Kaz stood out on the balcony of the Crow Club watching pigeons being herded into the gambling parlor below, drawn by the promise of endless riches and none the wiser. He tapped his cane against the railing absently. From up here, he could just barely see the ocean in the starlight peeking through the buildings in the north, a black expanse this late at night. Ketterdam's structures spiraled up on every side of him, piercing the cold air. He could see his breath billowing in white puffs in front of him. It made everything feel somehow stiller. Endless, timeless, unchanging. Only a slight breeze, the sound of his own breathing and the music of The Barrel floating up to his ears from down below. From this high, it was dreamlike. He was watching everything as if he wasn't a part of it. And for now he wasn't. He was free from its filthy pleasures and its cruelty and its greed and its everything horrible. Most of all, free from all its beautiful things that he could never have.
It was peaceful.
He let himself breathe in the moment. They were so rare. Moments when his leg didn't pain him. His thoughts didn't have to be cold, calculated, indifferent. Where he didn't need to intimidate anyone or be cruel or always be thinking one step ahead of the rest. Not that he minded really; he did what he needed to and he had no regrets. But up here, he didn't even have that. He didn't have to be anything.
And if he wasn't that, that thing he became, had to become, when he prowled the streets of The Barrel, what would he be? It did no good to imagine if things were different, he knew that, but up here, in the cool night air where nobody was watching, the thoughts came to him, unbidden, scurrying through the cracks in the walls he had built so meticulously. His mind wandered…and for once he let it.
Thoughts of a long silky, black braid coming undone, his pale ungloved fingers threading through the strands. He would brush that glorious hair to the side, over one elegant shoulder. Before him would be copper skin. And in his imagination, he wasn't frightened or disgusted. There were no bad memories.
His eyes were closed.
He wanted it to be real. So much. It wasn't like fire how he wanted, burning from within with a searing heat. It was more like he was slowly expanding from within. There was no room to breathe. He couldn't hold it in. He was cracking. It hurt him how much he wanted.
In his mind flashed Inej's eyes. They were closed, sooty eyelashes resting against her brown skin. He itched to touch. To run away. To come closer. The eyes opened, and he was utterly lost.
Kaz sucked in a breath sharply. It would not do to stay up here too long when he felt this way. It was dangerous to think like this. It would strip him bare if he stayed too long. He couldn't be that man and Inej didn't deserve him even if he could. She deserved the stars and the moon and the whole of the seas and everything.
He turned sharply from the railing, the pain in his leg returning almost instantly. He had work to do. He left the balcony without a look back.
Once he had left, a figure crawled out into the space he had been from the shadows. Inej Ghafa looked out over what Kaz had looked over, curious. She had every nook and cranny, every street vendor, every alleyway memorized and she knew Kaz did too. Beneath her were the twinkling lights of the city at night. A night like any other. To Inej, nothing stood out in the scenery below that should draw Kaz's attention so intently. But then again, he saw things no one else did. He was always thinking, always three moves ahead. He could always sense her when she crept around watching, quiet as a mouse, and no one else could do that. She wondered what he had been thinking about this time, because she had watched him and, for once, he hadn't noticed her first.