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Kaz was the first to leave, Inej following him. Nina seemed content to stay, eating her waffles, but Wylan wanted to get going. He had a couple of experiments in process that he wanted to finish before tonight. Leaning across the table, he looked at Jesper. "Where shall I meet you?"

Jesper sighed and put his hat back on. "All right. I guess, uh, livery stable. Near the Cr—what used to be the Crow Club. I'll make the arrangements. You can drive a horse, can't you, novice?"

"My name is Wylan." It was the third time he had told him, and this time he was going to make sure Jesper remembered.

"Fine. You can drive a horse, can't you, Wylan?" Jesper emphasized the name with something approaching a sneer, but Wylan ignored the attitude. Jesper knew his name now, and that was enough, for the moment.

"Yes. Yes, I can."

"Good. I'll see you there. Don't be late." He tapped his hat to resettle it, and then he was gone, leaving Nina and Wylan in the booth.

"Still not sure what you're getting yourself into, are you?" she asked. "Is he worth it?" Her eyes were kind; she understood.

"I don't know." Wylan looked at the empty space where Jesper had sat. It was as though he had taken all the color from the room when he left. "But I'd like to find out."

"Fair enough." She had a faraway look on her face, like she was thinking about her own man, locked away in Hellgate. Wylan excused himself and left her there with her memories.

When Wylan met Jesper later, he was surprised and a little bit disconcerted to find he'd be driving a rat-catcher's carriage. But there was a challenging look in Jesper's eyes that dared him to say anything, so he didn't. He took the reins, and Jesper climbed into the back.

It didn't take long to find Pekka Rollins' driver and slot their carriage in behind his. The key was to hold back enough to keep it from looking suspicious, and Wylan focused on that.

The doors into the back slid open and Jesper looked out, because of course he couldn't just hide safely. Wylan felt an uncontrollable rush of excitement at the sight of Jesper's face, his mouth opening in what he hoped was a soundless gasp, and he looked away to hide it. Saints, but Jesper was beautiful.

To cover his reaction, he offered the objection he hadn't given when they started out tonight. "A rat-catcher carriage." He glanced quickly at Jesper. "I thought you said you got this from a friend."

"Friend-ish," Jesper clarified. "She did manage to remove the rats, so, there's that. How do you know Kaz?" He was going to get to the bottom of why Kaz had brought this rank novice into their group once and for all.

"I can't honestly say that I know Kaz. He asked me to make a few phosphorus bombs for him." Wylan paused. "I didn't want to."

"Why not?"

"Because I knew that he'd use them for something like this."

There it was, the thing that had been bothering Jesper ever since he first saw Wylan's delicate, innocent face. He didn't have the armor to be a Crow; didn't have the … moral casualness, the toughness, it took to survive in the Barrel.

"Did it work?" Wylan asked after a moment.

"Oh, it worked. Not many people can go up against General Kirigan and live to tell about it."

The Darkling! Wylan's bombs had helped them against the Darkling. Pride filled him. How many other people could say they helped in that fight?

Jesper frowned. If Wylan was so new at this, so unsure of himself, how and why had Kaz put such trust in his abilities? "Where'd he find you?"

Wylan glanced at him over his shoulder. "I was apprenticing at the tannery, so I guess he knew that I was good with chemicals."

Something teased at Jesper's memory, something associated with the tannery. Sweetness; darkness; heat. Passion. "Tannery? That sounds familiar." He looked at Wylan, feeling suddenly as though he recognized that beautiful face. "Have we met before?"

Instead of answering, Wylan said, "Stadwatch," and Jesper ducked back into the wagon. After a few moments, Wylan turned around. "You're clear."

Jesper knelt in the window again, watching the carriage in front of them. "Thank you."

Wylan nodded briefly. He considered answering Jesper's question, but he couldn't think of a way to bring up their night together that didn't make him sound pathetic. So they rode in silence until he decided to speak up again. He might not be willing to jog Jesper's memory, but … he could try to make Jesper see him as someone he could work with. "I know that you're not thrilled about being paired with me, but you should know that … you can trust me."

Jesper felt badly that it was so obvious. He had definitely not been on his best behavior these past couple of days, and Wylan had taken the brunt of his bad mood. Still—he wasn't about to be told who he could trust and who he couldn't by someone he'd only just met. Trust was earned, and they were very far from being there yet. "To be clear, I trust you 'cause Kaz trusts you."

"And you trust Kaz?"

Trust was such a small word for it, such an uncomplicated word, when there were so many layers there. "Listen, I'm not about to dissect my long-standing working relationship with Kaz Brekker with a total stranger." Wylan turned to look at him, as if he was about to object to that, and something about the lamplight on his face made Jesper wonder again whether somehow they had met before. Irritated that he couldn't remember, he snapped, "Eyes on Pekka's driver," and Wylan's beautiful dark eyes looked away again.

"He's rounding the corner."

"Follow him."

They came round the corner and Wylan pulled the horse to a stop. "He's … he's gone. He's gone."

Jesper could see that, and he tensed, feeling that edge in the air that said something had gone wrong, waiting for the next move. "This isn't right."

Men approached the cart from every side, coming from the surrounding alleys, and one of them shot at the traces, setting the horse loose, marooning the cart in the middle of the street. Wylan jerked in surprise at the shot. Then a strong arm was around his neck, dragging him back through the open door into the back even as gunshots rang out and bullets began piercing the wooden sides of the cart above their heads.

Jesper opened a trap door, helping Wylan through before dropping through himself, and they lay there in the street, Wylan on his back and Jesper on top of him, hidden by the wooden panels of the cart while people—Rollins' men, no doubt—shot their way through the upper portion.

Suddenly, it all fell into place in Jesper's memory. This position, the dim light of the lanterns lighting up Wylan's face in just the right way. "Wait! Wait, we have met before, haven't we?"

Wylan wanted to be relieved that Jesper had finally remembered him, but they were still getting shot at. "Yes, but—" Gunshots rang out afresh, cutting off the rest of what he would have said as they both flinched.

"And you bought me stroopwafels," Jesper said, relieved to have remembered, delighted to be reminded. The whole thing had come back now, the chance meeting, the passionate night, the idle conversation as they strolled together. It had been a very good night.

Under any other circumstances, Wylan would have been thrilled by the smile, the memory, the warmth of Jesper's body so close to his. But he was lying on cobblestones in the middle of the street while people shot at him, and he had no idea how Jesper had the presence of mind to be having a conversation in the midst of the chaos. "You remember that now?!"

Jesper put a finger to his lips, and Wylan was quiet, but inside, next to the fear and the adrenaline, something was singing. Everything about Jesper's eyes and face and body language had changed now that he had placed Wylan, now that Wylan was no longer some stranger brought into his family by Kaz without consultation.

Without taking his eyes off Wylan's face, Jesper drew one of his guns, sending it skating across the cobblestones. When Pekka's man bent to pick it up, Jesper rolled out from under the wagon. In a single smooth movement, he was on his feet, kicking the man in the face, his coat belling out around him. He dropped to one knee, retrieved his gun from the ground, and shot a man coming up on his right. Without looking, he spun the gun over his shoulder and shot a man coming up behind him, then got up and shot another man coming toward him.

Spinning around, the coat swinging, he twirled the gun in his hand and fired off two more rapid shots. Each shot took someone down.

Wylan remained under the cart, watching in fascination. Jesper was beautiful at any given moment; Jesper in motion, with the guns in his hands, was a work of art. And quite possibly the sexiest thing Wylan had ever seen in his life.

He barely registered a man shouting "Time for Henrietta!" because Jesper had both guns out, using them as if they were extensions of his hands, shooting men coming up on either side of him simultaneously. He tossed a gun up in the air, spinning and catching it.

Down the street, two men were pushing something large into place. A repeating gun. Wylan had a terrible vision of Jesper mowed down by bullets, and turned his head to call his name even as one of the men with the repeater shouted "Now!"

Jesper managed to duck behind the wagon just as the gun started going off, and Wylan put his arms over his head and tried to make himself very small.

Then Jesper threw himself out from behind the wagon, bullets sailing over him as he fell, two shots aimed seemingly carelessly, but one landed in the shoulder of one of the men running the repeater, bending him over, and the other one struck his gun just as he raised it again, ricocheting off it and hitting the other man.

It was the most amazing shot Wylan had ever seen in his life, and it was—impossible. No one could have planned that shot, or made it if they had.

But before he could think through that realization, someone had grabbed his ankles and dragged him out from under the cart.

Jesper had barely had time to appreciate his own artistry when he realized that Wylan had disappeared somewhere behind the rat-catcher's cart. He scrambled to his feet, moving quietly along the side of the cart, listening to the sounds of the struggle on the other side. Wylan was holding his own, which was something of a relief. Jesper hadn't been certain he could. He turned the corner and was about to shoot the man holding Wylan when another man came from the shadows, chopping down at Jesper's gun hand. He evaded a few blows before one landed in the pit of his stomach, sending him to his knees, winded. Even as he flashed Wylan a thumbs up, letting him know he'd be there in a moment, a crowbar was placed across his throat, slowly choking him, and suddenly Jesper had enough to do to keep himself alive; he wasn't going to be able to go to Wylan's rescue. At least, not anytime soon.

Wylan dug in his pocket and found a stash of knockout powder he kept there for situations like this one—an unfortunate reality of life in the Barrel. Tearing open the packet with one hand, he held his breath and threw the powder over his shoulder into the face of the man holding him before throwing himself on the back of the man holding Jesper.

Over the years, Jesper had perfected the ability to guide a bullet with his power until now it was second nature. But manipulating metal by touch was something else entirely, especially while still trying to regain his breath from having been kicked in the stomach and slowly being strangled by an iron pipe. He was aware of the change in weight behind him as Wylan leaped on the man's back, but he tried to keep his focus on bending the pipe until he was able to throw himself clear. Wylan was knocked off the man's back in the process, and the assailant turned on him while Jesper scrambled for the gun he had dropped earlier.

Lying there on the ground, Wylan was startled by the sight of the pipe in the assailant's hand. It had been bent completely out of shape. Even as the man decided not to think about the bent pipe and instead to use it to smash Wylan's head in, one last gunshot tore the air and he fell.

Getting to his feet, Jesper touched his throat gingerly. That was going to hurt for a while. But he'd live, and that was the important bit. He opened the back of the cart, retrieving his hat, wincing when he thought how much Marike was going to charge him for the damages.

"H-how do we find out if the others aren't also in trouble?" Wylan asked.

Jesper liked that. When you were on a team, you looked out for each other. On the other hand, when you were on a team with Kaz and Inej, you trusted that they could handle themselves and you stuck to the plan. "We can't," he said breathlessly. He settled the hat on his head and hauled Wylan to his feet, clapping him on the back. "So it's Black Veil, then."

"The cemetery?" Well, that wasn't ominous at all. Wylan followed, because he had nowhere better to go than wherever Jesper was going to be, but he would have been a lot happier if the destination was not a city of the dead.