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Wylan busied himself with some new experiments, nervously fiddling with his bottles, wondering how long it would be before Kaz's crew arrived. Kaz had casually mentioned that they were going to be meeting here, as though somehow Wylan—and his workshop—were now part of them. Were they? Wylan didn't remember offering to join Kaz's crew, but then, Kaz didn't seem to be the kind of man who waited for an offer.

Still … he had eaten, he had money for supplies. Maybe it wouldn't be all bad, Wylan thought. But that didn't stop him from jumping when the door opened above him.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

The voice sounded vaguely familiar. And when the face—and the body—appeared, Wylan understood why. His pulse leaped, pounding in his veins. It was Jesper. The beautiful man. Here in his basement … and still beautiful. "Oh." He couldn't help the smile that came to his face. "Hi. I wasn't expecting you."

But Jesper didn't give him a second glance. Didn't give him a first glance, truth be told. "And you are?"

Oh. The sharpness of the disappointment he felt was like a shard of glass. Jesper didn't remember him. The night Wylan thought of all the time, the face and voice he couldn't have forgotten if he'd tried, and Jesper didn't remember him. "We've me—" No. He was not about to be that pathetic person trying to remind this man in front of him of a one-night stand. "W-Wylan."

Jesper was cranky. Damned cranky. Tired, grimy, hungry, beyond ready for a change of clothes. Bad enough they'd lost their home, betrayed the Sun Summoner for a little bit of money, but now they were meeting in some smelly basement in the very bottom of the Barrel. And a total stranger was greeting him here instead of Kaz, who was undoubtedly off somewhere making rash decisions he wouldn't tell Jesper or Inej about until it was too late.

There was a long table full of various bottles and jars, some experiments in process. Jesper approached it, not paying any attention to the man whose workshop this appeared to be. He'd said something, but Jesper was too annoyed to listen. "No," he said, cutting off any further overtures. "I mean, why did Kaz have us meet here?" He put the entirety of his bad day into the word and the look of disdain that accompanied it, knowing he was being terribly rude and utterly refusing to care.

"Oh. I guess, um … I'm your demolitions man."

For the first time, Jesper looked up and into the face of the other man. He was beautiful, Jesper would have to give him that, with delicate features and large eyes fringed with dark lashes, but he seemed so young, so nervous, so impossibly poorly suited to the life the Crows led. "You? You've got all your fingers."

Wylan was terribly disappointed. The man he'd met before had been … funny. Charming. Kind. And this one was rude, and obnoxious. Maybe it was for the best that Jesper didn't remember him, he thought crossly. "Well, maybe I'm careful," he snapped, moving around the table to rescue his experiments from the meddling fingers that couldn't seem to stop touching things.

Jesper held on to the bottle as Wylan reached for it, and they looked at each other over the top of it. "Careful is something you learn from losing your fingers."

There was a crackle of electricity as their fingers brushed, Wylan remembering what those hands had felt like all too vividly. Jesper turned away, annoyed by the sensation. This was hardly the time for a dalliance, and this man was too pretty, too delicate, for what the Crows were facing. Jesper wanted to be dismissive of him, not attracted to him.

Wylan was relieved when the door opened again and the already familiar sound of Kaz Brekker's cane rung on the floor above them.

"So this novice is telling me that he's our new demo man," Jesper said loudly as Kaz came down the stairs. "Raske is better. Or even Pim."

"And yet Wylan is the one I hired."

Rather than argue with Kaz, Jesper turned back to Wylan. "Shouldn't you be … graduating university and, I don't know, starting a desk job?"

For whatever reason, he meant to be insulting, Wylan understood, and yet Jesper couldn't have known exactly how insulting he was being. Before he could retort—or, worse, let on how much the jibe had hurt—two more people appeared.

Kaz turned to them, relief evident in the set of his shoulders. "You're here."

Jesper greeted Inej's arrival, even with another stranger, with some relief. Surely Inej would see that this boy, beautiful though he may be, was completely ill-suited to being part of the Crows. But he was distracted from his irritation when Inej introduced the woman with her as the new Heartrender.

"Nina Zenik, at your service," said the woman, taking off her hat.

"Nina Zenik?" Jesper and Inej echoed. Of all the people.

She laughed. "Well, that's a reaction. Is there a famous Nina Zenik that I don't know of?"

Before anyone could explain, the novice spoke up. "Can I get anyone some tea?"

They all gave him startled looks. Maybe the question was too polite for a group of thieves meeting in a basement workshop? Maybe all the chemical experiments made them wonder if they were about to be poisoned? Either way, Wylan's attempt at being a conscientious host—and laying claim to his space again—was ignored.

Kaz looked at the new Heartrender, testing her. She had worked with Arken, the man who had taken them across the fold only to—completely predictably—betray them. Nina made it clear that she had trusted the man only as far as she could throw him, and that her price for joining the Crows was to get the love of her life out of Hellgate. Kaz, knowing his limitations for once, did not promise that, but he did promise to get her in for a visit.

Jesper supposed he respected that, letting love dictate your actions. Having never been in love, he couldn't say what he would do in a similar situation. If Inej or Kaz were in Hellgate, he would go after tham … but then, that was the code. He would know as well that they would come for him. He couldn't imagine feeling that certain about a lover.

"What do you need me for?" Nina asked after the questioning had ended.

"The aftermath." Kaz turned and headed up the stairs. "Follow me."

Jesper followed Kaz, Wylan hurried after Jesper, and the two women came behind him. Wylan didn't like the way Kaz had said "the aftermath", not after he had picked up that bomb earlier today. Whatever he had done with it, Wylan was implicated in, as well. Anyone who was hurt, that would be Wylan's fault as much as it was Kaz's.

As he stepped down from the stairs onto the roof of the building with the others, Wylan was aware of his heart pounding.

They lined up at the edge of the rooftop, looking out over Ketterdam.

"Brick by brick," Kaz said softly.

They waited. And then the explosion came. Wylan looked away, wincing. It had worked the way he had expected it to—but he had known it would. He couldn't take pride in it, though, not knowing that people out there were hurt, possibly dying, because of something he'd made.

Even Jesper, standing next to him, appeared stunned. "What was that?" he asked, his voice shaky.

Inej was the one who answered. "The Crow Club."

Wylan imagined he could hear the screams from here. When he had wished for something more interesting to do, this was not what he had had in mind.

Jesper stared across the rooftops of Ketterdam at the ruins of his life. "I had some really nice hats in there," he complained. But what he meant was that the Crow Club was his home in a way that had been important to him, in a way he couldn't have explained if he'd tried.

Of course, it had meant as much to Kaz, and that was why Kaz had blown it up—because for him, it would have been irrevocably tainted by the touch of Pekka Rollins.

It occurred to Jesper that for the first time, they had a demo man Kaz could call on for a job like this, and that maybe this was why they were all here. He turned to look at the novice. "Was that yours?" Maybe he had misjudged him. Except he hadn't, because that delicate face was filled with pain. The look of a man who was imagining the suffering he had caused. In Jesper's experience, having too much imagination could get you killed. Whatever Kaz had been thinking bringing this sensitive man into their midst, for once, Jesper believed he had made a mistake.

On the other side of Kaz, Nina said slowly, "I take it we're now in the aftermath?"

"This doesn't help us clear our name, Kaz," Inej objected. "This is war with Pekka Rollins, the King of the Barrel."

"The Barrel doesn't belong to kings," Kaz said firmly. He turned and left them, his last words coming back to them muffled by the bang of the cane on the ground. "It belongs to bastards."

They all stood there a moment, until it was clear he wasn't waiting for them.

The Crow Club was gone, which left them … on their own.

"Well, that's all well and good," Jesper said, "but it doesn't solve the question of where we're sleeping tonight." He gestured to himself. "I know all this looks natural, but it needs a good night's sleep and a good meal to keep it in top shape."

After a silence, the novice cleared his throat hesitantly. "It's—it's not much, but … but you could all stay here."

"You have a warren of bedrooms we don't know about?" Jesper snapped. He felt guilty when he saw the way the novice shrunk under the words.

"No, just—just the floor, but … lots of blankets?"

Jesper had his mouth open to say something else that would have been unjustifiably rude, but Inej caught his arm and smiled at their new demo man. "Thank you. We appreciate it." Her grip on Jesper's arm tightened painfully. "Don't we, Jesper?"

"Yes. Yes, of course we do. Thank you."

The novice nodded and hurried off after Kaz, with Nina following him, leaving Jesper and Inej alone together on the roof looking at the wreck of their old life. "He's gone off his rocker, Inej."

"No, he hasn't. This has been a long time coming." She sighed. "And it's my fault."

"Hey." Jesper put his hands on her shoulders. "It is not. I would have done the same. Your life is worth the Crow Club and more. I just … wish he'd said something."

"You know Kaz."

"Sometimes." He sighed and slung an arm over her shoulders. "Come on. Let's go sleep on this novice's floor."

"Give it a rest," Inej told him. "Yes, he looks young, but that was no trick, that bomb. He knows what he's doing."

"He knows how to blow things up, I'll give him that, but you didn't see his face after that explosion. He's too soft for this life. We'll—we'll ruin him." That delicate, beautiful face hardened like Kaz's? Closed off like Inej's? Marked by too many nights pushing away pain with dice and debauchery, like his—wasn't … yet? Jesper didn't want to see that.

"Maybe. Maybe not." With a shrug, Inej moved off. After another moment, Jesper followed her. This was his family—where else was he going to go?