ii.
She visits every month, now, when she docks her fierce, little warship in berth twenty-two. She'll appear on his window ledge, or she'll leave a letter on his desk in his downstairs office in the Slat with a new, shiny piece of information about a slaver or merchant.
He anticipates when she arrives, always having a crow with an eye on the port. He knows the times she docks, and he's never surprised when she appears quietly from the immersion of darkness and into the moonlight of his third floor office.
"The Wraith shows herself," he greets her that evening, walking past her to his rooms. "You found Ydel Adesanya."
It isn't a question. He knows she sunk his ship, transporting all the indentured civilians from his holding cells to her open dock. What she did to Adesanya, however...
"I did," she says softly. "He will never steal children or grisha from their homes again."
Kaz's lips quirk. "No details?"
"I'm sure your imagination is much more interesting than the true tale," she says.
"Not with you."
She leans against the doorjamb to his room. A kerosene lamp emanates a soft, yellow glow from the corner table. It illuminates Kaz's face just enough for her to see his eyes, the rest of him flickering with shadow. She watches as he begins to unbutton his cuffs.
"Maybe I'll tell you another time," she says, averting her eyes when he begins to undo his collar. "I'm going to sleep in my room."
"No, you're not."
Her eyes dart up to his. They are the color of bitter, tempered dark chocolate.
"What do you mean?"
"The room you used to have is now Roeder's. It was vacant most of the time, and he climbed his way into my good graces. It was a waste of space."
Inej shifts a bit, unsure how annoyed or angry she should be at Kaz willingly giving her room away to the man he reportedly didn't want as a replacement for her. Her crossed arms tighten across her chest.
"You told me you didn't want another spider."
Kaz shrugs, loosening and pulling off his tie. "He was persistent, and he worked harder than the rest of them. That's not saying much, but I must reward where it's warranted, or else I'd continue breeding their lack of ambition. Half of them still complain too much for my liking."
She frowns, glancing away from him. She feels a little stab in her heart at the loss. "Fine, then. I'll sleep at Wylan's. I'm sure he has enough room for me."
She turns to slip away and is surprised to hear Kaz's rebuttal.
"Sleep here."
She stops walking.
"You gave my room away. I can't sleep here."
"Not your room. Here. With me."
The words jar her. His voice is suddenly rougher than usual, a harsher rasp against stone, and when she looks at him over her shoulder, he avoids her gaze. He unbuttons the rest of his dress shirt.
"I..." she begins. She glances at the only bed he must be referring to, which is his own. There is no couch or other cushions, and she's struck enough to think he may mean his office table in the front room. "You mean, your bed?"
"I don't think there's another bed here, Inej."
She stands still. She hesitates. She eyes the mattress where his body lies and the pillow that holds his head. To sleep beside him in the dark cradle of his room, to be so near him. The vulnerability of it is overwhelming.
She takes a breath. "I don't know."
"Then go sleep in Wylan's mansion. Lie your head on the goose feathered pillows and wear your silk robes," Kaz answers, peeling off his shirt and throwing it onto the empty wash bin. "Just remember I offered."
He walks around to the other side of the bed, sitting and taking off his shoes. His back is to her, and she watches the movements of his shoulder blades. If she rejects this, will he ever ask her again? Will this opening be shut forever, or will he give her a chance to try on another evening when she is better prepared for it?
She realizes with a start that she is afraid. She is frightened of such a mundane task. It is not so different as sitting beside him for hours on rooftops, staking out patrols and watching the movements of their next mark.
The lines of his back ripple in the lamplight. It's because he's Kaz. Her mind immediately dashes back in time to when he first broached the topic of the Ice Court, telling her they would be kings and queens, his bright, flashing smile, his obliviousness to her reaction when he undressed.
It's the same. He'll probably tell her to avoid dirtying the floor with her clothes or some other such nonsense, caring little about her immodesty, not giving her a second glance.
He is only Kaz, she tells herself, disrobing to her tank top and shorts underneath her journeying attire. But he is Kaz, her mind roars. She attempts to call upon Nina's unapologetic confidence and swagger.
"I'll stay with you," she says, her tone much softer and less confident than she'd hoped. Kaz doesn't look up to her, instead going to a trunk that sits across the room.
"You can sleep under the bedsheets," he states, pulling out a knitted throw blanket from the trunk. It looks ragged, old, and frayed along the edges. Then he goes to turn off the lamp. "I'll sleep on top."
It makes the situation much less precarious, and yet her stomach knots. "Okay," she says.
She pulls back the sheets and climbs in, the mattress bowing with her weight. She does not get physically close enough to him to know his scent, but in the flash of a second she is ensconced by him. She breathes in the sharp cleanliness of ivory soap and the rich undertone of earthiness, and she thinks of pastures, bright green flatlands and blue skies. There is no stench of Ketterdam on the pillow, none of the dense smog, dirty ports, fish, sea salt or mud. Inej closes her eyes for a moment and is transported to a different place, another home profoundly embedded somewhere inside of him that he shoves away.
She feels Kaz's weight on the bed, and she glances over to him. He's pulling the blanket over his body and adjusting the pillow behind him. His face is inscrutable, but she notices him swallow and the graceless jerks in his motions.
"Tell me if this is too much."
"It's not," he says, harshly and quickly. He stares at the ceiling, eyes glinting with the moonlight streaming in from the far window. He breathes out. "It's not."
"I'll tell you if it's too much for me."
He turns his head to look at her, and though they are both obscured, his gaze makes the hair rise on her forearms and the back of her neck. Their color is not as severe with the white glow of the moon, and they are almost the inky blue of the night sky.
"We both have our demons, and we're both good at keeping them," he says. "I'll never ask you to show them to me. It wouldn't change anything. It won't help anything. But if you ever needed it, I'll gladly be the one you give them to."
She watches him, the words burrowing into her skin like his scent in her nose. This is how he holds her without hands, she thinks. He wraps her up in his bedsheets. He stares at her in the midnight hours. He keeps her as near to him as a boy like him can.
"I know. I will," she says, and she gives him an earnest look. "I hope you would do the same."
"You already know them."
"I don't know enough," she says, and she sees his chest rise in a deep breath. She knows she is asking a lot from him—is continuing to ask a lot from him—but Kaz Brekker is full of hidden corners, winding hallways, deep cathedrals. She will know them all.
When she wakes, they have migrated closer. They are on their sides facing each other. His breath hits her face with warm, slow puffs.
The planes of his face are set into a scowl even in the throes of sleep. What does a mind like his dream about? What could she do, she wonders, to smooth his brow? To soften his nightmares? To wriggle her way into those unreachable places? It is an impossible feat, but Inej finds herself wanting to reach them regardless.
Her life has been a myriad of impossible feats, of improbable situations and remarkable heists. It has been a tightrope—a high wire. Because of this, the impossible feat of Kaz Brekker does not deter her as it should.
She admires him freely while his eyes remain closed in sleep. She follows the hard lines of his jaw, his neck, and his shoulders, down to the top of his chest where the blanket has fallen. Scars litter him like hash marks, and her eyes snag again on the R inked into his bicep. His bare hand rests in the space between them, almost alighting against her torso. She bookmarks the things she wants to know and the questions to ask before he awakens. Before he sees her in the sleepy dim light of the dawn.
Before he smiles at her, and before she smiles back.