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Back at the fortress, everyone separated. The Crows were planning to leave late that afternoon, taking an overnight coach to the coast, and the Hummingbird was being readied to rejoin Sturmhond's ship.
Wylan caught up with Tolya. "You promised to show me some of Sturmhond's inventions."
"Prince Nikolai, you mean."
"Yes. But he's rather busy at the moment."
Tolya smiled. "Come on, then." They went aboard the Hummingbird, and Tolya took Wylan below. "Not much here. Most of it's on the ship. But there are a few things."
Wylan studied a couple of weapons, thinking that Jesper would probably find these fascinating as well … but thinking of Jesper made him think of Ketterdam, and the Barrel, and the Crows. Without planning to, he asked suddenly, "Could I come with you?"
"Aren't you going back to Ketterdam?"
"I … yes, but—" He wasn't quite sure how to put it into words, the feeling he had that somehow he didn't belong there.
Tolya's eyes were on him, gentle and kind. "You'll break his heart if you don't go back with him."
Wylan wasn't so sure that was true. Oh, it would hurt at first, but … Jesper would be happy enough to be home, he wouldn't need more. "He'll be all right." Inej would help him.
Lifting his eyebrows as if he disagreed but was too polite to say so, Tolya said, "Not much room for a chemical workshop on a ship. It's unstable. And everything gets wet."
"That's a no, then?"
Tolya smiled. "That's a 'go talk to him'."
Wylan nodded. "Safe travels, Tolya."
"And you."
Left alone—never his favorite state—Jesper found a rock in the sun, sitting down on it and trying not to ruminate on how forlorn everyone else seemed. Kaz he understood; Kaz was always like that. And Nina had lost friends today, on both sides, it appeared. But Inej had been closed off, too, and Wylan kept going quiet, his dark eyes on Jesper as though something was wrong.
He didn't like it. It was disquieting.
Sitting there trying not to think, he closed his hand round a bullet, concentrating, and came out with a fairly serviceable button. He tried to fit it back on his vest, but that would require needle and thread, and while Jesper could sew on a button when need be, he thought he was pretty far from being able to Fabrikate a needle, and certainly not thread. He groaned in frustration.
He felt her presence before he saw her, and he knew, suddenly, what she had come to tell him. "You're not coming back to Ketterdam. Are you?"
Inej didn't respond, and she didn't look at him, which was answer enough.
"Damn." It was a small word for how much it hurt. Jesper sat up, crossing his legs, and tried to make light, which was what he did. "I'm already the looks of the operation; guess I'm going to have to be the heart now, too."
She came and sat down next to him, whispering, "I have to find my brother."
Jesper nodded. "Yeah."
"I have to reunite my family. Something I should have done a long time ago."
"Well, in your defense, you have been a little busy saving the world. Twice over."
A small smile touched her mouth and then was gone. She looked down and he could see the pain in her face, the way it twisted as she tried not to cry. She put her hand over her face, trying to hold it back. Damn Kaz, anyway, for being such a cold and closed-off bastard.
Jesper got to his feet. "You don't have to feel bad for going."
Inej looked up at him. "Harij is my brother. And my parents might be my blood, but … you—" She stood up and took his vest in her hands. "You, Jesper, are my family, too." A tear welled up in her eye, rolling down her cheek.
Jesper didn't want to cry, certainly not in front of her. He tried to smile, and was pretty sure he failed miserably.
"Can you—" Inej began.
"Oh, yeah. I'll look out for him. As much as he lets me, at least." Kaz would have been horrified to know they thought he needed looking after—but he did, for all of that.
They stood there a moment, but what more was there to say? Jesper reached out and pulled her close, holding her.
"I am so going to miss you," Inej whispered.
Jesper pulled back to look at her. This time he managed the smile. "Oh, yeah. 'Course you will." She laughed, which was what he had been going for. He lifted her hand and kissed it, and Inej ducked her head, leaning against his chest. Jesper rested his chin there. Was this what it had all been for, to lose his best friend? He kissed her hair, trying to deny the sting of tears behind his eyes.
At last Inej looked up at him, smiling, before she started walking away.
Jesper was going to lose the fight with the tears. He could tell that now. As a last-ditch effort, he called after her, "Where are you going now?"
"To say my prayers."
He nodded. Of course she was. And then she was gone, and the tears were coming. Jesper fought against them and tried to get himself back under control.
Back on the ground, the Hummingbird and his brief flirtation with running away behind him, Wylan went looking for Jesper. He saw Inej coming toward him, her face set and serious. "Have you seen Jesper?"
She nodded. "He's back there. He— You should go check on him."
"Is he all right?"
"He will be."
It was so much like what he had just said to Tolya that Wylan understood exactly what she was trying to say. "You've been to say good-bye."
"I have to go find my brother."
"I understand."
"Will you—"
Wylan nodded. "I'll try to. As long as he wants me to."
Inej looked at him and shook her head. "He's not like that. He pretends to be, but he isn't. Once he's—once he's your family, he always will be." There were tears in her eyes.
He wanted to believe that, but what Inej was talking about was different. Or was it? She didn't seem to think so. "Take care of yourself."
"You, too."
Wylan hurried round the corner, calling Jesper's name.
Hearing Wylan's voice, Jesper turned so his back was to him. He had lost the battle and was weeping openly now, no real chance of stopping it any longer, and this was not the Jesper Wylan had signed up to be with, not the charming and confident rogue who handled all adversity with a smile and a well-timed quip.
But Wylan came to him, looking up into his face. "Are you all right? No. No, you aren't. Because of Inej?"
"You saw her?" Jesper managed. He sat down on the rock, trying to hide his face in his hands.
"I saw her."
"So you know she's leaving?"
"She'll come back. She loves you. She's—she's a Crow."
"Then why won't she let us help her?"
They both knew the answer: Kaz. And his inability to be what he and Inej both wanted him to be. But it didn't matter, because the loss of Inej cracked the dam Jesper had used to hold back his pain just enough to let it all come rushing out. All the grief about his mother that he had plastered over with anger for so many years, all the pain of growing up without her; everything he had penned back so carefully, all of it was free now, and he was sobbing like he hadn't since he was a very small child.
Wylan took Jesper in his arms, resting his cheek against his hair. Jesper's arms wrapped tightly around his waist, clinging to him as if Wylan was the anchor holding him steady amidst the flood of his grief.
At last, the tears spent themselves. Jesper turned his face away, swiping his sleeve over his eyes. "I must look a fright," he muttered, trying to make it a joke and not quite managing.
Gently, Wylan tipped Jesper's face up. "You've never looked better." He smiled, because it wasn't strictly true. Jesper's eyes were red, his face blotchy and tear-stained. But Wylan knew without being told that no one else had ever seen Jesper Fahey look like this, that he wouldn't have trusted anyone else in this moment, and he treasured that knowledge. Maybe Inej and Tolya had been right; maybe Wylan had misjudged and underestimated the depths of Jesper's feelings. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiping the tears away gently, and then handed it to Jesper so he could blow his nose.
He climbed up on the rock behind Jesper, his arms round his shoulders. Jesper clung to his arms, leaning his head back against Wylan's chest and closing his eyes, letting Wylan rock him soothingly back and forth.
"She'll be back, you know. If she wasn't planning to come back, she wouldn't have told you she was leaving."
"I know. I just thought—we'd all go home, and life would go back to what it had been, all of us in the Barrel, together, and now—" A shudder ran through him, the tears not entirely spent. "It won't be like that."
"Someday maybe it will." Wylan held him a little closer. "That wasn't all of it, though, was it?"
"No."
"Do you want to tell me, now, what you saw in your hallucination?"
"My—my mother." Jesper's voice was quivering again, his throat tight. "She died when I was—when I was very small. She was a Grisha, and … and they came to her. A little girl, poisoned. The mother—I remember her crying, begging, practically demanding Mama help her. And she did, even though she knew it might not work, she took the poison into herself. The mother went away with her child—and she left me without my mother." A fresh burst of tears took him, although more briefly than before.
"That's why you hid it for so long."
Jesper nodded against his shoulder. "My father thought it best, so no one could ever demand that I help them. And I—every time I used the power, I thought of her. I was so … angry. Because as long as I was angry—"
"You couldn't be in pain." No wonder Jesper and Kaz were so like brothers, Wylan thought. They were far more similar than it seemed at first glance.
"Yes. But then, I saw her. I know Ohval meant for us to die, but … my mama, she was there, and she— I'd missed her so much."
"My mother died, too," Wylan said, understanding. "When I was eight. I miss her."
Jesper's arms tightened around Wylan's and he pressed his head more firmly into his shoulder. "I was seven."
It was a strange and sad thing to have in common. "Was it nice to see her again, even if it was a hallucination?"
"It was. I wouldn't have imagined it could be. But now—now it's like I have her back. I can—I can miss her now, but I can … love her, too."
Wylan ran a hand softly over Jesper's hair, kissing his high forehead. "That's a lovely gift."
"It was." He looked up into Wylan's face. Turning in Wylan's arms, Jesper rested his chin on his shoulder, closing his eyes in contentment, holding him close. Everything in him that was too soft for the Barrel, too earnest for the Crows, had found a home here, in Wylan's arms. For the first time in a very long while, he felt … complete. "So are you," he said softly. "So are you."
In Wylan's memory, no one had ever thought of him that way. As a burden, yes; as a disappointment. Never as a gift. He pressed his face into Jesper's shoulder and closed his eyes, wanting to hold on to this moment forever.
