The roof hadn't been hard to access. The window of her room with Nina offered a very wide ledge for Inej's feet. Climbing the brick of the wall was no challenge for the Wraith. Though the day had been blisteringly hot, the night was almost cold without the sun.
Inej rested against the parapet and looked to the empty street three floors below. Carson was unnerving in the quiet, especially compared to the hubbub of Fremont. No sirens pierced the air, no music spilled out of nightclubs. There was a peace in the darkness. She craned her head up to trace the stars. Her father had taught her how to connect the constellations and the stories they told.
"Papa! Look! There's Mama!" she had cried out as a little girl, pointing to a group of brilliant sapphires hanging overhead.
"Is she there, Inej?" her father laughed. "I swore I just saw her making kutia over the fire. Now tell me why your mama is in the sky."
"Mama's name is Maia and you told me Maia is one of the seven sisters in the sky!" He picked her up and placed her on his hip.
"Your mama did give us our own Hermes, so I guess you are right, little one."
Inej followed the stars until she found that same cluster of gems. The night was too bright in Vegas to see anything, but here she could feel her mother watching. Would she accept the things her daughter had done to survive? Or would she be horrified at the blood on her hands? Grief and shame overwhelmed Inej in the face of the Pleiades. She turned to face the other half of the sky and startled. Kaz leaned against the adjacent parapet. His head was framed by the constellation Corvus. Cloaked in the night and crowned by the stars, he looked like a dark god.
"Not like you to not be aware of your surroundings, Inej," he commented. "Worried about tomorrow?"
"No," she said. And she wasn't. While it was one of the most dangerous jobs they had ever undertaken, Inej had faith they would make it through. "Just looking at the stars. We never get to see them at home."
Inej wondered if he would ask her what she was thinking about. She wondered if she would tell him if he asked. He didn't.
"Too much light in the city. You only really see them if you get out of town. Not that there's anything else outside Vegas."
Are we really going to sit here and talk about light pollution? She wanted to scream at how inane their interactions had become.
"Another reason to hate the city. I like the stars," was all she said. "Goodnight, Kaz."
Before he could say anything, Inej slipped down the parapet and the two floors to her window. Dissatisfaction curled in her stomach, just like it always did when they had these mindless conversations. Nothing of meaning was ever said. She wasn't sure it would ever be.
While the front desk woman had lied about how close the motel was to the train station, she hadn't been wrong about the prison.
"Visiting my cousin, ma'am. Got himself in a bad spot, you see, but we're hoping to bring a little light to him with our visit."
Inej hadn't known Kaz could smile like that. Bumbling and sweet, he all but wrung his hat in his hands with uneasy sincerity. His usual cane had been swapped for something rougher and less conspicuous. The gloves stayed on. It was hard to look at him like this. Part of her wished the easy smile he wore was real. A larger, more logical part reminded Inej that this boy wouldn't have pulled her out of the House of Exotics. Dirtyhands was the reason she was alive today.
They left the hotel in the afternoon. Jesper disappeared earlier in the day to find them a vehicle to make their escape. He had been instructed to find something that didn't look like it had just rolled in from Fremont. Inej wasn't holding her breath. The flash and glitz came to Jesper like breathing. If he showed up in anything less than a neon green stretched Cadillac, she would be surprised.
"It is entirely too hard to get a decent cup of tea in Nevada," Nina declared from her perch. The group was clustered around a little table in a cafe down the road from the capitol building. Books on the government and economy had been spread across the surface to give the impression they were nothing more than students.
Inej nodded in agreement. "This hasn't been steeped long enough, nor is the water anywhere close to hot." The two girls shared a tentative smile. Though their experiences in Russia were far from similar, the silent acknowledgement of their shared homeland was sometimes enough to stave off the aching homesickness.
"Quit carping about your drinks and pay attention," Kaz griped. "If all you're going to do is whine about the tea, you should have ordered coffee."
"Kaz's right," mumbled Wylan. "This is a coffeehouse." Nina kicked out a little boot to connect with his shin.
"Suck up."
The vein in Kaz's forehead looked ready to pop. Inej could see the tantrum he was on the verge of throwing. She cleared her throat to stave off the eruption of an irritable Dirtyhands. "Why are we sitting in a coffeehouse again?" she asked.
"Not for the drinks," Nina muttered. Inej shot her a exasperated look.
"For the view," said Kaz. The three others stared at him like he had finally gone round the bend. There was absolutely nothing in Carson City worth looking at. It was a dusthole filled with tired buildings and even more worn down people. He sighed, a put-upon sound that seemed to say, why have I been cursed with these morons? Kaz gestured with his cup outside of the window that sat adjacent to their table.
A flat-faced bus screeched to an agonizingly slow halt in the parking lot. Clustered by the entrance was a ragged group of people. Each handed a postcard-sized slip of paper to the driver and found a seat. The gang watched for several minutes before Wylan blew out a breath in understanding
"They're the cleaners," he murmured. "That's where we'll board to get to the prison."
"Finally," said Kaz with a small, dark laugh. "I was wondering if I had brought the wrong crew after all."
Inej glared at him. "Some of us are tired and under-caffeinated. You didn't have to listen to Nina snoring all night."
"Good lord, all you people do is complain," Kaz retorted. "Let's go over the timeline for tonight. Wylan, since you are the one who picked up on it so quickly, when are we boarding that bus and what happens after?"
The redheaded boy looked surprised to be addressed. Inej had the thought that if Kaz doled out any more compliments to him, Wylan might perish in elation.
"Nine tonight," he began. "We're to change first at the bar next door and collect our passes from you. We'll split up when lining up so it isn't obvious we're together. When we reach the prison, we'll be patted down and given our assignments."
A nod from Kaz set Wylan's cheeks aflame. "After you all get your assignments—"
"And just where will you be, Brekker? While we're off scrubbing toilets or mopping up whatever filth that place has accumulated, you'll be doing what exactly?" demanded Nina.
The penetrating glare her outburst garnered would have sent most running for the hills, but not Nina Zenik. She steadfastly held his stare and raised an eyebrow at his silence. Nina's resilience and boldness was one of the things that had warmed Inej to her so quickly. She wasn't afraid of anything, especially not Kaz Brekker. As she once put it, after training under Zoya Nazyalensky, this desert dweller was hardly anything to tremble before.
"Don't worry your pretty head over me, Nina dear," replied Kaz. "Inej, what's your next move?"
"Meet you in the storeroom of cellblock 6. Then we retrieve Helvar and get out before anyone notices," she said. "This seems…"
"Outrageous?" asked Nina.
"Harebrained?" suggested Wylan.
"No." Inej shook her head. "This seems too easy."
Kaz pushed the rest of his coffee over to her and stood. "The simplest of plans are often the most effective, Wraith."
Inej couldn't come up with a response to his logic. She downed the last of his coffee and nodded her acceptance. She would follow where he went. While she didn't like the plan, Inej Ghafa would follow Kaz Brekker into what was certainly going to be a disaster.
a/n:
Thank you so much for reading. I'm curious to see who you guys think the next POV will be (spoiler alert: I only kind of have an idea).