“i’m glad i’m bleeding all over your shirt”

Large stone archways yawned toward the high ceiling, curving upward as they met the dome roof and slanted downward at sharp angles. Thick marble columns rested on either side of the entryway, continuous sets echoing down the length of the bank in mirror imagery. 

Desks lined either side of the wall, more than half of them empty, all the way to the back, a large one at its center. Wealthy merchants were scattered about the floor, unbuttoning and rebuttoning their cuffs, busying themselves with other trivial things. He grit his teeth for a moment, forcing himself to forget his limp as he walked to the far desk. He rolled his shoulders back slightly, throwing on that same arrogance that every other merchant’s son had grown, festering like an infection from a wound.

The man behind the desk scribbled on a piece of pale parchment absentmindedly. 

“Excuse me,” Kaz drawled, drawing out his words as if he had all the time in the world to speak them. “I’d like to open an account for myself.”

The man behind the desk didn’t so much as raise his eyes.

Kaz’s eyebrows knit together in mock annoyance. “I have a lot of money, and I’d like to put it somewhere safe,” he said, standing up straighter. The man behind the desk glanced at him, then set down his pen.

He sat up in his chair, peering down over his desk into Kaz as if he were a merchant’s boy, destined to make his own fate on his father’s dime. Kaz pulled out a stack of Kruge , bound together with a thick band in the center. 

The man– Mikhial, his nametag read–smiled at him as if they shared a secret. “An account you say,” he let out a hearty laugh, “a growing thing like you needs one of those in this changing world. How else will you be able to keep your things safe if not in a bank,” he tutted.  

He picked up his pen again, scribbling something else and casting the sheet of parchment aside. “So,” Mikhial said, “Your name?”

“Radomir,” Kaz announced as he leaned forward, mimicking juvenile authority. “Alexei Radomir.” His mind flickered back to the eldest living Radomir heir, no more than twelve. An old name, but not so known that it would draw suspicion. 

Mikhial hummed, scratching his pen against another new sheet of parchment. “And how much would you like to deposit today, Alexei?” He inquired, looking at him through his brows, greed in his eyes. Kaz fought the quirk of his lip.

He made a show of digging through his pockets, layering the disheveledness any other merchant’s child might have shown at having to attend to matters for themself. He placed the stack of the pale, purple bills still in his hand on the edge of the tall desk and another from his pocket on top of it. 

Mikhail made a face. “That can’t be all you’ve got, now. You wouldn’t want to see your balance to be so low from the start, would you?” He leaned in close, voice dropping low. Kaz took a step forward, as if mystified. “‘Tell you a secret. You start out as big as you can, and keep funneling more in. Never sell for more than you can make. That’s how all the big players do it.” 

Kaz nodded, face drawn in concentration as if he’d just received gospel directly from the Saints. Truly, he thought, there was no more fitting a place for it to be than in the centre of a bank. 

He dug around in his pockets for a moment, and pulled out a few other large, crumpled bills, as if they’d simply been sitting in the bottom of his coat pockets for weeks, forgotten. 

Mikhail nodded in approval, a glimmer in his eyes. “Now you’ve got the right idea. Let’s get you squared away.” He scribbled down on a piece of paper and set the large stamp across it with a heavy thud before settling it back down on the inkpad and filing the whole thing away in a drawer at his side. He fumbled for an envelope and slipped the crumpled Kruge into it, so thick it was bulging and wouldn’t close. Kaz pretended he didn’t notice when a few of the bills fell into a place they did not belong, unretrieved. “Now,” he said, smacking his lips, “there will be some paperwork for you to fill out at the other end, near that line of desks,” he gestured to the opposing side of the bank. 

Kaz filed the paperwork, carefully signing Alexei’s name across the blank and handing over his identification. Really, Rotty did an impressive job at its duplication. 

As he stepped back out onto the streets of the Exchange, the sun slipped over the horizon of the Harbor, colours dancing across the sea. He turned the corner into an alley, raising a brow at the small goat that knocked over a crate and bleated in his direction.

Inej turned the corner and came up beside him, offering his cane. He took it, leaning heavily against it as he came to rest on a wall, taking the weight off his leg. Inej bent down, stroking the goat’s coarse fur. “If you feed it,” he said, “it will come back.”

She laughed at him. “Would that be so bad?” Kaz raised a brow as she stood again. “You came back, you know.” He wasn’t the one that left, she knew. Though he was the one that took her offerings like any properly starved man, like there was yet another kind of greed he had yet to learn to bend to his will. 

His gaze dropped to the way her hair fell across her shoulder. The small scar at the top of her lip. He changed the subject. “The accounts are kept individually in a series of files, but not well. They’re being skimmed off by the tellers.”

“So how do we get in?” She asked, slipping further down the alleyway.

“Getting in isn’t the problem,” he limped heavily behind her, and she waited for him to catch up before continuing. “It’s keeping our hands clean after we get out.”

She picked up a crate and turned it on its side for him to sit on. “Our dear friend Radomir has an account now that we have access to. Currently, there are a couple hundred Kruge in it, waiting patiently. The bank knows it’s a large sum, so it shouldn’t be hard to fudge the numbers of the ledger.”

“So we funnel the money into the Radomir account, change the ledger to make up the difference for the missing funds, and then. . . what? We can’t withdraw that without drawing suspicion.”

“No,” he said, taking a seat on the crate and sending her a thankful look. He rest his cane against a barrel just to the side of him. “Which is exactly why we need someone on the inside who can do the moving for us. Then, before anyone notices their accounts have been siphoned, we’ll break in and drain Radomir’s account, too.”

“Someone on the inside?”

“There were a number of empty desks. I’m willing to bet they’re hiring.”

“And who exactly do you propose we send in?”

Kaz leaned back against the brick wall. “Wylan’s a merchant’s son. And, as the Van Eck heir, I’m sure they’d love a known name attached to their business.”

Inej shook her head. The goat bleated again from behind them, trailing along. Kaz shot her a look. “He won’t agree to that,” she said, bending down to pet the goat again.

He frowned. “He will if we can also talk Jesper onto the job,” he reached for his cane and leaned over the top, putting all his weight on it as he stood. 

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“I think it’s time we visit the Van Eck manor,” he said, turning to face Inej. “Bring the goat.”

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