A/N: I think I adore Leigh Bardugo and the world and characters she created more than anything else at the moment. At the end of the duology, the idea of Kaz being with the crows in the mansion in the only possible way he would/could/might allow himself wouldn't leave me alone, so I wrote it. The song Eliza Lee belongs to the Dreadnoughts, and The ring-dang-do is from Red Dead Redemption 2, because I love it and am very uncreative.
Emotional Interference
When Kaz slipped into Inej's room in Wylan's mansion, he only meant to leave the letter and nothing else.
As soon as he placed the letter on her bedside table, Jesper's voice crooned through the walls. It was followed by lively chords on the piano.
He heard Wylan jump into the chorus after a few rounds of it, then, surprised when he heard the unmistakable voice of Inej, interspersed with her laughter.
To me, hey rig-a-jig in a jaunting gun!
Ho eh, ho ah, are you most done?
With Eliza Lee all on my knee—clear away the track and let the bullgine run!
He lingered in her room. It was tidy and neat, in part helped from the overeager maids and housekeepers. His eyes snagged on a blue robe hanging from the bathroom door. He glanced over the details that might hint that the Wraith slept there and found nothing specific or obvious. He would have to look for things, rummage through her dressers and peek under her bed, and he knew chances were slim even if he tried. It always unsettled him, just like the absence of her scent. In almost everything, she could make herself nonexistent. It made him as irritated now as it had the first time he noticed. Being in the room she had lived in for three weeks, and he could not decipher any inkling of closeness or attachment to her.
He walked toward the window to leave, but he heard Inej's laughter again. Jesper howled something, and the chords jumbled together in a momentary ruckus, as if Wylan had been distracted by Jesper's antics.
Kaz paused, wanting to depart and shocked by the hesitation in his body, how it refused his advances to duck out of the room.
He pressed his back against the side wall, near the door that led to the hallway. Their rowdiness sent vibrations through the floor and into his bones like a wave. He was wearing his usual attire with his plain white button down, vest, and jacket. He flexed his fingers inside his gloves. His armor was fully in place. Yet here, their voices boomed in his skull louder than ever. It was as if he was in the music room with them, surrounded by their presence with an ease that could only be imagined in the deep shadows of the room. It was invasive and a hindrance. It was a painful reminder of what life wouldn't allow him, or perhaps what he wouldn't allow himself. To be near. To be close. He wasn't sure how to feel about it, so he opened that secret door inside him, shoving in the clutter of it until he didn't feel anything at all.
But when he briefly closed his eyes, he saw Inej's smile bordering her laughter. He saw Jesper cavorting around, whooping out the shanty he was now singing—Inej, you should sing this one when you get that ship!
He could even see Wylan, his buoyant curls wobbling on his forehead in time with his fingers punching the keys.
He heard their chorus: The ring-dang-do, now what is that? It soft and round like a pussy cat. With a hole in the middle and split in two—that's what you call the ring-dang-do!
It was filthy, the song Jesper started to sing, and Inej said something indiscernible but with the tone of protest. Then, eventually, he heard her begin to sing it, anyway.
They sang so lively and absurdly for a very long time. Kaz stayed until their voices quieted and realized what the time must be. The moonlight slanted into the window at a different angle, now, the only light to illuminate the room.
Still, he didn't leave until he sensed Inej coming up the stairs. He could never truly hear the patter of her feet, but he knew they must be retiring for the evening with the pervasive quiet—almost loud now that their music had stopped. He slipped out of the window and made it down to the lanes of the Lid just as Inej had curled up into her bed.
It was only when Kaz reached the Crow Club that he noticed he had been smiling all evening, a bare flicker of lips turned up at the corners.
He scowled at the revelation, stamping it out like a cockroach under the wrong foot, and wondered if he now had more weaknesses than he ever allowed before.