with the harbor. Kaz looked up, dragging a gloved hand through his hair.
"He should have been ready last week. If he's late again I'm going to visit personally," Kaz murmured, glaring into the middle distance. She was turning to walk away, taking his silence as an implicit dismissal when he spoke up again.
"I didn't say you could go," he called, just as she began to step past the doorway. She turned back apprehensively, and saw him pulling a box from his desk. It was a box she had become familiar with since she first entered the Slat.
"Here," he said, plunking a heavy lock and a set of picks on the desk. She hesitated a moment, before approaching the desk under his unwavering gaze. She took the picks and worked at the locks, fully aware that Kaz could have had three of the same locks done in the time she'd taken up struggling. When it finally clicked open, Inej looked to Kaz, who still watched her with an assessing gaze. He nodded, gaze still neutral, and stood, walking past her with his hat and cane in hand suddenly, as if conjured.
"Come with me, I'm going to show you something," he said, and walked to the staircase. Inej followed, and stayed a step behind him as he descended the stairs, gait slightly uneven. He led her out onto the street and set off at a brisk pace. They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Inej could see that she was being led out of the Barrel and into the more affluent areas of Ketterdam.
"How have you been doing with the Dregs? Any issues? Enemies?" Kaz asked, and the seemingly friendly question put Inej on edge.
"I've had to put a rude gambler in his place once or twice if that's what you're asking about," she said. She had punched a few men, been in a brawl or two, and even slashed up someone particularly persistent.
"Making use of that knife then? Any kills?" The way he asked sent chills down her spine, and when she glanced at him, his eyes held the same impassive, assessing look as they had when she'd demonstrated with the lock.
"...I haven't killed anyone, no," she answered, after a moment of hesitation. Kaz didn't respond to that, instead turning abruptly down a narrow side road. Inej hadn't noticed, but it spat them out right on Geldstraat, which was deserted of foot traffic with all the merchers at the exchange or at their offices.
"Kaz..?"
"Keep walking, and try and get a look at the house third from the next corner on the left," Kaz said as he walked purposefully, dark clothing making him look just like any young aspiring merch running an errand. Inej did look, glancing up at the airy building, with its many windows reflecting the golden light of early evening and the glass sunroom just barely visible around the back.
They kept walking past Geldstraat and turned back towards the Barrel, pace not changing until Kaz waved Inej into a nondescript restaurant. He slipped a coin to a server and mumbled something too low to hear, and then the two of them were escorted to a private room in the back.
"This is the influence of a the name 'Dirtyhands', I suppose," commented Inej.
"No, it's the influence of pay equal to an entire shift if the servers keep quiet," said Kaz, before the same waiter entered the room. Kaz ordered a pot of coffee, and signaled for Inej to order whatever she wanted. They waited for what they ordered to come in silence, Kaz tapping his gloved finger steadily but silently at the head of his cane. When the waiter came back with what they ordered, Inej broke the silence.
"Kaz what are we doing here?"
"It's time for you to start to earn your keep. The old man has been leaning on me to get you doing jobs, so I'm taking you with me on one tomorrow night," he said calmly, taking a sip of unsweetened coffee. Inej held back from making a face at his taste in beverages.
"... the house you told me to look at?" Inej asked, already knowing the answer. Kaz nodded and sat back in his chair, straightening his bad leg in front of him.
"I have an in, but the point of entry is the third floor. I'll be able to do this much more quickly with your talents at hand, and if I give you something to do then the old man will get off my back about how much buying out your contract cost."
"What... what will I be doing? Why this mark?" Inej asked, hesitant but careful not to show it. She'd seen Kaz manipulate weakness in others, and the last thing she needed was to show him more of hers.
"The Merch has been bankrolling the Razorgulls. They recently bought up a bunch of properties and they've been encroaching on us," Inej nodded, Kaz had asked her to observe their activities and follow members once or twice, "I'm going to empty out his safe. He's got another investment promised to the Razorgulls Friday, and if he can't pay up then the partnership will fall apart."
Kaz explained it all in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he broke into high security safes regularly. Actually he probably did. He did buy up difficult locks and then teach himself to open them, after all.
"I've watched his house though, and seen the blueprints, he's got tons of guards," said Inej. Kaz gave her one of his grins that was just the barest flash of teeth, mirthless and sharp.
"Let me worry about that. All you'll have to do is get me on to the third floor and watch my back."
Inej nodded slowly. Kaz's overwhelming confidence, better called arrogance depending on the day, definitely rubbed her the wrong way more often than not. But the unflappable demeanor was inexplicably comforting when she was confronted with having to do this. Up until now she'd been mostly removed from the violence and immorality of the Barrel. Sure she'd been in a fight or two, and gathered information and blackmail material, but this was her first actual job. A chance to show her 'worth' whatever that meant to a bunch of thieves and murderers. She would do it, of course she would. Proving her worth was one step more towards being able to leave this miserable city and all it's memories behind.
They spent the rest of the evening going over plans over and over until Inej thought she might be able to recite them in her sleep, and more importantly, so did Kaz. At half-past eleven bells the next night, she and Kaz set out from the Slat, keeping to the shadows. As they approached Geldstraat, Inej melted out of sight, climbing to the steep roofs and creeping across on her belly. Kaz continued along, keeping to the shadows but not hiding. Any Stadwatch out would think him a servant or guard for one of the rich marchers, on his way too or from shift. His nondescript clothes and lack of distinctive cane helped him to blend in. She watched from a nearby rooftop as he glanced around quickly and then hopped over the fence into the expansive yard of the merchant house. That served as her signal to scramble silently down the side of the neighboring house and join him on the ground, hunkered besides a shed adjacent to the house.
As she approached, Kaz locked eyes with her for just a moment, before going about what he had been doing. A long coil of rope sat on the ground, and Kaz was busy shucking his coat to trade it for the liveried jacked of the personal staff of the household.
"You know the job Wraith. Get to the third story window." He said lowly, some of the first words he'd spoken to her that night. She nodded tensely, and surveyed the wall. There was a trellis adorned by some sort of climbing flower that could help ease her way, but it only extended to the second floor. That was fine, she could make do. She murmured a soft prayer under her breath, invoking her saints, and Kaz raised a faintly bemused eyebrow.
"You might want to renounce your saints now, Wraith. I doubt they'll bless many of your actions from now on."
She shot him a sour look, murmuring, "know-nothing's should not speak like they understand the will of fate." Kaz raised his hands in mock surrender, and waved her forward.
Inej latched on to the side and shimmied her way up the wall, using the trellis only when she absolutely needed to. She paused only for a moment when she reached the end of it, before climbing her way the rest of the way up the wall, and prying the thankfully unlocked window open. She tossed a rope down and waited. When she saw Kaz climbing up to the ledge, Inej offered a hand, but Kaz ignored it, hoisting himself into the room and straightening his jacket.
Inej looked around the room, which seemed to be some sort of small kitchen. She turned to Kaz curiously as he took a look at the clock in the corner.
"Where are we?"
"Servants room, it has a dumb waiter connected to the ground floor kitchen and some basic amenities so servants can bring food to the bedrooms or offices faster. Keep as silent as possible, and get out of sight, shift change is in three minutes." He whispered, words almost inaudible between the rough timbre of his voice and the soft volume.
"What about you?" She asked, as he seemed to have no intention f hiding. Kaz didn't respond, just waved her out. She obliged, climbing back out the window and making herself as small as possible to avoid being spotted by the Stadwatch patrols on Geldstraat.
She listened as closely as she could to what happened inside the house, and heard the door open. Footsteps then casual conversation. And then-
"Who're you then?" Her breath caught at the surprised tone, until she heard Kaz speak up as casual as could be.
"Ah- I'm Stewart, I was hired to replace the man who fell off of a roof?" Kaz sounded exactly like a nervous kid on his first day at a job. It was shocking, the way he pitched his tone up and completely changed his inflection. Inej guessed if she could see him his body language would also be completely foreign. She was almost tempted to peek.
"Oh yeah, poor old Grimes. Well good luck kid, the boss is in a mood tonight, but you're on time. It looks like the other two night staff aren't here yet." The sound of the bell ringing interrupted the conversation, then the unfamiliar man laughed.
"That's your cue, go on kid. Evening teatime." A little more shuffling, and then Kaz stuck his hand out the window to wave Inej back inside. When she climbed in, he was putting a kettle on the stove. She saw him prepare a little metal container, and spoon in some tea leaves, and add a tiny sachet of white powder.
"Drugs?"
"Just enough to keep him sleeping deeply. He won't notice a thing until he wakes up and his coffers are empty."
Inej nodded slowly, and watched as Kaz gathered the tea supplies and headed for the bedroom. She followed on light feet, and waited by the heavy door when Kaz entered, tucked into a corner between some ornamental shelves. Kaz had made her memorize the guard schedule, so she knew no one would be down this way for another half hour, but she hid away just in case. After a couple of moments, Kaz exited the bedroom, and waved for her to follow him, walking brusquely in the opposite direction of the small servant kitchen.
In theory, no one should have been walking by as they hurried down the hall, but it seemed that the guard's bladders hadn't memorized the plan as well as Inej had, because one came strolling down the hall, just as they reached the door to the office where the safe was located.
"Hey!! Who are you? Oi, you- um. Who's this girl?" He was gesturing with a hand pistol, but not threatening yet. A petit girl and someone who appeared as if he was supposed to be there weren't cause for complete alarm yet.
"You're not supposed to be anywhere near thee safe room..." the guard said uncertainly. Kaz approached him slowly, hands raised, though Inej wasn't fooled by his show.
"I can explain, let's just calm down now," his words were soothing and soft but Inej had seen the dark glint in Kaz's coffee eyes before he'd turned away from her.
"She's just a little lost, I didn't want to leave her outside," Kaz reached his hands out in what looked like a placating gesture, and when the guard lowered his gun and relaxed a little, Kaz knocked it out of his hand with a swift movement, claiming it and slamming him against the wall, barrel against his forehead. The guard went without much of a fight, stunned. He'd been taken in by Kaz's smooth acting, and Inej was unsettled by how swiftly he swapped personas.
"Please- no-," the guard got off one sharp cry before the bullet pierced him and he fell to the ground. Inej turned away and gasped, feeling sick to her stomach. She was vaguely aware of Kaz standing like a dark pillar in her periphery, but Inej refused to glance back. The body held a sort of magnetism somehow, and her eyes were drawn back to it slowly but surely. All of a sudden it was too much. She couldn't be here she couldn't be part of something as brutal as this. Her chest felt tight and she was unable to look away from the sprawled body, eyes glassy, blood spreading slowly in a pool.
She was snapped out of her reverie by Kaz, jostling her out of the way of the door while he Bent to pick it. Another guard ran into the hallway, drawn by the sound of the discharging gun, and Kaz muttered a curse before shoving the picks into her hands, and moving to intercept the guard.
"Get the door Wraith!" He ordered sharply, and she moved to obey numbly.
As she attempted to pick it she was vaguely aware of the scuffling behind her, the need for speed. In her peripheral vision, she saw multiple people moving as if dancing, and heard a grunt, and another discharge of a gun combined with a cry of pain. She worked at the lock but her hands were clumsy and time seemed to be going too slow and yet far too quickly. A cracking noise, probably a bone. A couple more cries of pain and noises of impact, and then silence.
Kaz crouched next to her, cradling a hand, hair disheveled and with a bruise across his cheekbone.
"Come on, I need you to do this," he murmured, voice soft, but enough to ground her slightly.
"I broke my hand," he said, tugging off his glove to show her one of the fine bones that spanned the back of his hand sticking out at an odd angle, and the ugly purple bruising already spreading. She thought that might be important, his hand. He never showed anyone his hands, and she had half subscribed to the rumor of him having claws. And yet all she saw was pale, clean skin, crisscrossed by silver scars. She almost wanted to reach out and touch it, but he tugged the glove back on rapidly, and started talking again.
"You have to. I don't have enough fine coordination right now."
"I...can't," her tongue felt as numb and heavy as the rest of her. She looked at the lock, frustrated and scared, and knew somewhere in her mind that they needed to hurry, but unable to.
"Come on, feel it out. I taught you this I know you can." He was talking in a low voice, instructions familiar to her. He kept talking as she worked, surprisingly patient for someone with such a dark reputation. For someone who she'd just seen kill at least three guards. He'd always been like that, a surprisingly patient teacher to her, a surprisingly humorous friend to Jesper, a surprisingly terrifying negotiator and blackmailer to his enemies. She worked, and let his voice fade to the background as her heart rate slowed and breathing evened.
"Got it," she said at length, feeling satisfied at the click of the lock.
"Excellent" Kaz said, standing. As he walked, through the door, and towards the safe, hidden behind a painting in the office, she noticed the fabric, torn from what looked like a guards jacket, wrapped around his hand. He must have done that as she opened the door.
Kaz pulled the painting back and set his hands on the safe, almost lovingly. As he worked, he didn't flinch, even though his hand must have been in constant pain, but he didn't hesitate and his hands didn't shiver or come to any sort of fault. It was silent in the room, and Inej found herself on edge. The current shift of Guards lay dead outside the door, but shift change was coming soon enough for her to be nervous.
The vault doors opened with a clang, turning her attention from the still ajar office door and to where Kaz stood in front of the safe.
"Pass me a bag," Kaz said, walking in. Inej saw his face in the dark, and read the greed and terrible hunger on his face, and she understood again why people called him a demon. She handed it to him wordlessly, and assisted him in gathering up as much of the riches as they could carry. Kaz stopped besides a chest full of papers, and leafed through it, before pulling one out and setting the rest on fire. The deeds no doubt had duplicates in lawyers offices and bank vaults, but this would be an inconvenience and a setback. The fire wouldn't spread on the concrete floor of the vault. He set the paper on a table in the center of the room, and then turned to leave the now bare chamber. He wasn't looking at her, hadn't, since he'd talked her through picking the lock.
As Kaz closed the office door, footsteps again echoed in the hallway, and Inej looked at him in horror. Kaz glanced in the direction that it was coming from, and took off in the other direction towards the room through which they had entered. As they turned the corner, Inej heard a shout. Whoever it was had found the bodies, and judging from the footsteps now running behind them, they were following.
"I thought we got all the guards??" She asked frantically, slamming the door to the small kitchen room.
"We did, this is the new shift," Kaz responded curtly, throwing the rope out the window and then tossing the loot out after it. He leapt out, and used the rope only as much as he needed to, descending the wall recklessly and landing hard on the ground. Inej saw his leg buckle when he hit, and landed much more softly herself.
"Get the bag, they'll have called- shit. The Stadwatch." Inej saw what he meant, the uniformed watchmen approaching he front door, and the frantic guards. They hadn't seen Kaz and Inej yet, lurking hidden in the dark and the shadow of the house as they were, but it wouldn't take them long if they decided to search the premises.
"We need to get to the Barrel. Come on," Kaz set off, low to the ground through the excessively flowered garden, over the fence and into the next garden, then the next. They reached the end of Geldstraat and the houses grew closer to the edge of the canals, until they were creeping along a narrow verge between the back walls of the buildings and the water. When it seemed safe, the two of them crept down an alleyway and back into the empty streets. They were still in the wealthy area of town, but not in the grossly moneyed sector anymore.
Kaz walked like he wasn't being hunted, as if he belonged there on the streets of the wealthy, or as if the streets belonged to him. Inej sensed the danger first, saw the instant that the Stadwatch member on the roof took a double take at them.
"You two! Down there! Halt,"
"What is it? It's quite late I'd like to get to my home," Kaz said, turning easily.
"What's in those bags? There's been a robbery and you two match the description."
"I was recently laid off. I'm removing my things from my place of employment. Tell me, is the Stadwatch hiring?" He was stalling, Inej noticed. She also noticed the almost invisible shift in his posture to favor his right leg, his bad leg, as well as the protective cradling of the broken hand against his side. Inej cursed Kaz Brekker, and then the whole city of Kerch for what she was about to do. Under her breath, she murmured a Ravkan prayer for forgiveness, and which drew the attention of the two men.
"What was that?" The guard took a step closer, and then another.
"Oh nothing, just a-" halfway through the sentence, she thrust her knife, yet unused except for a small scuffle, up under his rib cage. Kaz had taught her that trick, to strike while they listened to her talk. It struck her as dirty and dishonest, but Kaz was both of those things. Hot blood leaked down the blade, onto her hand and she jerked back, repulsed. The guard fell, eyes still open. She felt like they were still focused on her even as they stared glassy into the clouded sky. Kaz was silent as well for a moment.
"Nicely done, Wraith," He murmured. She hated that name, the name that this city gave her. That this boy gave her. She also hated Kaz. She was grateful, yes, because now she was dangerous, but she also hated him for it. For turning her into the wraith.
Kaz stepped forward, and retrieved the knife, wiping it clean on the guards clothes before offering it back to her. Inej took it after a long moment of hesitation, and tucked it away at her hip again. Kaz nodded, and started walking again, purposefully. He led her through the winding streets, and she couldn't much care where they were going, head still in a maelstrom of disgust and horror. He steered them into the back door of a near-empty bar, the entrance they took not visible to the main floor and barely visible to the kitchen, and climbed a set of stairs.
"We can leave the stuff here for the night, and retrieve it tomorrow. We'll take the rooftops from here, we're close enough to the Barrel that there's no patrols." She nodded blankly, and followed when Kaz climbed out of the window.
Inej tried to let the height comfort her, the familiar challenge of balance, the wind around her, but she couldn't stop feeling the blood on her hands. They reached the Slat, and as she clambered into her small room, she felt Kaz watching her movements. When she shut the window, and then the curtains, he was still standing there, but when she next checked, he was gone.
That night, as she cried to herself well into the morning, sobbing as softly as she could in the crowded house, she heard a familiar crooked gait approach her door. Absently, she noted that the timing was more off than usual, and thought that climbing down from the house must have been very painful. But what caught her attention was the sudden silence. Kaz had stopped outside her door. Was there right now. If she opened her door to him what would he say? She was tempted to cross the room and find out. She hesitated, trying to calm her shuddering breaths, and ultimately the decision was made for her, when she heard the footsteps begin again, off down the hallway to saints knows where at some dim hour of the morning.