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How could she be so stupid?
Inej had always been quick, light on her feet, good at observing without being seen, able to read another’s body language better than the spoken word. She should have seen the feint coming a mile away. Should have known not to fall for it, to protect her left side.
To not get stabbed like a podge their first night in the Barrel.
Saints, she should have been smart enough to avoid the confrontation in the first place. Wasn’t that why Kaz had named her the Wraith? Because she was unseen? A ghost?
She’d be a literal ghost soon if she didn’t pick herself up and get moving.
It was supposed to have been a simple exchange of information. The Black Tips knew something that Kaz didn’t about some imports to 4th Harbour, and Kaz knew exactly which Black Tip was screwing Geels over behind his back. The terms of the meet were agreed with Kaz representing the Dregs with Jesper as his second. Kaz brought Inej along as their shadow, back-up he didn’t expect to need but thought would be good experience for her. A real-world practice run, as it were.
So she had found a vantage point on the roof of a four-storey building that at one point had been a cannery, hidden behind its rusted sign. Kaz met Geels on the street below, the four men gathered under the only functioning streetlamp. Inej couldn’t hear them from her perch, but she read their conversation from the shuffle of Geels' feet, Kaz’s stillness, the casual line of Jesper’s shoulders as he rested a hand on one of his revolvers.
It was going smoothly. Geels was clearly unhappy, his initial confident swagger quickly devolving in to irritation and wariness, but Kaz just tended to have that effect on people. Geels’ second had matched Jesper’s move to touch his gun, but it wasn’t a threat to draw, just a reminder that he was armed too. Posturing.
Typical boys.
Inej was watching them closely, learning the rules of the exchange. She periodically checked the street, the windows of the buildings on either side. She occasionally scanned the rooftops.
They simply weren’t expecting trouble.
If Geels’ expression when the first shot was fired was anything to go by, the Black Tips weren’t expecting trouble either.
Blood spray from the new hole in his second’s sternum splattered across Geels’ shocked face. The echo of the gunshot was still reverberating when Jesper drew his revolvers, somehow tracking the shooter’s position and returning fire before the first body had even hit the cobblestones. Geels turned angry and accusing to Kaz, but Kaz and Jesper were already moving to cover as more bullets started flying. Geels wisely chose self-preservation, turning tail and running.
Inej took too long to recover from the surprise.
If she were feeling kinder towards herself, she would concede that just three months ago she was still a captive in fake Suli silks with bells on her ankles. Yes, she had known danger and cruelty long before Kaz Brekker had offered her a way out, but gun fights were not exactly common at the Menagerie. She had heard Jesper’s revolvers and experienced the ringing in her ears and the scent of freshly burned gunpowder, but the entertainment and cockiness of Jesper’s trick shot performances were far removed from the sudden cacophony that she was then faced with.
She froze. And that was only her first mistake.
By the time she blinked, she had already lost sight of Kaz and Jesper. The gunshots still continued though, so their attackers must have been in pursuit. Should she follow?
Her decision was made for her when she spotted movement in her peripheral vision. Instinct had her ducking as a bullet sparked against the sign where her head had just been. She kept low, seeking the shadows of the rooftop as her assailant fired again and again, each bullet just barely missing until there came the inevitable pause to reload.
Inej took her chance, hoping they didn’t duel wield like Jesper, and leapt.
She should have called her knife to her hand and ended the fight quickly, but in her head and her heart there was still a line that she would not cross. Instead she opened with a sharp jab to their throat that left them spluttering. A follow-up knee to the gut and an elbow strike to the back of their skull and they were down. Sprawled in an undignified heap across the roof.
They were young, a boy probably around her own age dressed in their Barrel best. Their tattoo wasn’t visible and there was no time to look for it, but judging from the indiscriminate attack they probably weren’t from the Black Tips. Not a double cross then, but someone must have spilled the details of the exchange. Whoever was after them had surprise and numbers on their side, were seemingly unafraid of attracting the Stadwatch, and knew Kaz well enough to also target the rooftops for his new spider.
This was a hunt.
Inej took off running as more shadows appeared on parallel rooftops. It was hard to count, but she figured she had about six pursuers on her tail, and they were just as quick as she was.
But she knew Kaz Brekker only invested in the best – they could match her speed, but not her agility.
She lost at least two of them making impossible leaps that made her pursuers hesitate, but the others were determined to chase her down. They were halfway to the East Stave before she made her second mistake.
A gunshot glanced off the copper roof beneath her feet, the ricocheted bullet passing her close enough for her to feel its heat through her sleeve. She swallowed a yelp and veered sharply to her right on instinct, launching herself across an alleyway.
Or what she thought was an alleyway.
The trouble was that Inej was still learning the skyline of Ketterdam. She knew the Barrel intimately, all of its peaks and slopes and crevices. She knew the West and East Staves and their cobbled together streets. Beyond that Inej had learned certain routes that would take her to each of the districts or north to the harbours. She was simply not familiar enough to improvise a new route this far from home.
She should have gone left.
The alleyway was actually a street. As Inej threw herself into the air she realised that the distance was far longer than she was expecting. She did not have the momentum to carry her across. She wasn’t going to make it.
An unfamiliar fear gripped her as gravity tugged her towards the ground. She choked on a gasp as her throat closed in panic, her body locking up with an iciness that froze her to her core.
She was falling.
And then she was abruptly not. She hit the wall of the building opposite hard enough to jar every bone in her body. She scrabbled for a handhold as she slipped further down the wall until the toe of her slipper finally caught on a barely protruding brick. For a second she simply clung there, forcing two calming breaths to get her thundering heart under control, and then took stock of where she had ended up.
She had fallen maybe two or three storeys but had somehow managed to clear the width of the street. She didn’t recognise the building, being too close to the brickwork to really get a look, but she was fairly sure she was only a few streets way from the East Stave.
Incredulous laughter echoed from above, and Inej twisted around to see her pursuers gathered on the rooftop she had just thrown herself from. They seemed impressed that she was still alive, but the reprieve wouldn’t last long.
In a choice between up or down, Inej would always choose up – near death experience or not – so she shuffled carefully sideways to reach the drainpipe and proceeded to shimmy back up onto the roof. Her pursuers took a couple more shots at her, far fewer than the initial opening salvo. They must be running out of bullets.
She kept running. Her leap, while ill advised, had served to put some distance between them, but the one thing she knew for certain about her pursuers was that they were persistent. She picked one of her less familiar routes towards the Barrel, focusing on every step, jump and grip to distract from the growing aches of her cuts and bruises. One by one the shadows trailing her vanished, either unable to follow or calling off the chase.
It had to have been less than ten minutes since the first shot was fired and upended their peaceful night into chaos. Inej could feel exhaustion setting in as the adrenaline faded, her run falling to a trot as she picked her way towards the rendezvous point. She could only hope that Kaz and Jesper were there waiting for her; Kaz grumbling about a wasted trip while Jesper failed to conceal his obvious excitement following a gunfight.
“Lynx.”
Inej stopped, hiding her stumble with a graceful twist, turning to face the owner of the sudden voice. They were dressed in a tight black outfit, not dissimilar from her own, their dark hair shorn to a fine fuzz and their eyes golden. Shu. Inej didn’t recognise them, but they had used her title from the Menagerie, and something about their stare made her blood run cold.
They moved swiftly, closing the distance between them nearly before Inej was able to raise her guard. She blocked the first strike, flicked her wrist to call Sankt Petyr to her hand and aimed for their gut in retaliation. They caught her arm and twisted it roughly before her blade could so much as graze fabric. The fight was fast and brutal as they continued exchanging blows, each briefly gaining the upper hand before the other struck back.
And then they feinted to Inej’s right, seemingly going for her shoulder. She didn’t even see the attack to her unprotected left, didn’t know it had happened until white hot pained seared through her side. The Shu held her in place, their blade between her ribs, and smiled.
“Did you really think she would let you go?”
Well, that was a shitshow.
Jesper hurried down a side street of the East Stave, keeping close to the shadows cast by its ramshackle buildings. One of his revolvers was holstered and empty, the other gripped tightly in his right hand with its three remaining bullets singing along his senses. He was fairly certain that he had lost the last of their attackers at the edge of the Lid, but with as few bullets as he had left he couldn’t afford to let down his guard.
He and Kaz had had to split up at 5th Harbour, Kaz heading down through East Stave so he could use the alleys to evade and ambush the handful of attackers that followed him, while Jesper drew the rest along the Lid where he could outrun most of them and shoot the rest. One of them had managed to get off a lucky shot, tearing a hole through the sleeve of Jesper’s favourite coat and leaving a sluggish stream of blood down his left arm.
He was angrier about the coat really. He’d have to ask Rotty to help him patch it.
By the time he made it to the meeting point he figured it was close to two bells, maybe twenty minutes since he last saw Kaz. He was expecting to be the last one to show up considering the long route he had taken, but the alley was suspiciously empty.
Slowly he walked along the cobblestones, eyes flicking between the entrances at either end and up towards the low roofs above. A stray cat nearly caught a bullet when it scarpered out of its hiding place, shocking a curse out of Jesper, but other than that he was met with silence.
Incredibly unnerving silence.
Jesper put his back to a wall, doing his best impression of Inej blending into the shadows, and promptly ruined the illusion by nervously spinning his revolvers. There was something horrifically off-putting about being the first to arrive (hence why he avoided such a scenario at all times) and without distraction his mind was already running through worst case scenarios.
But if he hadn’t have been so on edge, he probably wouldn’t have heard the choked off gasp from somewhere above him.
Jesper looked up, straining to listen, and was rewarded with the soft thud of something hitting asphalt. It definitely came from the rooftop, which probably knocked Kaz off of the list of possible suspects considering his ongoing personal vendetta against stairs…
“Inej?” he called as loudly as he dared, more of a whisper shout.
Possibly Inej groaned in reply.
Saints. Jesper holstered his revolvers, double checked the alley for an ambush, then headed for the ladder nailed to the side of the building. Of course Inej would never have needed the ladder, but Jesper found himself insanely grateful that Kaz had chosen one of the few meeting points with decent roof access.
It was entirely possible that this was a trap. Jesper was all too aware of that fact as he paused at the top of the ladder and drew his gun. When he peeked over the parapet he truly expected to find himself at the end of a barrel.
But what he actually found was so much worse.
“Inej!” Jesper yelled as he threw himself onto the roof, all caution forgotten. Inej lay on her side in an ungraceful sprawl that she would never usually allow herself. Her eyes were closed, and a dark puddle was spreading from beneath her. Jesper knelt by her side, his hand hovering over her shoulder.
Inej didn’t like to be touched. Kaz didn’t like to be touched either. Jesper had learned about Kaz’s aversion early on when a bullet to his good leg meant that he had had to rely on Jesper to get him back to Slat. Kaz had avoided him for a solid week afterwards, as if Jesper was going to somehow use the perceived weakness against him. It wasn’t until Kaz was forced to bring him along on a job and Jesper proving that nothing had changed for his knowing that Kaz had allowed him closer again.
With Inej, Jesper had made a huge mistake, slinging his arm around her shoulders in a friendly gesture that had her stiffening in fear. He had known where she had come from, what she had been through, but he hadn’t been thinking, and he had very nearly lost their friendship before it could even begin. It had been nearly a month before she was comfortable being around him again, and even then she still shied away if he got too close.
Jesper found it terribly ironic that as someone whose love language was essentially touch, he had managed to make Kaz and Inej his two favourite people.
“Inej,” Jesper called again, his hand still not touching but close enough that she could probably feel the warmth. Finally, she groaned, eyes screwing shut in pain before slowly blinking open. And widening in panic. “Easy, love, it’s just me, you’re safe.”
“Jes?”
“The one and only,” he grinned with entirely false bravado, but it made Inej roll her eyes at him so it was totally worth it. And then she was wincing again, curling in to a tighter ball. The puddle grew. “Inej, can you roll on to your back? I need to see where you’re hurt.”
Inej shook her head. She had closed her eyes again, her face pinched and her breaths getting shorter. She was panicking and afraid and in pain, and Jesper didn’t know how to help her. He wasn’t feeling all that calm himself. He was the worst person for this… where was Kaz?
Get it together Fahey.
“Inej, hey, Inej, look at me,” Jesper cajoled, leaning down next to her so that he was easily in her line of sight when she forced her eyes to focus. “There you are, love. I’m going to help you, okay? But I’m going to need to touch you to do that. I am not going to hurt you, or take advantage or anything like that, I promise. You’re going to keep all of your knives, and you are welcome to stab me if you feel in the least bit threatened, right? Sorry, that probably doesn’t help at all…”
He was rambling, panic loosening his tongue even more than usual. But Inej seemed to be following along, her own breathing slowing slightly as she listened to the rumble of his voice. And if it helped her, Jesper was more than happy to keep up the awkward narration.
“I’m going to touch your shoulder okay? And maybe your hip? We need to roll you on to your back so I can see where you’re hurt,” Jesper explained, waiting for Inej’s slow blink of consent before following through. “There we go… its not so bad… ugh.”
Jesper glanced away, swallowing the bile that crept up his throat once he laid eyes on the wound. It was hard to see at first against the darkness of her clothes, but when Inej sucked in a grunt, a fresh pulse of blood escaped from the stab wound in her left side. It was a deep tear between her ribs, raw and open and Jesper was so not qualified for this.
But he was the only one there, so “Alright, we need to stop the bleeding… with something… Inej, love, can I borrow your scarf?”
“Scarf?” Inej hummed, one hand absently touching the soft fabric she wore wrapped around her head, tugging it down from her lower face. “To stop the bleeding?”
“That’s right,” Jesper agreed. Saints, she sounded so lost and confused, so far from her usual sharpness. How much blood had she lost already?
Too much.
Jesper kept those fears to himself as he carefully assisted Inej with removing the scarf from its intricate twist. The whole time he muttered about the fabric and its subtle coloured patterns, apologising and promising to buy her a new one. Inej flinched a few times when his hands came too close to her face and neck, but she allowed him to pull it free. Despite the coolness of the night, a few strands of her hair that had come loose from her braid stuck to her sweaty skin.
Jesper folded the fabric into a thick belt, and with some more barely sensical commentary managed to slide the scarf beneath her waist and tie it off.
“Sorry, sorry… it needs to be tight,” he fretted as Inej groaned in agony, writhing on the ground as if trying to escape the pain. Jesper just wanted to hug her, or stroke her hair to try and sooth her, but knew that his touch would have the opposite effect. Instead he stayed close and tried to figure out how in Saint’s name he was going to get them down from the roof.
As Inej gradually recovered, Jesper wandered back to the edge of the roof to check that the alley below was still clear. He half expected to find Kaz glaring impatiently up at him, but there was still no sign of the elusive Bastard of the Barrel. Which was more than a little troubling. With Inej as badly hurt as she was they couldn’t afford to wait. He had to get her back to the Slat and call for a medic… but if Kaz was in trouble too, Jesper didn’t want to leave him.
One thing at a time.
“Jes?” Inej panted, “Kaz?”
“Hey love, are you back with me?” Jesper smiled shakily, just stopping himself from reaching out as Inej blinked blearily at him. “We need to get down from here so I can get you back to the Slat. I have a plan, but you are going to have to hold on to me, do you think you can do that?”
“Hold…?” she mumbled, concerningly dazed, before nodding. “I can do that.”
“Good, alright. We’re going to do this piggy-back style, so first step is going to be sitting you up.”
Inej scrunched her nose up, not best pleased with the idea of sitting up, but she still gave it a valiant effort. With a stifled whimper she was able to lift herself up onto her elbows, but when she tried to push further she wavered and nearly fell back. Jesper almost grabbed for her on reflex, but managed to turn the aborted manoeuvre into offering his hands instead.
Inej hesitated, her glazed eyes meeting his. For a moment they stayed like that, Jesper still and patient for quite possibly the first time in his life, and Inej fighting a war with herself and her memories. She was trembling, from the cool night, traumatic blood loss, or fear. Or more likely a combination of all three. But she was the strongest person Jesper knew, and with as deep a breath as she could manage, she took his hand.
Jesper gave Inej a bright smile that she weakly matched, and then began the next part of the shuffle. He helped her to her feet and over to the parapet, carefully sitting her on the edge. Inej looked confused for a moment, but when Jesper turned to show her his back and crouched down within her reach she gave a soft huff of a laugh. “Piggy-back…” she murmured, then said something in Suli. “I did not know the word.”
To be fair, Jesper wasn’t sure he had the Kerch right anyway, he had just gone with the direct translation from Zemeni and trusted he would be understood.
He could feel her tense behind him, and patiently waited. He was going to need both hands to make the climb down and had hoped the fact that she would be holding on to him instead of the other way round might help her feel safer. But there was no avoiding that they would need to be close. After a moment though, Inej nudged him with her knee so that he would scoot close enough for her wrap her legs around his waist. She then hugged his back, looping one arm over his shoulder and the other under so that she wouldn’t accidentally choke him.
“My father used to carry me this way…” Inej said quietly into the collar of his coat. “When I was tired after practice…would fall asleep…”
“Don’t fall asleep on me yet, love,” Jesper said, trying to keep the worry from edging too obviously into his voice. He slowly rose to his feet, ready to catch Inej if her grip failed, but of course her grip stayed true. “I need you to marvel at my talent as I scale the side of this building.”
Inej gave another huff that quickly turned into a groan as Jesper accidentally jostled her when he stepped onto the ladder. He winced in sympathy and tried to smooth out his movements as he began the long climb down.
Kaz was pissed.
First Geels thinking that he had something over Kaz and could strongarm their negotiation – a pathetic attempt, but the fact that he had tried at all was frustrating enough. And then the ambush that had managed to take him by surprise and forced him to run through the East Stave, something he would be paying for for a while if the throbbing agony of his leg was anything to go by. And finally, despite very clear instructions for the rendezvous point, both his sharpshooter and his spider were late.
Kaz ground his teeth in annoyance as he kept to the alleyway’s shadows, certain that he wasn’t followed but still cautious. He had yet to identify just who had attacked them, and not knowing was putting him on edge. He had already ruled out a double cross from the Black Tips considering the first casualty, and the fact that Geels was simply not smart enough for something so coordinated. Their attackers had been well trained and well-armed, which ruled out most of the Barrell gangs too.
Rollins had the resources. But not the motive. Pekka had no idea who Kaz was, and the Dregs were currently barely even an annoyance to the Dime Lions. That would change with the plans that Kaz had in place, but Pekka didn’t know that.
Did he?
Movement from above had Kaz pressing back against the wall. He scanned the roofline as a leg stuck over the edge, fumbling blindly for the first step of the ladder. In the dark it was hard to make out at first, just an oddly shaped person clambering over the parapet. Kaz held his breath and watched, debating whether or not to leave before he was noticed.
But then the silhouette caught the light of the streetlamps, revealing two people. One tall in a bottle green coat, the other small with a long braid, attached like a limpet to the man’s back.
Jesper and Inej.
Jesper seemed alright, though there was a dark stain on the sleeve of his coat. Inej on the other hand was still, and willingly in Jesper’s personal space.
“Inej,” Kaz said aloud without meaning to before he had fully stepped out of the shadows. Jesper jumped, almost slipping off the last rung of the ladder.
“There you are Boss,” Jesper grinned as he stepped on solid ground again. “Did you get lost?”
Kaz ignored that. “What happened?”
“Not sure,” Jesper almost shrugged but aborted the gesture when Inej made a soft sound of discomfort. Kaz looked her over, trying to see where she was hurt, but between the poor light and her dark clothes it was impossible to see. He instead focused on the gentle movement of her back as she breathed, reassuring himself that she was alive. “They must have gone after Inej too. When I got here I found her on the roof. She’s been stabbed. Its… its not good, Kaz.”
How did they know to check the rooftops for a spider?
“Get her back to the Slat,” Kaz ordered. Jesper simply nodded and set off, for once not adjusting his long stride to match Kaz’s pace. Inej’s legs slipped from the grip she had had around his waist, and Jesper gently slid his arms under her knees to keep her in place. Kaz felt a cold shiver that he refused to acknowledge as he saw her fall completely limp against Jesper’s back. He ignored the pain in his leg and determinedly followed behind, his eyes never leaving Inej.
It took too long to get back the Slat, and Kaz could feel himself getting angrier with each minute that passed. The moment that he crossed the threshold he snapped at whichever Dreg was closest – an unfortunate Pim – to run for a medic or a healer, whichever was faster. Damn the kruge. Jesper had already disappeared up the stairs, not even pausing as he probably knew that Kaz’s demands would be followed quicker.
Jesper chose Kaz’s office, and by the time Kaz made it up the stairs, he was hovering uncertainly beside the bed crammed in the corner. “Um, Boss. Could you give me a hand? I, uh, don’t want to just drop her.”
Kaz blinked, taking a moment to process the request. Jesper must have taken the silence as reluctance though, as he was already crouching down with his back to mattress, trying to carefully lower Inej onto the bed. He knew about Kaz’s aversion to touch – not the reason and possibly not the extent – but he respected it, something that Kaz was silently grateful for. But as Inej tipped backwards, he swallowed back the bile and ignored the rising waters and jumped forward. He cupped the back of her neck and slowed her descent to the blankets, and then retreated to his desk on the other side of the room.
Jesper didn’t comment. He stood and gently manoeuvred Inej so that she was lying properly on the bed, narrating each move to her despite the fact that she was deeply unconscious and couldn’t hear him.
“How long for a medic?”
Kaz frowned. “Too long. I’ve got a kit, can you…”
“Of course you have a kit,” Jesper muttered fondly, before dropping his gaze to Inej. He looked queasy – he wasn’t the best with blood despite being a sharpshooter – but he nodded. “Sure, I’ll do what I can.”
The kit itself was fairly basic – alcohol, bandages, needle and thread – enough for Kaz to take care of his own injuries without subjecting himself to a medic’s touch. Jesper rifled through it, grabbing what he needed to clean the wound. He sat on the edge of the bed beside Inej’s hip and took a deep breath.
“Okay, love, let’s take a look.”
Kaz watched from where he was leant against his desk as Jesper untied the scarf. It was saturated in blood, but when he looked at the wound itself the bleeding was sluggish. Jesper gagged a little as he dropped the scarf on the floor but kept going without complaint. He removed the belt Inej had adapted for her knives and laid it to one side, talking the whole time and promising to clean them for her later.
Jesper had to take a deep breath and hold it as he slowly unstuck Inej’s shirt from her skin. The fabric stubbornly clung to the wound, but he managed to free it with minimal pulling. He only lifted the shirt high enough to clear the injury so that only her midriff was exposed.
“Alright, that was gross,” Jesper announced, and for a moment Kaz really thought that he was going to throw up like he had when Kaz caught a bullet in his good leg last year. Jesper had had to get them both back to the Slat, and then hadn’t wanted to leave him alone as Kaz refused a medic and proceeded to fix himself up. “You both owe me so much for making me do this. So, can neither of you get shot or stabbed for at least a year? Please?”
Kaz could make no such promise, but thankfully they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Rotty entered at Kaz’ command, briefly glancing over at the bed though Jesper had shifted to block Inej from sight. “Pim sent back a runner, he’s having trouble getting a medic to cooperate – he’s had to go up to the Zelver District. Gonna be a bit more pricey. You good with that?”
Kaz sighed in frustration and met Jesper’s worried eyes. He really needed to recruit a medic into the Dregs.
“Tell Pim to hurry up.”
“Yes Boss.”
With the door closed, Jesper resumed cleaning Inej’s wound, making the odd gagging sound as the pile of soiled bandages grew on the floor. Inej remained unconscious throughout it all, which was more than a little disconcerting. The blood loss was severe, but the pressure of the makeshift bandage had slowed it significantly.
Jesper froze.
“What is it?” Kaz demanded, gripping his cane tightly as he pushed himself to his feet. His bad leg complained but he ignored it, crossing the room back the bed because Jesper still hadn’t moved. He was staring down at the wound, at Inej’s cleaned and exposed stomach, and Kaz almost thwacked Jesper with his cane for the disrespect before he saw it. Black lines spreading under the skin from the wound like a spider’s web. The blade had been poisoned.
A medic couldn’t fix that without knowing what the poison was. And even then, the chances of them having the correct antidote were slim to none. A grisha healer would be able to slow the spread, but not extract it. They could buy time, but long enough for an antidote to be sourced?
Jesper finally blinked, muttering something in Zemeni under his breath. He looked conflicted, and afraid, grey eyes flicking from Inej to Kaz to the door.
“Did you know that fabrikators can draw out poison?” Jesper said. Kaz hid his confusion, watching Jesper closely even as his mind raced. He didn’t know much about fabrikators, other than the fact that they didn’t fight and were often seen as the weakest grisha order. There wasn’t a high demand for them, and as such they weren’t very many indentured fabrikators in Ketterdam. One would be harder to find than a healer, but if what Jesper said was true…
“I’m going to trust you with a secret,” Jesper said distantly, staring over Kaz’ shoulder like he wasn’t entirely present in the room. And then he gave a hollow laugh that didn’t sound right at all. “Who am I kidding, you probably already know. Why else would you—”
“Jesper,” Kaz snapped impatiently, discomfited by his odd tone.
“Right. On it Boss.”
On what? Kaz wanted to ask but held his tongue as Jesper took a deep breath and held his hands over the wound. He closed his eyes, face twisted in concentration, and something in the air changed. Gradually, the black lines began to fade, drawing back towards the wound that had started bleeding a fresh. Thick rivulets of blackened blood leaked out and dripped onto the blankets. Jesper was shaking.
Inej gave a soft sigh, eyelids fluttering.
The door burst open.
Everything happened at once. A man in medic’s whites strode into the room, carrying a bag and looking thoroughly put out. Pim and Rotty hovered outside with matching terrified expressions, eyes wide as they looked between the medic and Kaz. Jesper shot to his feet as if he had been burned.
“It’s oleander,” he said quietly, and then fled the room.
“I do not appreciate being dragged from my home at three bells in the morning to this miserable hovel by the likes of you people,” the medic announced, either too arrogant or too stupid to realise exactly who he was talking to. “But know that this disrespect will be reflected in my fee.”
Kaz levelled him with a glare. He watched as the medic took in the cane and the gloves and turned the same shade of white as his uniform. He didn’t require any more motivation to go to Inej and begin his work.
With Rotty and Pim dismissed, Kaz stood beside the bed and watched the medic’s every move. At least the man was competent, quickly treating and stitching the wound. Inej stirred a few times, but didn’t totally awaken, which was probably for the best. When the medic moved her to wrap the bandages she unconsciously reacted to the foreign touch with a brutal jab to the medic’s nose. He made to complain about his treatment through the blood dripping down his chin, but at Kaz’s expression wisely kept his mouth shut.
Finished, the medic stood, watching Kaz warily through two rapidly blackening eyes.
“Do you have an antidote for oleander poisoning?”
The medic frowned. “Your… colleague… mentioned that when I arrived. There was no sign of poisoning—”
“Not what I asked.”
“Right, of course,” the medic cleared his throat nervously, then dug through his bag until he pulled out a vial. “If ingested the best treatment is to induce vomiting and get it out quickly. But if the dose is high enough it can slow or even stop the heart. This should counteract the affects—”
Kaz snatched the vial from the medic’s hand, leaving him sputtering in indignation.
“That medicine isn’t cheap!”
“You’ll be paid what you deserve. Leave.” Kaz demanded. The medic stubbornly held his ground for a moment, then finally did as he was told and left. Once the door shut behind him, Kaz allowed himself a moment to slump against his cane, all of his weight shifting to his good leg as his bad one screamed in protest from the long night. He would need to figure out how to explain the cost of the medic to Per Haskell – he’d happily kill the man, but there just weren’t enough medics in Ketterdam to burn that bridge. He had to find out who had attacked them, plug the leak and send a message. That they had the resources to hunt Inej across rooftops, and the use of poison on the blade, it felt personal. Inej would be vulnerable and need time to recover and Jesper—
Kaz didn’t know that Jesper was grisha.
He knew everything about Jesper – he had his record from the university, his emigration papers from Novyi Zem. He was well aware of his gambling and the lien on his father’s farm. In all of Kaz’s research the possibility of Jesper being grisha hadn’t come up. He had never been to Ravka so was likely untrained. And the fear on Jesper’s face. He must have been hiding his powers his whole life.
But he had trusted Kaz (or rather, assumed that Kaz already knew and just hadn’t got around to exploiting Jesper yet (Kaz ignored the sting of hurt that that thought brought)) for Inej.
“Kaz?” Inej murmured. She looked blearily around the room, seemed to realise that she was in Kaz’ bed, and immediately tried to sit up.
“Lie still,” Kaz said firmly. “I just spent a lot of kruge patching you up, don’t undo it.”
Inej made a soft sound, an odd expression on her face, but did lay back down. Kaz sighed, not acknowledging the brief flare of guilt, and crossed the room to stand beside the bed. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Um… I’m not… we were attacked?” Inej frowned in confusion. She looked exhausted but was determinedly trying to stay awake. She was shivering and her brow was furrowed in pain, and Kaz felt the strange urge to brush her hair back from her face. Almost without permission his gloved hand came to rest against the pillow beside her head.
He cleared his throat. “Get some rest.”
“But I’m in your bed… where are you…”
“It’s fine,” Kaz cut her off, though he didn’t draw back his hand. “Just rest.”
Jesper’s hands were shaking violently. He had run to his room and slammed the door, caught between barricading himself in and grabbing what he owned and running. Did they see? Did they know? Rotty and Pim? The medic? What did they see, and who might they tell? And Kaz—
Kaz had to already know. The Bastard of the Barrel knew everything. Sure Jesper was a crackshot, but would Kaz really have taken a chance on a university dropout with a gambling problem for just his shooting skills?
The room tilted dangerously.
Saints, he needed to calm down. Jesper sat himself on the edge of his bed and tried to force his breathing to slow, but fear and adrenaline had him back on his feet after only a few seconds. His head was pounding from the lack of oxygen. He hadn’t had an attack like this in years – not since a crew member of the boat he had taken from Novyi Zem had witnessed him using his powers to fix his revolver.
Stupid. He could hear his Da telling him to keep them hidden. Every day when he left the house for school there was always the stern reminder that no one can know. They’ll take you away, Jes. His last day before he had left for Ketterdam his Da had spent a good hour worrying about all of the things that could go wrong if Jesper slipped up even once – sold to slavers, forced into an indenture, pressured into the Second Army…
No, Jesper had just ended up in a gang with a boss that hadn’t figured out how to use him yet.
The old floorboards creaked as Jesper paced the small room, each turn of his heel making him dizzier than the last. His revolvers were in his hands spinning absently around his fingers.
Would Kaz protect him if he was outed as grisha? Jesper wasn’t exactly his most expensive investment (that honour was Inej’s) but he was still useful, right? Or maybe Jesper was supposed to be his secret weapon, the ace up his sleeve, and his value to Kaz was greatly depreciated now.
But what value did he even have? He was an untrained fabrikator who could barely change the colour of his shirt. He hadn’t made anything since he was a child, and it was all instinct back then.
His chest felt like it was caught in a vice, crushing his ribs. There was no way he could take a full breath, the air was too thick. One of his guns slipped from his grip and thudded onto the floor. Was it loaded? That would have been a stupid way to die.
What if Kaz didn’t know before? What if he had just presented Kaz with a golden opportunity to make some kruge. How much would he make selling Jesper to slavers?
Jesper stooped to pick up his gun.
He was on the floor.
When did he end up on the floor?
His breathing was a lot slower now at least. The pain in his chest was more like being stabbed repetitively than being crushed. His head was pounding. Was it always so dark?
Jesper rolled onto his side, trying to get up onto his hands and knees so he could stand but his limbs were being distinctly uncooperative. He caught sight of one of his guns in the corner of his eye (did he drop both of them?) and reached to grab it. His hand wouldn’t open, his fingers clawed. Black lines followed the veins on the back of his hand.
Saints.
The poison touched along the edges of his blurry senses. He must have absorbed it, just like… But there hadn’t been that much, he had drawn it out carefully, had focused so hard as it had stained the bedsheet. But then the door had slammed open… maybe in surprise he had accidentally… Ma.
Jesper was too tired to panic any more. A voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Kaz told him he had to get up, get help. But sleep was calling.
Something hard jabbed him in the ribs. Persistently. It was a familiar mix of wood and lead with the fingerprints of its fabrikator creator. Kaz’s cane. Perhaps it had gained sentience and come to bug him in its owner’s absence.
“Damnit Jes.”
Or not. Jesper forced his eyes open, a task which seemed a lot harder than it should be, to find Kaz glaring at him. He had probably come to take him to the slavers and Jesper had ruined his plans by being mostly unconscious.
Jesper oddly felt a bit bad about that. He did hate messing up Kaz’s plans.
He was still lying on the floor where he fell, but he had ended up on his back and staring up at the water damaged ceiling. Everything hurt, but it felt muffled and distant. He could feel every slow beat of his heart. It was very distracting.
“What did you do?” Kaz asked, though he clearly wasn’t expecting an answer from Jesper. Kaz dropped down into a crouch next to him, which must have been hell on his bad leg, and poked at Jesper’s hand with his cane. He studied it with an expression that would have been concern on anyone else but looked more like annoyance and anger to Jesper. “Get on the bed.”
Oh, in any other context Jesper would have jumped on that command, but as it was he was quite comfy on the floor actually. He gave a defiant grunt.
Kaz rolled his eyes. “Fine, stay on the floor,” he huffed, then pulled a small vial out of nowhere. “Drink this.”
Jesper tried to focus on the little bottle but his vision was going dangerously grey at the edges. Almost instinctively he tried to reach out with his senses but all he got for his trouble was a confusing mix of plants. He thought he picked up a hint of valerian and poppy. Weren’t those sedatives? Saints, give him a few minutes and he’d knock himself right out, was Kaz trying to speed up the process? “What is it?”
“An antidote.”
“Sure it is,” Jesper slurred. His mouth felt numb and there was a weird taste on his tongue. More shadows filled the room, vague faces sneering down at him. The room was crowded with them, he could feel their hands on him. The slavers were here to take him away. “You want to sell me. For kruge. Return on your investment.”
“No, Jesper,” Kaz said, his impatient expression looking almost like hurt. He gritted his teeth and looked away for a moment, oddly oblivious to the shadows crowding around them. “When have I ever dealt with slavers? Look, I didn’t know what you were, and now that I do it doesn’t change anything.”
Jesper blinked, the shadows merging into one haze that made up his darkening vision. All he could see was Kaz, but Jesper was starting to believe he wasn’t real either. The words didn’t sound right, the tone was off. He was so tired.
“I am not going to sell you or kill you. I recruited you into the Dregs to help on jobs, and you are going to continue to do that,” possibly-dream Kaz continued. Jesper closed his eyes. “Besides, you still owe me 5000 kruge, and I will collect.”
Was it really that much?
“Jesper?” Kaz prompted. “Drink this.”
Jesper didn’t want to do anything, thank you very much. He just wanted to sleep. But most-definitely-not-a-dream-Kaz was a determined bastard. He thwacked the crow’s head of his cane into Jesper’s stomach, causing him to involuntarily gasp. And then a nasty thick liquid was pouring down his throat that he was too weak to cough up. All in all, a terrible experience. Jesper was checking out.
“When you wake up, come to my office.”
Inej probably shouldn’t be on the roof. Only a few hours before she had been deeply asleep in Kaz’s bed. Her stomach hurt something fierce, her hands were scraped raw and she was covered in bruises. All constant reminders of her mistakes. She kept playing it all over and over again in her head, cursing herself for every hesitation and misstep.
When she had woken up, Kaz had been sitting behind his desk, meticulously noting something down in his ledgers despite the fact that she knew that he did all of the numbers in his head. Haskell wasn’t happy with him at the moment, not since Kaz had pushed to buy 5th Harbour (the returns of which were yet to be seen) and then within a week also bought her indenture. There was a club in the Barrel that she knew he was eyeing up too.
Kaz needed a win. The meet up with Geels was supposed to give them a lead on some lucrative imports to hit for a quick payday. Inej hoped that Kaz was able to get the information before the ambush, otherwise Haskell would come down hard on Kaz for missing an opportunity as well as damaging an expensive investment and having to pay a medic to fix her up.
It was her fault.
She should have seen the attack coming. She had had the perfect vantage point. How could she have missed so many assailants surrounding them?
And the one that tracked her down.
Did you really think she would let you go?
It had to have been Tante Heleen. Which means that she must have been watching them close enough to know about the meet up, and Inej hadn’t noticed. She had brought this trouble to them. It really was all her fault. What if, with the injuries she had had sustained and the liability she had brought to the Dregs, she was no longer a worthwhile investment? She was almost certain that Kaz would not sell her back to Heleen. But there was still that thought teasing her fears…
Hence the roof.
Not her smartest idea to immediately dart out the window minutes after waking up to what felt like a fairly grievous injury. And Kaz would be pissed if she tore her stiches and needed another medic. But she had needed to get out. To be somewhere high up, where the air was lighter, and the ground didn’t feel as if it were pulling her down. To be able to think.
But her thoughts were a self-flagellating cycle of regret, and maybe hiding was a more honest description of what she was doing.
Taking a deep breath, Inej carefully lowered herself over the edge of the roof, hissing in pain as her stomach muscles rebelled against the strain. With less grace than normal she slipped back through the window and barely masked her stumble onto the carpet.
Kaz didn’t look up, but he gestured at one of the chairs.
Inej took the hint and sat down, adjusting her posture to achieve something as close to comfort as possible. They spent a few moments in silence, and Inej fought to keep herself from fidgeting and tapping her foot in a gesture more common to Jesper.
“Tell me what happened.”
So Inej did. Everything from the meeting, the ambush and subsequent chase across the rooftops. Her misstep and near fatal fall. The final fight and her attacker’s mocking words.
“We will need to expand your training area,” Kaz said once she was finished. “You will need to know the whole city, not just the Barrel.”
Inej blinked. “Is that all?”
Kaz looked up and studied her for a moment, his eyes catching on the bruise on her jaw before dropping down to his ledgers. “It was not your fault. I should have known that Heleen would be bitter, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she pulled a stunt like this. It will not happen again, I promise you.”
Inej released a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. “So, I can stay?”
“I was just about to ask the same question,” Jesper asked from where he had appeared in the doorway. He was leaning against the frame in a way that was supposed to look casual but to Inej looked like exhaustion. He was a few shades lighter than his natural warm brown and there was a pained crease around his eyes. His guns were nowhere to be seen.
“Are you alright?” Inej asked worriedly. “Were you hurt?”
“Sit down before you fall down,” Kaz instructed with an eyeroll at Jesper, who did as he was told. Kaz looked between them both with his usual scowl, but there was something that might have been hurt in his eyes. “Neither of you are going anywhere.”
But why would Jesper think that he would need to leave? The ambush hadn’t been his fault. “What happened?”
Jesper looked nervous, afraid even, watching Kaz carefully as he sat uncharacteristically still in his chair. Kaz raised an eyebrow at him, a silent conversation passing between the two. Whatever was said, Jesper relaxed a little, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. “How much do you remember, about when I found you?”
Inej chewed her lip as she tried to think back. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten to the roof of the rendezvous point, but she remembered being in pain and confused and staring up at the stars through the Ketterdam smog. Jesper had shown up, and promised to buy her a new scarf? She just remembered his voice, constantly chattering in a soothing baritone. And then her memory played tricks, because she could have sworn her father was carrying her home after a show. But that must have been Jesper.
She had felt safe. Tired, in pain and thoroughly confused. But safe.
“You trusted me, and I know what that means for you,” Jesper offered her a smile, and Inej realised that it was true. She did trust him. She wasn’t cured of her aversion or anything like that; wasn’t ready for him to hug her with no warning or touch her without her being able to see it coming. But that wasn’t because she was wary or afraid of him. Affectionate touch was something she would reclaim for herself, when she was ready.
Jesper was her friend. It had been such a long time since she had had one of those.
(Kaz… Kaz was something else. Something that she hadn’t figured out yet. But she would.)
Jesper blew out a breath. “It’s only fair that I return the favour.”
For a moment, Inej almost dismissed that Jesper could possibly have a serious secret that she didn’t already know. He was always such an open book, always seeming to give away too much information if anything. But the fear and apprehension in his eyes were genuine, so she simply nodded. “You don’t have to tell me anything, you don’t owe me your secrets.”
Jesper shrugged. “I know. But I think I might honestly feel safer if you knew too. I’ve never actually told anyone willingly. I trust you.”
Inej caught an odd expression flicker across Kaz’s face in the corner of her eye, but it was gone before she could read it.
“So, um, the knife you were stabbed with. Turns out it was poisoned,” Jesper announced, blindsiding Inej with the seemingly non sequitur statement. “Oleander extract, nasty thing. Kills a lot of animals, horses mostly – did you know that horses can’t throw up? Poor creatures. Anyway, consuming it is not a fun time, direct injection to the gut via knife? Pretty much fatal. Well, turns out the medic did have a cure on him – which is weird, come to think of it – but at the stage you were at and with the blood loss and all, it might not have worked so…”
Inej looked to Kaz with wide eyes, and he confirmed Jesper’s story with a nod. She pressed a hand to the bandage wrapped tightly around her stomach. She had known that it had been bad but… poison? Did Heleen want her dead that badly?
“But… how…? What does this have to do with--”
“Sorry, I’m not great at just saying it, it feels like taboo,” Jesper huffed a laugh that didn’t sound like him at all. “I… I’m grisha. A fabrikator. Durast, probably. Though that’s a Ravkan definition. Back home I’m just zowa."
Jesper seemed to shrink with the confession, not able to look at either of them. “My Ma was zowa too. She didn’t hide it even though it made my Da nervous. She was always helping people. One day, these kids drank contaminated water from a well and they got really sick. It was too late for two of them, but the third was a little girl and Ma just had to try and help her. She drew the poison out of her and saved the girl’s life, but there was so much of it and Ma took some of it into herself. Maybe if I was there, if I was older I could have…”
Jesper made a choked sound and gave his head a shake as if he could dislodge the memory. “After Ma died, Da… he freaked out. It was just me and him and I was still going around changing the colour of the jurda to spell rude words and giving him heart attacks. He was scared something bad was going to happen to me too. He didn’t want me to go to Ravka to train and he was afraid that if anyone found out what I was I would be taken away from him too. So, I’ve kept it hidden and nobody knows. Except you two.”
Jesper sank back in his chair, eyes on the floor as if waiting to be judged. Inej thought over everything he had said and realised just what had happened.
“You saved my life?”
“You knew it was a risk?” Kaz interjected, sounding pissed as he glared at Jesper. Inej opened her mouth to scold Kaz but Jesper beat her to it.
“I didn’t mean to; I was trying to be careful.”
Kaz gritted his teeth. “If you knew it was a risk, why did you run off without warning? What if I hadn’t found you?”
Inej looked between Kaz and Jesper, the latter of which had sunk very low in his chair. She took in his exhaustion and sickly pallor. “Wait, did you take on the poison from me?”
“It was an accident,” Jesper mumbled. “It’s not like I had ever done it before.”
Kaz closed his eyes as if in prayer.
“Look, I’m fine now and more importantly so is Inej,” Jesper said, gesturing between the two of them as if they were both a picture of health, and not suffering from the aftereffects of traumatic blood loss and poisoning respectively. “Totally worth it.”
Kaz met Inej’s eyes briefly as if to make sure she was indeed fine, and then looked back at Jesper. “I’m finding you a trainer.”
“What? No!” Jesper shot to his feet, though that was clearly a terrible idea as he lost his balance and had to catch himself on the edge of Kaz’s desk. “No one can know, Kaz. Please.”
Saints, he sounded terrified. Inej wanted to protect him, to tell Kaz off for yelling when all Jesper had done was save her life. But she also understood where Kaz was coming from, could hear the undertone of concern in his voice. He had said that he had found Jesper. He had taken the poison from her and nearly died, and Kaz had found him just in time.
“What if something like this happens again?” Kaz asked. “And you make another mistake because you don’t know how to use your powers? What then?”
“I’m sorry I messed up, alright? I didn’t know what else to do and I panicked, I just… It won’t happen again. I won’t use them. I’m sorry if that makes me useless to you or if I’m letting you down but I can’t. No one can know, I won’t go for training.” Jesper shook his head, looking defeated. “I can’t, Kaz. I just can’t.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong Jesper,” Inej murmured, mildly horrified by his self-deprecation. Even Kaz appeared taken aback.
“I’m not going to make you use your powers or see a trainer,” Kaz said firmly, and Jesper deflated in relief, his grip on the desk the only thing keeping him upright. With a sigh, Kaz picked up his cane and used it to push Jesper back slightly until he literally crumbled into his chair again. “No one outside of this room will know that you are grisha unless you want them to. It has no bearing on your place in the Dregs.”
Inej nodded, making sure that she met Jesper’s eyes as she made her promise. She would take his secret to the grave with her. And if anyone dared to hurt her friend, she would make them pay.
“Great, now that’s settled, there’s a job,” Kaz moved on with little fanfare. “How soon until you both can work?”
Jesper grinned. “Good to go, boss.”
Kaz raised an eyebrow and then glanced at Inej. She quickly assessed herself, from bruises to stitches to bone deep exhaustion, and shrugged. “Give me a day.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Kaz rolled his eyes at the two of them. “In three days, we’ll be hitting the Menagerie. Tante Heleen seems to think she can take one of ours. Let’s remind her why that is an absolutely terrible idea.”