#kraaiking

The lehenga is the color of bubbling champagne adorned with gems that catch even the smallest light and cast fractals onto the nearest surface. Right now that would be the ceiling of the hotel room and the sparkling orbs thrown across the walls twist and glitter when Inej turns even only a little. The fabric is soft when she runs her hands across the full skirt, a far cry from the cheap imitation material she once wore to entice men who wanted her for only her skin, but she doesn’t feel any safer. Her choli bares more flesh than she is used to. The soft expanse of her midriff is on display from the wings of her ribcage all the way to the band at her hips and she fights not to curl into herself.

Kaz stands beside her with her dupatta in his hands. It perfectly matches the lehenga and she wonders how he managed to steal the whole set but then she probably shouldn’t wonder. This is Kaz after all. Inej fixes her gaze past the dupatta and on the skin of his bare fingers. If she looks at his face, she’s almost positive that she will tumble into the well of emotions that sits simmering within her. She agreed to this job without any fuss and she doesn’t even know why anymore.

“We’re playing a part,” she reminds him because she is also reminding herself. Mostly she is reminding herself. And it’s his plan anyway just like it always is. Inej runs her hands more firmly back down the front of her skirt to reassure herself that her knives are tucked beneath...and also to avoid taking the dupatta yet. It feels even more like taking that plunge than meeting his penetrating gaze and she doesn’t think she can take that leap. For all her courage in past times of fear, she is embarrassed now to be so anxious. “This isn’t who I am.”

There are six locks on the door and one on every window. It isn’t unlike the Slat where he locks himself in and everyone out, every entrance point safeguarded from threat. In the Barrel, and even amongst your own gang, that threat could come from anywhere. But here, in the Geldin district with the wealthy where they don’t really belong (all the better for hiding, actually), it should be different. That doesn’t stop Kaz from flipping every last switch and bolt into place, his own sort of ritual whenever he comes and goes. She shouldn’t find it so endearing.

“Are you really that worried about it? You don’t keep anything of true value here, do you?” From the outside, the townhouse looks the same as the rest on the street with its curved eaves and metal detailed windows large enough to allow more than one thief through at a time. On this side of the city, the palette is not so dreary, some attempt at color splashed in just the right spots. The brick outside is whitewashed and cleaned weekly by university students. The door is a cheerful red.

Inside, it’s more or less still empty. This is the first time she’s been here and the only furniture is a low table surrounded by mismatched, highbacked chairs in what should be a sitting room. The heavy drapes on all the windows appear to have come with the house and still remain, but Inej doesn’t mind. If it's Dregs business he's brought her here for, the curtains will stay closed and it's too late to let any light in anyway.

It’s raining tonight and Inej shakes the wet from her long braid. The dark blue tile in the entryway does not soak up the water they tread inside. Her coat drips. When she turns to face him, she is smiling just wide enough that light bursts in her eyes warmly. “Or,” on her toes, she can reach his hat and remove it for him, “is it that you’re trying to keep me in?”

Water  will  follow  him  forever,    he  thinks.    When  he  slept,    if  he  slept,    the  dreams  used  to  be  about  Jordie,    of  course.    Melting  skin,    frozen  fingers,    puss  and  shit  and  rot  everywhere.    Jordie  with  his  corpse  face  and  his  corpse  hands,    Jordie  with  his  floating  body,    Jordie  with  his  own  rasping  voice  from  the  fires  and  the  taunts  that  never  quite  shaped  his  mouth  right.    This  isn’t  what  we  wanted,    Kazzie.    This  isn’t  what  I  wanted  for  you.    And  there  was  always  the  godawful  gurgling  of  his  lungs  when  he  spoke  and  the  death  -  flat  of  his  eyes  unseeing.    It  was  almost  always  the  same  dream. These  days,    it’s  still  water  haunting  him.    But  it  isn’t  Jordie  floating  down  the  canals  of  the  city  and  it  isn’t  Jordie  clinging  to  Kaz  until  he  can  do  nothing  but  swallow  water  and  wake  gasping  for  breath.    These  days,    it’s  a  warship  split  in  two  down  the  middle.    It’s  a  dozen  knives  spinning  through  the  depths  and  sinking  with  the  wreckage,    the  whispers  of  saints  blooming  like  bubbles  on  the  way  down.    It’s  sea  kelp  caught  in  one  long  braid  and  fingers  reaching  for  the  surface  and  Kaz  is  in  Ketterdam,    Kaz  is  in  Ketterdam,    Kaz  is  in  Ketterdam. He still wakes gasping for breath, but there's a name on his lips now, too. Tonight  it’s  neither  dream.    Tonight  Fifth  Harbour  is  silent.    There  is  no  ship,    only  empty  docks  and  low  tide,    and  not  a  single  pigeon  in  sight.    Not  even  his  harbour  runner,    the  boy  called  Lip  who  brings  news  of  who  comes  and  goes  from  this  port,    stalks  the  shadows  and  there  are  many  of  those.    The  moon  is  high  in  the  sky  and  fat  with  light  but  obscured  by  clouds  that  hold  no  rain.    Kaz  stands  at  the  end  of  Berth  22.    A  mirror  stands  beside  him. ❝    .  .  .    ❞  Awareness  dampens  his  palms  and  the  back  of  his  neck.    Nothing  and  everything  hurts,    but  Kaz  cannot  tell  where  the  pain  ends  and  begins.    His  double  looks  perfectly  at  ease,    as  though  he  already  knows  who  holds  all  the  cards.    Perhaps  it  doesn’t  matter,    if  they  are  the  same,    but  something  about  it  grates  on  his  nerves.    Always  his  own  enemy.    ❝    I  suppose  yours  is  filled  with  decency,    morality,    and  sweetness.    In  which  case  you’ve  disembarked  at  the  wrong  port.    ❞

he never made it into the water. the gravediggers took jordie’s body from his desperate little hands, and kaz ran for blocks on bare feet, screaming and screaming and screaming until he lost his voice, trying to catch up with the reaper’s barge. there’s been some kind of mistake, he told himself. if i make it around the corner fast enough, jordie will stand up, and wave, and then they’ll let him off the boat, and we can go home. but there was no home. no jordie. and no mistake. 

once, as children, they were loved the same. then, somehow, when they slipped from the teat of love, only one of them starved. ( kaz always thought his life had been hard. ) 

now, kaz counts three steps to the edge of the berth, provokes a wailing, creaking sound of sea-salt-infused wood. he knows himself well enough to understand it’s better not to show his face, the pity coalescing on it. he did not come to weep for the bastard of the barrel  ‒‒  for himself, or the boy they used to be, frightened and vulnerable. neither would he argue for the toughness of his own heart. skin flashes like bright, distant lightning as kaz takes empty hands from empty pockets and folds them before himself, calloused fingertip to calloused fingertip.      ❛❛  but i came to the right place.  ❜❜      

“Explain this to me,” demands Inej. She doesn’t drop the dailies into his lap but she does wave them under his nose. It’s ineffective in getting his attention except that she knows she had it the minute she’d slipped in through the unlocked window. Inej has the paper folded in half. It doesn’t obscure the headline, big and screaming as it is. MURDERED MERCHANT AT THE MARKET! The details won’t–and can’t–do any justice to the crime scene itself. Ketterdam pretends at proper but this is its supposed finest dragged into broad daylight to bleed out. Inej catches Kaz’s smirk.

“You had no right.” Now she does drop the paper. It disturbs his paperwork, sending sheets flying. Kaz’s temper too. She beats him to it, seething at him, “No. You don’t get to snap at me today. Not today, Kaz Brekker. Explain this to me. What were you thinking?”

A DRINK IS DELIVERED TO HER, though she does not touch it. instead, her hands fold themselves neatly on the top of the table, fingers gentle against the dampening napkin. the time stretches into seconds, then into minutes...

the hall goes silent when the door opens, and the woman does not have to look up. the crow's [ @kraaiking ]cane travels across the floor in a steady beat. ❝ Have you been waiting long, ❞ he asks in a polite drawl.... the woman almost laughs.

the shadow comes as a blade through the fractured walls, tempted by the torment of macabre curiosity. it peeks over the room's grimmest secrets with the usual disdain that comes with the stagnancy of how business is conducted in every sordid corner of their world. however, his interest does not concern the familiar terrain, but rather the look of distress stitched to the host's expression. something he found unusual regardless of the natural austere &. uninviting grimace the man carried most of the times ( if not at all times . . . ).