#gvbbrmbfic22

Ketterdam is grey, when the Wraith docks in berth twenty-two of Fifth Harbour. Captain Inej Ghafa stands on deck, her hands on her hips, and looks out at the city that has broken her, rebuilt her, shaped her.

On second thought, maybe it’s not quite grey. It’s more black and white, city and snow mixed together and piled on top of each other until the first impression is that it’s all one grey mass. A closer look shows dark rooftops peeking out from underneath the snow, dark streets paled by drifts piling up to either side. The still-falling snow creates a mist that makes the city seem gentler, softer. 

Inej’s feelings for Ketterdam are complicated. Despicable things are done here, just as they are done everywhere else she has been — Ravka’s oppression of the Suli and general imperialist bent; Fjerda’s demonization and genocide of Grisha; Ketterdam’s refusal to value anything more than money. 

And yet, as everywhere, it’s a mix. Ravka has a half-Suli queen. Whatever Nina’s doing in Fjerda, it’s slowly chipping away at the Fjerdan hatred of Grisha. And Ketterdam — well, Inej is doing her fair share to clear Ketterdam of the least savoury aspects of its business, and between Wylan’s influence with the Merchant Council and Kaz’s willingness to help her take down any other barrel boss engaging in the slave trade, the city’s got a chance at not being quite so atrocious as it has been. 

But atrocious or not, grey or black-and-white — Inej has missed this place, missed the rooftops she’s ran across countless times, missed this dirty, complicated, greedy city where she has learned who she is, who she wants to be. 

She has missed the people, too: Jesper, his grin and his guns and his ridiculous waistcoats; Wylan, clever and red-haired and far less innocent than he looks. 

And she has missed a boy with dark hair and sharp edges, with a painful past that’s left him with gloved hands and armour, with a clever mind and a rare smile. 

Inej could spend the next few hours arranging for a food and water resupply for the Wraith. If not, she could head out into Ketterdam and catch up on anything she’s missed — there’ve been some rumours of a buyer in the warehouse district that she could investigate. She could even stay on her ship and spend time with her crew. 

But she doesn’t need to do any of that, and Specht is a perfectly competent first mate who can safely be left in charge of a ship — arguably more competent than her, although she’s learnt a fair bit about handling a ship since first stepping foot on the Wraith. 

She climbs easily down the Wraith’s side — her skills as a spider might not apply to sailing a ship, but they at least work in her favour to allow her to get off and on — and disappears into the maze of the city. 

~

The first time that Kaz saw a snowfall in Ketterdam, it seemed like a magic trick — like the street performers who hid coins in their palms and up their sleeves, reality concealed behind obfuscation. Some of the city’s dirt vanished beneath the white, nature flicking a wrist to hide what she did not want people to see. Drawing attention to the glittering piles of white so that nobody saw the beggar in the corner, the starving child, the scars on the girls in the pleasure houses. A veil thrown over the world to soften its edges. Sleight of hand to replace poverty with beauty. 

But Kaz knew that all the dirt was still there underfoot. The magician’s trick was not quite good enough, or perhaps Kaz was too good for it, too good at seeing through the magic to the mechanism behind it. That first year, the snow brought cold, and cold meant death. The veneer of white concealed a fate to which Kaz refused to succumb. 

He begged and lied and cheated and stole, that first year. He survived that first year. He survived every year, clinging to life, to revenge, to reality, refusing to drift down into the cold white comfort promised by the cold white snow. 

Today’s snow is deeper than expected, and Kaz wonders how many children are wandering the streets as he once did. How many are dying. Dirtyhands wouldn’t care; Inej would. Kaz does not know what he thinks. 

A girl, perhaps twelve at most, decides that the doorway of the Slat would be a good place to beg from. Kaz tells himself that she is good at faking an injured leg to get more sympathy. He tells himself that she seems clever and resourceful. He tells himself that she could be a useful member of the Dregs, one day. When she subtly inserts herself into the Slat itself and settles herself in a corner, he pretends not to notice, and his Dregs follow his lead. He doesn’t know if Inej is rubbing off on him, or if instinct tells him she’ll be useful, or if there is another reason altogether for his actions — but he lets her stay.

She’s still there in the corner when he heads upstairs to his office. The snow has, of course, another effect — his leg aches more than usual, and it’s a relief when he reaches the top of the flight of stairs. Once seated at his desk, he stretches it out under the table, allowing him a moment to massage away the ache; he knows from experience that a long walk without too many stairs would probably be good for it, but he needs to deal with the paperwork that’s accumulated for him to sign. The Dregs have prospered since the Dime Lions’ fall, but the downside is that he has several more properties to worry about. 

He glances out at the cityscape once or twice — his office shows him a panorama of snow-capped rooftops, the familiar view transformed but still fundamentally the same. 

But he’s focusing intently on the accounts for the new gambling den he’s recently opened up when he becomes aware of her presence. 

Kaz looks up, and there she is, perched on the window ledge only feet away from him. Her old spot, and for a moment he wonders if he’s dreamed her up, but there is a sparkle in her eyes that Kaz does not think his subconscious brain could invent. 

Her hair is windblown, a few white flakes scattered amidst the black. She wears a grey tunic with a dark red scarf and gloves; she wears confidence about her shoulders like a cloak. Her cheeks are glowing, and she grins at him when he meets her eyes. 

Kaz smiles. “Welcome to Ketterdam, Captain Ghafa.”

~

Captain Ghafa. Inej has gone by many names, some she hated and some she liked, all of them placing expectations on her shoulders — the lynx, the spider, the Wraith. Captain Ghafa is one she has chosen for herself of her own free will, and she likes it best of all. 

Kaz smiles like he’s a boy again, like he’s only seventeen years old, like he’s not a barrel boss with a reputation to strike fear into the heart of anyone foolish enough to cross him. Inej hasn’t seen that smile often, but she’s as helpless as she’s ever been to prevent her own lips from ticking up in response. 

“Kaz,” she returns. She’s missed him with an unexpected ferocity, in all her months at sea — missed his cleverness, his talent for getting out of any tough situation; missed his scheming face and the quips he trades with her; missed his company most of all, with a deeper ache than she’s cared to admit to herself. 

There’s a moment of silence between them, comfortable silence that doesn’t need to be filled with words. Kaz breaks it first, setting down his pen and leaning back in his chair to look at her, still perched on the windowsill. “What have you been up to?”

Inej takes the invitation for what it is and shuts the window, blocking the cold air out. “Figuring out how to sail a ship. Figuring out how to fight a ship. Figuring out how to track down other ships.” She shrugs. “Killing slavers, which requires a bit less figuring out.” 

“Living the dream, then,” Kaz observes drily. He shifts his leg slightly, and she catches the movement, remembering two winters of watching him limp slightly more than in the summer. He hides it well, of course, but Inej has learnt to be observant from Kaz himself. 

A walk would help him stretch it out, and walking allows for conversation as much as sitting. “Acquired a fair bit of info on the buyers,” she tells him. “Your competitors. I’ll tell you about them, but I’d like to walk around Ketterdam a bit while we’re at it.” 

Kaz raises an eyebrow, and she knows he’s seen her glance down at his leg — he is perfectly aware of what she’s doing. But he doesn’t object. “Gladly,” he says instead, and pushes his chair back to stand up. He doesn’t hide the faint wince on his face, and Inej knows that is an honour she will cherish: to see past the walls he puts up around every weakness, the masks that hide his pain. Kaz lets her through, and it is a gift. 

They walk down the stairs together. Inej does not offer Kaz a hand; she has pushed him enough for today. Instead, she follows Kaz into the Slat proper. 

“Inej!” Anika calls, as soon as Inej comes in sight, and then she’s surrounded by a crowd of Dregs — laughing, asking her how she’s been, congratulating her on the growing reputation she’s gaining. She was worried that they might resent her for leaving, or might see her as a competitor, but they greet her with all the comradeship she built with them over those years in Ketterdam. She hadn’t quite realised how much she missed them until now. 

Kaz stands by, leaning on his cane and watching from the shadows. It’s achingly familiar: Kaz never joined in with the conversations or games or jokes tossed around the Slat, but he always watched, and Inej knew he was secretly pleased when they all got along — and only partially because a more tight-knit gang is a more efficient one. 

Eventually, Inej manages to extricate herself, and walks out the door with Kaz. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rotty open his mouth to wolf-whistle only to be elbowed in the side by Anika; he doubles over in soundless pain. 

Inej smiles, and steps out onto the street. 

~

The streets of Ketterdam are quiet, footsteps muffled by the fallen snow. The cold keeps most of the city in their houses. There are still a few hurrying about on errands, but nobody pays close attention to the two figures walking side-by-side down the street. Kaz is grateful; he isn’t in the mood to get into a fight if a rival gang recognises him. 

His knee still aches, but walking is helping, as he (and Inej) knew it would. His coat is warm enough to keep out the cold, especially with Inej walking at his side. He’s missed her in her absence, more so than his dignity would allow him to admit to anyone but her. Seeing her again is like a breath of fresh air after too long underwater. 

Inej tells him about which slavers she’s gotten rid of and which Barrel bosses she thinks have been buying from them, about the rumours of a buyer with a hideout in the warehouse district, about — in a quieter voice — catching the man who kidnapped her, two and a half years ago. 

Her feet come to a stop; she is not looking at anything around them. “The ship,” she says, quietly. “It was. The same one. That I was—” 

Kaz isn’t good at offering comfort, but Inej’s eyes look far away like she’s been pulled out of her skin, like she’s far away in a ship that brought her torment. “Inej,” he says, but she doesn’t seem to hear him; a shiver races across her skin. 

Touch, Kaz thinks, would help. To ground her. To draw her back to the snowy streets of Ketterdam, and away from where she is now. He doesn’t think he could touch bare skin right now — the cold has brought back memories of cold water and cold skin — but he’s wearing gloves, and so is she. 

“Inej,” Kaz says again, and brushes the back of his hand against hers. 

She shudders faintly, exhaling mist into the cold air, and grabs his hand properly. Her eyes flick over to him, present again in a way they weren’t before. “Kaz.” 

Kaz feels something in him relax at the sound of her voice. A small smile appears on her face; he feels his own lips tick faintly up in response. 

Talking about it, right now, in the open street, is not what she needs. So he returns to their earlier topic of conversation, offering his side of the puzzle that will show her where Captain Ghafa is needed most. 

Thanks to Inej, most of Ketterdam’s pleasure houses have closed down, and Kaz has been ensuring that no new ones open (quietly, because it feels like a crack in the armour that is Dirtyhands, but efficiently all the same). He’s also made a custom of keeping an ear to the ground, listening for rumours of anyone trading in people — whether that be regular indentured slaves, Grisha, or women — and finding out their veracity. 

Now, he tells her what he knows about the trader in the warehouse district, and they fall into planning out their next steps as they have a hundred times before. Except now, Inej isn’t the Wraith, indentured to Per Haskell, Kaz’s subordinate in the Dregs; she is free, and still choosing to walk beside Kaz with their hands still entwined. 

While plotting murder, naturally. But for them, that’s par for the course. 

~

Inej discovers that she’s missed plotting with Kaz. 

He has a tendency to make at least four layers of plans beyond what he actually tells her about, which can be a bit annoying, but she’s missed it nonetheless. Before the Ice Court, she’d bring him secrets and whispers from all over Ketterdam and he’d listen, and ask questions, and take her input on whatever plans he concocted. 

Now it’s — it’s not Kaz concocting plans and Inej bringing him the information he needs; it’s both of them sharing information, then building plans together. Plans that are actually the entire plan, not just the basics that Kaz sees fit to tell her; they are partners in this, equals, in a way that they weren’t before. 

Kaz trusts a very small number of people. Trust itself has been dimmed out of him by cruelty and plague and loss, and the Barrel is not exactly the best place to learn to trust again. Even with the Dregs, she knows that Kaz must always be on the lookout, always aware of the motivations of everyone around him in case those motivations should lead them to betray him. 

He trusts Jesper. Wylan, now, too, Inej thinks. Nina, perhaps; her allegiance to the Ravkan throne is an obstacle, but not an unsurmountable one. Rotty. 

And Inej. Even before the Ice Court, he trusted the information she brought, even relied on it — and today, he shares information with her in equal measure. He tells her what he’s planning, lets her see not only what but how he thinks. Kaz turns life into a series of magic tricks, performances, where he pulls the strings from behind the curtains. Now he’s letting her come backstage with him, and that is a gift. 

(It is also a gift that they’re still holding hands. Kaz hasn’t let go since he drew her from memories of a slave ship she’d rather forget, despite his aversion to touch. Their hands are gloved, yes, but he holds her hand like it’s nothing, like the demons of his past don’t haunt his skin like ghosts. She doesn’t know if they’re absent for once or simply being ignored, but either way, Kaz is choosing to keep holding hands of his own free will.) 

In this part of town — the wealthier, bourgeois district they’ve wandered into — they’re not going to be recognised as Dirtyhands and Captain Ghafa. They could be mistaken for any two sweethearts, wandering the streets despite the cold, speaking sweet nothings in low tones — and although they are not that couple and never could be, on this street, in the snow, they are — similar. 

They are two people broken by the cruelty of the world, two people who have pieced themselves back together into someone different, stronger, than they once were. Two people who have too many jagged edges to fit with anyone unbroken, unscarred; two people who, nevertheless, are walking down Ketterdam’s streets in the snow. 

Snowflakes are still falling, dusting Kaz’s hair with white, the outline of the city paled to something gentler than usual. Their breath ghosts in the air, and Inej is comfortable regardless of the cold, warmed from the inside out by her hand in Kaz’s and his smile when he looks at her. 

Gradually, the conversation shifts from planning to reminiscing, to storytelling. Inej talks about her crew — among them not a few former Dregs — and Kaz reciprocates with updates on how all the current Dregs are doing. 

Their words drift, like snowflakes, and Inej smiles and laughs and is at peace. 

~

Inej is telling a story, and Kaz watches her, drinking up the joy that emanates from her with such ease. She’s dusted with snow, and little curls of hair flutter around her face in the wind. She’s beautiful. 

She is, unquestionably, far too good for anyone so broken and crooked as Kaz. She deserves better than him, but she also deserves whatever she wants. And she has also been quite clear that she wants to spend this time with Kaz, so who is he to deny her?

If she deserves better than what he is now, then he’ll simply have to make himself into someone more worthy of her. 

So Kaz walks by her side and holds her hand and absorbs into himself all the goodness that she gives him freely. She’s brighter now than she ever was as part of the Dregs; this — fighting for what she believes in, fighting for everyone as powerless as she once was — is good for her. (Good for the world, too, most likely, but Kaz is more preoccupied with Inej.) Kaz doesn’t really believe that people have preordained destinies, paths they’re set to follow — but if he did, he’d say Inej is achieving her purpose. 

He doesn’t know what his own destiny might be, but he knows he wants his path to lie close to hers. 

Kaz is a cynical bastard, has been since he swam to shore using his brother’s corpse as a raft. He isn’t good at having faith, at hoping for the best outcome, at believing in a magic trick. 

But Inej laughs, and this is no sleight of hand — it’s more magic than trick, inexplicable and real all at once. There is no curtain to look behind, only truth. Only magic. 

Jesper watched Kaz pace the length of the Slat and concluded that his best friend was really, irrevocably in love with his other best friend. 

“Calm down, Kaz,” Wylan tried, but as the past five thousand times they’d tried to get him to stop pacing, Kaz paid no mind. 

“Just like Kaz, to be so contrary.” Nina rolled her eyes. “Bet if we told him to keep pacing, he’d stop, right then and there.” Kaz said nothing, only shot Nina a glare before continuing past the billiards table.

Jesper had a suspicion, a hypothesis, if you would, as to why Kaz was being so moody- Well, moodier than he usually was, anyway. In Inej’s last letter to Jesper, she’d referred to a fight, or at least a chilly ending to a conversation, that she’d had with Kaz before sailing off for Ravka’s Southern Colonies. The sharpshooter suspected that was why the Crows’ favourite bastard wasn’t in the best of moods.

As Jesper wondered if he should try to say something, and if so, if he should mention Inej or not, Kaz suddenly deviated from his regular pacing path and started to limp up the stairs. The other Crows watched him go, and then Matthias broke the silence by asking, “Waffles, anyone?”, at which Nina kissed him very firmly on the lips.

----------------------------------------

“Kaz?” Jesper poked his head into Kaz’s old office. The thin curtains had been drawn over every dingy window but the one at which he sat, staring out over Ketterdam, fingers trailing over the ledge. “Kaz?” Jesper said again, more tentatively this time. 

“Would Wylan hate you if you said his occupation was a waste of time right before he left Ketterdam?” Kaz asked suddenly without turning. 

The question took Jesper by surprise, and he blinked twice before it clicked that he was alluding to his situation with Inej. “Oh. Well, Wylan doesn’t really have an occupation now.”

“Right.” Jesper thought he saw Kaz frown, but it was hard to tell just by his silhouette against the cloudy Ketterdam sky. They fell into silence again before Kaz finally asked, “What are you doing up here, Jesper?”

“Oh, you know. The others are having a waffle party. Didn’t feel hungry, so Nina kicked me out and proclaimed herself queen of the waffle kingdom.” Jesper shrugged nonchalantly.

“Really, Jesper.”

Jesper bit his lip and winced. “I came to see if you were okay? If you needed relationship advice? If you wanted me to write Inej and just tell her, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at Kaz anymore because he’s sitting at his window all sad and moody thinking about your fight’?” “Came to ask you if you wanted a waffle.”

Kaz did turn then, and gave him an appraising look, arching one eyebrow at him with a short “No.”

“Okay. Good talk, then.” Jesper started to walk out, but then promptly turned on his heel and came back. “Nope, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you.” 

“Then what was it?” Now Kaz was starting to sound a little annoyed.

“Just… Inej wrote me the other day.” He drew the crumpled letter out of his pocket and waved it around a little. “And she kinda mentioned something about, um…”

“About. What, Jesper.”

“That you guys might’ve, maybe, had a teensy, weensy bitty bit of… conflict, is all.” Jesper braced for wrath, maybe threats, probably yelling and the end of a years-long friendship, but all Kaz said was, “Oh. Okay.”

‘Okay’? “‘Okay’?” 

“Okay.”

Huh. “You’re not mad?” He stared at Kaz for a few moments in utter surprise.

“Why would I be? Inej chose to tell you. She thought you should know, so if anyone, I should be mad at her. And I’m not. We both trust her judgement more than that.” Kaz watched a small flock of birds cross the roof of a nearby house, settling on the window ledges of the building next door, and it brought Jesper no small amount of relief to hear that.

“Oh. Okay. Good, then.” He blew out a breath through his mouth before tentatively continuing on. “You sure you’re okay?”

There was a silent pause, then Kaz tore his gaze away from the birds — crows, Jesper realised — and sighed, suddenly looking exhausted and sad. “Maybe.” The moment was gone just as soon as it’d come, and he turned away again. Jesper waited a beat more, then another, then slowly backed away and exited when he realised Kaz wasn’t going to say anything more. 

The part he’d neglected to mention to the Barrel boss, his best friend, was that he was holding onto the hope that Inej would straighten all this up when she docked back in Ketterdam’s twenty-second berth the very next day.

----------------------------------------

Matthias frowned at the Dreg messenger, then nodded, stood, and as the girl left, walked into the adjacent sitting room and said, “Inej is back.”

Kaz’s head snapped up, and he grabbed his cane and left the room just as fast as Matthias had entered. Under Nina’s inquisitive gaze, Jesper grinned sheepishly as the Slat door slammed behind their gang leader. “I forgot to tell him.” That was a lie, and the Fjerdan shared a glance with his partner to see she was thinking the same. 

“You better hope to all the Saints he doesn’t find out, Jes.” Nina pointed the end of a pastry at her friend. 

Matthias agreed. That conversation would likely go very, very badly.

----------------------------------------

“Inej!” Kaz strode quickly down the quay, and the dock workers and sailors scrambled to duck out of his way — the Wraith may have his support and his heart, but he was still a Barrel boss, and one of the most ruthless in Ketterdam. 

When Inej looked up and saw him, her first instinct was to smile and take his gloved hand in hers, but then she remembered.

“Kaz.” His expression remained carefully blank, but she could tell her cold tone had thrown him off a little. Now she was the one with the armour and walls built up, keeping him at a distance.

He had no reply, and they stood there for a moment before he turned and started back up the quay. She fell in by his side as always, but said nothing. The silence lasted as they walked up towards Tuinpark, one of the only green spaces in the whole country, and Inej decided she’d rather focus her gaze at a patch of purple flowers struggling through the snow than talk to him. In the end, it was Kaz who spoke up first.

“We missed you. The Crows. You’re our best spider, you know.” He avoided her gaze as he said it, staring at a puffy cloud drifting over their heads. 

“Say it as you mean to, Kaz.” It came out harsher than she’d intended it, and she bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything else more hurtful. 

He paused, then met her gaze, thoughtful. Then he straightened and said, “I missed you”, and suddenly she found it that much harder to stay mad at him. They kept walking down the narrow path, stopping to let one of the new Dreg messengers pass by them at one point. They silently watched the young Zemeni disappear before Kaz spoke to her again. “Inej.”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t mean it. That day. When you left. And when I said ‘hunting slavers is a waste of time’.” He was looking at a plant with startlingly vibrant green leaves, so if he hadn’t called her name, or if she hadn’t been paying attention, she might have thought he was talking to the plant. Inej figured that was as close to a hug and apology as she was going to get, so she opened her mouth to accept it, but he cut her off before she could. “I was wrong to say it, and I’m… sorry.”

Now wasn’t that something. 

She looked up, met his gaze. “Then this action will have no echo?”

He paused for a moment, then nodded. They continued along the path with a new, soft feeling of peace, and Inej let her gloved knuckles brush his every few steps before she worked up the will to take his hand fully into hers. His grasp was surprisingly warm, and she felt his hand tremor slightly, but then he twined his fingers with hers, and they walked through the snow together, the handheld promise unbroken.

“How are the Crows?” she asked as they left the park and a light snow started to fall. 

“Managing. Jesper is somehow making profits with the Van Eck fortune, and for some reason, Wylan is letting him. Matthias is a snow-covered mountain of gloom. And Nina is, well, Nina. She proclaimed herself the queen of the waffle kingdom just yesterday.” Inej couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh — Nina was and always would be indescribably, unapologetically and incomparably herself — and a soft smile pulled at the edges of Kaz’s mouth when she wasn’t looking. 

“That’s the laugh.” 

They stopped to buy roasted serdtsenuts from a vendor, and the snowflakes drifted down and down, coming to rest on her head and shoulders, nestling in her hair. He reached out, as if to take a nut, but then reached past the bag of food and tenderly brushed snow out of her ebony locks. She put a hand on his, so close to her face, and all of a sudden it was just that much harder to breathe. And all she could think of was how much she wanted to kiss him.

Then he abruptly pulled away, turned to walk quickly off, and the moment was gone. 

A million things ran through her head. Did she do something wrong? Maybe he wasn’t ready yet. Could she have set him off somehow… She tried her best to push them away as she fell in by his side, but they continued to nag at her anyway. They were almost back to the Slat by the time she managed to gather up enough courage to ask him about it.

“Kaz,” she said. 

“Yes, treasure of my heart?” he replied, and once those words would have been laced with caustic sarcasm, but now they fell pure and sweet as spun sugar upon her ears, and she felt her face warm, thanking the Saints for a dark complexion to hide blushes well. 

She took a moment to reel her wayward romantic feelings back in and calm her heart before she asked, “Do you think… Do you think we’ll ever be like everyone else?”

He tilted his head to the side just the slightest bit. “What do you mean, ‘like everyone else’?”

Inej looked helplessly at the tourists and citizens flooding the square in front of Tuinpark, couples holding hands and giggling, rosy-cheeked children following along behind their parents and siblings. “Could we ever have a family like that?” She looked wistfully at two adults and the wide-eyed little girl who was gazing at a frosted cake through a bakery shop window. 

Kaz followed her gaze to the young family, was silent for a long moment, and then cracked the barest of smiles. “Now, why would we want to be like everyone else?” She sighed, turning back to him, but he didn’t give her a chance to argue. “You are magic, Inej. You don’t need their life when you have yours. Maybe… Maybe we’ll have that. In time. But you are anything and everything I need, and the Saints will give you what you want, and what you so deserve. In time, darling.” He brushed one gloved finger against her snow-damp cheek before turning and continuing down the lane again. He tended to do that a lot. 

Inej felt as if the twinkling lights of the bakery warmed her from the inside, encompassing her heart in its soft yellow glow. She was preparing to catch up to him when she heard a chuckle from behind her, and turned to see an old woman standing in the bakery’s doorway. “Lucky girl, you, to have a boy like that,” the woman said with a smile.

Inej laughed. Most would have said she was ill-fated, to end up with the tyrant of Ketterdam, the bastard of the Barrel, but Inej knew the truth.

Only two lanterns lit the room, but Kaz usually preferred to work in limited light. Inej didn’t mind either way, except that sometimes his laboratory became too dim. She lit a third lantern and continued working, noting Kaz’s frown as she returned to her station.

“I need light,” she muttered, as she picked up the pestle to continue grinding the ingredients jotted down on her notes. It was a remedy to reduce swelling that she had made all by herself.

She heard Kaz grunt and looked up at him, his gloved hands both gripping the head of his cane, eyes on her face. Inej raised an eyebrow and he turned away, the tips of his ears going red. Shrugging, she decided to let him stew in whatever was bothering him until he’d had enough.

They had been working together for almost two years now. Ever since Kaz had helped her get out of the Menagerie, that place of death and pain that had enslaved her for a year. She was thankful for his help. And grateful for the opportunity to help other people. More often than not, Inej found herself wondering what her life might have become had Kaz not seen her potential. I might have really died there, she thought, crushing some more jewelweed sap with her pestle.

There had recently been a spike in deaths by something seemingly deadlier than even that strain of firepox that had caused Inej to jump into Kaz’s work. Inej decided that must be what had Kaz in such a state. They had more and more patients every day, these days. She knew he worried about it incessantly, and she thought she knew why. It had become obvious when they had gone out to see five patients in their homes. Inej wasn’t one to pry, but she could see the stress on his shoulders, the way he sometimes got a far-away look and was quiet for long periods of time. Kaz Brekker had lost someone to disease.

“Inej,” she heard Kaz’s rough voice call. She put down her instrument and turned to face him. His dark eyes and inscrutable countenance from before was gone, replaced by the frightened, pale face of a boy of nearly eighteen.

“Kaz?” Inej whispered, feeling her stomach drop, heart rate accelerating. This couldn’t be good.

“Those cases…” he paused, turning his face away towards the shadows. Inej didn’t know why he did that; she could tell when he was uncomfortable, just as she knew he could tell when she was in the room. They had become so attuned to each other in such a short amount of time, Inej knew it was strange. But she didn’t question it. She just wished Kaz would acknowledge it, even if it was just by not hiding from her this way.

“Those cases…?” Inej tried to encourage him.

“I think there might be a new variant,” Kaz rasped.

“The newspapers haven’t–”

Shaking his head, Kaz stopped her. “The newspapers will not publish anything about it because they do not know of it yet. Only about eight people have died—”

“Eight? That’s so many!” Inej cried. “Where are you getting this information from? We visited five patients–”

“And they were all dead before we even arrived, Inej,” he said, making Inej inhale sharply.

He was right, of course. She thought about the patients’ families’ faces then. Remembered the tear streaks on the mother’s cheeks. The empty stares in the childrens’ eyes. Though Kaz was not in agreement with her faith, Inej silently sent a prayer to her saints for those people, and the ones she had not seen as well.

“What are you planning?” she asked, turning to look at him.

Kaz shrugged his shoulders, capturing Inej’s attention. He didn’t acknowledge it, but Inej’s cheeks still grew hot. “There is someone whom I think will help, or at least wants to,” Kaz said.

“Who?” Inej inquired, trying her best to not think about Kaz’s broad shoulders.

“His name is Van Eck. Let’s just say he has a vested interest in a cure,” Kaz said, his voice sounding harder than usual. Inej wondered why he felt such contempt for the other man. She wouldn’t ask—he wouldn’t consider her question relevant. “We will need to gather a few others for this. Get this note to Nina, tell her to be here tomorrow morning, first thing; I need to talk to Jesper.”

He set the small square of parchment on the table and Inej nodded. Still, she could not help herself. “I thought you didn’t like Nina’s methods,” Inej said, narrowing her eyes at Kaz’s figure as it moved away. Even as she said the words, she knew what he would say.

Kaz turned to look at her with an arched eyebrow. His eyes were dark and inscrutable. He released a heavy sigh and said, “A heartrender is always of use during these things.”

Inej shook her head, but Kaz had already turned away. Nina Zenik was the only heartrender they knew, though Kaz would have anyone believe he abhorred their methods, he knew she had enough training as a Healer, as well. Inej remembered the first time they had all worked together.

Kaz did not like Grisha, especially of the Corlporalki order. The reason he had given Inej when she had asked was, “Their so-called Small Science has nothing to do with real science, Inej. What they do is essentially magic, I have no patience for it.”

“You know they have worked as hard as you to learn about the human body, and how to use those abilities for good, Kaz,” Inej had insisted.

But Kaz only shook his head. “They also use it to kill, Inej. Or have you forgotten the Heartrenders’ work during the war?”

“That was a necessity, Kaz.”

Kaz could not be convinced, pig-headed that he was.

Once Nina had joined them in Kaz’s practice, their relationship had been rocky from the start. A boy of about five years of age had been brought in with an isolated case of firepox. Kaz wanted Nina out of the room but Nina insisted she could help the boy.

“At least let me regulate his heart rate, Brekker,” she snapped. “I’m not a Healer, but I am a Heartrender, I can still help, Kaz.”

“What about when you aren’t here? I’m not waiting for your Grisha abilities,” Kaz snapped back and Nina turned to look at Inej, who was glaring at Kaz. “I’ve never had to rely on a Grisha for anything and I will not start now,” he muttered, as he began taking a sample of the boy’s blood.

Sighing deeply, Inej finished her work and set about returning all her supplies to their rightful place. Kaz turned to her once more but remained quiet. For a moment, Inej wondered what was going on in his mind, but he would not let her know until it was strictly necessary. It was the way they worked, or the way he worked, really. Inej had no love for this particular trait of his.

“I will find Nina and let her know about your… plans. And give her your note,” Inej said, undoing the knot on her apron. She watched his eyes lower to her hands at her waist and felt a new flush on her neck, but neither of them commented.

Instead, Kaz nodded and turned away again.

Before she left the laboratory, she heard Kaz grunt. Stopping at the door, she turned, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

“Don’t forget your mask,” he rasped.

Inej swallowed. Right, she thought. “I won’t,” she murmured, leaving the laboratory to quickly get to her small closet of a room.

The Slat, the building Kaz practiced from and lived in, was quiet, dark and cold most of the time, just as that night. Inej was surprised to note that the sun had long since set, not that Ketterdam allowed the sun to warm any part of it. Usually, Inej had to wrap herself in various layers to go out of the Slat. And don’t forget the mask, as Kaz had reminded her.

It was important for two reasons: contagion was harder if she wore it and she could remain anonymous while under it.

The mask was something Inej was very proud of. She had dyed it a dark purple that reminded her of the sky as the sun set, before a storm. The Suli protection symbols she had stamped on it reminded her of home, of her Saints. And her family. She loved that when she stood over a patient, the symbols were clear for them to see, and she knew they would remain calm throughout her visit.

Ketterdam was not the home to many patients that shared her beliefs, but she had found a few and it warmed her heart that she could help them, that they could share in the light of the Saints.

After donning her cloak and mask, Inej followed the shadows all the way to Nina’s workplace, which Inej really hated visiting.

Nonetheless, she loved seeing her friend.

Nina received her with a warm hug and a tight smile. She knew why it meant to see Inej at the White Rose. “You’re here on his orders, aren’t you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Inej resented that Nina seemed to think Inej was on Kaz Brekker’s beck and call, but she nodded, pulling her mask away from her face. “It’s important, Nina.”

Nina sighed. “It is. Of course it is. If his work wasn’t, I know you would never agree to anything he said.”

Inej didn’t know about that. She’d followed Kaz into a lot of places. Most of them were dark and full of suffering, but she always knew they would leave the place better than they had found it. That was the hope she held in her heart every time she left the Slat by his side.

<<<>>>

The next afternoon, Inej stood next to Kaz at her station as Nina introduced Kuwei Yul-Bo. Kaz told them all about how the boy was the son of the physician leading the research for finding a treatment for this strange, new strain of firepox in Shu Han. Unfortunately, and the reason why they were here now, he had died before completing it.

Kaz had initially shot down Nina’s suggestion to have Kuwei at the Slat, as he was loath to allow another stranger into his laboratory, or even the Slat, simply because Inej was there. “Too many eyes as it is,” he’d said. “We don’t need anyone else to know you are still in Ketterdam.” He had only relented to having the Shu boy at the Slat because he could not possibly have recognized Inej’s face. Inej had not protested: she trusted Kaz.

Except that whenever he brought up the issue of her still being in Ketterdam, she remembered another issue: her parents, who were still in Ravka. Or so she hoped.

Now, she was finding it difficult to concentrate, to keep up with Nina.

Kaz, though, was firing questions at Nina every few seconds, and Nina was eager to impart her knowledge of all things medicine while also translating for Kuwei, who did not speak much Kerch.

Nina was as passionate about medicine as Kaz. Inej hid a smile. They would make a powerful team. If only Kaz would accept her help more frequently.

“No, we could still use meadowsweet or willowbark for most of the patients, unless they’re too far gone,” Nina was arguing, making Inej straighten where she stood. Had she missed anything important? Kuwei muttered something in Shu, and Nina shushed him gently.

Kaz heaved a great sigh. “It was only a question, Nina,” he muttered.

“Well, next time ask better questions,” Nina snapped.

“Saints, is everything okay in here or is something going to explode?” Jesper said from the doorway.

“Don’t drag your germs in here, Fahey,” Kaz scowled, flexing his hand on the head of his cane like he had to stop himself from swinging it at Jesper’s head.

Inej tensed. A pair of bright blue eyes peeked from behind Jesper’s shoulder, taking in the room, and Inej wondered if she should disappear. He looked important, she thought, as irrational fear lanced through her. More new people?

“Pfft, germs? I don’t have those, Kaz,” Jesper brushed Kaz off like he would a lint off his shoulder. “This is Wylan!” he said, far too enthusiastically.

“Did you bring the books,” Kaz demanded, ignoring the introduction. He suddenly stepped in front of her, covering her from view.

Nina met Inej’s eyes from over Kaz’s shoulder and Inej felt her face darken with a flush. Nina hid a grin. When movement caught her attention, Inej looked down to see Kaz’s left hand reaching behind him.

Inej stared at it for a second and then realized his gloved fingers held his mask. She grabbed it quickly and tied it around her face.

Finally covered, Inej stepped out from behind Kaz

Jesper huffed, annoyed. He took the messenger bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the table with a heavy thump. “You’re welcome. Wylan, why don’t you tell them what you can do,” he said to his companion.

“Ahh, I uh…” the boy stammered.

“Spit it out, man,” Kaz snapped.

Jesper rolled his eyes, turning to smile widely at Inej, ignoring the two others. “How are you, love? Is the good doctor treating you well?” he teased. Everyone knew Kaz wasn’t officially licensed, yet he was good— the best physician in the Barrel. He didn’t discriminate; Kaz helped everyone. It didn’t matter how much Kruge a patient carried in their pockets.

Inej and Jesper had met just after Kaz had helped her out of the Menagerie; Jesper had access to the library at Ketterdam University, which helped Kaz immensely. What didn’t help Kaz was Jesper’s love for gambling, but Inej didn’t think Kaz cared much about that unless it interfered with his practice. “I’m fine, thank you, Jesper,” she said.

Jesper sighed. “Glad to hear it.”

Turning back to Kaz, Inej was taken aback at seeing him standing toe to toe with Wylan. The redheaded boy looked ready to burst a blood vessel. Kaz did not look happy either.

Jesper pulled Wylan away from the brooding physician and Kaz limped around the table, towards Inej. “He says he can help,” he scoffed. “As if I need another child to babysit.”

“Kaz,” Inej hissed in warning.

“He has more experience with medicine than Jesper. He only gets you books, Brekker. I think a person with actual practice would be a good asset—“

“I don’t need your input, Zenik,” Kaz snapped.

Nina spat a curse in Ravkan at him and Inej shook her head, tired of it all. “He says he can help, you should let him, Kaz,” Inej said, making her voice sharp and decisive. She looked up at Kaz; he wasn’t scowling. He had a look of angry surprise, but it wasn’t a scowl. He wouldn’t look at her. Inej tried not to smile behind her borrowed mask. “The more help we have, the better, Kaz.”

“We know you’re not used to getting much help, Kaz. But I think it would be best, at least for this, to have Wylan’s knowledge. If we want this to work, we should try to work together,” Jesper said.

Inej supposes she’ll have to get her answers when she sees him. And despite her annoyance at the circumstances under which it’s happening, her heart skips a beat at the thought of being with Kaz again. It’s been far too long since she last docked in Ketterdam, having been kept away by the constant slavers she’s been thwarting and the terrible weather of the open seas. She’s successfully kept in touch with Jesper and Wylan through their joint letters to her, and with Nina, who, despite often being out on assignments, keeps Inej updated whenever she can. There’s even been a scarce exchange of letters between herself and Kuwei detailing the latter's continued studies as an Etherealnik within the Little Palace. But Kaz has been oddly silent during her most recent voyages. His letters have been few and far between, and whenever they do come, they’re often undetailed and impersonal, a far cry from his first few letters to her. Not that Kaz had ever been forthcoming in that way, either in writing or in person, but his letters had become much more distant, which had hurt her more than she’d care to admit.

It still doesn’t change the fact that her heart belongs to him — an undeniable truth she had realized long ago – and that she’s excited to see him, even if she does also want to smack him over the head with his own cane. Kaz can be obtuse when it comes to understanding his own feelings, and even worse with expressing them. Though the two of them have progressed at their own speed, Inej can’t recall anything bad happening the last time she saw him that would prompt such a stark change in his behavior. Kaz Brekker may not always need a reason, but he sure as hell always had one.

I’ll just have to find out for myself, she thinks as the sign for Ptitsa-Sinitsa comes into view. The tavern itself is packed, much like the various buildings around it, with people from all roads of life coming to see the Queen’s festival. Inej skirts around a group of excited Ravkans and notes a few poorly-disguised Fjerdans on the edges. Of course, an event like this would be crawling with foreign spies. None to worry about yet, but she vows to keep an eye out anyways. 

There’s also some Kaelish folk around, evidenced by their bright hair and loud voices ringing out over the crowd of people eating and talking.

Finally, she spots Kaz at a table near the back with a plate of smoked cod and skillet bread and heads towards him. He’s wearing a hat she knows he hates, but refuses to get rid of. All the better a disguise, she supposes with a sigh. Kaz looks up from his food, and although his face doesn’t change, the edges of his eyes grow softer at her approach. 

“Isla, good. You found it,” he says in greeting. Inej smiles warmly at the sight of him, her overwhelming happiness at seeing him in the flesh overriding her annoyance for the time being. 

“Of course. It wasn’t too hard, your instructions were quite clear. Did you have a good journey?” she asks, sitting down opposite him. His body relaxes, a sight Inej doesn’t see often, though she knows he’s still on high alert to their surroundings.

“Tolerable. I took Rotty with me, as he’s the best sailor I’ve got now, and the man wouldn’t shut up about how he needed to be back in two weeks’ time for the annual plink-drop competition.”

Inej rolls her eyes. “Trust Rotty to stick to routine. He loses every year, I’m not sure why he bothers to play anymore. One would think six straight years of losses would make the whole thing not enjoyable, but alas.”

They fall back into familiar territory with ease, chatting harmlessly whilst they eat, all too aware of the many eyes staring into the backs of their heads and ears tilted ever-so-slightly in their direction. Once they’ve had their fill, Kaz guides her to their room where they retire for the evening. It’s definitely one of the nicest places Inej has stayed in for a heist of any kind, with a double bedroom, a small lounge area in the front, and a balcony looking out over the port.

Once they’ve inspected the room and secured all entries, she takes a seat next to Kaz on the plush red couch. “Who’s bankrolling this one?” she asks without preamble.

“Our friend, the demon.” Kaz’s voice is dry, but Inej can sense the humour in Kaz calling someone else what he himself has often been named. “He’d like us to relocate a foreign dignitary's documents.”

“Your friend, you mean. I’ve not become as well acquainted with Nikolai on the sea or land, despite his many roles in his country.” Kaz has kept her informed of the former king’s whereabouts, such as he knows them, but news travels slowly at sea (as opposed to rumors which spread like wildfire), and it hasn’t been a top priority for Inej. 

“In any case, he asked me to get some documents a Fjerdan official will be carrying.” Kaz’s face is set into scheming mode, and it once again makes Inej’s heart stutter. She hadn’t realized just how much she missed seeing him in his element; a slight smirk on his face and a mischievous glint in his dark eyes.

Inej shoves that thought away. Not the time, she admonishes herself. “What kind of documents?”

Kaz eyes her carefully, as though hesitant to say. It’s a strange look on Kaz; he’s never hesitant about anything. Careful, yes, but not dubious. Not like he wants to hide the information from her.

Inej keeps her gaze steadily locked with his, unwilling to back down until he relents. “It’s the instructions for a drug to render any individual catatonic in seconds. They plan to use it in hunting Grisha, and selling them to slave traders in Ketterdam.”

Saints, she thinks. Her mouth goes thin, mind racing, because of course things wouldn't stay good for her. She’s been bringing down slavers and saving people with surprising speed and efficiency (surprising only to those who don’t know the Wraith from Ketterdam’s rooftops), and her name is getting around through rumors. It makes sense that the twisted people who trade in human lives would look for new ways to get easy captives.

“Is that why you didn’t inform me in your letter?” Inej asks, half hoping that he will catch on to her annoyance about his lack of general communication in the last few months. Kaz nods in answer to her question, and Inej decides to let it go for now, sitting back against the couch in contemplation. “I assume you have a plan,” she says, and Kaz nods once more. “Tell me.”

“The Harvest Festival begins in two days. The plan is, we sneak in as guests and find the official with the documents. My plan is to steal them, leave in its place instructions for a … friendlier alternative, so as to not arouse suspicions, and make our getaway.”

“So simple,” Inej says with raised eyebrows. She’s used to Kaz only sharing parts of a plan, so it is a miracle that she even gets that much of an outline all at once. (The mention of a friendlier alternative, one she somehow doubts is as friendly as he implies, also has her curiosity piqued). Still, she knows he’s got backup plans galore, and Inej trusts him implicitly.

Kaz gives her a begrudging twitch of his lips. “For now, yes. We have two days to find clothes and fill in some additional details. Get some rest, and we can begin in the morning.”

The next two days pass in a blur of planning, laying low, and shopping. The formal gala that is set to open the Festival requires nicer dress than the two Dreg members usually wear, and Inej gleefully picks out a range of horrific colors and patterns for Kaz to try on (which he declines in a variety of ways: with an eye roll, a smirk, a sarcastic comment, or outright disgust). 

His reactions do nothing but spur her on, and for those small pockets of time, she is simply a girl shopping with a boy she likes; she’s living a future she had only imagined for herself as a small child in her family’s caravan, excited for a whirlwind romance with the perfect man as only a little girl can imagine. 

The thing that truly drives her fantasy home, however, is the moment Inej spots an honest-to-saints lehenga, one of her people’s favorites for fancy occasions. She’s never worn one, having been deemed too young by her mother before…everything. Traditionally, they are worn most often at weddings and official gatherings, held once every five years where all the Suli come together to celebrate and tell stories. The sight reminds her so vividly of her mother that her heart aches as she reaches out to grasp at the fabric. The lehenga she holds in her hands is made of well-made silk, embroidered with intricate floral and paisley resham. It is obviously worn, but has remained in good condition.

Inej runs her fingers over the pieces and marvels at how this seems made for her. It’s her favorite shade of purple, the detailing done in neat rows. The lighter fabric of the shawl flows over her, and Inej trembles as she realizes that there’s nothing stopping her from buying and wearing this to the festival tomorrow. When she tries it on in the small stall of the dressmaker’s, her mind works quickly to pick out places for her knives, how the skirt doesn’t limit her motions, the way she can tie the shawl part of the lehenga in specific places to keep it from being a hazard if she should need to run. 

A thought occurs to her then. She remembers distinctly the coy look the older girls would get once dressed in their lehengas, the heavy blush riding on their cheeks, as they’d wait for their lovers to see them decked out in their finest, playing teasing games for minutes if not hours on end, before not-so-secretly escaping with them into a dark corner somewhere, far away from the rest of the caravan. 

It’s such a silly, random memory to come to mind, but suddenly it’s there, in her heart: a desire to have Kaz look at her like a boy in her caravan once might have – as she could have been, maybe, if her life had turned out the way it was supposed to. 

Yes, she has made her peace with who she’s become, the feared Pirate Queen of the Seas. But in this moment, she feels a strong pull back to who she could have been. Inej feels strong and beautiful in the lehenga, and although she thinks Kaz already knows that about her, she wants to hear him say it. She wants it to be acknowledged openly, for him to take off a piece of armor that he’s kept clutched firmly to his chest since she left Ketterdam. 

So Inej buys the lehenga, keeping the purchase a secret from the boy she came with. He’s never bothered about her clothes before, and he doesn’t break that streak when they reunite, both carrying bags with their new clothes. She drags Kaz along to buy jewelry to complement the outfit, forcing him to purchase new cufflinks for the suit he’d picked out for himself. For her part, Inej is immediately drawn to a set of golden earrings and a matching tikka, and doesn’t let herself second-guess the decision, purchasing it quietly while his eyes are elsewhere. 

She can be devious in her own right, and finally, this festival is something she can look forward to.

They do not – cannot – enter the gala together. Cannot, because, as Kaz had explained to her, should their covers come into question, both need some modicum of plausible deniability. 

(She hates that he’s right about that.)

But maybe that’s for the better. Without him by her side as she gets ready – he leaves their shared room early, claiming one final errand to run without her –  she finds herself able to gather some much-needed nerve. To put on her battle armor, so to speak.

It helps to start with her knives first – she carefully straps those to her legs, murmuring prayers to each Saint as she fixes them in place. 

(The lehenga, however tempting and beautiful it might be, is still a hard sell. It reminds her of the home she used to have, the life she used to live. But she’s determined to reclaim that piece of her that was stripped away.)

So Inej runs her fingers over the embroidered edges once more. The obvious care that was put into the details suffuses her with a much-needed sense of calm.

Yes, it would’ve been nice to have him here, to help her with this part. 

But she’s always known, deep down, that this is something she has to do alone. 

So she pulls herself together. The skirt goes on first, her trustworthy knives disappearing beneath the heavy layers. She works the blouse on next, lacing up the back of it securely, ensuring no wandering fingers will take it apart. Finally she wraps the dupatta – a gorgeous, shimmering, delicate thing – over her shoulders. A fitting last touch, the cherry on top.

She’s relieved to find that she still looks and feels like herself, beneath it all. Even if that’s not what anyone else will see.

It paints a perfectly duplicitous picture, in the mirror. A glittering, distracting facade on Ravkan soil.

And if this night goes the way she hopes – no one else will ever have to see what lies beneath.

—---------

So she enters the gala alone.

Well, correction – the gala doors have not officially opened yet, so she’s here in the large banquet hall that serves as a makeshift waiting room alone.

That is unusual in and of itself, but that’s by design. She doesn’t look like a working girl (not that any would have been allowed in at this kind of event), but she does pique some immediate interest amongst the well-dressed attendees in the room. Inej firmly ignores it, choosing instead to take in her surroundings.

It’s a magnificent hall, if darker than she’d expected. But the low light will work to their advantage, and it gives the event an air of mystery. The floor is a rich, dark wood (perfect for hiding stains of all kinds, she thinks grimly) and the furnishings are ornate and well-worn. There are small candles everywhere, reminding her, counter-intuitively, of the inside of a church.

If only this could be as safe.

Inej turns now to scan the crowd, and mercifully, most eyes have since fallen off of her, the thrill of novelty long gone. But she can pick out a few who stand out, their movements not quite casual. And just like that, her previous suspicions are confirmed: they’re not the only ones with their own agendas on the loose tonight.

That’s fine, expected really, but it adds a lovely new wrinkle to their mission: not only do they have to swap out the documents, but they have to make sure they’re not observed by anyone else looking to do the same thing. Of which there are likely several. 

That’s her job for tonight, and just as well. She can handle it, easy. 

Now as for the man of the hour. Their diplomat – where is he?

The Fjerdans are difficult to miss, generally speaking. She’s looking for someone who, by Kaz’s description, is a tall, blonde, older gentleman, one who’s covered in military regalia. Currently, nowhere to be seen.

That’s when, of course, she feels what can only be described as someone’s gaze on her. 

Inej turns, and there he is: Kaz Brekker, looking quite unlike she’s ever seen him before. He’s dressed in a more traditional Ravkan-style suit-coat, a stormy grey-black color, but it’s the look on his face that stops her where she stands: there’s a hunger, a greed on his features she’s never seen before. Never directed towards her, anyways. 

It’s so much coming from him, a man who never tells her bloody anything if he can avoid it, but it doesn’t scare her like it probably should. Instead, it sends a thrill down her spine, tilts her world on its axis. 

He’s looking at her as she could have been, yes, but he doesn’t see it that way, she realizes. There’s no bitterness in his eyes, no lingering regret over what had been taken from her. 

No, for once there’s just pure, unadulterated want from the boy she loves, the feeling it evokes is every bit as magical as those starlit caravan nights she’d always dreamed of.

And yes, maybe that exact dream had been stolen from her past, but every choice she’d made since had brought this part of her life back to her, even when she’d thought it impossible. 

The world kept changing, just as they both had. This could change, too.

It’s what emboldens her to draw closer to him, all covers be damned. 

He meets her as if he can read her mind, the two of them moving into a secluded, dark corner. (Some things, perhaps, always stay the same.)

But this part will be different. Because she has a question she needs answered, and she knows when to pull her advantage. 

“Why didn’t you reply to my letters?” She doesn’t let her gaze leave his, can feel the way he suddenly stiffens beneath it. His eyes avert from hers, on some faraway point on the wall.

“I wrote you letters,” he responds slowly. 

But it’s not a complete answer, not really. He’s leaving out something, he most certainly is. So she waits until he looks at her again, eyebrows raising in an unspoken question.

Kaz’s eyes bore into hers, daring her to look away, but Inej has held many a contest with him, and he can’t scare her away this time. Once, the challenge might have frightened her, but she knows his feelings are something he doesn’t feel comfortable expressing outright unless she pushes.

So she does.

“Why didn’t you reply to all my letters? I heard more from Nina than you this past voyage.”

A brief moment of hesitation, then – 

“I didn’t think you would want to hear from me.”

Inej snorts. “I always want to hear from you, even when you’re being an insufferable idiot about it.”

The boy lets out a small laugh, and the sound lifts Inej’s soul into flight. Kaz doesn’t laugh easily, and she treasures each and every one she creates in him.

He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself for whatever admission he is about to make. “I…thought that hearing from me might be too much of a reminder of the life you left behind. I didn’t want to pull you under the weight of Ketterdam once more.”

She’s startled, not having expected that at all. It’s complete nonsense, of course, but she’s touched that Kaz is worried about that. Inej knows he has his demons, and his course of action is to fight through them by sheer force of will and by conquering the streets of the city that never gave him an inch, but she isn’t like that. 

“My demons are strong, yes...but Ketterdam has never been a reminder of that,” she shares, willing him to realize that when she said Ketterdam, what she really means is Kaz Brekker. 

The boy who saved her from a living nightmare, who had bought her freedom with the last of his funds, and who had been willing to let her leave him behind to fulfill what she was born to do.  

But she’s not leaving him behind. Not now, not ever again. Not even if he wants her to.

“You are a part of the life I want to keep, Kaz,” she says simply. “So don’t keep yourself away from me.”

“Or what?” he says, and though there's a challenge in the low pitch of his voice, she can also see the beginnings of a smile on his lips. It’s a look that makes her want to do to him what those older girls would do with their clandestine lovers, mission be damned. One day, maybe.

“Or I’ll have to steal you away, of course,” she retorts, and there’s a fully-formed smile on her face, one she’s certain doesn’t hide her inner thoughts in the slightest. “After all, I learned from the very best.”

Around them, the crowd starts moving with a shout – the gala doors have finally opened, praise the Saints! – but neither pays it any heed.

Kaz nods once, gaze never leaving hers, before slowly moving his arm upwards to hover it in the air between them in an offering. Not everything, but enough.

As long as he reaches for her, she will always reach back. 

So Inej slowly, gently wraps a henna-covered hand around his outstretched arm. She feels Kaz stiffen momentarily before forcing himself to relax, feels a warm surge of pride at the effort made. 

He’s doing this for her. They both are.

So together, arms linked, they push through the heavy wooden doors and enter the gala. 

It’s finally time for real work to begin. 

The streets of London stank of unwashed bodies and filth, unravelling beneath a sky choked with thick smog. Here, the pollution was so rife that upon looking up, Kaz could barely make out the top of St Paul’s Cathedral as he strode beneath its ominous spires.

He was a lean man, dressed in old-fashioned but meticulously chosen clothes. His black waistcoat, trousers and gloves were neat and the cravat around his neck was immaculate, at odds with the dingy city around him. Perhaps there was an air of forgotten elegance about him as though he was a man fallen to hard times, who had yet to claw his way back up from the grimy street floor.

In one hand, Kaz held a basket. In his other, a striking black cane topped with a silver crow’s head. Every step was angled but precise; he moved at such a pace that people parted around him so as not to get in the way.

“Deliver this to Judge Van Eck,” Nina had told him, her lips drawn into a slight moué. “And try not to let him know who you are. We’re not in the business for revenge just yet.”

Zoya looks blue today, and Nikolai doesn’t talk about the silk of her blouse or her eyes. Today she is blue. She looks sad instead of fierce and Nikolai can see it.

And he’s sure Genya and David, after living with her for much more time than he has, can say it too.

There’s something about the witch that seems off and Nikolai wants to find what. He had been living there for several weeks —or maybe months, he’s not really sure about how time flows in the castle— living here, he had never seen her like that. 

Zoya is rude and cold but hardworking, and she never complains about business. Due lines are always complete and no client is left unsatisfied when the Dragon Witch is the one tending to your demands. 

But these past days Zoya seems distant, less focused than usual, all of today’s clients have been attended by Genya or David. 

It’s late when Zoya steps out of her room. The moon shines up in the sky, which means that Nikolai’s wings are gone and he feels a little less monstrous. It’s easier to sneak behind her now, without a stupid big body that knocks things out of their place. 

Zoya ties her hair in a high ponytail before making the dial by the door spin until it points to the black slot, opens it and jumps to the other side. Nikolai has seen her disappear through the door a lot of times. But he doesn’t know that waits behind the black door and…

He's scared.

Is Zoya meeting with a lover? Some high level client that can’t show during the day? Is she doing something dangerous out there? Following Zoya is never a good idea. Not without her permission at least- Zoya is a private and mysterious woman. Maybe it has something to do with her heartless Witch facade or with some gruesome secret. 

Nikolai had already checked for both corpses in the basement and a secret stack of romance novels that may shame someone like Zoya. Instead of that he had just found all of David's inventions and a trunk full of Genya’s dresses. The castle is a sifting thing but, if Zoya has a secret, it doesn’t lay beneath the walls of her home. 

So, searching for something to satiate his curiosity and his need to know what’s wrong with Zoya, he opens the door.

When he steps through the door the last thing Nikolai expects is for the curse to retreat. It’s so sudden that air leaves his lungs, pressure making his chest hurt. 

One time, when he was just a kid, Nikolai had tried to dive deeper than any other time, trying to catch the shine of a starlight fish for his mother. His lungs had burned, but Nikolai had looked up, seen the surface of the sea above him and thought that he wanted to have that view forever, before kicking against the current. Deeper and deeper until all he could see was water, not a single trace of the world above or his family boat. 

He had turned to lay - or float - on his back, the world around him bright and alive, so alive and fascinating that he didn’t even notice when it had been too much. 

Nikolai remembers hands then, pulling him up, up, up to the sky. 

Losing the curse feels similar. 

He’s sinking but nothing around him feels alive.

What is this place?

He feels hollow. Something here is different, like life itself is dull and weak. The curse is gone, but the only thing he can think about is how weak his knees feel and how everything is gray, soft rain tapping against the ground. 

A gentle tap-tap-tap that balances the loud thud of Nikolai’s own heart inside a chest that no longer feels the weight of dark magic.

He can’t feel magic at all.

Looking around the place he finds stone walls and dust under his nacked feet. He’s got so used to the claws that the feeling of dirt and soil doesn’t even bother him. In front of him is an iron gate that must have served as a portal to lead them here. So this is the place where the black door leads…

A garden.

He’s in a garden where plants of all kinds climb up the gray stone walls, with a gray sky above and gray ground under him, light rain falling from the sky. 

Everything is so gray and, in the center of it, stands Zoya.

Her back faces him, cladded in a blue jacket with white sleeves and strange worlds engraved across the back. 

Sopot hockey

What is a hockey is a mystery Nikolai would leave for later, now he’s busy trying to look at his hands, at his feet. He’s busy pinching his own face to cheek that he’s not dreaming. When he shoves his finger inside his mouth, Nikolai finds a plain, normal, perfect row of teeth.

A shiver runs down Nikolai’s back when rain keeps soaking him. He feels cold, something he had forgotten after weeks living by Genya’s fire.

“Welcome to Sopot,” Zoya’s voice reaches him in the middle of the fog that clouds his mind. “Now tell me why are you here and why I shouldn’t hide your dead, cold body where no one else could find it?”

I wanted to follow you.

“What is this place?” You looked so deep in sorrow that I had to follow “Where are we?”

“This is Sopot,” Zoya says and the wind carries her voice to him. “We’re in north Poland, I think you would like this place.” Poland.

Nikolai grew as a well educated kid, he was smart and quick on his feet. He loved learning and, above all, he was curious and wanted to travel the world. He learned to read nautical charts and maps, he learned about the four corners of their world and never had he heard about this place or this city.

“We’re not far from the beach, there’s this pier that-”

“What is this place Zoya?” Nikolai interrupts her, taking a cautious step to approach the witch. “Why is the curse gone?” Why is he back to being human?

“No curse can be sustained without magic,” she explains. Her left hand leaves the safety and warmth of her pocket and she reaches for one of the flowers. When she takes it away the tips of her fingers are red and Nikolai wants to kiss the color from her skin. “The only magic here is the lies humans tell to themselves when they try to find hope.” That’s why everything feels so dull?

This world is painted shades of gray and Nikolai finds it disturbing, unnatural.

“We’re not in Ravka?”

“We’re not in anyplace you know,” Zoya finally looks at him. Her dark eyes remind Nikolai of the sea right before the storm. “We’re the furthest you've ever been from your world.” “My world?” so many questions want to crawl their way out his mouth and Nikolai is scared that he’ll start to stutter for the first time in his life. “This is my world,” Zoya walks away from him, further into the strange garden. “I grew up in this house.” It’s not until she points it out, Nikolai notices why everything is so gray. A small house with dark walls and half collapsed. The shadows it casts condemns half of the garden to eternal darkness. 

“And I thought you were raised  by wolves or dragons,” Nikolai dares to walk after her. “Didn’t your mother crave you out of stone and storm gave you life?”

“I was born like any other mortal does,” Zoya’s black hair dances around her face when the wind rises, cold rin hitting their bodies. “And I found a way into your world.” She doesn’t explain any further.

She doesn’t tell him what a hockey is or why the house is silent as a cementerie.

“You found… a portal?” 

Yes, magic portals are a science. Math and physics and the right spell written in the right ink and lines drawn in the right angle. You don’t find portals. At least not in his world. At least that’s what Nikolai had thought all his life. If he had known that portals were something you could find he would have loved the ocean a little less, too busy trying to find one of those magic doors. 

“And you’ve been the first person fool enough to follow me through it.” Like he wouldn’t follow Zoya to the end of the world.

She has the charm of a leader, she makes you want to follow her. She has the kind of pull tides have.

“Since my teeth no longer look like a saw, I think I made a good choice my dear Zoya,” her blue eyes spark with something similar to amusement. Or maybe murderous rage, it’s hard to tell them apart. “But I guess we can’t stay here.” “No if you want to keep yourself alive,” Zoya crouches down and starts to pull weeds from the ground. She’s the last woman on earth Nikolai expected to see taking care of a garden, a beautiful one. “Your body feeds on magic, so does everyone in your world,” when Nikolai goes down to his knees to help, Zoya doesn’t bother to look at him. “So does mine now, your world changes people.” He doesn’t want to ask.

He wants to know, but he’ll take whatever piece of information Zoya gives him.

Nikolai won’t push, he won’t insist, he can sit patiently until she gives pieces of herself to him.

A whole life or whatever it takes.

Damn, he would be fine with what he already has, no need for more if Zoya doesn’t want it. He can bleed openly for her to see without nothing in exchange.

That’s how love works doesn’t it?

“I plant something here each time I lose someone,” her voice sounds distant, a trace of something Nikolai can’t identify. “Lilys for my aunt,” her hand gestures to the small flowers growing in the corner. “Forget-me-not for her daughter…”

“They…” Nikolai swallows. “Are they…” “Death? Yes,” when she stands she dust off non existent dirt for her pants. “A car accident, two years ago today.”

Zoya turns around, pointing to some red flowers, big and brilliant and gorgeous. “Dahlias for a friend and yew for another… Nina and Sergei I… lost them too.” 

She had lost so many people.

And if she belongs to two worlds… Nikolai supposes that she has the double of people to lose.

“I fear one day… I’ll run out of space you know?” her eyes are wet with tears when she looks at him over her shoulder. She’s beautiful even like this. “And I don’t know what I’ll do then.” Find another garden, Nikolai thinks. Bring down the wall so the whole world is your garden. 

But he can’t tell her that.

“I don’t know,” he says instead. “But I can promise that I’m not going to become one of these flowers.” You won’t lose me.

“Don’t promise things you can’t know for sure Lantsov,” Zoya walks to him, face cold as stone, but with blue eyes that tell Nikolai all he needs to know. “I don’t like promises.” “I cross my heart on that Zoya,” Nikolai traces an x over his skin, wishing he had his claws back. He would paint himself red for Zoya to see. “I’m here for as long as you allow me to be.” Zoya’s eyes, those eyes that are usually calm, are roaring with emotion as she lets her body fall against his.

Two years ago today, she said.

How long had she carried the pain alone?

Nikolai wraps his arms around her, locking her in a safe space where Zoya can brawl her eyes out and break. Nikolai knows that it’ll be gone the exact moment they’re back into the castle, so he allows her to cry now.

The monster and the witch, together under the rain.

________________________________________________________________

Nikolai doesn’t know how much time passes but, after a while they’re back into Zoya’s castle. Back to the already familiar sounds of the building, alive around them.

He prepares tea for both of them and Zoya changes into clothes that aren¡t soaked. She leaves her jacket by the fireplace to dry.

Silence is welcomed, instead of uncomfortable or tense. Zoya cried the tears she needed to cry. Nikolai held her… and now they have followed into a quiet place where none of them knows how to advance.

Light dances over Zoya’s face, casting shadows over her skin that flickers with each breath of wind that sneaks between the cracks of the castle. It’s a quiet pace, filled with a silence that remains Nikolai of the sea he misses so much. It’s the same quietness he finds when he lies under the surface, trying to sink in the bottom of the ocean.

Zoya sits in front of the fireplace, long legs tucked under her body, holding into the steaming cup of tea with hands that are no longer trembling. She looks smaller than usual, not weaker but… more human. Maybe she is, maybe she’s just one of those humans with a little too much love for magic.

“You’re staring again,” she says, voice low so she won’t bother any of the other habitants of the castle. “A picture would last longer.” “I was thinking,” he catches the tug in Zoya’s lip, the way she almost slips from that cold armor and laughs at him. “Have you ever thought about destiny?” “Destiny is for the third sons of a poor family and bastards from evil kings who will overthrone their parents,” Zoya answers questions with poison under her tongue. Sometimes Nikolai can’t help but wonder what’s behind all that hate for a world that, if cruel sometimes, he loves so much. “You don’t stick me like either of those Lantsov, or are you the seventh son of a seventh son?”

No, he’s not.

Maybe he’s not the youngest of three sons.

He’s the youngest of two, and no merchant has ever sold him a magic  device who will change his life.

He’s a sailor, but no mermaid has tried to drown him, to later fall in love.

He was loved, so no prince could rescue him from a dark tower.

Until the curse, Nikolai was meant to live the most mundane and normal life one could imagine. 

Until Zoya, Nikolai was meant to wander around, trying to find what made him feel alive apart from the ocean and his inventions. The witch is like one of the last some times, a strange machine he wants to tear apart piece by piece until he figures out the gears.

“Maybe I’m destined to find a star,” he says, eyes fixed on her profile.  Zoya’s nose is slightly crooked and, even if he doesn’t know it, he likes to think that, just like him, she broke it during a fistfight.

There’s something endearing about imagining the most powerful witch in the land getting into a fight using her hands.

“A star who would fall in love with me and I would rule the sky by her side.” “The ones who own the heart of a star are meant to live forever. You look like the kind of man that would be bored of immortality after a few years.”

And she’s not wrong. A life with no ends seems tedious and boring.

“I would annoy a certain witch until she des-immortalized me.”

It’s only in moments like this one, late at night with just the two of them, when Zoya allows herself to laugh. 

“There was this one song… a lullaby my aunt used to sing to me,” she whispers just for them and the fire to hear. “About catching stars and making potions. I think it was the first time I believed in magic.”

“She was the one raissing you?”

“Mostly. It was us two and her daughter,” Nikolai feels like, as soon as the fire dies and the sun rises, no trace of Zoya’s sincerity will remain. “My parents and I… we didn’t click.”

“The thing about blood relatives is that they can be deleterious for your health,” Nikolai says, leaning in to grave his own mug from the counter of the fireplace. “I haven’t talked to my parents in years, I don’t…” swallowing the knot on his throat, Nikolai forces himself to say the next words like it doesn’t make him feel like a cruel son, “I don’t even consider them my parents sometimes.”

His parents had been wealthy, they had given him everything. Toys, education, food and a roof over his head. They were the reason he had met Dominik so, in a way, they had gifted him his first kiss. 

But they were distant, they wanted a stoic and serious kid, not a curious and loud one.

When he left his home - his house, since it didn’t feel like he belonged there - he arrived at a small coastal town. The place rushed with life and magic, street vendors in each corner and loud voices filling the street. He was young and the old sailors were charmed with him as soon as he started helping around the marina. 

They taught him how to read nautical charts, how to navigate a boat, the ropes and the secrets of the ocean that had fascinated him for years.

For Nikolai, those old men and women had been more like parents than the real ones. 

But his story, his tale, is not for this night to tell.

This night belongs to Zoya. He doesn't want to interrupt the little flow of truth that the witch is letting escape from her cold heart. 

“I hope my mother is dead in some ditch along the road,” she raises her cup. “To a family we wish we didn’t have.”

“To the family we found along the way.” 

Their cups click, a soft sound in the silence of the night, and Zoya looks a little less blue than she did in the morning.

Fire suits her, it makes her glow like a bronze statue, hair so dark that it swallows the light around them.

Nikolai black eyes are fixed on her, and that’s how he wants the morning sun to find them.

________________________________________________________________

When Nikolai walks to the kitchen, he’s meet with Genya already waiting in the corridor, exactly what he was searching for.

“My dear Genya, would you do me the favor of warming a bath for this poor cursed soul?”

Nikolai bows in a way that would make his parents proud and takes Genya’s hand on his, leaving a caste kiss against her knuckles. “I really need a bath.”

Like he always does, David walks past them, not paying attention to the demonic creature holding his wife's hand. 

“You know the price,” Genya laughs, bubbly and happy. His good Genya, so bright and beautiful. Each day he wakes up and each day the small kid that still reminds him is glad for the sister he spent years asking for. “A song.” Genya always asks for little prices for her favors.

A song.

A tale.

A small trinket.

As a fire demon, she can’t leave the castle, so she would take anything from the outside world.

“Zoya, would you help me to entertain the most precious demon in the world?” he asks, eying the witch as she walks into the kitchen. “I could use a dance partner.” “I don’t dance with ugly bats,” she says, already opening the cabinets so she can get the breakfast going. “Just let him freeze Genya.” “My cold witch, what would I do without your disdain,” Zoya’s facing the fire, but he can feel her roll her eyes. “Would you dance with me then?” “Of course my dear,” she bows too. It’s an exaggerated bow, like the one Nikolai offered her. It’s fun, laughing at the things his parents taught him as a kid. He would never do it in front of a king, he still has decorum, but it’s fun throwing all your manes out the window when it’s just you and your friends. “What’s the song called, heart of mine?” Nikolai clears his voice, like he’s about to start the most heartbreaking ballad ever written. He takes a deep breath, holds Genya's hands…

And start stomping around the room, pulling her along as they spin and he sins like a drunk sailor in a tavern late at night. Voice deep and slurred. 

“I’m the captain of a Ravkan ship!” he screams and it mingles with Genya’s laugh. “In each port a wife waits for me!”

She throws her head back and laughs, hair like fire shining in the dim morning light.

“The blond front enchanted men and the ginger rode the waves,” he can feel himself about to laugh. “But I’m due to marry, oh who would it be? You my dear siren, who took it all from me!”

The song gets worse.

Way, way worse.

It’s fun to scream in a tavern and make a song up as you go, singing with friends and lovers, not minding how crude you are.

But Nikolai bursts into laughter so he cuts it short and finishes the song. He wants to wipe Genya’s tears, but the fire demon cries boiling water.

“I think I can warm the bath for our brute pirate,” she says, wiping away tears. “Tell me one thing, how many women slap their husbands faces after that one?” “More or them join the song,” he says. “After all, one of the lines says something about… you know,” he gestures to his body, holding another chuckle. “Masculinity.” “Sailors… they’re one of a kind,” she walks up the stairs and he trots behind her, loaning for his warm bath and breakfast before going for a flight. Before getting away from the kitchen, Nikolai looks over his shoulder.

Zoya’s blue eyes find him, there’s a small smile on her lips. She’s gorgeous and perfect and he returns the smile and the thing bubbling in his chest feels real as nothing he had ever felt before, mind flying back to last night.

.

.

.

.

.

.

That’s how he wants the morning sun to find them but, instead of that he talks again.

“The men raising me, not my father, also taught me a song,” he says as he stands. “It didn’t make me believe in magic, I already saw it each day, but he told me that he used to sing it to his husband…” It didn't make him believe in magic.

But it made Nikolai start to think about what love means.

“Indulge me?” offering Zoya his hand feels wrong now that the black marks cover his skin again. Even if once the moon is out the claws retract, it feels wrong holding so delicate as Zoya’s hand against the skin of a monster. “I don’t-” “Just for tonight, you indulged this poor soul with the truth, what’s a little more?” “I’ll step on your foot.” “And I’ll pretend it didn’t happen.” Zoya is an emotional woman, even if she thinks that the mask of stone she puts each morning hides it. He can see the shift in her eyes. From the blue of the deep sea to the one ocean right after a storm. He can see how she swallows and takes a deep breath.

“If you tell anyone…”

“I don’t plan to die an early death my dear,” he stands there. Like the stoic prince each person dreams of at least one. A hand behind his back, the other offered to Zoya. “Can I have this dance?”

“Just one,” her hand is small against his. Not delicate, Zoya may be the most beautiful woman he knows, but no part of her is delicate. “Just once.” “Is all I’m asking for.” At least for tonight.

At least for the night where truth bleeds out of them.

“You’re insufferable,” she says, placing her free hand over his shoulder. 

“I know.”

“You’re lucky I’m open to put up with you,” Zoya’s chin is up, back straight and shoulders firm. Like she’s declaring war instead of whatever this is. “You can’t imagine how lucky you are.” Oh he does.

Of course he does.

“Go and catch a falling star,” he starts, moving Zoya around the room. “Go and sail the savage seas.”

He signs, low enough for just them to hear.

A whisper that makes Zoya need to step closer, stop moving an ocean away from him to listen. 

“Get the parem root and a ring of gold, tell me, oh dear, where all the past year’s are.”

He thinks of Dominik, all the times he cowered away from him, all the times he regretted not doing this with him and how now it’s too late.

Or who cleft the Kestrel feathers

Teach me to hear the mermaids singing,

and ride the waves of life

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

He thinks of his father and lipstick stains on his shirt that didn’t match the ones his mother always wears. They never taught him what love meant.

If that makes you promise me your heart

Find the scorching sun and capture the freezing cold

Put the wind in a bottle and love me for eternity

He thinks about Tamar and Nadia getting married with their feet buried in white sand. He remembers his own tears and the river Tolya cried. 

I've no need for mighty deeds

I could use an honest mind.

He thinks about the old sailor, telling him the story of his life. Telling him about the man he loved and the nights they spent dancing to this same song. He thinks about the night the sailor wept as he told him, how love hurt so much that it was worthy.

Decide what this is about

Write a second verse yourself

My dearest one, If thou be'st born to strange sights

Allow me to be one and love me for eternity

And he thinks about the woman in front of him. 

Fierce and gentle.

Opening him the doors of her home, allowing him to stay.

The woman searching for a cure and the way to fix this.

Ride ten thousand days and nights with me,

Until our hair turns white with age

And swear I’ll have  your hand to hold

To love and kiss to sweetly hold

He thinks about Zoya in her lonely garden.

Zoya, facing the storm to catch lightning.

Zoya in the morning, hair messy and pillow lines on her face.

Zoya, bright, vibrant Zoya.

“And love you for eternity…” the words die as he sings the last verse.

Silence rings and he meets ocean blue eyes. He could down in those eyes because calm, deep waters are the most dangerous ones. 

“It’s a good song,” she says, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. Maybe for comfort. Maybe so they can keep dancing. Maybe it’s just so she doesn’t have to look into his eyes.  “Do you know more?”

Of course he does.

He could lure Zoya for a whole life.

For a thousand and one.

Nikolai holds her closer, hands clasped on her back and just swinging on his feet as his lips part one more time.

“My heart just yearns to say, scream in the horrors of the night,” he could sing for Zoya forever if it means holding her like this. “I love you in ways that I can utter to say, so my rotting bones will sing for me when the rest is dead.” He sings.

Nikolai keeps singing.

And Zoya keeps being held, learning how to be held, and they keep dancing.