They were silent aboard the smallboat. Inej couldn't make herself look at Kaz. Why had she asked him to stay at the storehouse? She couldn't explain it, even to herself. She knew better than to ask for comfort from Kaz Brekker.
The rest of the crew would be waiting for them on Black Veil. If they had really been watching, then the last time that they had seen her was in the guard's arms, her legs bent wrong. Now she would get off the boat walking on her own. She didn't want them to worry about her—both because she cared for them, and because she couldn't afford their concern. She needed them to trust her to do her job, because if they trusted her, she would be able to trust herself, too.
So as they ran aground, she mustered all of her energy and put a smile on her face.
Nina offered her her arm, and Inej took it, using the support to stand, and then let go. She stepped over the edge of the smallboat onto solid ground. They moved silently towards the tomb. Near the door, Matthias was keeping watch, and as he caught sight of them Inej saw him say something to the rest of them inside. Seconds later, Jesper was running towards her, closing the distance fast, a look of astonished joy on his face that was tinged with desperation.
"Oh thank the Saints!" he cried, wrapping his arms around her tight and lifting her several inches in the air. She laughed, breathless, but she couldn't hug him back—her arms were pinned to her sides. He squeezed her harder and she winced.
"Careful with her, cowboy. It's been a long day," Nina said, and Jesper's grip loosened. He lowered her back onto the ground. Inej pulled away just enough so she could see his face and smiled, genuinely now.
"It's good to see you too, Jesper," she said, and it really was. She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand, and he leaned into her touch, his face almost pained.
"Sorry, sorry. I just—" Jesper shook his head a little, as if dispelling whatever thought or feeling threatened the joy. "The Wraith has returned, and all's right with the world!"
The words were exactly what she wanted to hear, and Inej's smile grew to a grin. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed, hugging him tight for a long minute before she let him go. They stepped inside, and waiting by the door was one Kuwei, while the other sat deeper within the tomb. She glanced between them. The golden eyes of the closer figure were wide and worried.
"Wylan?" she said. He nodded, smiling.
"I'm sorry about my father," he said. Inej didn't want to think about him. Even though it was a horrible thing to think, she was almost glad that Wylan didn't have his own sea-blue eyes right now. She didn't know if she'd be able to meet his gaze. She wrapped her arms around him.
"We are not our fathers," she murmured. Wylan nodded, wrapping his arms around her loosely in return.
"And you're okay?" he asked hesitantly.
"I will be," she said.
"Your legs," said Matthias, who, as usual, dared to ask the obvious question. Inej quite admired that about him. She pulled back from Wylan. "They were broken. Now they are not."
"Yes," she said. "A Grisha healer met us at the storehouse." She watched Nina and Matthias share a look: a challenge and a reluctant agreement. Matthias looked away.
"Are you all okay?" Inej asked. "What happened?" Jesper's eyes were wild.
"Well, actually, you wouldn't believe— "
Inej could feel Nina's presence behind her, and as Jesper saw her something about Nina's expression made him change his tune.
"—how little happened! Nothing happened!" As Inej turned to see Nina's face, she got a glimpse of the intensity of her eyes before her expression became neutral once more. Inej turned back to Jesper, raising an eyebrow, and the lie crumbled. "Nothing that can't be discussed tomorrow, at least. We've got some things to catch up on, darling, but you look like I feel after a night out. No offense."
Inej had seen Jesper after a night out, so she knew she looked truly terrible. All of her efforts to hide her pain and exhaustion were not enough. But maybe it was good to have friends like that, who could see through the facade, and cared enough to tell her she needed to rest. They were right; when the tiredness battled with the curiosity and worry in her heart, the tiredness came out triumphant. She glanced to Kaz, who was still standing near the door and watching all of them. He would get the information he needed about the day's events and make a plan, with or without her there to contribute.
"None taken," she said.
"Come on. I'll show you where we sleep," Nina said. "It's truly luxurious. Your bedroll isn't even infested with termites yet."
Jesper shuddered, presumably at some termite-related memory, and Inej smiled.
She followed Nina to the sleeping area. The other bedrolls were wrapped up, too, but hers was rolled the tightest, never used. Nina unrolled it for her as Inej slowly undid the coil of her braid.
"Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?" Nina asked. Inej lay down and, after a moment's thought, shook her head.
"No. I'm okay."
Nina nodded and tucked the edge of the blanket gently over Inej's shoulder. Inej listened to her footsteps getting softer and softer as she returned to the others.
Inej tried to sleep.
She was, for the most part, unsuccessful.
When she closed them, images danced beneath her eyelids: blue eyes, a shining white smile, the gleam of a mallet. It didn't help that the darkness within the tomb was near-total, so even when she lay awake she almost felt like she could feel Van Eck's eyes watching her.
Nearly an hour later, the others came in quietly. They lay down in their bedrolls, and she watched them lie down—one, two, three, four, five. Even if she couldn't make out their figures well in the dark, she had a feeling that she knew who was missing.
It would be to his detriment to spend the whole night awake scheming, but she could understand why Kaz would find it difficult to sleep. Each of them brought something to the team that the others couldn't replicate, but Kaz had chosen them all, and he was the axis around which the rest of them rotated. The entire mission would succeed or fail on his plan and his command. It was a level of pressure that she did not envy, and she was very familiar with pressure.
And that was not to mention the stresses of the day that they had had, and the things he had seen. She found herself again wondering why she had asked him to stay. She knew he had no comfort to offer her, and she knew it was unnecessary to make him watch her in pain. Especially with his own past injury, perhaps it had been cruel of her to ask that of him. But they faced every challenge together, outsmarted every foe, and they always had each other's backs. Some part of her had thought that the same bond might help her endure the pain. Her friendship with Nina had—and though she loved Nina deeply, she knew that the bond she had with Kaz was something different. Perhaps even something deeper. But the existence of the bond wasn't enough to help her through things if the person on the other side didn't want to be there for her.
How had he broken his leg? It was another thing about his past that she didn't know—and she probably never would. Had it been an accident? Or had someone hurt him intentionally? Maybe asking him to stay was even crueller than she had realized. She turned to lie on her side, stretching her legs straight and then bending them again.
I only wonder which will prove more effective—torturing Mister Brekker or having him watch as I torture you. She knew that if they were both captured, the part of her that wanted to protect Kaz—the same part of her that had burst forth and broken Van Eck's nose in a fit of rage—would have lost her resolve much sooner. She would have told Van Eck anything he wanted to know if it would prevent Kaz being hurt. But Van Eck would have made a fool of himself when torturing her didn't get the results he wanted out of Kaz. He'd get further with the other method he had suggested; even if Van Eck himself could not have known it, Inej knew that without his gloves, Kaz would fall apart. The fearful expression on his face before he had fainted in the back of the prison wagon had been the look of a little boy.
That look haunted her, and it hovered in her mind in the darkness until she couldn't stand it anymore. She sat up. She would find no sleep tonight.
She got up silently and went out of the tomb. It was much lighter outside, and the moon was nearly full, its brightness sparkling along the waves of the river. Immediately when she breathed in the fresh air she felt better. She walked slowly, and then a little faster, along the edge of the river. She was stiff and sore, but she was moving, and that was what mattered. Her mind got too noisy if she was still for too long.
Kaz was standing by the water. His back was to her. She stopped. She wasn't sure that she wanted to talk to him; her nerves were frayed enough and he had a way of unraveling her. But the image of him on the wagon was lingering, and maybe seeing his face—seeing him all right —would dispel it. She stood still.
"Still trying to sneak up on me, Wraith?"
"I couldn't sleep," she said.
"Should you really be up and walking around?"
She bristled. Two questions in and she already regretted this decision. But she went and stood by the water, leaving a space between them.
"I'm fine," she said. He made a dismissive noise and didn't question her further.
"The Shu used parem on Fabrikators to create flying soldiers," he said. "They are impervious to bullets and other Grisha. Two of these soldiers attacked the others after the explosions on the Stave."
She cast a glance back towards the tomb's entrance, and in her mind she said a brief prayer of thanks to the Saints that they had not lost anyone today. She rested her palm on the hilt of Sankta Lizabeta on her belt.
"And how do we take them out?" she asked, turning back to him. Kaz was telling her this for a reason—he had distilled the evening's conversation into the minimum he needed to communicate to her in order to equip her for whatever plan came next.
"They seem to sense Grisha, so it's up to me, you, Matthias, and Wylan to hit them when they're not looking. They've got metal under their flesh, but we know that everything has a weak spot. It's just a matter of finding it."
"When can I get a good look at them?" she asked, flexing her feet in her boots. She was itching to do something. The danger of this mission would help her wake up and sharpen her senses, push everything else out of sight while she was engrossed in it. She needed that.
"Slow down, Wraith," he said. "We've got other priorities, first."
"Higher priority than the things that are trying to kill our friends?" Perhaps that was the wrong appeal. "Your crew?"
"All in good time," Kaz said. His hand flexed at his side, as if it rested on the head of his cane, but it wasn't there. It was 'in a gutter somewhere,' whatever that meant. He had lost it between Goedmedbridge and the storehouse. Getting another would have to wait until they were out of trouble—or the alternative; he wouldn't need a cane if they were all dead. "Our focus for now is Van Eck."
Her fingers curled around the hilt of the knife.
"We're going to destroy him and his empire in one fell swoop," Kaz said. "Starting with the silos. Van Eck owns the silos but only a portion of the sugar within them. Wylan's made a weevil that'll ruin the sugar. You'll climb up on one of the silos—"
"And walk across a highwire to the others," she said. The perfect challenge. The perfect revenge.
He nodded. "There will be a net below."
She scoffed. "A Ghafa never performs with a net." And why would he waste the time to procure a net and the people it would take to hold it?
"Didn't ask," he said, and she felt her face burn with anger. "I'm not risking losing our spider for the second time this week. They're not easy to come by."
"Well, you'll find yourself in the position of needing to search for one if you demean me that way," she said sharply, glaring at him until he met her eyes and the challenge within them. "I don't work with a net."
"Do you want the money or not?" Kaz asked, rising to it.
"Not everything is about the money," she said. She needed the cash—they all did—but she had principles, too, and pride. Usually she would put it aside, allow him to do and say any number of snarky, demeaning things, because she had learned to tune him out, and her pride was too strong to falter with some quip from him. But this was too far.
"It is when you've nearly died for it. Twice," Kaz said. Two times he'd had to carry her away from a fight. But she knew—they both knew—that their world was one where death followed them, lurking in each corner and on every slippery rooftop, waiting for her to slip up just enough that it could finally lunge and grasp her. A knife, or a mallet, or a gun, or an imprecise step on some high perch—it didn't matter. She was lucky to have outrun it for as long as she had. "It is when you've gotten your legs broken for it. Believe me."
She cast a glance down at his leg. He was leaning on his good side gingerly to avoid the pain. Then she looked down at herself, at her two working legs, and let out a long breath. She knew she should feel gratefulness, more than anything else.
"That wasn't all about the money, either," she said. Her legs had been broken because she had refused to tell Van Eck where Kaz was keeping Kuwei. Kaz always gave everyone the minimum amount of information necessary, so Inej had known that even if she told Van Eck all the different safehouses she knew, he probably still wouldn't have found where they were hiding. Kaz would have somewhere up his sleeve that was unknown even to her. But she had refused to risk it. She had let them break her legs to prevent any chance that she might be the reason any one of them was hurt.
"Whatever your reason, I'd assume you'd want to finish what you started," Kaz said. "And we could all use the money—without it, we're all in debt."
She couldn't help but sigh.
"You'll get your money, Kaz," she said. And he was right. "And maybe when I've put all of mine towards my indenture and paying back Katsya, there might still be some left over for me to get out of here."
Kaz looked at her, and then away again. "Katsya's been paid."
She couldn't help but scoff. "By who?" Favors like that weren't given for nothing.
"Does it matter?" Kaz said. "It's handled."
The dawning realization that he may have done something for her benefit came slowly, incredulously. She looked over at him, trying to search for answers in each line of his face, the sharp angle of his jaw, but there was nothing. Only resolve, and tiredness. She wondered how long it had been since he'd slept.
"It does matter, Kaz," she said, softer.
"Your job isn't to ask questions, it's to focus on the job," he said. "Can you climb the silos or not?"
"Of course I can," she said, unable to resist a rush of irritation at having to repeat herself. She looked out over the water, and she could feel him watching her, but she refused to meet his eyes. Even if he didn't believe in her, she believed in herself.
"If you don't want to, I can find someone else," he said, and if she didn't know better she might say there was something almost soft about his voice. Her jaw tightened. "There will be other jobs."
"I said I'm fine," she said sharply. Was it too much to ask for him to have some faith in her, after everything? He was sure of himself and nothing else, but she supposed she had deluded herself into thinking he trusted her too, at least when it came to getting a job done.
"You're clearly not," he said, an edge to his voice.
The statement stopped her in her tracks. They had both been known to say they were fine when the other knew that they weren't. But there had always been an unspoken agreement between them that they would let that particular lie stand. I'm fine meant leave it alone as much as it meant I'm fine. As the twin soldiers that they were, they had always respected that. On a different day, in a different frame of mind, she knew she might have even cherished this barest indication that he cared about her wellbeing. But tonight, she was just too tired.
"Don't, Kaz," she said wearily. "Just don't—"
"—I'd be a fool to make a plan without taking your actual condition into account," he said, interrupting. "I'm not sending you in there if you can't handle it."
The wildcat leapt up again, and this time it was Kaz's jugular that it aimed for. Even though she had not let herself fully feel the impact of the idea that he might care about her, the immediate negation of the prospect enraged her. She stood utterly still, except as she clenched her fist tight enough that she felt her nails prick the skin of her palm.
"I told you I can handle it," she snapped, harsher than she had ever spoken to him before, and once she had started talking the words tumbled out and she couldn't stop herself. "There is no one else. You need me to do this. All of you need me to do this. So stop acting like I have a choice in this when we both know I don't. When have I ever had a choice in any of this? You're not asking me because—"
Because you care about me. She put her fist against her forehead and took a long breath until she had control again. She hated feeling like she had lost control of herself. Another deep breath. She would not let him make her feel that way.
"I've always been perfectly loyal to you, Kaz," she said, more calmly now. "But even if you do care about me, in whatever way you're able to do that, I know better than to think I will ever be more than a pawn to you in the grand scheme of things."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Kaz said, and the note of genuine bewilderment in his voice almost made her want to laugh. But the place inside her where laughter might bubble up from was hollow now.
"You think I would still be working for the Dregs if I had a choice?" she asked. "I wanted to leave Ketterdam a long time ago."
It was only half-true. The first time she had ever truly thought about what would happen if Kaz was killed had been that night at the Exchange, when Geels had his pistol against Kaz's chest. If Kaz had died that night, she would not have stayed—she knew she could evade Per Haskell's enforcers, and she would be gone before anyone even thought to look for her. Something more than her indenture kept her here.
She realized that too long had passed in silence. She looked to Kaz, and the wounded expression on his face brought her back to a softer place within herself.
"I didn't mean that," she said. "I know you've done a lot for me, and I do appreciate that, but—"
"That's unnecessary," he said. She opened her mouth, but he held up one hand, and she fell silent, biting her tongue.