JESPER

Jesper couldn't remember the last time he'd shot like this, one bullet after another, countless rounds of reloading and cocking and reloading again like the motions were programmed into him and he was just a conduit for some kind of divine purpose that he couldn't even begin to understand. Where every target hit would solve problems on a grander scale than him avoiding the attentions of celebrity hungry socialites and their spoiled children. Jesper could feel his nerves melting away until his fingers were numb, long before he ran out of bullets and picked up throwing knives. Jesper threw those like he would die if he stopped.

Only after every stuffy billionaire had left the ball room floor, after every candle had been blown out and all of the lights were dimmed, did he stand still, feeling the reverberation of the last knife as it sliced through the air, striking true. The target was mangled, the bullseye just a hole in the wall that he was sure he would have to pay for, somehow. Jesper let his head hang back, his breath ragged. He just couldn't seem to miss. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing anymore.

Jesper's blood sung and the lights around him glittered. Using his Grisha power always made the world more focused, more small in a way, cradling him like a mother who spoke encouraging words to an infant. Was this how she had felt when she was alive? When she healed others and took poison into herself so that they might live, did the lights dance for her, too? Did they now, wherever she was? Did this power connect them in some way, even after death? Jesper hoped so, because it would make the pain in his chest worth it in the end.

His heart was racing in double time, pounding so loudly that he was sure the bartender could hear it. He could feel every bead of sweat slide down his skin and every labored breath leave his lungs. He felt the far away dips and crests of the waves underneath Le Plaisir, could hear incandescent light bulbs murmur in a cacophony of noise, like cicadas on a summer night. Everything around him had such presence. It was intoxicating. Almost too much so.

When he preformed with Henrie Howlers, the mask he wore as Genja the Sharp not only helped him keep his anonymity, but also helped him shut out these sensations: the cold from the open ballroom door that chilled him. The vibrations from the water outside that shook his bones. Without the mask, the only thing Jesper could do was crouch in a feeble position to block out the blinding lights and electricity that was so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts. He was sure he would go insane... Until someone placed a hat firmly on his head.

Jesper craned his neck to see who his savior was, but the hat slid down his nose. He heard a tinkling giggle that he would have known anywhere. Jesper tipped the brim of the cap and saw Belinda, her cheeks flushed and her casual clothes emitting cold like she'd just come in from the outside. A strand of her red hair had fallen down from her braid, but Belinda wasn't the kind of person to worry about those things. Instead she plopped down on the ground next to him, her legs akimbo, not a care in the world.

"You're glowing, Jes," Belinda breathed, her smile radiant. "Saints, you're impossibly good at that. It's almost like magic. Everyone felt it."

"I used to love that kind of attention. When I... in a different life," Jesper responded without thinking, the words tumbling off of his tongue. Ketterdam had never been something he liked to talk about. But it was the only thing he could say to her and it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would.

"I wore flashy Kerch suits and I entertained myself in places that I knew I couldn't afford. But now... I don't know. Its not as exciting when people are expecting things from you, you know?"

Belinda didn't say anything in response. Her silence was as loud as the lights and Jesper looked over to her, trying to gauge her mood by the inquisitive expression on her face. But Belinda just took his hand and squeezed and he wondered what he'd done to deserve someone like her. Someone who knew that the tangle of emotions in his chest couldn't be explained away or rationalized by words. With his power fully awake and buzzing through him, Jesper could feel every ridge of her finger prints, the pulse of her heart beating beneath her skin in a steady staccato that tethered him to the earth.

"You're not mad anymore?" he asked tentatively, rubbing her cold hands between his.

"Of course not," Belinda smiled "What are best friends for?"

Jesper matched that smile, tooth for tooth.

"That was... impressive."

Wylan van Eck appeared from the ether and Jesper wondered if he'd been standing there the whole time. Belinda put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and Jesper breathed in slowly, meeting Wylan's eyes. In the dimmed light they were black, but Jesper knew their true color intimately.

"Brings back old memories, doesn't it?" Jesper joked awkwardly, pullilng the bill of the cap lower on his forehead.

"I'm going to go to bed," Belinda made a show of stretching her arms. She winked at Jesper, kissed him on the cheek, and sashayed to her quarters on the other end of the ballroom. Jesper stared after her. He didn't notice that Wylan was talking to him until he said Belinda's name.

"She's something, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is..." Jesper said this to himself more than anything.

He was aware of what Wylan probably saw. It was what everyone saw when they met Belinda for the first time: a vivacious, bright eyed Kaelish woman who was the embodiment of light itself. Someone who was kind and thoughtful, who still believed in the goodness of man but was strong in her convictions. She didn't let Jesper get away with anything, including pushing her away when she knew when he needed her the most. It was hard not to be infatuated with her. Jesper could tell that Wylan, for however short the amount of time they'd spent together, felt this way, too.

The Grisha high that Jesper had been on was dulling at the edges and he wasn't sure what to do. Under the dimmed lights, he stood about eye to eye with Wylan, something Jesper didn't think would have ever been possible. Wylan stared back, unblinking, and Jesper's breath caught in his throat. Wylan's ruddy curls were thrown into a mess of a halo around his head, his lips red and swollen. His cheeks, like Belinda's, were flushed a deep, rosy pink, almost like he had a fever.

"You got taller," Jesper said. He mentally slapped himself.

Wylan scratched the thin beard smattering his chin. "That's all you have to say?"

"Well it wouldn't be polite to kiss you hello, would it? Not with your ward waiting upstairs," Jesper bit back, insulted by Wylan's accusatory tone. Jesper didn't owe anyone anything, and that included Wylan van Eck. When he'd left Ketterdam, Jesper had made sure that his ledger was clean.

Jesper turned his back on Wylan and made his way to the bar where the closing barkeep was polishing dishes and eyeing them suspiciously. Jesper glared at him and gestured for a glass of something strong. The barkeep slid a snifter towards him that was filled to the brim a thick, viscous liquid. Jesper heard Wylan hurried footsteps behind him.

"He's not waiting like a dog. He's fallen ill," Wylan corrected, his voice proud. "And he's not my ward, he's my fiance."

Jesper froze. Fiance. The world echoed in his head. He felt a deep seated burn in his chest and he realized it was shame. Just days ago, Jesper himself had been at Wylan's brick house in Ketterdam to... what? To ask after him? To see how he was doing? To admit that he thought about Wylan every night for months after leaving that Saints forsaken city? And all that time he'd had a fiance and Jesper had been the only one thinking about the past.

Jesper didn't know what he expected would happen when he met Wylan again. Maybe he had wanted Wylan to be as miserable as he had been. Maybe he'd wanted Wylan to have stayed short and skinny, depressed from their last fight, even four years after the fact. But the Wylan who stood behind him was broad in the shoulders, the muscle under his fitted suit flexed even though he stood still. His eyes were lined with crows feet despite the fact that he was only twenty-six, and his nails were immaculately trimmed, even on the hand that ran through his hair in frustration. The Wylan before him wasn't who he used to be, and that made Jesper even more angry.

"I'mglad you're so happy," Jesper drawled, rolling his eyes and downing the glass of sludge that the bartender gave him. It burned on the way down, but Jesper didn't let up. "Money suits you, Merchling," he spat, using the pet name that the Dregs had developed for Wylan when they'd learned that he was the runaway son of one of the richest merchers in Ketterdam.

Jesper delighted in the falter of Wylan's composure. He'd struck a nerve, and the victory felt as sweet as shooting at a target he couldn't miss.

That high was nowhere to be found and the only thing Jesper could think to do was to down another drink. And another. After a while they went down so smoothly that Jesper forgot he was basically drinking the same thing that fishermen used to clean barnacles off their hulls.

He was sure that he'd scared Wylan away. Jesper upturned his fourth shot, bitter. Wylan's voice came from behind him. It was even and calm.

"Just because I chose to leave this life doesn't mean I ever regretted us, Jesper," he said.

Jesper expected him to continue, to try and convince him that he should be forgiven for the events surrounding Colm Fahey's funeral, the events that tore them apart, to ask for some kind of clemency, but he didn't. When Jesper turned around, Wylan van Eck was gone.