Chapter 2

"Explain it one more time."

"I have. Seven times". Inej was getting tired of trying to explain something that should only have taken 1 time.

"2 weeks ago a man named severus came to me. He had heard of the break in at the ice court. He was interested, and tracked me down. Offer me this job."

Jesper and wylan looked at each other. Then at inej, then at each other again, then back at inej.

"Ok well you're insane. Jesper says.

I stare at him

"Please don't kill me."

I roll my eyes at him. "We have to leave now, we have until sun up to get on the boat."

"Hold on a second, how much are we making here, it better be go-"

"100 million kruge"

Jesper and wylan stood there, stuned. Jesper shot up and screamed "hot dam!" he picked up wylan and swung him around, "We're gonna be rich! We're gonna be rich! We're gonna be rich!"

He put him down and went in for a hug. Inej put her hand out. "Yes, we could be rich, once we do the jobs. And once we get brekker in on the deal"

Inej remembered the night she left ketterdam. The same morning she left, Kaz had her meet her out by fifth harbor. He had tracked down her parents and brought them here. She wanted kaz to come, but she said nothing to him. Her parents stayed with them in the van eck mansion, and one night when everyone was asleep, she krept out of her bedroom window. She had decided to pay her old home a visit and the monster who lived in the attic a friendly hello. She climbed up the walls of the tattered homes in the barrel and ran across the rooftops soundlessly. A thief's highway. That's what kaz called it. She jumped from roof to roof until the crow club came into view. Through a window she could see the busy ramble of the 3:00 rush. And threw the window, she could see the tall zemini gambling the start of his shares. When im done, she said to herself, i'll drag him out of there.

She crawled the wall until she came to Kaz's window. She quietly opened it and snuck threw. She knew she would know her presents there. He always knew. But he was distracted that night. He wasn't concerned about who came in and out of his room. His only concern was getting the blood stain off his hands and shirt.

What fool would think he would change? Me. she thought to herself. Not even a month and kaz had gone back to being the bastard of the barrel. The monster even grown adults feared. dirty hands.

Inej grabbed jesper and wylans hands and pulled them out of the forest. Come on we don't have much time.

"Inej, are you sure this guy is liggett? I mean after what happened with my dad."

Inej kept walking. "I'll explain more when we find kaz, and then more when we get nina."

The streets of ketterdam have never looked more familiar. Each road and roof inej walked on. Each window she spied through. I made her long for the busy streets once again. As they walked inej didn't have to look to see the once horrible mess of a whore house, renamed and branded for an even worse one. The minageri had been shut down and redone. As inej walked bye she could see the shadows of the figures through the windows. She put her head down and kept walking.

After awhile they started to come up to the fimillair building many of them had spent countless nights at. the crow club. They walked into the crowded building. Every eye turning on them. Silence filled the room. A path cleared as the girl who left returned. She strode to the staircase where Kaz had been beaten to nothing at. The Walked up the stairs soundlessly. Four stories to the attic were where Kaz lived. They opened the door. And there was kaz. Sitting in his chair with a crow perched on the window.

"What business."