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Naturally, Kaz glared at Jesper as he entered the main room of the inn. Wylan was behind him, but Kaz didn't seem to notice. Which was fine with Jesper—whatever this was between them, he wasn't sure he was ready for Kaz to know about it. Or possibly he wasn't ready for Kaz to have an opinion about it. Kaz being Kaz, he probably already knew the whole story.
But at the moment, Kaz wasn't interested in anything other than the two people in the room Jesper didn't recognize—a female Grisha who was busy needling Nina, and a Shu warrior with a big sword on his back. Good-looking, too. Both the warrior and the sword.
"Finally," Nina said with some relief.
With a murmured 'sorry', Jesper hopped up onto the table and waited to hear what Ravka needed this time.
"We have been sent with a formal authorization to hire you for a job," the Grisha said, although she looked like now that she'd seen them, she was rethinking the idea.
"To steal the Neshyenyer." The warrior looked around the table, gauging their reactions.
"The Neshyenyer?" Nina asked, startled. "Sankta Neyar's blade?"
The Grisha smiled at her, not particularly nicely. "So, you haven't completely forgotten what you were taught at the Little Palace. Just your loyalty to Ravka."
The waitress came by and placed a plate of food next to the warrior.
"Ravka … or Kirigan?" Nina demanded. "It didn't take him destroying a city for me to question my loyalty."
Cranky from his disturbed morning, and the fact that breakfast would be delayed until they got this over with, Jesper asked, "So … now that we all know that you two have history, what's the payment for this particular job?"
Without looking at him, the warrior said, "Name your price. It matters that much."
Music to Jesper's ears. And to Kaz's.
Nina was looking at the official authorization for the job. Wylan leaned over her shoulder. "Is that the Lantsov family crest?"
"You know it is, because it's hideous."
"Prince Nikolai requests your services to retrieve and deliver the Neshyenyer to Alina Starkov in East Ravka."
"She's returned?" Nina asked.
"As has the Darkling. With an indestructible army of shadow monsters," the Grisha said.
"I do not like the sound of that." Jesper raised a shot of whiskey, drinking down half of it. It wasn't breakfast, but it was a start.
"She needs the blade to kill them. It's the only thing that might work."
"Retrieve the blade and the prince will pay you whatever you ask."
"But I like the sound of that." Jesper flourished his glass at the Shu warrior and finished off the whiskey.
The Grisha looked across the table at Kaz. "I assume same goes for you?"
"I'd welcome the chance to help your prince spend his country's money."
"I don't need kruge. I need to get someone out of Hellgate," Nina said, leaning forward. "The Lantsovs, they must be able to pull strings with the Kerch government."
The Grisha smirked. "For a certain Fjerdan? He must be quite the slab of fur."
"The offer is the offer," the warrior said firmly, before Nina could get side-tracked defending her love. "And Prince Nikolai is a man of his word."
"But we need to go now," the Grisha added.
Nina, Jesper, and Wylan all looked at Kaz, who took his time considering. He did love to have the upper hand. But Jesper knew what he would say. "It's settled. We're in."
"And your Wraith?" the Grisha added. "I was expecting to see her."
Jesper looked at Kaz in concern. It was clear to him that Kaz had said the wrong thing to Inej, and she had done the disappearing thing she did. Jesper hoped she'd come back before she—or they—could get in too much trouble.
"She's gone."
"No, she's not. Not yet," Jesper said firmly. Inej wouldn't leave them; not like this. "She's—"
"Not an option," Kaz snapped. He stood up, not leaving any room for argument. "Gather what you need, meet back here in an hour. Satisfactory?"
The warrior nodded. "Did I hear something about a place that sets waffles on fire?"
"There's no time for that," the Grisha snapped.
"There is always time for flaming waffles."
They weren't going without Inej; not if Jesper had anything to say about it. And despite Kaz Brekker thinking he made all the decisions, he didn't always make the right ones.
Nina stood up. Softly, she said to Jesper, "Are you going?"
"Yes."
"I'll come with you."
Kaz was on his feet, heading for the stairs. They waited until he disappeared up them, then followed more cautiously, both of them betting that Inej was in the one place Kaz would never look for her—her room.
Which she was. Nina explained the job, and Jesper explained Kaz. "And when I told him you hadn't left us, not yet, he said you were 'not an option'."
That got her, which he had intended it to. "'Not an option'?"
"I know. No idea where he could have gotten that idea from." He raised an eyebrow, hoping to convey his entire impatience with this endless dance the two of them did.
Nina had immediately reached for Inej's hand, making passes over her wrist to erase the tattoo from the Menagerie. "And when I'm done," she said softly, "she'll never be an option again."
Across the room, Jesper spied a familiar object, and he stormed across to it. "Is that my hat?"
"You hate that hat," Inej said softly.
Nonsense. He loved his hats.
"But why wouldn't he tell me about a job for the Sun Summoner?" Inej asked.
"Because he'd rather push you away than admit he feels anything for you," Nina said, as if it was obvious. Which it was, but both Jesper and Inej stared at her because they were not used to Crows who said what was on their minds. She looked up at them. "Oh, was I not supposed to say that out loud?"
Jesper sat down on the bed and put the hat on. "I, for one, love that you did." He looked at himself in the mirror and snatched it back off. "Yeah, I hate this hat. Listen," he said to Inej, "I don't know what happened between you two, because no one in this bloody band of broken dolls can confab worth a damn." Except possibly Nina, which was what made her such a brilliant addition. "But I know Kaz. And I know you. And I thought you would at least like to know why we were doing this. For your Saint."
Inej smiled at him. Nina looked up at her, indicating she was finished, and Inej looked at her wrist. The tattoo wasn't gone, not entirely, but it was faded so significantly it took work to find it. "For Sankta Alina."
The Grisha, Zoya, and the warrior, Tolya, were back, leaning against the bar, while Wylan and Nina split a plate of waffles, when Kaz returned. "The Neshyenyer at Amhrat Jen is definitely a fake."
"Which we told you. Perhaps now you'll tell us something we didn't know?" Zoya demanded.
"According to my contacts, it's believed to have been stolen by a thief known as the Disciple. He had a penchant for stealing Saint-related relics while on jobs of other kinds."
"So he's a thief and a collector?" Wylan asked, surprised. Most thieves didn't take the risk of hanging on to the things they stole.
"And retired," Kaz added. "But he has since put a few pieces of his presumed collection on the black market."
"So to get to him, we go to his fence," Tolya suggested.
"Ohval Saran. She has a tea shop in Bhez Ju. To speak with her, we're going to have to order yellow chrysanthemum tea, off-menu."
Wylan was impressed. All that information, and forged travel papers, in an hour. Kaz was definitely good at what he did.
Nina said something in Shu, and Tolya laughed, evidently impressed, saying something back.
She smiled and moved down the bar to stand next to him. "Let's discuss. Tell me more."
They walked off together, as across the room Wylan saw Jesper come down the stairs, followed by Inej. To judge from the complete stillness of Kaz's body, he saw it, too.
Kaz approached them as they entered the bar. "I see you couldn't help yourself … Jes." He sneered the nickname.
Taking the travel document Kaz handed him, Jesper moved past him and stood at the bar, listening shamelessly to their whispered conversation. "So much for 'what happens to Saints is fate'." There was venom in Kaz's tone, which meant he was either very worried about Inej … or very near throwing himself at her feet and terrified of it.
Jesper caught Wylan's eye across the bar and smiled. He could feel himself blushing, which Jesper Fahey didn't usually do … but this wasn't a usual situation, either. He was very lucky, he thought, reading his forged passport while he made his way to Wylan's side. "How have I wronged him?" he asked plaintively.
"Hmm?"
"The passport. He made me even older than the last time."
"Technically, you are older than last time."
Well, possibly, but it wasn't necessary to call attention to it, Jesper thought sourly. He looked over Wylan's shoulder at the utterly ridiculous name Kaz had come up with. Perny McTandy? "Saints," he said, laughing. "That's a terrible name."
Wylan's heart thudded in his chest. He could just not ask, just laugh as if he knew what the name was and go on, the way he would normally do. But something in him wanted Jesper to know, wanted to trust him to … understand. He looked around and then leaned closer and asked, "What does it say?"
"What, can't you read it?" Jesper asked, almost in jest. But looking down into Wylan's face, he saw that it was true. Wylan couldn't read it. This brilliant man, who created beautiful music and deadly chaos with such ease, couldn't read. Jesper didn't know what to do with that. Did he simply read it aloud and move on, did he offer to teach Wylan, did he ask him about it?
Instead, he did what he would later kick himself for being the worst possible thing he could do. He took Wylan's trust and made light of it. "Um … uh … I can barely read it myself."
Wylan's heart sank. He should never have tried. "I should pack," he said quietly, and pushed past Jesper, trying to hide the hurt.
Jesper scrunched his face up. What an idiot he was. If he could take it back, he would have said—really, anything else. But he hadn't. He'd been stupid, and he'd hurt Wylan, and now he didn't know how he was going to fix it.