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The trouble started, as it usually did, with a mercher.
Well, in this case, a mercher’s assistant; the second-in-command of a Belendt trader, one of the few examples of prosperous merchants that didn’t live in Ketterdam. It was a fairly routine meeting, something about wheat trade that Jesper wanted out of the way as fast as possible. It was their only appointment of the day, and there was a Friday pint at the Kooperom with his name on it.
Happily, the merch seemed just as eager to get it done with as they did, which made him extra agreeable to Jesper. He was a tall, broad shouldered young man in his early twenties, with big dark eyes and a strong brow. He smiled often, but constantly held the slightly strained look of an older man, which was curious.
“Rietveld,” he said to them, shaking both of their hands and turning to sit down. “Mister Dijkgraaf isn’t given to travel, so I tend to go to meetings in his stead, though this is the first time I’ve needed to come all the way to Ketterdam…”
Rietveld? Jesper glanced at Wylan, who gave him the barest of shrugs. No need to panic yet– Rietveld was a country name, a common name– but it was curious to encounter the fake surname they’d given Colm during the Kuwei auction.
And at first, it did seem normal; the deal was reasonable, and Rietveld made his case compellingly. Dijkgraaf was getting older, and wanted to outsource some of his dealings to Ketterdam, especially since Rietveld and his finacée, Dijkgraaf’s daughter, were encouraging him to make more links with younger merchers.
“Does that mean you’ll take over his empire, someday?” asked Jesper. “Engaged to his daughter, as well as being his assistant?”
He wondered which had come first, but decided it was best not to ask. Rietveld had shrugged, abashed.
“Only if Mister Dijkgraaf thinks it fitting. He may choose someone else to inherit, in which case I’m happy to remain an assistant. I was very ambitious, as a boy, but I think these days that grand ambition is something better left to… other people.”
“You seem to have had good luck anyway,” said Jesper encouragingly. There was something slightly sad about this man that he was finding sobering. Rietveld smiled slightly.
“I thank Ghezen for it, but it is only luck…”
“And how are you finding Ketterdam?” Wylan asked as he signed off on the papers. “Will you be staying long?”
“Oh– I don’t care for Ketterdam.” said Mr Rietveld sourly, then smiled sheepishly as he realised where he was. “...sorry. I’m sure it’s home to you, but I can’t say my experiences here have been… excellent.”
“It’s horrible.” agreed Jesper. “But you’re right, it is home. In a weird way.”
“Nothing else you’re here for, then?” asked Wylan, still valiantly trying to make small talk. “Just business, then back to Belendt?”
“Well...” Rietveld hesitated, turning his hat slowly in his hands. “There is… one other thing.” he paused. “When I was last here, it was during the Queen’s Lady Plague. I want to find out what became of my brother. We both caught it, and we were… separated. I think–” he paused, and swallowed. “If I’m to be brutally honest, he’s probably dead. But I have to know for sure.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Wylan, pausing over the papers with a creased brow. “That’s awful. If we can help…”
“What was his name?” asked Jesper, rearranging the drinks glasses he’d brought for them. “Perhaps we’ve heard about him.” Kaz’s network stretched far and wide, and potentially the surname could mean this family was on his radar. It seemed a shame not to at least offer to help.
Rietveld smiled ruefully.
“It’s very kind of you, but he was only nine. I sincerely doubt he could have survived on his own.” he paused, then shook his head. “But I suppose anything could help, couldn’t it? His name was Kaz.”
A horrible, sick feeling settled in Jesper’s gut.
…Kaz? 9 years old, nearly 11 years ago?
There was a pause that dragged for slightly too long. Jesper met Wylan’s wide eyes.
Rietveld sat up a bit straighter, noticing their hesitation.
“Is there something you've heard?”
“I’m not… er...” Wylan changed track, cleared his throat. “Um, Mister Rietveld. If you don’t mind me asking… what’s your first name?”
He blinked, surprised.
“I don’t mind. It’s Jordan,” he said. “...but most folks call me Jordie.”
Jesper’s hands froze on the glasses.
“...Jordie?” repeated Wylan faintly.
What do you think my forgiveness looks like, Jordie?
Jesper stared unseeingly at the tray, the situation looping madly away in his brain. Jordie Rietveld. Kaz. The Queen’s Lady. 10 years ago.
What became of my brother.
Someone I trusted. Someone I didn’t want to lose.
“...how old would your brother be now?” asked Wylan weakly.
“Nineteen,” said Jordie promptly. “Nearly twenty. His birthday is next week.” Jesper jolted, and Jordie clearly noticed how wretched they looked, because he frowned. “Is there something wrong?”
Jesper and Wylan looked at each other.
If it was a con, they needed to know.
Now.
"We… might know your brother." said Wylan.
“I’m sorry,” Jordie Rietveld said barely two minutes later, sitting back and running his hands through his hair. “It’s kind of you to try and help, but this is ridiculous. Kaz Brekker?”
Well, if he wanted to get at Kaz, he certainly wasn’t very good at it, Jesper thought. Then again, who would jump for joy at being told their lost brother was Dirtyhands?
“So you do know of him.” Wylan said.
“Is there a soul in Kerch who doesn’t?” said Jordie in exasperation. “I can’t say I’m very well acquainted, but I know he’s a crook and a conman and a murderer. He's in all the papers. Some people are convinced he’s some sort of ancient Grisha. Others think he’s a literal demon.”
“What do you think?” pressed Jesper. Jordie made an impatient noise.
“Who can say? He’s a man deranged.”
“Boy,” said Wylan.
“What?”
“Kaz Brekker is nineteen.”
Jordie set his jaw.
“And do you know when his birthday is?”
“Er.” Wylan and Jesper looked at each other dubiously. Wylan admitted: “No, but I think it must be around this time of year, because he’s been nineteen for a while now.”
Jordie sighed, unconvinced. Jesper hardly blamed him, and he was half-hoping he was going to stay that way. If this wasn't a coincidence…
“Kaz is a common name. You don’t know when he was born but you think he’s nineteen, the surname doesn’t match up, Brekker walks with a cane... It baffles me that you’d even think this was feasible.”
Wylan opened his mouth, probably to vouch for how Kaz's limp was an injury and how it wasn't the greatest piece of evidence to deny the connection, but Jesper quickly cut across him.
“Listen,” he said. “I know we’re making ourselves out to be just as crazy as the Madman at the Komedie Brute, but the thing is, we know Kaz Brekker.”
Jordie stared at them in mounting suspicion. His resemblance to Kaz was, Jesper decided, average. On close examination, they certainly looked as if they could be brothers, but Jordie was stockier, fuller-face and ruddier, whereas Kaz always looked as if he hadn’t had a proper meal in a decade. The resemblance was in the nose and mouth (though Kaz’s nose had been broken at least three times, by now) and the set of the brows, but Jordie’s expression just didn’t cut like Kaz’s did, just settled in a sort of faint weariness that befitted an older man. Kaz’s eyes were the oldest bit about him; in everything else looked his age, maybe younger. It was why his opponents liked to disparage him. He seemed so young… until he opened his mouth.
“How would Merchers know the Bastard of the Barrel?” said Jordie sceptically.
“I got into some gambling trouble with him years ago, when I was a student. Did jobs for him to pay it off,” said Jesper hastily. “He’s…”
“He’s terrible,” said Wylan honestly. “And he never tells us anything. But… we know he had a brother.”
“That doesn’t mean anything!” scoffed Jordie. He shook his head. “I’ve been scammed in Ketterdam once before, and I'm not half so green now. How do I know you won’t escort me to Brekker and have me beaten, robbed, and killed? How do I know you’re not in on one of his schemes–”
“He called me Jordie.” blurted out Jesper.
The real Jordie stilled.
Jesper swallowed, forcing the explanation out; “We were in a fight, I’d been reckless with information, with money. I let him down, made a bad mistake. He called me Jordie in a fit of anger, then refused to tell me who that was. I’ve been wondering for years, now...”
Jordie stared at him, brows drawn. Something about that had gotten to him, Jesper could tell. But even now, he didn’t look wholly convinced–
From a drawer in his desk, Wylan produced a Wanted poster, the one with the best likeness of Kaz that there was, from the Ice Court heist. Before the papers had gotten… creative with their depictions of Dirtyhands, back when Kaz had been seen more often, running errands for Per Haskell instead of lurking in the shadows, like he preferred to do nowadays. He spread it on the table and pointed to it. Jordie exhaled incredulously.
“A Wanted poster… you just have Wanted posters about…”
Jesper decided not to tell him that they’d kept all of their Wanted posters for sentimental reasons. He’d considered scribbling out the price on Kaz’s though. It had always been unfairly steep.
“I’m sure he’s much changed,” Wylan said to Jordie. “But this is the best likeness we have. Do you recognise him at all?”
Jordie leant over the sheet, frowning sceptically–
Then his expression changed.
“That’s–” he planted his hands on the table and half-rose out of his chair, eyes wide. “He looks– but I never–”
He looked up at them.
“...I still don’t believe you…”
“But?” said Jesper.
“...but tell me everything you know.”
It was a naive request, since everything they knew about Kaz was only what he allowed them to know, which probably meant a lot of it wasn’t true, or was wildly embellished. Still, they did their best. Jesper had the best handle on Kaz’s alleged mythos, since he’d been in the Barrel during Kaz’s aggressive rise to the head of the Dregs.
“He supposedly appeared out of nowhere when he was about nine or ten,” said Jesper, drumming his fingers anxiously on his knees, legs slung over the arm of his chair. He hoped the way he was sitting wasn’t coming across as flippant, but he was so nervous he couldn’t sit normally. “He always said something nebulous when people asked him where he’d come from, so everyone just made up rumours; he was raised in Hellgate, or he’d run away from one of the orphanages, or he was a war orphan from Ravka, or something. They got more and more ridiculous as he gained prominence, but I guess the blank past would be… explained by the plague.” He racked his brains desperately. “Um. He joined the Dregs pretty soon after he entered the Barrel, as far as I know, but not before he’d gotten banned from play at every gambling parlour on East Stave…”
“What for?”
“He says it’s because he won too often, but he might have been cheating,” said Jesper. “Maybe both have truth in them. I don’t know. He started off as a pickpocket and a card dealer..."
"Cards and sleight of hand?" Jordie exhaled a rueful laugh. "Ghezen. He spent weeks trying to learn the card and coin tricks the street magicians did. He got decent, for a little kid…" he shook his head. "And then?"
"A meteoric rise– or fall, if you like– to the peak of criminal notoriety. Got arrested… a lot, fell off a roof and broke his leg so badly he still walks with a cane, conned and maimed, hustled and murdered." said Jesper. "Got all the way up to Dregs Lieutenant, basically running the gang while the old boss rested on his laurels. Pulled me in to pay off my debts because I was handy with guns–"
"Jes." warned Wylan.
Jesper shot him a helpless look. If this was Kaz's brother, he was going to have more to contend with than the knowledge that the nice gentleman who'd brought him kvas was a sharpshooter.
"Thing is, we can only reliably tell you things from the last few years. We don't know how much Kaz has made up to build up his reputation. That's the bare bones of his past. I could get into how we know him, the jobs we did, but–"
"Do you know anything about jurda parem?"
A slight pause.
Oh Ghezen, thought Jesper miserably. Oh Saints. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, con or no con… they had to see this through, now. And they definitely had to tell Kaz. The idea made him feel a bit ill.
"Why do you think we'd know about… that?" said Wylan carefully. Jordie fiddled with the rim of his hat, and said, quite clearly;
"A farmer under the name of Johannus Rietveld brought up my family's old farm in Lij several years ago, and I’m told he was involved in a false jurda consortium before he disappeared. Johannus is my middle name, Rietveld my family name. And yet, there is no Johannus Rietveld, except the shadowy man supposedly involved in the botched auction of Kuwei Yul-Bo.” He leant back. “I happen to know exactly why Kuwei Yul-Bo was being auctioned off. I suspect this Johannus is a fake identity created to rig an auction.”
“That doesn’t explain why you think we’d know anything about it,” said Jesper.
“Van Eck was your father, no?” Jordie said to Wylan. “And that was the auction he was arrested at. I suspect you have some involvement.”
“...who have you been talking to?” said Jesper.
“No one at all.” said Jordie wryly. “Put simply, the parem experiments are the reason I'm not dead."
They stared at him. He stared at them.
“...I think we should discuss this over lunch,” said Wylan. “I think we might have quite a lot to tell each other.”
“I think that might be best.” said Jordie. “If you have the stomach for it, that is.”
“The plague.” Wylan put his head in his hands, an hour or so later. “Ghezen, of course… Jes, his voice. The scars. The timing. It was there all along…”
“Kaz has a lot of scars,” said Jesper distractedly, still stuck on something else. “I want an explanation of this parem thing.”
Jordie turned his fork over and over, brow furrowed. Jesper’s neck prickled. With his head down and his expression so grim, he suddenly looked like… like his…
His brother. Saints, this was Kaz’s dead brother, the kid who’d led the even younger Kaz into a scam and landed them both on the streets. Jesper had known, vaguely, for years that Kaz and his brother had been conned by Rollins, but hearing it in detail was something else entirely. Jordie was uncertain on a few details– the specific location of the fake Hertzoon family home, the fake daughter’s name, how much the sugar had allegedly been going for– but Jesper felt he could be forgiven.
After all, shortly after all of that, Jordie had died. He imagined death did unhelpful things to one’s memory.
“Developments of parem had been going on for years before it became prominent,” said Jordie slowly. “Once Bo Yul-Bayer accidentally created the stimulant, the teams that got hold of it wanted to test its potential as a weapon and a bargaining chip. Long before they were assassinating political opponents, the first thing they did was try it on Heartrenders and Healers. Everyone wants to cheat death.” He looked a little bitter, which did a lot for his resemblance to Kaz. “Once news of the Queen’s Lady reached Shu Han, teams in Bhez Ju chartered a ship, intending to collect fresh bodies.”
“But the victims of the plague were taken to Reaper’s Barge and burned,” said Wylan. Jordie exhaled.
“I know. They wanted to collect more bodies than they got. But they only got me, and two other kids they found on islands.”
“How?” said Jesper. Jordie shook his head.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if they raided the Barge before they set the fires, if the tide pulled my body out to sea…”
“The tide doesn’t go deep enough onto Reaper’s Barge for that,” said Wylan.
Jordie shrugged helplessly. “Then for all I know, they could have come into the city and yanked my body out of Kaz’s grip.” he paused. “But the line they spun me, was that they’d found my body floating in the sea. I think the only thing that really makes sense is if my body fell from the boat before I got to the Barge.”
“What about Kaz?” said Jesper. “Could he have moved i– you?”
“Kaz was nine years old, even sicker than me, and starving,” said Jordie. “I doubt it. It’s a miracle he survived it at all…” He paused. “Providing you’re right, that is.”
“So… what?” said Jesper, finding the image of a child Kaz quite unsettling. “Once they retrieved you, they got a Healer to restart your heart?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Jordie. “Multiple Heartrenders and Healers on parem, they discovered, were capable of bringing back the very newly dead, provided they were young enough and the manner of death was curable, the disease and rot reversible. But it cost the life of every Grisha involved. They quickly realised it wasn’t worth it. Five Grisha lives for one otkazat'sya? It wasn’t feasible. But it was too late. I was alive.” His teacup was rattling against the saucer in his unsteady hands. “I begged them to take me back to Ketterdam to find Kaz, but they wouldn’t dare, too paranoid about catching the plague, and being arrested for body snatching. The three of us they’d brought back were paid an extortionate amount to keep quiet– we were Kerch, so they assumed that would work wonders. But what use was the money then?” He shook his head miserably. “They dumped me right on the southern coast of Kerch and threatened to have the overpowered Grisha come to kill me if I told. Because of the plague, there was no transport to Ketterdam, and I was too terrified to use any of the money I’d been given, mortified by the idea that I might get scammed again. I couldn’t go back to Lij, since the family farm had been sold, so I decided I was just going to walk to Ketterdam. All the way. I got as far as Belendt before I collapsed in the town square.”
He put his tea down, looking slightly lighter.
“Mister Dijkgraaf found me, and took me in. He’s always been slightly too soft-hearted, and the people in Belendt are much kinder than those in Ketterdam.”
“You can certainly say that again,” murmured Wylan. Jordie’s mouth quirked slightly.
“Well, after he’d heard an amended version of my story, he offered me a job. He wanted a runner, true, but he also wanted someone who was aware of how the Ketterdam scams might work. I was cautious, even paranoid– but he was genuine. I worked my way up, I met his daughter, we eventually got engaged. I was happy, but I was… so guilty. I felt bitter every day that my luck had only turned after I’d lost Kaz.”
He paused.
“I thought…” he looked wretched, for a second. “It was foolish. I know it seems stupid to go back into another Merch job. But I thought that if I managed it, this time, if I got a legitimate job outside of Ketterdam, with a real respectable gentleman… Kaz would forgive me for what happened in the city. I could go back and find him, and he’d be proud of me, and we’d manage to have a proper life.”
Proud? Jesper thought uneasily. He didn’t know exactly how Kaz was going to react to this, but if he was still a gambling man, he’d stake a lot on Kaz being absolutely beside himself. Not just with grief, but with rage. Jordie, Kaz’s symbol of retribution, the root of everything, turned into a false idol. Wealthy, successful, a mercher walking with his fiancée and upright family. A man who’d made something of himself, something genuinely respectable. He’d been plucked from the sea and delivered into success and prosperity, while Kaz had been delivered into nothing but suffering and an animalistic power struggle in the depths of the Barrel.
“Did you try to find him?” said Jesper, thinking that Kaz certainly would have come and put a bullet in the head of anyone who’d come into the Barrel asking for him by his birth name.
“Dijkgraaf wouldn’t hear of me going to the city alone again, but I sent letters to every orphanage and morgue and hospital in Ketterdam, even the worst of the worst. No one had a Kaz Rietveld, and there were no boys of his description anywhere. He’d just vanished. I had to assume he’d died and been burned on Reaper’s Barge, but I always held out a tiny hope.”
Some hope, Jesper thought miserably. Kaz was alive, but would Jordie even want to associate with his Barrel bastard brother? Would Kaz disparage Jordie in return? Then again, Jesper had worried the same about his father…
“The Barrel swallows people up,” said Jesper. “Probably better that you couldn’t come in person until now. My father couldn’t get in contact with me, and we all nearly got shot trying to collect him when he came himself to the University to find me. Who’s to say that Kaz wouldn’t have panicked and had you hauled off and dumped in a ditch, if you came into Ketterdam using his birth name?”
Then again, who was to say he wouldn’t still do it today? Jesper nervously pushed the thought away, noticing Jordie looking closely at him.
“You seem to know Kaz well.”
“I was his second for years,” confessed Jesper. “One of his lieutenants, when he was more or less running the gang in lieu of the real boss. I got a chance to get out and I took it, but we still see him. We saw him last week.”
He neglected to mention that Kaz had broken in, stolen two bottles of brandy, and had been apprehended by Wylan on the way out, who had forced him to stay for breakfast and a cold compress for his bruised jaw.
"...when he called you by my name," said Jordie, slowly. "What did he say?"
Jesper worked his jaw nervously, glancing at Wylan.
"It wasn't exactly complimentary… we were in a fight…"
"Fahey, please–"
"What do you think my forgiveness looks like, Jordie?" quoted Jesper. "That's… what he said. Word for word."
Jordie went quite still, staring sightlessly at the poster with Kaz's likeness.
“...if you know him so well–”
“No.” said Jesper, immediately.
“Surely you can get me a meeting with him,” said Jordie emphatically.
“I’m not taking you to the Barrel,” warned Jesper. “He won’t see you, Jordan.”
Calling him Jordie felt like blasphemy, somehow, but Jordie frowned, and Jesper relented:
“Rietveld– Jordie– whatever– don’t look like that, you’re reminding me of Kaz.” He paused thoughtfully. “Do more eyebrow. Look like you want to make party streamers out of my entrails– there you go, I see it now. It’s all in the expressions.”
Jordie relaxed his face, unimpressed, but Wylan cut in, suddenly–
“Would it be enough to just see Kaz? Just so you can be sure?”
Jordie looked uncertain.
“It’s better than nothing,” he said. “But I still want to talk to him–”
“One thing at a time,” said Wylan. “I learned the hard way you can’t just tell Kaz things he doesn’t want to hear. First, just be sure he’s actually your brother.”
Privately, Jesper doubted Jordie had a proper grasp on exactly how far his little brother had been bent out of shape. Perhaps this might give him a better idea.
“What are you proposing?” said Jordie.
“I can take you to the Crow Club, tonight,” said Wylan–
“We can,” said Jesper. He saw Wylan’s look. “Hey, if this is going to be important to Kaz, I’m not going to sit it out, gambling den or no. Besides, Kaz doesn’t let me have credit at his clubs, and you have to show your face to play at the tables. We’ll go in disguise.”
Wylan looked uncertain, but he nodded slowly.
“Fine. I can’t guarantee Kaz will be there, but it’s likely. He likes to patrol all of his clubs, remind people who they’re dealing with.”
Jordie blinked.
“Alright,” he said. “We’ll go to this… Crow Club. But I need to go and see my fiancée, first–”
Jesper and Wylan groaned.
“You brought your country girlfriend to Ketterdam?” Jesper demanded.
Jordie’s pretty fiancée was called Sanne, they discovered, and she and Jordie were engaged two months ago. She had apparently insisted on coming to help find Kaz, which made much more sense once they actually met her. She had a sweet, round face and long braids of shiny chestnut hair piled into a neat updo. She smiled at everyone and laughed at Jesper’s jokes and was very complimentary of Wylan’s musical skills. She was perfect and had perfect morals, perfect manners. She would not survive Kaz Brekker.
They went along East Stave in the Komedie Brute costumes, Sanne holding tight to Jordie’s hand and Wylan and Jesper regretting every step. Jordie was visibly tense, eyes shifting anxiously under the Imp mask. Jesper wondered how much of this he recognised from last time he’d been here, then found out quickly, when he said;
“That green gambling hall is gone. The one we were first drawn in by the scammers outside of.”
“It’s Kaz’s now.” said Jesper, glancing at the Silver Six.
“How did he get it?”
“...long story,” said Jesper. He’d already filled Jordie in on the auction and fake jurda consortium. He didn’t want to explain Pekka Rollins, too– besides, something told him that Kaz should be the one to explain that. Not that Kaz ever explained much, but he ought to give him the choice…
“Oh!” said Sanne. “Jordie, look at the acrobats!”
Jordie said something vaguely affirmative, but he was hardly looking. Jesper suspected any lustre the Barrel might have held in his eyes had died with him.
“Up here,” said Wylan, cutting them towards the looming red and black facade that dominated the street. It had expanded massively in these past few years; Jesper wasn’t even sure he wanted to imagine how much money Kaz must have been making these days, between the two clubs and his… less legal activities.
The barkers on the front stared at them as they passed, and Wylan lifted his mask a little. They nodded and made affirmative gestures to the bouncers, who waved them inside.
“He’s in a rotten bastard mood,” whispered Keeg to Jesper as they passed. “Tread careful, whatever you’re here for…”
Great. Just what they needed. Jesper trudged inside, herding Sanne and Jordie in front of him. Wylan turned to them:
“I’ll place the bet to get us in. Go and get a drink, and keep an eye out...”
He squeezed Jesper’s hand and vanished into the crowd. Jesper sighed heavily and turned to the other two, who were looking about nervously. The Crow Club was always noisy, but tonight it was blaring, with shrieks and cheering and arguments, the smashing of glass and the rattle of Makker’s Wheel. People hustled past them, clutching armfuls of winnings or chips, and the bartenders were shouting across to one another from the long polished-wood bar running down one side, sliding drinks down the bar, rattling the optics and the glasses.
Jesper went towards the bar, noticing Jordie staring at the bouncers around the walls. Jesper knew almost all of them, knew they were mostly good kids, at the bottom of their tough, leering little hearts– but standing silently against each wall in red and black, they looked like what they were, which was Kaz’s soldiers.
He offered Jordie and Sanne drinks, but they both declined, so Jesper stood and unhappily nursed his beer until Wylan came back. At least Kaz was willing to spend the money on decent alcohol. Merch beer was always awful, because they didn’t appreciate it properly. The Crow Club bitters were unmatched.
“It’s chaos in here,” said Jordie uneasily, as Wylan reappeared by their side. “I never took Kaz into the proper gambling halls. He was too little...”
“The Six is calmer, but Kaz spends more time here,” said Wylan. “It was his first club. If he doesn’t turn up, we can go back down and try the Six…”
Behind them, there was a commotion at one of the tables– a man hauled away from a Ratcatcher game with the bouncers holding him under his armpits. He yelled and flailed, and cracked a blow across Pim’s jaw, a mistake for which he received such a punch that his head glanced off a pillar. Wylan winced. Sanne, surprisingly wisely, was making herself as unnoticeable as one could be in the Scarab Queen costume. Jordie stood against the bar and looked about, eyes wide through his mask.
“Do you think we’re making a mistake?” whispered Jesper, while the others watched Pim drag the man outside and throw him down the stoop with a great crash. Wylan’s eyes creased–
Then his gaze refocused. Jesper turned.
Around the edges of the room, the bouncers were coming to attention.
“Looks like it’s your lucky day, then…” said Jesper wearily to Jordie. “If you can call it that. Here he comes...”
Slowly, he and Wylan looked up. Jordie and Sanne copied them hastily.
Kaz had emerged onto the metal walkway that ran above the main floor of the Crow Club.
He was as severe and hard-eyed as ever, impeccably dressed, pristine, his narrow face shadowed by his hat. The echoing thud of his cane hitting the metal was making people jump, and Jesper watched hurried blessings and prayers being made by the patrons of the club. Someone had pulled out a saint relic to bless themselves with. How Kaz would have sneered. No bit of bone or cloth, saintly provenance or not, could protect you from Dirtyhands.
Kaz slowly crossed the walkway, then paused, scanning the crowds below. The clamour was as loud as ever, but had acquired a slightly hysterical tinge, and Jesper could see people hastily trying to prove they weren’t cheating; displaying a pitiful pile of winnings, not hunching over their cards, looking hopefully at the Grisha amplifier Kaz had hired, an old Ravkan lady called Inessa, to validate the lack of Grisha on the tables. Kaz leant on his cane and watched the floor with sharp eyes. He didn’t move, just watched. The seasoned dealers, the bouncers, and tonight’s floor boss, Anika, didn’t look bothered, but everyone else did.
Then, Kaz must have caught Anika’s eye, because he made a few gestures, and jerked his head left. Sanne nudged Jesper.
“What’s he doing?”
Jesper, who recognised exactly what Kaz was telling Anika, struggled with whether or not to tell her that the weedy Kaelish man at the table next to them was going to be having an abrupt departure, and possibly one less finger in the near future.
He took a breath to reply, but it proved to be unnecessary, because Anika had loomed over the man immediately. Necks craned as she clamped her hand onto his shoulder and hauled him upwards, half-dragging him towards the guarded back rooms. Kaz descended the metal staircase at the end of the walkway and stalked across the floor to follow them, passing right by the bar. The crowd parted as he approached, like the Os Kervo sea receding before Sankt Vladimir. Not that Kaz was even faintly adjacent to a saint, but the comparison had come unbidden…
As Kaz passed, his head turned towards them, so he fully faced them, for the first time. He frowned. Jordie made a small, strangled noise, and Jesper stepped on his foot. Kaz turned back and disappeared into the crowd.
“I– he looks…” Jordie made almost as if to follow Kaz, but Jesper seized the back of his cloak and stopped him. “But–”
Jesper grabbed his arm and steered him back outside, down the steps and into the side alley where the club deposited their rubbish, Wylan and Sanne rushing after them.
“Well?” he said, yanking his mask off. “Are we wasting your time? If we are, you really ought to tell us now…”
Slowly, Jordie drew off his mask.
His face said everything they needed to know.
The next day, Jesper went up the stairs at the Slat in the manner of one going to the gallows.
He stopped in front of Kaz’s door for a long moment, tapping his hands desperately on his guns. He’d lain awake all of last night, desperately trying to script what he could possibly say to Kaz, but he’d gotten up empty-handed. Wylan had made some suggestions, but in the end they had concluded there was no good way to go about it, and that made Jesper nervous. Badly nervous. The old kind of nervous, the one that had sent him gambling all night and shooting ten rounds at Razorgulls in the day…
“Either knock or get gone.” came Kaz’s voice from inside.
Jesper cringed. It was early, but Kaz was already up and at his desk. Of course.
He took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“What part of knock–” Kaz looked up, and his lips thinned. “...Jesper.”
Jesper tried for a grin, thought he looked like he’d been to Sten’s Stockpot, and dropped it.
“Morning...”
“Shut the door.”
Jesper shut the door. Kaz flipped open a ledger and didn’t suggest he sit down, which was typical. Then again, he felt too nervous to sit down.
“Never thought you’d feel the need to come to my clubs in disguise.” said Kaz sourly. Jesper’s heart sank. He thought they’d been avoiding him.
“I know Wylan was there too.” Kaz went on. “You think those ridiculous masks make you anonymous?” he scrawled his signature at the bottom of his document with too much venom, almost puncturing the paper. Jesper swallowed. He wasn’t surprised Kaz had known it was them, and he’d thought he might be annoyed, but this smacked of something else; insecurity, jealousy. Did he think they were trying to keep away from him, stop associating with him? It was an unusual sentiment on Kaz, and he found it unsettling.
“We weren’t avoiding you,” said Jesper. “We were with people, and we didn’t want questions asked by the rest of the gang. It’s… complicated.”
“And that included taking yourself off to a gambling den, did it?” snapped Kaz. Jesper bit his cheek. That had almost sounded like concern.
“You know that I won’t be given credit at any of your clubs, and I didn’t even try to play anything–”
“You have to have gambled on something in order to enter,” said Kaz sharply.
“Wylan placed a bet on Makker’s Wheel to get us in.” said Jesper quickly. “Kaz–”
“Am I about to be privy to your private little grand plan? Your special guests?”
He was still in the reported poor mood from last night. How could Jesper possibly tell him? How could he break the news of something like this to him?
“You won’t like it.” said Jesper, which was probably the worst thing to say to Kaz, but at least he wasn’t lying.
Kaz’s eyes narrowed, and Jesper could practically see his prodigal mind trying to calculate who they might have smuggled into his club. Who did he think they’d brought? Rival gang members? Merchers? Pekka Rollins himself, dragged back from his country house for some purpose?
Jesper took a deep breath, stomach roiling.
“Yesterday,” he said. “Wylan and I met with a mercher’s assistant, from Belendt. The assistant of Mister Dijkgraaf.”
“I don’t care to know about the errand boy of a second-rate midland merch.” said Kaz. Jesper huffed.
“Well. No attempts to scam Wylan, before you try and go through the papers.” he said, desperately trying to bid for time. But his credit was definitely running low. “He was nice and agreeable, everything went well. Then he… told us that there was a second reason he was in Ketterdam.”
Kaz grunted, apparently uninterested. Apparently.
“He wanted to know what had become of his brother.” Jesper told him weakly. “He lost him when they were in Ketterdam as children.”
“Common affliction in the Barrel, dead brothers.” said Kaz drolly, turning to another document. Jesper swallowed.
“Maybe. But–”
He stopped. How could they do this to him? He didn’t even know the extent of Kaz’s experience at Pekka’s hands, but he’d heard from Inej how monstrous he’d become in the Church of Barter, how he’d planted such a ghastly concept in Pekka’s mind, run him out and run him down. What had he said? He’d said–
Bring my brother back from the dead. And he’d said to Jesper: someone I trusted. Someone I didn’t want to lose.
Jesper wasn’t so foolish as to think Kaz would take this well, or that he was doing him a favour by telling him. But it felt far, far worse to keep it from him, and Jesper made a point of trying to be honest with Kaz. He’d let him down before.
“Kaz,” he said weakly. “His name is Jordan Rietveld. Jordie, for short. And he’s looking for his brother, Kaz, who he lost in the Queen’s Lady Plague.”
Kaz’s pen stopped scratching. In fact, he stopped moving full stop. He stared unseeingly at the paper. Jesper was put unnervingly in mind of his mother’s old tales– people turned to stone, in grief or longing.
"The line is that he was pulled out of the sea as an early parem experiment." he said nervously, thrown off by Kaz’s complete non-reaction. "The experimenting teams saw the Queen's Lady as the perfect opportunity. But once it became obvious that it was only possible to bring back the very young, very newly dead, and it cost the life of several Grisha in exchange… they realised it wasn't worth it. But they'd already brought him back. He was bribed into silence and paid passage back to Kerch, but the fuss with Kuwei brought his attention back to Ketterdam. I know it seems ridiculous, Kaz, b–"
Kaz came back to life with a wrathful madness.
“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” he spat, launching out of his chair and rounding on him, stumbling on his bad leg. “Who put you up to this?”
“I know how it sounds–" Jesper said, backing away.
“It sounds like you’re fucking with things you don’t understand, Jesper!” snarled Kaz. “AGAIN!”
“Kaz, you know we would never–”
“HE’S DEAD!” Kaz shouted at him. “HE’S–”
Something seemed to occur to him, though what it was, Jesper wasn’t sure. His gaze changed, and he seemed to see him properly, for the first time in a few minutes. Abruptly, he turned away, planted his hands on his desk and put his head down, chest heaving. Had he realised, suddenly, who he was furious with? That he was shouting at him? Jesper hadn’t seen him this angry for years. Maybe ever. Still, Jesper didn’t really think he was angry at him.
“You’re wrong.” Kaz said hoarsely. “He’s dead."
“I thought it was a con, when he said it,” said Jesper miserably. "But he definitely believes he's Jordie Rietveld, and at any rate he knows too much about parem to just dismiss him. There are things that don't quite add up–"
"He's come with you today." accused Kaz hoarsely, still facing away. Jesper closed his eyes briefly.
“He and Wy are outside,” he confessed. "He was insistent, after last night. He's… hoping to talk to you."
Wordlessly, he pointed down, out of the window. Kaz followed his gaze, to where Wylan and Jordie loitered nervously on the corner.
There was silence, for a moment, save Kaz’s ragged breathing. Jesper could hardly bear to look at him. Finally, he took a step forwards.
“Kaz–”
“Don’t touch me.” Kaz bit out.
Jesper knew better than to even try.
“Get out.” croaked Kaz.
"I'll talk to him." Jesper said, backing towards the door. "I'll find out everything I c–"
"GET OUT!" Kaz howled.
Jesper barged out of the door and clattered down the stairs, chest heaving. Kaz had not shouted at him in a very long time, not since he’d been his lieutenant, and he hadn't seen a fury like that on him… ever.
He’d never seen it.
What happened? Jesper thought desperately. What had happened to Kaz after Jordie had died?
He stopped on the stairs, struggling to think what his next move was going to be. If he had to lie and said Kaz was out, he would; he got the impression Jordie would not take a simple no for an answer, which was damably familiar, and–
“Jesper!”
Pim appeared at the bottom of the flight of stairs, apparently oblivious to the argument that had just happened.
“Jes, can you take a note up to Kaz?”
“Oh– no, don’t go up there,” said Jesper quickly. “I, er… pissed Kaz off pretty badly.”
Pim snorted.
“Even being a Merch can’t save you from getting an earful from Kaz, Ghezen…”
Jesper smiled unconvincingly and scuttled down the rest of the stairs.
“What was the note?”
“Oh,” said Pim dismissively. “Someone else’ll tell him. When Wraith’s berth in Fifth Harbour is full, it tends to be noted by most people…”
Inej was–
An idea sparked.
“We can always try again tomorrow,” Sanne said bracingly that evening, as they returned to retrieve their belongings from the guesthouse. Jesper and Wylan had offered to let them stay at the Van Eck mansion, which was both generous, and slightly worrying. Jordie got the impression that they weren’t certain Kaz wasn’t going to do something rash. “He’s not out of the city, Wylan says, so he’s bound to come back at some point…”
“He must be avoiding me.” said Jordie, taking the stairs two at a time, wringing his jacket fabric in his hands. “He must have gotten wind of it, somehow…”
“How could he have done that?” said Sanne.
“I don’t know, but it just… it’s too convenient.”
He stewed silently as he retrieved their cases. Was Kaz still angry at him? Or, more likely, did he not believe it was him at all?
But surely he knew that parem achieved impossible results. From what Jesper had said, they’d witnessed first hand what Heartrenders could do with it. Kaz had always been straightforward, as a kid. Surely he wouldn’t dismiss it completely…
But the Crow Club had shaken him badly. The sheer size, the chaos, the amount of money changing hands. The cheaters being hauled away by bouncers, screaming and kicking. The way some of the gamblers had prayed when Kaz had appeared, as if he was some kind of demon. It was the worst of the Barrel, the bits he’d tried to keep Kaz away from. But Kaz had come out of the plague and walked right into them, seized the reins, jerked them sideways, and made himself coachman to the howling chaos of the gambling palaces.
And it was Kaz. It was Kaz as he’d never imagined he might find him, but Jordie had looked at him through the mask and seen the frown of his kid brother, pensive in front of some problem or puzzle, trapped behind the glass of something much harder and much crueller. Once, he’d stood behind Jordie and said this feels like cheating. Now, Kaz was cheating like it was second nature, scamming and fleecing tourists and merrymakers. But why? Kaz had never been interested in making his fortune, not like Jordie had. He’d come with him to Ketterdam because he went everywhere with him. While Jordie had been dealing with Hertzoon, Kaz had been trying to copy coin tricks and petting the big white dog on the floor with Hertzoon’s fake daughter. Maybe it was his youth, but Jordie had thought it was just his disposition–
Sanne said, suddenly, in the most panic he’d ever heard from her:
“Jordie!”
Jordie spun–
"Ghezen's blessing, Jordie Rietveld."
Jordie stared at the girl, suddenly standing in the middle of the room– where a second ago there had been no one and nothing.
"How did you–" he stopped. Appeared out of nowhere, armed to the teeth… "...you work for Kaz. Don't you?"
You work for Kaz, he was saying to killers now, like it was obvious. Kaz whose Wanted poster he’d seen. Kaz who people had warded against evil at the sight of. It made his spine prickle.
"I used to." said the girl calmly.
"The same way Jesper used to?"
"We all have debts to pay. Sit down."
"He sent you," said Jordie, staying standing. Sanne was tugging his sleeve, trying to get him to do as he was told.
"I sent myself," said the girl, meeting his gaze coolly. "When I worked for the Dregs, I was Kaz's spider. His thief of secrets. I've been following you this afternoon, trying to work out if you're a con or not."
"I'm not a con." said Jordie crossly.
"I know. Kaz will take more convincing." she perched on the writing desk, crossed her legs at the ankle. She had an inhuman grace about her.
"So, what? He's sent you here to kill us both?"
"I already told you I don't work for Kaz anymore. This is a favour, not a job, and he doesn’t know I’m here."
"...I don't trust that they're not the same thing."
"Then you've wised up, I grant you."
She looked slowly between the two of them.
"...what's your name?" said Jordie.
"I've had many."
"What he calls you, then."
A flicker of… something crossed her face.
"...Inej."
"Are you the one that's a pirate?" Sanne leant forward, suddenly. "Wylan told me they have a friend that hunts slavers..."
"Yes," Inej said slowly. "Yes, I am."
"But you're so young!"
A faint amusement touched her face.
"We've all heard that before."
"Cut your teeth on the Barrel, before going out to sea?” said Jordie. “I can see it being… effective."
"We'll say that."
"I think you must be so brave," said Sanne warmly. Inej smiled wanly.
“That might be one word for it.” she tipped her head a little. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear it all from you. So I can make sure I have my facts right before I…” she stopped. “So I can make sure I can have my facts right.”
“Before what?” demanded Jordie.
Inej’s gaze bored into them, for a moment. Finally, she said:
“Before I try to convince Kaz that you’re not imposters, that he should have strangled and thrown into the harbour.”
Jordie’s neck prickled, thinking of the hard-eyed stare in the Crow Club.
“I’ve been in enough harbours for one lifetime, thank you.” he said.
He was rewarded with a very faint smile.
“...you’re not as dissimilar as he’d like, you know.”
In Kaz's office an hour later, Inej was alarmed to find it empty.
She slipped through the window and noted the shut bathroom door; he'd split the attic room a long time ago, so he'd stop having to go up and down the stairs to wash.
The room stank of bleach and some sort of fennel soap, but there was something sour lingering. Had he thrown up? Inej thought it was very likely. Jesper had said he’d taken the attempted breaking of the news terribly, and it had probably been a very bad idea to bring Jordie with them, to let Kaz see him out the window. Even if he still thought it was a con, he was likely going to panic regardless. She knew how he reacted to mentions of his brother. She just wished she knew why.
“...Kaz.” Inej went across and tried the doorknob, terrified he’d fainted. Locked. She didn’t want to hound him, but she didn’t have his skill with locks, and this was a Schuyler. If he’d hit his head, she was going to have to break the door down. “Are–"
There was the slam of Kaz’s foot hitting the door, and a hoarse, strained;
“Get out.”
Inej released a breath. Some welcome back. He was conscious, at least. She and Kaz still had difficult days, but this was going to be one of the worst in a very long time. Just when she thought they’d been getting somewhere. Pekka Rollins had paid, but sometimes she wished he’d pay a little more.
“Kaz, please unlock the door. I’ll leave, if you want.” He wouldn’t want it, but it felt gracious to give him the option. “Just unlock it so I know you’re not hurt.”
Kaz was silent for a long, long time. Finally, there was the scrape of his foot being removed, and the snap of the lock receding.
"Okay," said Inej, backing slowly towards the window. "Alright. I can leave–"
"Don't."
Inej paused. Then, silently, she crossed back across the floor, and cautiously opened the bathroom door.
Kaz was sitting in a heap in the corner, bad leg splayed awkwardly out, hand curled around the edge of the sink to keep him upright. Inej had been right; he must have collapsed at some point, because his cheek was bruised and welling with pricks of blood. The other side of his head was pressed against the porcelain column of the sink. He didn't open his eyes, but he would know she was there.
"I went to talk to Jesper and Wylan, and then Jor–"
"He's dead," managed Kaz, voice ragged. Inej crouched a few feet from him, balancing on the balls of her feet.
"Do you think it's someone running game on you? You'd know better than us."
Kaz didn't reply. If it was a con, Inej thought, it was unsettlingly successful, and they knew far too much, from some unknown source. If it wasn't…
"It doesn't make sense,” said Inej quietly. “Because if he was taken to Reaper’s Barge by the bodymen, he should have been burned. He suggested maybe they didn’t take him, but apparently he was found in the sea–”
It was barely audible.
"They took him to the Barge."
Inej stared at him. To her knowledge, this was the first time Kaz had offered up any new information on the matter.
“...you think he could be telling the truth?"
Kaz didn't say anything. Inej looked up at the ceiling, running it through her head. There was something missing. Jordie looked passably enough like Kaz, and certainly didn't seem to be a con, and if the one gap in information that seemed to suggest he was a liar, was being refuted by Kaz himself…
"Kaz, I don’t understand this. If you saw the bodymen take–"
Something Jordie had said to Jesper, about Kaz being even sicker than him, suddenly resurfaced. How could Kaz be so sure Jordie had gotten all the way to Reaper's Barge? Unless…
She heard Kaz's voice after the Church of Barter job, suddenly;
The bodymen don't bother to arrange them.
Inej looked down at him, heart twisting in dread.
Unless Kaz had gone there with him.
"...they thought you were both dead."
A tremor went through Kaz, and his gloves creaked on the sink. It was as good as confirmation. Inej stared sightlessly at him, heart slamming.
What happened to you, Kaz? What happened to your brother? She’d asked him, in the Geldrenner bathroom. He hadn’t been able to answer her. He’d refused. Now, she was finally getting her answers, but there was no triumph in it, just a blank sort of dismay.
Reaper’s Barge, the plague. That bit was clear, or as clear as it could be with Jordie's scraps of memory and Kaz's reticence. The rest was… not. Jordie’s body hadn’t been on Reaper’s Barge when the bodymen had set the fires, and neither had Kaz, because neither had been burned. Bodies didn’t move on their own, not unless they were moved by something else.
“But how did you…”
Inej trailed off. The tide would never come deep enough onto Reaper’s Barge to move corpses. So how had Jordie moved? How had Kaz gotten back to shore? It was too far for a child to swim, especially a sick and starving child. Inej knew firsthand how strong the tides were around the Ketterdam harbours. He couldn’t have done it alone. He’d have had to be taken, or had to hold onto someth–
Saints protect.
Inej didn’t mean to physically react, but she must have, because Kaz looked over at her.
They stared at each other in the dim bathroom light. Kaz looked haggard, eyes so darkly shadowed they looked bruised.
Tell me it isn’t true, Inej thought desperately. Tell me I’ve got it wrong.
He didn't. He must have known she'd just put the pieces together; he knew her well enough for that, knew how she gathered information. But he said nothing, offered nothing.
Inej wanted to say something, anything. Fill the horrible silence. But what? Would she beg him to tell her it wasn’t true? Insist that he was lying, that this was another part of the gruesome mythos he had constructed for himself? Convince herself it was just another one of Dirtyhands’ falsehoods, so she could sleep easy, tonight? No. He hadn’t said a word, and yet she knew this was no lie.
Saints, Saints... Inej touched her hands to all her knives, cast her eyes up, but she couldn’t summon a prayer strong enough for this. This, then, explained everything. Every time Kaz had told them he’d crawled out of the harbour, that the harbour had birthed him– in a way, in that piece of theatre, he’d been telling the truth. The reason he watched her sail away every time with such a dire expression. The reason he’d been the only one to nearly drown at the Ice Court. His fervent, maddened loathing of Rollins. His use of the plague as a weapon. The bodymen don’t bother to arrange them. His hysterical panic at the news that Jordie was alive…
His struggle to touch or be touched.
Was that what he remembered every time? Corpses and Reaper’s Barge and his brother… using...
Inej’s throat felt tight and painful. He had tried so hard. The urge to weep was lurking, but what good would it do? And Kaz would hate it, she knew he would. How could she tackle this without the cloying sympathy he would loathe?
She swallowed, but before she could say a word, Kaz took a rattling breath.
“Don’t–”
She knew what he was about to say. Don’t tell them.
“I would never.” said Inej, too harshly. She shook her head, and said, softer; “You know I won’t.”
How could he think she would? She was his keeper of secrets, and she never divulged them unless he said she should. This was unbearably heavy, a crushing weight to carry, but she could bear it, if it were for him. It was almost unfathomable that Kaz had thought never to share it. And yet…
Kaz lowered his head, pressed his temple back against the cool porcelain of the basin. He looked sick and clammy.
She wanted to tell him… what? What could she possibly say to him? She could tell him that he was brave, that it was awful and no one should have to bear such a thing, but he would never hear of it. He wouldn’t want her sympathy, and he wouldn’t want to be absolved. She wouldn’t force it upon him. He deserved to have the last of his agency and dignity preserved, where the rest had been stripped away like old wallpaper, ripped off in great patches...
He never wanted me to know, Inej realised. Any of us. Jordie’s return had hounded him into a corner and robbed him of his agency, snatched the final piece from him and forced it into fitting. He never would have told her. Even now, he hadn’t been able to voice it.
“I’m sorry.” she said. Kaz’s mouth curled into a grimace, and Inej amended; “You didn’t want me to know.”
Kaz stared at his boots. His feet were slipping slightly, on the wet floor. He’d done a messy job of cleaning up. Inej wanted to approach him, but she knew what a poor idea that was. He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers into his good knee.
“Tell me.” he croaked.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She told him everything; Jordie’s account of his survival, his life in Belendt, his apprenticeship, his career. Kaz didn’t comment, but his expression warped throughout until it was taut and bitter.
"I know," said Inej quietly. "It's…" She trailed off, then added: "Don't do anything rash, Kaz."
It wasn't really the time or place to chastise him, but the slightly mad look that was emerging was making her anxious.
"Jesper and Wylan think you should see him, but Jesper and Wylan don't… know." She took a deep breath. "We can organise to get them out of the city–"
"Them?"
"He's with his fiancée. A merch daughter from Belendt. She's a very nice girl, but she's… not Barrel material."
Kaz scoffed slightly. Then he said;
"I'll go to see them. Today."
Inej stared warily at him.
"...are you sure?"
But Kaz was clawing to his feet, eyes lit with the sort of feral aggression she only saw before certain jobs.
Ones that required Dirtyhands.
"I need to see…" insisted Kaz, bloody and soaking and hoarse. He staggered past Inej and went for the drawer where he kept his pistols. He snapped it open, and snarled out; "...because when he's a fake, I'll put him down myself."
"Kaz."
"I'll make it clean, for his girl's sake–"
"Kaz."
He lowered the pistol, and looked back at her. Inej shook her head slightly.
"He's not a fake, Kaz. Between the two of you, your stories… make sense."
"And if your information is wrong?" snapped Kaz.
"My information is never wrong," said Inej. It wasn't ego, just true.
Kaz glanced away, then back at her again. The unstable sort of madness that had seized him was dying again. If he broke completely, she wasn't even sure what she'd do. She had never seen him cry.
“I’ll see him,” he said, again.
“Give me the gun,” said Inej, knowing he was perfectly capable of stealing another one, if he really wanted to. She didn’t want to be harsh with him, but she would be if he was going to do something he’d regret.
Kaz glanced at her. Inej stared steadily at him. She could tell that this spike of gritted-teeth confrontation was going to come crashing down, eventually…
He gave the pistol to her. Inej weighed it in her palm, and felt not in the least bit comforted–
“Will you come with me?”
Thank the Saints, Inej thought. If he was going to do something truly monstrous, he’d be trying to get rid of her. And it was always welcome when Kaz implied that he needed her, rather than marching along on his well-worn path of self-sufficiency. She would stay out of Jordie’s line of sight, but Kaz would know she was there, because he always knew.
“Of course,” she said, and pretended she couldn’t see his hand shaking on his cane.
Jordie opened the door to the second floor parlour, and wasn’t as surprised as he should have been, to see who was sitting there.
It didn’t stop him from feeling sick, though.
"...lockpick indeed." he said, gripping the door handle tightly.
The monster that had used to be his little brother did not move from the chair by the fireplace. Or at all. He just stared, sat and stared from under the brim of his hat. Jordie's neck prickled.
"...Sanne, go downstairs."
She might have protested, but she didn't, just squeezed his hand and rushed back down to the safety of Wylan and Jesper. Jordie slowly moved inside, shutting the door tightly.
"Your wife?"
There was no way he didn't know. He was getting it wrong on purpose.
"Not yet. Fiancée."
"Charming," said Kaz flatly.
Nothing about his voice sounded the same. He'd killed off the southern accent, and there was a snarl to his speech, a damaged rasp. Jordie didn't think he needed to wonder what had caused that. Kaz sat very still, gloved hands on his infamous cane. Jordie approached him slowly.
"What happened to your leg?" he said, pausing by the other chair, but not sitting down. Kaz glanced dismissively down.
"I'm sure you've heard the story."
"Not one I think is reliable. You came off a roof?"
"The roof of a bank, yes."
"And what were you doing on the roof of a bank?"
Kaz shot him a sardonic look.
"Use your imagination."
No, there was nothing of Jordie's kid brother left in him, besides a resemblance and the fleeting creases of some expressions.
“I didn’t think you’d agree to talk to me,” said Jordie, still standing.
“I see.”
“I know Jesper lied about you being out. You don’t seem convinced I’m not a con.”
“I’d know about cons,” said Kaz softly. Jordie swallowed. True, given he’d been both victim and perpetrator…
“And?”
Kaz blinked slowly.
“Remains to be seen.”
Jordie finally sat down, wringing his hands.
“I owe you an explanation, Kaz.”
“I’ve heard your explanation.”
“...an apology, then.”
Kaz was quiet. Jordie muddled on;
“I know we were just kids but I– I should have come back for you sooner, I tried–”
“I wasn’t waiting for a rescue, I can assure you.”
Jordie rubbed his temple.
“No. No, I– I know you must have thought I was dead.”
“You were dead.” snapped Kaz. “There’s no thought about it.”
“Right. Well. I hear you made quite a rise up through the Barrel, in spite of that...”
“I suppose you’re here to berate me for my poor career decisions? My morally bankrupt deals? My deviation from Ghezen’s values? Gambling is an affront, I know…” he considered Jordie’s mercher black with his head a little on one side, sitting in parallel in his own suit. Jordie struggled against the pang of nostalgia the motion evoked. Kaz had always done that, crooked his head to one side. “My parodic imitation of your sacred pursuit?”
“I’m not a– you know I’m not a proper Merch, Kaz.”
“It’s close enough. I hear you’ll inherit, in the end. I suppose y–”
“I’m not here to berate you, Kaz, I’m here to tell you I’m glad you’re not dead!” snapped Jordie, finally losing patience.
“He may as well be.” murmured Kaz.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” pushed Jordie, aware of the irony, given he’d just told him he wasn’t going to berate him.
“You–”
"Call me by my name, Kaz." said Jordie hoarsely.
Kaz stared through him.
"I suppose you–"
"Kaz."
"I suppose you think you–"
"CALL ME BY MY NAME, KAZ!" Jordie shouted.
Kaz stared at him, face frozen in some expression Jordie almost recognised; it wasn't panic, but it was close. Had Jordie ever shouted at him, when they were children? Surely he had…
Something snatched it back, and Kaz's expression closed off completely.
"Ten years…" he stood slowly, tentatively on his bad leg. "Ten years. Brick by brick, I maimed… and killed... and stole… and conned… trying to avenge us. And where have you been? In the Belendt countryside, running shipments of grain, and flour, and finely-spun wool, to the city? Building your way up to what you always wanted?" He sneered. "Well, congratulations… it's very fine, I grant you…"
"You want to criticise me? It was a Barrel boss that conned us!" cried Jordie. "Look at you! Do you think I would have wanted you to go on some mad, bloody quest for vengeance? To take over the entire Barrel at any cost? I wanted you to go to school, for Ghezen's sake! You were clever! You had potential!"
Kaz stared at him, and Jordie's stomach twisted. He'd done that stare ever since he was an infant, but now, it seethed. Something crawled and clawed under it. Like everything else about Kaz, it had been usurped and corrupted.
"Would you rather I avenged us in a more palatable way?" Kaz asked softly. "Perhaps I should have gone to the stadwatch? Or become a lawyer and brought thugs to justice? Cleaned up the Barrel?"
"You didn't need to get revenge at all!' cried Jordie. "I wanted you to live a proper life!"
"Someone had to pay." Kaz mumbled. "Someone…"
"No one had to pay. You could have–"
"This is your problem." Kaz sneered. "It's always been your problem. You don't understand this city. It beat you. It beat you, but I beat the city. For us."
Jordie gazed wordlessly at him for a minute, shaking his head. He still hadn't said his name, he realised. He was avoiding it.
"...you've lost it." he realised, softly. "Kaz, you've got a screw loose, really you have…"
Beat the city? As if it was a game? A puzzle? He knew he hadn't seen Kaz for ten years, but he wasn't right. Something had just snapped.
The accusation didn't seem to land at all. Kaz said nothing, just curled his lip.
"What happened to you?" said Jordie miserably. "What happened after I– after I died?"
He received no answer. Kaz's jaw was clenching and unclenching almost compulsively. This was going nowhere. Jordie could say anything, be as angry or as desperate as possible, and Kaz would just rebuff him. He wouldn't even look him in the eye, Jordie realised. He kept looking over his shoulder, or just below his gaze, no matter how much he stared.
"Kaz, listen." Jordie begged, getting up and trying to move towards him. Kaz backed up, fists clenched. "I don't want to fight about this. I failed you, I know that, and I’m sorry. Nothing can make it up to you, but I want to at least try–”
“I’ve done everything that needed to be done.” snapped Kaz. “I hunted down every one of them. Filip, Margit, Saskia–”
“Who’s Saskia?” said Jordie.
A little flare of shock passed across Kaz’s face. Jordie blinked–
“Oh, the girl with the ribbons that you liked? The fake daughter? I’d forgotten her name–” his heart crumpled as Kaz’s words registered. “Kaz. All of them? You can’t have–” he hesitated. He didn’t know how far Kaz would go, anymore. He didn’t know him.
“Answer me this,” said Kaz hoarsely, a hint of a tremor creeping into his voice. “What colour was the door? Of the Zelverstraat house that Hertzoon ran the scam from?”
Jordie shook his head, baffled. The colour of the door? How, through the fog of death and plague and starvation, did Kaz possibly remember that? He’d always been meticulous, but–
“Kaz, I don’t– I don’t remember, you know I never picked up on tiny details like you did–”
“Oh, I know that.” Kaz spat, trembling– with rage? Something else? Jordie didn’t know. “Always thought you knew better… never stopped to think…”
“I thought you were testing if I was a con,” said Jordie hesitantly.
“You’re not a con,” Kaz bit out, as if each word was paining him. “But you’re still just as much of a failure as you always were.”
If it was meant to make him angry, it missed the mark completely. Jordie swallowed hard. This was almost better. He hadn’t been prepared for Kaz Rietveld to be gone, for Kaz Brekker to be a conman and a murderer and a thief. But he had been prepared for his little brother to be angry with him.
“Kaz, you’re only upsetting yourself,” said Jordie glumly, watching him trembling in the middle of the room, so tense it looked painful. “I know what I’m responsible for, and I’ve told you I’m sorry. But we’re both alive, aren’t we? I’m alive– look at me, Kaz. I’m alive.”
Kaz didn’t. Jordie shook his head.
“We can talk it through when you’re calmer, but–” Kaz turned his head further away as Jordie tried to move into his field of vision, and Jordie noticed his scratched temple and cheek. “What happened to your face?”
Some old instinct made him do it, nothing else. He leant over and caught Kaz’s face gently, trying to tip his injury into better light–
And Kaz punched him so hard he couldn't see, for a second.
When he refocused, he was sprawled against one of the chairs, and Kaz was standing over him.
"Don't fucking touch me." he choked.
"I– Ghezen… Kaz…" Jordie put a hand to his eye, then wrenched it down, finally starting to get angry. “What is your problem?!”
Kaz staggered away as Jordie stood up, clutching his cane like a weapon. He was heaving like he was about to be sick. There’d been some sort of desperate animalistic strength in that hit, that went far beyond simple malice or resentment.
“Ghezen, I was only trying to see if you were hurt– Kaz– KAZ!”
Kaz fled with the door bashing against the wall, his laboured gait rattling down the stairs until the front door slammed shut with a crash. Wylan, Jesper and Sanne, in the hall, turned in bewilderment. Eye already swelling shut, Jordie slumped against the doorframe, the horrible urge to cry pressing against his windpipe.
Kaz was right.
His brother was dead.
Kaz got as far as three streets, then cut a corner and emptied the contents of his stomach into the gravel. Teeth chattering, he slumped against the pebble-dash wall of an empty holiday cottage.
I’m alive.
No. No, he–
He had felt, for a moment in that sitting room, that he had finally gone insane. Perhaps he had. Something was splintering in his very soul. Jordie’s hauntings, back at twenty, fifty, one hundred times the potency, mentally aged up, made solid and–
Kaz remembered the brief press of his hand against his cheek and doubled over to retch again, even though he had nothing left to throw up. He heaved up strings of bile until he was shaking and clammy, teeth gritty and throat burning. There was the cold press of the harbour waters to his back and legs, and he wavered between seeing the blank stare of his dead child brother and the betrayed gaze of the adult, alive one…
Not alive.
He’s dead. He’s dead.
Crumpled in the gravel, Kaz’s mind splintered into a thousand deranged scenarios. Assuming he was now completely insane, he would run on fumes for as long as possible until his gang finally put him down for being a liability, if he didn’t get taken out by the Liddies or the Razorgulls first. If this was a con, what he had done to Saskia, Filip, even Pekka– it would pale in comparison to what the false Jordie would face.
And if he wasn’t insane? If this was real?
For a second, Kaz almost completely blacked out– his head dropped, and he cracked his eyesocket on his good knee, the flare of pain just about keeping him conscious. His gloves scraping on the uneven wall, he struggled to stay upright, starbursts of black prodding in his vision.
Everything hurt. He needed to get up, get back to the Slat, make a plan… but he couldn’t find the strength, or the will, to even regulate his breathing, let alone walk twenty minutes across the city and up all those wretched stairs, up to the cold, silent attic.
Shivering, freezing with sweat, Kaz desperately willed himself to get up, but he couldn’t even see straight. His vision was consistently pitching, blurring and tipping the gravel of the rockery planter he’d fallen into, and the pavement beyond. There was a ringing in his ears, and the– the–
Something else had appeared in his blurred vision, something like…
Two godawful pink leather brogues.
“Ghezen. Kaz…”
“Get away from me,” Kaz croaked, but it was less than convincing, and Jesper exhaled.
“You can’t go back to the Slat like this. I’m not even sure you can walk.”
“I said get away.”
Jesper said:
“No. Inej, help me–”
Kaz looked up–
His entire vision pitched sideways and upside down, the ringing in his ears turned into a shriek of white noise, and he was unconscious before his face cracked into the gravel.
Jordie watched Jesper and Inej carry Kaz back, through the slats of the bannisters.
He’d heard Wylan go running down the stairs, so he cracked open his door and slipped out onto the landing, to hear;
“...been in a fight?”
“No… got as far as the Barrel, I bet he would have done… first nub to pick a fight with him probably never would have woken up. Hit his head on the floor… take one of his arms…”
Jordie crept across the landing and peeked through the slats to see Wylan swapping with the much shorter Inej, slinging Kaz’s other arm over his shoulders. Kaz was clearly unconscious, and his face was even more grazed than it had been.
“Put him in the downstairs spare room…”
“If he comes round now–”
“Don’t think he will, he went down so fast… he looked awful…”
Their voices faded into indistinct murmurs as they moved off. Jordie stared after them sightlessly. He, too, would have assumed that Kaz had gone out and gotten into a fight, but Jesper and Wylan weren’t in the habit of lying to each other, at the very least. So… what? Kaz had left in a mad passion and collapsed a few streets away? What was wrong with him? Jordie wasn’t even sure if he was asking it in a derogatory way, anymore. There seemed to genuinely be something the matter with Kaz.
Face throbbing, he trudged back into the guest room Jesper and Wylan had given him, and sat listlessly on the end of the bed, running back through their conversation in his head. Kaz had made no sense. That was part of what had been unsettling him. Kaz had always been logical and methodical. All this talk of beating the city and mad ideas about revenge, fixations on tiny irrelevant details…
Something prodded at Jordie’s memory. Something he’d said to Kaz when they were kids, one of his meaningless affirmations to keep him calm…
The city is winning so far. But you’ll see who wins in the end.
Now, Kaz claimed to have beaten the city for them.
Jordie sat up, a horrible realisation coming to him. Everything Kaz was saying, his entire mindset, his life– he had copied from Jordie, and from the Hertzoon con. He was quoting Jordie back to himself, in a mangled, maddened cycle. He’d internalised everything, every throwaway line and interaction and meaningless detail. But nothing had been meaningless to Kaz. He’d always been silently observant and meticulous, but this went beyond anything Jordie had ever seen from him as a child. His lockpick and pickpocket habits stemmed from the magicians they’d watched on East Stave, as did his talent for cards. His elaborate cons and his parodic veneer of respectability ran from Jakob Hertzoon and his fake family. His insatiable greed, insistence on keeping his own club’s books, and his ability to run the numbers in his head, must have been forged from Jordie’s carelessness with the deals. And his idea of the city as a foe, from what Jordie had said to him…
The only thing he could claim for himself was that remarkable mind, but its approach had been bent out of shape so horribly that it was barely recognisable.
He’d been wrong. There was something of Kaz left in the Bastard of the Barrel. In fact, there was too much of him left. At the Crow Club, he’d noticed it– he’d practically seen his kid brother staring out at him, frozen behind that dreadful gaze. Kaz had tried to claim they’d both died on the Barge, but he was wrong. They were both so alive. Relentlessly, ruthlessly alive. Spurring on everything Kaz did.
Jordie buried his face in his hands, half-hoping this was just a horrible nightmare, that he’d wake up in Belendt and find he’d never come to Ketterdam, that he’d never found out that Kaz was living out a horrible, cruel life here…
A pang of guilt hit him, for even considering that, and he looked up–
“For your face,” said Sanne softly, standing over him.
Jordie gratefully took the cold compress, shifting up so she could sit down next to him. She pried it back out of his hands and pressed it against his quickly bruising eye.
“That’s… quite a hit,” she said hesitantly.
“I tried to touch him, and he floored me,” said Jordie hopelessly. “Something’s so wrong with him… I should have come back for him sooner…”
“I don’t think saying should have is much use, really,” said Sanne quietly, examining his eyelid. “You can’t change the past.”
“I think I’ve completely destroyed Kaz’s perception of his...” muttered Jordie. He stared helplessly at her. “Something really horrible has happened to him, Sanne. You can see it. He got this dreadful animalistic look in his eye, I thought he was going to be sick. The others say he got a few streets away and just collapsed. It can’t just be shock.”
He exhaled shakily, then dropped his head onto her shoulder.
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this…”
“Don’t be,” said Sanne, smoothing bits of hair by his ears. “I asked to come, and we said that whatever shape he was in, alive or dead, we’d find him.”
“Didn’t bank on him being Dirtyhands, did we?” muttered Jordie. Sanne paused, then said;
“Do you know what I thought, when I first saw him?”
“What?”
“That he looks younger than nineteen, and I don’t think he can eat enough.”
Jordie managed a weak laugh.
“You’re too good.”
“Promise me that you’ll keep trying,” said Sanne.
“I don’t think he’ll let me. I expect he’ll slink back into the Barrel and send armed thugs to get us.”
Sanne shook her head.
“You’ve spent too long waiting for this day to give up on it now.”
Jordie gave her a long look.
“Who’ve you been talking to?”
“Oh, no one.” said Sanne. She bent and kissed his head. “I’d just hate for you to go home without closure.”
“Right,” Jordie mumbled. “Closure.”
It seemed to him that the door was wider open than ever.
Kaz woke several times, in the early hours of the morning. None of them lasted long.
The first time he surfaced was at the uncomfortable tug of Jesper pulling the grit and gravel out of his face, shifting it without touching him. He didn’t usually work with stone, Kaz knew– but this, he could manage, and Kaz slipped back unconscious without a fight. The second was at the sudden cold sting of medical alcohol over his grazed face, and he tried to flinch away, heard a hasty I’m not touching you from Wylan, then was dragged back under again.
The third time it was of his own accord. At least, he thought it was.
Lying on the undamaged side of his face, he struggled to get his bearings, every part of him aching. The Slat was never this warm, which meant–
The Van Eck mansion. Damn. The idea that Jesper and Inej had carried him back was awful, but–
The clink of glasses, and Jesper muttered;
“Still not as good as the Crow Club gin. Saints, what do they buy?”
“I don’t know how he gets it…”
Distantly, Kaz felt slightly smug. Inej would probably have something to say about the fact his arrogance had kicked in before his ability to move his limbs, but at least he could feel something. The rest of his brain felt foggy, somehow. In a flare of panic that brushed some of it away, Kaz wondered if they’d sedated him. Surely they wouldn’t? If they had, they’d rue the day…
“They make it,” said Inej, who had definitely followed Kaz to a few of his distilleries before.
“What, in someone’s bath?” muttered Wylan.
“Probably.”
“Ugh.”
“Doesn’t stop it being top notch, bath or no bath…” said Jesper.
Kaz registered, suddenly, why he could hear them so well. They were sitting in with him. They’d dumped him in the downstairs guest bedroom with the faulty window lock, the one that had a coffee table and seats near the fire that Kaz had stolen the upholstery from to sell.
For a second, he was incredibly furious. Did they think he needed babysitting? He’d been hurt far worse in previous jobs. The Dregs that had dragged him back after he’d broken his leg had just left him alone with the medik and a bottle of whiskey, and he’d practically thanked them for it. This was nothing. They’d gotten soft, all three of them. What did they think would happen, that Jordie would–
Jordie.
Hysteria seized him around the throat, for a second. He’d almost forgotten. Fuck. Jordie. He’d hit him and ran for it, and Jesper and Inej had followed him halfway down the street, where he’d lost it entirely and collapsed…
Kaz swallowed around the lump in his throat. If he hadn’t hurt so badly, he might have tried to get up and leave. He cracked an eye open, found the motion strained his bruised face. Someone had put his cane within visible arm’s reach. Probably Wylan. The slight stir of gratitude wasn’t lost on him–
“I know you know what happened.” Jesper said, suddenly. “And that you’re the only one that does.”
Kaz tensed.
Inej said, quietly;
“I think so. He didn’t say it outright. But I can’t tell you, Jes.”
“I know.” came Jesper’s voice. “And he’ll never tell, so I guess I just have to live with the knowledge that clearly something appalling happened to my best friend, and it’s the reason he’s going to keep me at arm’s length forever…”
Kaz listened, quite still.
“You know he won’t want you to try and excuse him based on something we know nothing about,” muttered Wylan. “And I don’t think Kaz stealing my silverware can be explained away by whatever happened between him and Jordie, so frankly he’ll never be entirely forgiven…”
Jesper snorted weakly.
Kaz squeezed his eyes shut again. Sometimes he thought he owed a little too much to Wylan. Not that he’d ever tell him that.
“I was half-worried he might genuinely have a heart attack,” murmured Inej. “He looked awful.”
“He still looks awful,” said Wylan. “Someone try to convince him to eat something, when he wakes up.”
“He won't,” said Jesper. “But you’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” said Inej.
“I’ll to convince him to, as well…”
“And what do we do about Jordie?” said Inej.
“I don’t know.” admitted Wylan. He paused. “I feel terrible for him.”
Kaz didn’t know which one him was referring to, wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“He said he wasn’t leaving without trying to talk to Kaz again.” Inej said.
Of course he wasn’t. Wretched stubbornness, he’d always had it…
Kaz shook himself internally. Was he really considering that this respectable merch assistant from Belendt was his dead brother? The brother he’d seen die, had laid hands on– had used– he’d–
Kaz bolted upright and lunged for the washbasin, nearly fell on his bad leg, and coughed over the basin for a solid minute, even though he’d got nothing left to throw up.
Panting and clammy, he looked up in the mirror and saw the three of them on their feet, staring at him.
Hoarsely, he said;
“Shouldn’t you be at your appointment?”
“I’m going later,” said Inej. “He’s… expecting me.”
In the same way the condemned prisoners expected the gallows. The slavers should really count themselves lucky. The hangmen certainly didn’t waste prayers on them.
With shaking hands, Kaz reached into his waistcoat and produced a slip of paper, which he held out behind him. Inej moved silently to take it, unfolded it…
“How did you get this?”
“It’s the second-floor apartment,” Kaz croaked, probing his bruised face. “He has bruisers at every door, but there’s a faulty lock on the skylight that he doesn’t know about.”
“Noted.”
“As for his offices and papers, I can say the word and have them… dealt with.”
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t deny my Inferni the chance.”
“Reasonable.” murmured Kaz, tugging on his gloves. He needed to wash, but it would be a cold day in hell when he took them off in these circumstances… Ghezen, everything hurt, and his vision wasn’t stable. His mouth tasted dreadful.
“Do you want anything?” tried Wylan.
“No,” snapped Kaz, immediately.
“Sit down, at least,” said Jesper–
“I don’t remember employing a bunch of shot-to-pieces busybodies.” Kaz hit back, snatching his cane with unsteady hands. “I’m leaving. Tell him to leave, too.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Where’s my coat–”
“You’re not leaving, Kaz,” repeated Jesper. Kaz shoved past him and made quick, if unstable, work of the faulty lock . “Especially not through the window!”
“If you didn’t want me to–”
“SIT THE HELL DOWN, KAZ.” Jesper barked, somewhere between desperate and furious.
Kaz turned dizzily to him, somewhere between aghast and furious–
“This is not our problem!” Jesper hissed, slamming the window and pointing emphatically upwards. “Alright, Kaz? This is your problem, in our house, and you cannot run away, because he will follow you–!”
“He’s always followed me!” Kaz spat, leaning hard on his cane to try and stay upright. “What difference does it make?!”
In fact, it was easier. A physical man, con or not, was far easier to stop in his tracks than the ghost of his teenage brother. Men were just men. The dead were more difficult.
Jesper stared at him, thrown off, but now Wylan was stepping in;
“We said we’d help you,” he said, sounding strained. “But you’re making it hard.”
Well, Kaz made everything hard. He was self-aware enough to know that, for Ghezen’s sake…
“I know it’s… a shock–”
“Is it?” said Kaz flatly.
“Yes, Kaz, it is, and I have to tell you that I’m affording you a lot more sympathy than you afforded me, when you send me to find out the hard way my supposedly dead family member was alive!” snapped Wylan. Kaz drew back, eyes narrowing.
“I never–”
“Whatever you’re about to say– yes, you did.” said Wylan. “And I’m glad I found my mother, and I know there was a bigger picture… but you sent me to find it out in the harshest way possible. So don’t be like this. We’re not complete useless imbeciles, and every time you reject us like this, you make it harder for us to keep coming back.”
Kaz took a deep breath to snarl at him, to tell him that he had no idea how different the situations were–
“He’s right, Kaz.” said Jesper uneasily. He looked nervously at Inej, who was still standing silently by the mirror. Kaz followed his gaze, and bad-naturedly swallowed his anger. For what Wylan knew, which was not a lot, he was right. Unless he wanted to tell him? The idea made him feel clammy again.
He huffed out an painful exhale, and said tersely to Inej;
“You should get going. If you’re wanting to be back for lunch.”
“How long were you awake for?” demanded Jesper. Kaz ignored him.
“I’ll be back in time,” said Inej, starting across the room and putting her hood up. She stopped in front of Kaz. “Will you still be here?”
“You have more important concerns,” said Kaz. She wasn’t his nurse. He knew she cared for him, but it wasn’t her job to drag him out of the harbour waters every time he slipped in. He shouldn’t have asked her to come with him, last night, and he hated that she’d witnessed the entire conversation. He should have anticipated it going so wrong, but he’d felt so ragged that he’d not been thinking straight. Maybe he still wasn’t.
“I asked you a question,” said Inej steadily. Kaz stared at her, flexing his hand on his cane. She always leaned on him until she got the answer he was withholding, and he loved her for it, but it was hardly easy.
Kaz glanced at Jesper and Wylan. Whatever he did, he was going to take a blow to his pride, but his pride was hardly a factor right now. It was long gone, and he could admit to himself that if anyone was going to see him hysterical and incoherent, he’d rather it was the three of them. What mattered now, was that he was still in the house.
I’m alive. The worst way he could have worded it. I’m alive.
He shut his eyes briefly, trying to steady himself.
“Are you sure he’s not a–”
“Only you can be sure,” said Inej. “But I’ve told you what I think.”
Kaz opened his eyes and gazed at her, grappling with opposing instincts. Insisting he was a con, still, would be implying he didn’t trust Inej and her information, and nothing could be more unfair, or further from the truth. But accepting that she was right…
He ground his teeth, and forced out, in a voice that was not quite as stable as he’d like;
“I’ll be here.”
Wylan sighed in relief. Inej nodded slowly, and passed him towards the window.
“Safe stabbings, then,” said Jesper, with forced levity. “Get him quick.”
Wylan mumbled some kind of good luck, arms folded. Inej raised a hand in goodbye, perched on the sill. Kaz added, in a swipe to retain some dignity:
“I hear he has a lovely Eames Chin silver jug–”
“No, Kaz.” said Inej, but he saw her smile faintly before she dropped off the sill and was gone. Kaz made a mental note to get it for himself, then. Eames Chin silver went for a lot in Ketterdam, and the Slat needed some new roof tiles.
Once he’d dealt with this job, that was.
“I need to–”
“It’s seven bells. Either go back to sleep or get something to eat.” said Wylan, with the imperious bent of an order to it. “No one else is up.”
Kaz glared at him, but Wylan got in his face, and said–
“This is my house, Kaz, and I’ll be damned if you start running it like the Slat.”
Kaz worked his jaw, then said;
“Fine. You better have coffee.”
“That’s not food.”
Well, he’d steal something from their ice box too. He didn’t care what. He wasn’t completely deranged, and he still remembered what it felt like to starve. He wasn’t eager to try it again.
As he cut out of the door and headed for the kitchen, he heard Jesper say;
“Saints. I’ll never understand how you use all of Kaz’s own tricks against him… and it actually works.”
“He has no one to blame but himself,” said Wylan reasonably.
The stupid little sod is right, Kaz thought grumpily, struggling down the stairs, but it was without as much venom as it should have had, and he didn’t even speed up when he heard Jesper and Wylan’s footsteps behind him.
In the end, it took Kaz until almost midday to approach him again.
He approached him, though. Which Jordie took as a win.
“I thought you might leave,” said Jordie, shutting the newspaper as the dining room door opened. No one else was in there, yet. He got the impression they’d left them alone on purpose.
Kaz stood in the doorway for a minute, then shook his head and shut the door with a snap.
“I tried.”
He looked dreadful. He’d taken off his hat and coat, but was still wearing the gloves. He was bruised, and when he moved, it was clearly painful.
“I thought you’d been in a fight,” said Jordie.
“Who says I wasn’t? Maybe you should see the other guy.”
It was almost a joke. Almost.
“Jesper said you weren’t in one.”
Kaz rolled his eyes and passed behind Jordie’s chair to sit painstakingly down on the opposite side of the table, teeth gritted.
“I’m sorry for your leg.” mumbled Jordie.
“...only got myself to blame.” Kaz paused, glanced at him. “Same for your eye.”
Jordie huffed, prodding his black eye.
“Well. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d ever clouted me. You hit me around the head with that huge branch just before you turned eight, and I told Da it was an accident because you cried all the way home, but I know you did it on purpose.”
Kaz’s expression slackened slightly, before he turned his face away, mouth tight. Jordie smiled sadly.
“Not a con, Kaz. And I know you know it.”
Kaz stared at the table, for a while.
“Of course it was fucking parem…” he muttered. “I should have asked for a bonus, for all the trouble it gave me… thirty million, split several ways… should have got it up to sixty…”
“Thirty million kruge?” Jordie spluttered.
“Certainly earned it.” Kaz grumbled. “And still had to cheat my way into getting the payment.”
“You never cared about money.”
“I cared about money when I realised what happens when you don’t have it in this city.” Kaz said stiffly.
“No, you decided it was another puzzle to solve.” accused Jordie. “Something else to beat and control.”
Kaz shrugged, and didn’t deny it.
“For what, anyway?” sighed Jordie. “What did you have to do?”
“Break Bo-Yul Bayer out of the Ice Court. And more, but it got… complicated after that.”
“You got in and out of the Ice Court?” said Jordie in disbelief. “With how many people?”
“Six.”
“Six! Who?”
“Inej. Jesper. Wylan.”
“Wylan?”
“Before he took over his miserable father’s business, he was my demolitions man. An ex-Druskelle called Matthias Helvar, and a Heartrender by the name of Nina Zenik.”
“Where are the last two?”
“Helvar’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Occupational hazard. Zenik was most affected. But now she’s living the high life in the Fjerdan court, and frequently sends me irritating missives and court queries. As if I want to advise a King.”
“Sounds grand.”
“Too grand by half, which is why I’m ignoring her. As if she wants a Barrel rat pulling strings.”
Jordie looked down at the newspaper.
“I’ve been reading about you in the papers. And I went to a bar last night, to listen to what people said.”
Kaz curled his lip.
“Were you regaled with stories about how I’m half-demon and beat children to death with crowbars?”
“I don’t believe you’d harm kids.”
“Don’t you?”
Jordie met that cold, black gaze, dug about, saw the stare he remembered.
“No.”
Kaz’s eyes dropped.
“But they say you’re the richest man in Ketterdam. That you run the Barrel, and trying to catch you is like trying to catch smoke. That the Merchers make signs against evil before they have to mention you, and that you broke your leg robbing a bank and still got away with the money.”
“Some of the money.”
“The Crow Club is…” Jordie trailed off.
“An excellent investment that turns a huge profit, and my flagship business?”
“Roaring chaos, Kaz.”
“Same thing.”
Jordie sighed.
“I just can’t believe you’d do the same as Hertzoon…”
“I’m not the same as him,” Kaz snapped. “He ran brothels and cheated little kids out of pennies. I don’t pretend to be a good man, but I’d rather put kids on the street to work in my gambling halls with a healthy wage and a healthier fear of crossing me. I’d only con people old enough to know better. Besides, you can’t cheat an honest man.”
Jordie ignored the implication. Everything Kaz was trying to throw at him, he’d already heaped on himself.
“Man? You’re a kid, Kaz. You’re not even twenty, yet.”
Kaz was silent. Jordie frowned.
“What happened to Hertzoon, in the end? You said… you got all of them. Was that including him?”
“Hertzoon was a fake name.” Kaz’s voice was clipped. “His real name was Pekka Rollins. He was the undisputed King of the Barrel.”
“...was?” said Jordie, not sure if he truly wanted to know what had happened to this Rollins.
“I ran him out of the city and destroyed his business prospects,” said Kaz savagely. “I created a fake plague outbreak in his properties to tank his stocks and footfall in his businesses.”
Jordie exhaled for a long time. He’d been right; Kaz had it all internalised, held inside and honed until he struck out with it…
“And the man himself?”
Kaz sat back slowly.
“I told him I’d buried his young son alive, made him go to his knees to beg me to tell him where. In front of his own men.” His gaze was glassy. “Weakness never goes down well, no matter what causes it…”
Jordie stared at him miserably, hanging onto told him like a lifeline.
“...had you done it?”
“Does it matter? He believed me.” He glanced up and saw Jordie’s expression. “...no.”
Thank Ghezen.
“The first thing Jesper and Wylan showed me with your likeness was a Wanted poster,” sighed Jordie.
Kaz looked dismissive.
“The one asking for only ten thousand? I’ve gone for one hundred thousand, before.”
“You had a one hundred thousand kruge bounty on your head?”
Kaz went to spinning a coin between his fingers, in a manner he was trying to make look idle, but was clearly forced.
“Did Jesper not complain about how he only went for thirty thousand?”
“Jesper and Wylan seem so respectable…” Jordie lamented.
“And we both know how reliable a judgement someone seeming respectable is,” Kaz hissed.
He saw Jordie wince, and didn’t exactly apologise, but his lips thinned, and he went back to the coin. Jordie watched him for a while, worrying his tie in his hands, then finally said;
“Did you ever learn that coin trick?”
In answer, the coin disappeared, then reappeared just as quickly. Jordie smiled queasily–
Kaz shook out his cuffs and dumped a cascade of coins onto the table from absolutely nowhere. Jordie blinked.
“Where did you–” A suspicion came to him, suddenly. “Do I need to check if my wallet's still in my pocket?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“You need to check if there’s anything left in it, though.”
“Kaz!” Despite himself, Jordie laughed. “I’m so glad you couldn’t do this as a kid…”
Kaz stacked up the coins briskly, with the fluidity of the gambling halls. Jordie’s smile faded, watching his gloves.
Don’t touch me.
“Are we going to talk about… those?”
Kaz saw where he was looking, and instantly his expression shuttered off.
“No.”
“Kaz–”
“I said no. You’ve heard the rumours.”
“They’re not true, though, are they? If you’re hurt–”
“I’m not.” Kaz’s tone was verging on desperate. “Give it up.”
“But–”
“I can’t tell you, Jordie.”
He’d finally said his name. Finally.
Kaz looked shocked with himself, gripping the edge of the table.
“You believe me,” said Jordie softly. “You really believe me.”
“I’m not irrational.” Kaz croaked, staring at the tablecloth. Not now he wasn’t, anyway. Jordie was less sure about last night.
“What do you mean, you can’t? Do you mean can’t, or do you mean you just don’t want to–”
“I can’t, and even if I could, you wouldn’t want to know. Don’t ask me again.”
“It’s to do with me, isn’t it?”
“I told you to stop asking.”
That animal note of panic had slid back into his tone. Jordie stopped, heart hurting. Whatever it was, he couldn’t even put voice to it.
“...why’d you care so much about the door colour?” Jordie said finally.
Kaz’s face creased.
“You don’t… remember it like I do.”
“I had a lot going on, Kaz.” Jordie muttered. “I was inattentive and arrogant, and I know where it got us. But I’ve… learned my lesson. If you can say that.”
Kaz was silent, staring at Jordie’s watch, at his cufflinks and tie pin…
“Don’t steal my tiepin and hawk it,” said Jordie. “Wylan says you take his cutlery–”
“I can’t believe you still managed it,” said Kaz bitterly.
What was it? To be a trader? To have a successful career? Or was it just that he’d found a genuine, respectable path to a genuine, respectable life? When Kaz could only live a bitter, vengeful parody?
“I know it’s not fair.” mumbled Jordie.
“Oh, fair.” sneered Kaz vaguely, picking up one of the coins. “What’s fair? Nothing’s ever fair, If you want justice, you make it for yourself. If you want fate on your side, you have to give it a little incentive. Complacency is a vice, and peace is an illusion…”
Jordie hoped, in another life, Kaz could have had a proper education. Such a waste of an intellect. Such a talent for numbers and an eye for grand concepts, one that he should have noticed…
“I hoped that if I managed to make a proper life for myself, I could come and find you, and you’d be proud of me.” muttered Jordie. “That maybe you’d forgive me.”
He waited for the fateful sentiment. Kaz delivered.
“I can’t forgive you.” Kaz whispered. Jordie shut his eyes briefly.
“I thought you’d say that.” he kept his eyes on the door. “Is that it, then? Are we done?”
“Not by half.” muttered Kaz. Jordie turned to him, surprised, and he looked away when he said: “Besides. I said to Inej I’d stay for lunch. And possibly I ought to apologise to Miss Dijkgraaf, for blacking her fiancées eye.”
Jordie took a shaky breath, forced a smile. It wasn’t forgiveness. Maybe it never would be. But it was a concession, and it was the kind of thing Jordie had imagined he might die a second time to achieve.
“Yeah.” Jordie managed hoarsely. He sagged. “Can I really not hug you?”
“No.” snapped Kaz. He saw the look on his face and gritted his teeth. “Why, do you want a second black eye that badly?”
“You’re my brother.”
“I can’t do that.” Kaz muttered. He didn’t say sorry, but Jordie wasn’t sure he was given to apologising. Not that he had much to be sorry for. Not to him, anyway. Perhaps the same couldn’t be said for the general population of Ketterdam.
Feeling deeply inadequate, Jordie put his hand on top of Kaz’s, and his stomach churned when he felt how hard Kaz flinched. With what looked like an extraordinary effort, Kaz let him, for a second… then pulled away.
“I said I’d help Wylan in the kitchen,” mumbled Jordie, taking that as a dismissal and getting up. Kaz stared at the tablecloth and didn’t answer. With a great effort, Jordie turned his back on him and went out the door, taking great, shaking breaths.
Kaz had always wanted to be left alone when he cried, and he felt he could at least do him that dignity.
On reflection, Jesper decided that it really hadn’t gone as badly as it could have done.
Having to introduce Kaz to Sanne had been… awkward, to say the least, but it could have been worse. Kaz had been polite enough, and called her Miss, but he’d taken her proffered hand in a slightly too forceful manner. Though Sanne hadn’t seemed fazed, surprisingly. Perhaps she had some hidden spine. Good. She’d need it, to face up to… everything.
Kaz had barely eaten anything at lunch, even though Jesper had begged the cook to make karbonade. He’d stared at his plate and didn’t look at anyone, though Jordie kept trying to catch his eye. He looked blotchy and tense, and Jesper got the horrible impression that he might have cried, at some point. The idea was so scary that he tried not to dwell on it too much.
Though Kaz had answered when Jordie addressed him, Jesper could tell he wasn’t happy about it. There was something horribly off-kilter about the entire dynamic, the whole meal, and Jesper got the grim impression that it was going to stay that way. There was no hope of repairing that relationship. Not fully. Not ever.
The thought that had come to him, sitting next to Kaz at Wylan’s expensive dining table, was so profoundly selfish he almost physically cringed.
He can’t steal Kaz from me.
What a way to think. Jealous of Kaz’s miraculously-not-dead brother. He was horrified with himself the second it came to his brain, but it leapt there anyway, unbidden.
Saints, he thought to himself. It’s not as if you were a replacement.
But was that true? Kaz had called Jesper by Jordie’s name, and their failings were painfully similar. Not that Kaz exactly treated Jesper like a brother. Or maybe he did, in his horrible Kaz way. Perhaps he had wanted to punish Jordie, and Jesper had been the perfect straw man. Or himself. Or perhaps–
Jesper had shaken himself. No, it wasn’t fair. Kaz didn’t owe him anything. It was selfish to feel resentment over something so complex. He didn’t know what went on in Kaz’s brain. He didn’t know what Kaz thought of him, not really. He…
He’d turned his head and seen Kaz looking at him.
He almost knocked over his wine, but Kaz’s expression didn’t change. Jesper had gotten the eerie impression he knew exactly what he was thinking.
Now, he was avoiding Kaz, he admitted. They were sitting in the main parlour as the sun dipped under the horizon, Sanne and Inej at the French windows to watch the sunset, Jordie and Wylan finishing negotiations at a side table. Jesper had to hand it to Jordie, he was almost as good at keeping focus under massive emotional strain as his brother was.
Kaz sat in the burgeoning shadows, in the corner of one of the sofas, bad leg propped on a stool. He didn't say a word, but he was clearly listening to the business deal, because when Wylan took the ledger to sign, Kaz snatched it off him and flipped through it, ignoring Wylan’s complaints. Jesper sat cross-legged on the floor, listening to Inej and Sanne. Inej leant on the rail and watched Kaz and Wylan argue in front of a bemused Jordie. Sanne nudged her.
“He’s very handsome, like Jordan,” she said, in the conspiratorial tone of Woman to Woman that even Jesper recognised. “Don’t you think?”
So she’d clocked onto it. She and Jordie probably both had, since Kaz had looked visibly relieved when Inej had appeared in the doorway earlier, uninjured and almost exactly on time. He got the impression Jordie was waiting for an opportunity to comment on it. Who didn’t like needling Kaz about Inej? Besides, with Nina a sea away, Kaz had been getting off too lightly, as of late.
Inej visibly struggled with that concept for a moment. So did Jesper. It wasn’t like Sanne was wrong, since Jesper had traipsed after Kaz through damp alleys, screaming clubs, and literal sewers, just because he’d liked the severe boy with the dark eyes and hard face, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Kaz described as handsome before, especially not by anyone so upstanding.
“I suppose so, though I never really—” began Inej, but Sanne was still going;
“And he was very polite.”
“He’s not always.” muttered Inej.
“He’s popular with Barrel girls, too, he just ignores them.” contributed Jesper. “Britt and Ella at Cilla’s Fry go out of their way to come around the Slat when they pick up their deliveries, in case they see him.” He snorted and shook his head, then looked up at Sanne, who looked demure and young in her white-lace Mercher daughter gown, next to Inej and her knives. “How old are you, Miss Dijkgraaf?”
“Twenty-five.”
She was at least six years older than all of them. Ghezen, she didn’t seem it.
“Same age as Wylan’s stepmother,” huffed Jesper. “At least you’re sensible enough to not marry someone ten times your age.”
“I know Alys Van Eck,” said Sanne mildly. “I did suggest to her that the match might not go too well, but her Pa told her she had to, and she didn’t seem to mind too much. She seems happy enough these days, with her daughter and her… music tutor.”
Jesper laughed. This woman was a sweetheart, but she had the world’s most piercing eye for relationship dynamics he’d ever seen. Sanne glanced at Inej.
“Where did you go, this morning? The three gentlemen seemed worried for you.”
Jesper mentally revised that to the two gentlemen, and Kaz. He didn’t want Kaz getting ideas.
Inej’s brow creased.
“I don’t think you’d want to know.”
“Killing a slaver?” Sanne went to sit on the piano stool, smoothing her skirts below her. Inej sat down next to Jesper.
“Something like that,” she murmured, cheated out of avoiding the question. “It wasn’t that dangerous, Kaz just felt responsible because he gave me the address. He…” she glanced at where Kaz was ten pages into the document, brow furrowed.
“Is Kaz?” suggest Jesper. “And does as Kaz does?”
“Would rather set up twenty failsafes and a backup plan,” said Inej. “But he knows I can take care of myself.”
Sanne nodded thoughtfully. Then she smiled.
“He kept looking at you, when your back was turned.”
“Probably trying to see if I was injured.” muttered Inej.
“Are you?” said Jesper.
“No, Jes.”
“Good.” said Jes. He patted her knee. “You don’t live a safe life.”
“If I wanted a more secure life, I’d have gone back on the road with my parents,” said Inej, starting to loosen her hair. “And even then, it wouldn’t be safe.”
“Well,” said Jesper. “If you ever need a dashingly handsome gunslinger to play pirate with you for a bit, you just give me a call…”
Inej smiled at him.
“I’d not ask that of you, Jes.”
“I wish you would, if it was necessary.”
“It’s not.” she squeezed his hand. “But thank you.”
Kaz bad-naturedly handed the papers back to Wylan without comment, which meant he deemed them satisfactory. Jordie watched him silently. He looked tired, and Jesper felt for him. It could hardly be easy to come back from the dead, only to find out that your kid brother had turned into the feral Barrel creature that Kaz was, and find that they’d developed into complete opposites.
Eventually, Inej got up and drifted over, sat next to Kaz and said something to him in a low tone. He shot her a wry look, but it was ignored. Wylan came to sit next to Sanne on the piano stool, and she turned eagerly;
“Do you know Vervaeke’s No. 3? You have the sheet music for it, and I don’t know anyone who can play the other part…”
Wylan smiled.
“I know it.”
“Oh, let’s–”
Wylan pried up the piano lid, and Jesper propped his elbows on his knees to watch them as they played. Jordie came silently around the side of the sofa to sit nearby, looking relieved to find something domestic and familiar. He looked much more at home with this sort of setting than his brother ever did. Kaz had never been calm a day in his life, and tended to make armchairs, however nice, look like the throne of the Devil in the pits of Hell.
Jesper turned, and raised his eyebrows practically into his hairline.
On the sofa next to Kaz, Inej was re-braiding her hair, and Kaz was silently helping, holding parts of it for her, pins tucked between his gloved fingers like claws. Jesper had never seen them do that before, though he’d suspected last summer, once Inej had turned up with perfect hair even after she’d broken three of her fingers in a fight. Jordie followed Jesper’s gaze and blinked, surprised.
“Is–”
“Never seen him do it before,” said Jesper, hoping they were inaudible under the piano. He hesitated. “...he does have some humanity left. Really he does. I know he doesn’t make it obvious, but he’s not completely lost. I can… promise you that.”
It was a big promise to make, but Jesper truly did believe it.
“Wylan says he checks his papers, because he has trouble with reading.” said Jordie.
“Yeah. Usually I do it, but Kaz can parse out a scam like a sniffer dog looking for illegal jurda, so he’s handy to have around . He claims it’s because he put enough effort into handing Wylan his father’s empire, and wants an inside man on the Merchant Council, but we know why he really does it.”
They looked back over at Kaz and Inej, and found Kaz glaring at them. Jesper gave him a queenly sort of wave, and suspected if Kaz had any free hands he might have returned the gesture with something obscene.
“He loves her,” mumbled Jordie.
“Yeah.” said Jesper. “Biggest proof that he’s still got a heart, really. He’s loved her for years. I loved him, once, but, Saints, I was practically background noise once she joined the Dregs…”
“How long have you known him?” said Jordie. Jesper frowned.
“Er… six years this summer.”
“I’m glad he had… someone,” said Jordie carefully. “People like you and Inej.”
Frankly, Jesper was too. He had no idea where Kaz would be if he was left entirely to his own devices.
“Do you think she’s too good for him?” said Jesper. “Lots of people do. Sometimes I think I do, too.”
“No.” said Jordie, as Sanne and Wylan finished their piece. “No, I don’t think that.”
“Very wise,” said Jesper, once they’d applauded them. “We’re all horrible, in our way.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Jordie, as Sanne and Wylan came to sit with them.
“No, I did,” said Jesper. “You don’t have to agree if you really don’t want, though…”
Sanne sat down next to Jordie and glanced over at Kaz and Inej.
“Why can’t you learn to do that for me?” she whispered. Jordie turned, confused, on her, then saw that she was smiling and cracked a weak smile.
“I could, if you like–”
“I’m only teasing…”
“But you do your own so nicely.”
She beamed and gave him a kiss. Wylan shot Jesper a look, and Jesper snorted. To imply Kaz Brekker was better at romance was practically sacrilege, but Jesper sort of knew what she meant. Kaz had his moments.
“Wylan,” said Kaz from across the room. “I want a magnesium bomb for next week.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“I told you I’m not doing your demo jobs anymore.”
“Do you want Naten Boreg doing more dubious trade deals with the Kaelish? No? Then build it and shut up.”
“How do you know about that?!” demanded Jesper.
“I know everything that happens in this city.”
Jesper really wished that was an exaggeration, but it just wasn’t.
“What do you want out of it?” said Wylan.
Kaz smiled horribly and did not respond, which was just typical.
Kaz had foolishly hoped that he wasn’t going to have to genuinely play Bastard of the Barrel in front of Jordie and Sanne, but a day later, that was immediately out of the window.
At the harbour, they ran into Inej’s crew, coming back from an early breakfast at Cilla’s Fry, and they immediately looked irritated to see him. Kaz stood unaffectedly as they filed past him with verbal jabs and hard stares.
“Brekker…”
“Oh, Saints, not him again… ”
“Still alive, are you?”
“The Saints let you live another day, I see...”
“You’re the most fortunate crook in Ketterdam, Kaz Brekker. Hope you know it.”
Inej’s crew hated him, a sentiment he didn’t really pay much mind to. It was a healthy, righteous sort of hatred, from healthy, righteous people. He’d have been more concerned if they didn’t loathe him, frankly. Jesper, loping at the back, just laughed at him, naturally. Kaz thought about pushing him off the dock, then thought a little harder about it and winced. Never mind.
Given the harbour they were at, he was already on edge. Jordie had no way of knowing, of course, but Kaz knew, could see the exact spot where he’d clawed up the ladder and left his body behind. His skin prickled, and he turned irritably to tell Jordie and Sanne to hurry up, since Sanne was a little too entranced by the idea of real pirates. Of course Jordie had found a wife that was just as overly trusting and easily distracted as him. Perhaps people outside of the Barrel could afford to marry people who were just nice, since they didn’t tend to get duped and murdered young, like they did here.
A pair of eyes staring out of an alley caught his attention, and he scowled. He knew that stare.
“Teun,” he called. “What do you want?”
Most of the Slat kids got up ridiculously early, since they had far more energy than their older, lazier counterparts, so it wasn’t surprising to see them about. It was more surprising to see one following him, since most of them fled upon his approach. But it was Teun, and Kaz had personally recruited him and his brother Ruben, so now they slunk about after him like stray puppies hoping for scraps.
Teun scuttled out of the alley like a shooed beetle and saluted him jerkily– why did the younger kids do that? It was so irritating– looking deeply anxious.
“Boss! Anika and Pim sent me to find you–”
“Anika and Pim can survive a couple of days without me holding their hands and walking them through every swindle like a merchling’s nursemaid.” snapped Kaz. It was effective to disappear for a few days. It kept the Dregs on their toes.
Teun swallowed. Without his brother to hide behind, he tended to be jumpy.
“It’s about the…” he lowered his voice. “Zovercanal job.”
“Why, what went wrong?” demanded Kaz, irritable and knowing Jordie was listening. “Did the bastard refuse to die?”
“No, no, he went down, it’s just that we only got half the stuff we wanted–”
“Did you get the best-carat jewellery?”
“Yes!”
“The ruby?”
“Anika put it down her shirt to keep it safe.”
Kaz rolled his eyes. He’d take the loss on the rest of it. They had the bulk of the worth.
“What’s the problem, then?”
“We got chased by Stadwatch for a block and they arrested Luke because he fell over, and Pieter because he stopped to help him!”
“Did they have any jewellery on them?”
“No.”
“Good.” he saw Teun’s face and scowled. “Everyone has to do time at least once. Know how many times I’ve been arrested?”
“You’ve been arrested?”
“I was arrested six times between the ages of ten and fourteen, Teun,” said Kaz. “Three times when I was ten, two when I was eleven, and once when I was fourteen. Lucky for Luke and Pieter, I don’t get caught anymore.” He reached into his coat and produced a thick wedge of kruge bills. “Go to the Stadhall and find a guard named Dirk, with one eye and a huge tattoo on his arm. You give him this and tell him Dirtyhands wants his Dregs members sprung by the end of the day. If he just takes the bail money without doing it, he knows what will happen.”
“What will happen?” said Teun, eyes huge.
“His ma and his girl will find out some very unsavoury secrets about our friend Dirk,” said Kaz.
“What secrets? I’m old enough to know, I’m thirteen–!”
“Congratulations. The point of a secret, Teun, is that you don’t tell anyone.” He gave him a prod in the hip with his cane. “Get gone. You have a shift at the Six at twelve bells.”
Teun jumped, saluted again, and rushed off with the kruge clamped between his hands. Wylan watched him go, shaking his head.
“I like that kid. You’re mean to him.”
“He’s useful,” said Kaz, ignoring the second sentiment. “He takes all the worst jobs.”
“Like I did?”
“I kept you out of the really terrible jobs, Merchling. If I hadn’t seen you as such a valuable bargaining chip, you’d have been dredging the canals and wading through sewers.”
Wylan grimaced.
“Can we talk about the fact that you’ve been arrested six times?” said Jordie.
“What’s there to talk about?” said Kaz. “I escaped three times, bribed my way out a fourth, and Per Haskell actually remembered to bail me out, for the last two.”
“Per Haskell had clearly clocked onto the fact that you were useful, by then.” Wylan muttered.
“Per Haskell wouldn’t have lasted a week without me and he knew it.” Kaz scoffed.
“Did the kid say he was thirteen?” said Jordie disapprovingly.
“It was either cleaning the pisspots and sorting the cards at the Crow Club, or getting shaken upside down for the last of their change and left to starve on the streets,” said Kaz. “It’s practically charity. They chose to march down to the Slat and say I want a job. They should count themselves lucky I gave them one.”
The browboat to Belendt was pulling in down the canal on the other side. Kaz watched it come in, eyes narrowed.
"Look," said Jordie, from beside him. "I'll write–"
"To the forwarding address, and not directly to the Slat, unless you want it tracked." said Kaz, staring at the boat.
"To the forwarding address," said Jordie, exasperated. "And I will expect replies, from the forwarding address, so we know you've not been shot and left to bleed out somewhere–"
"If someone had gotten the jump on Dirtyhands at last, you'd certainly hear about it." said Kaz coolly. He glanced sideways and found Jordie staring at him in weary exasperation. Kaz cast his eyes away, uncomfortable with the familiarity of the expression, and with the fact that Sanne had just appeared by Jordie’s side and put her arm through his.
“You’ll come to the wedding, won't you?” said Sanne hopefully to Kaz. “All of you?”
“I don’t imagine Mister Dijkgraaf will be too happy to see the Bastard of the Barrel at his daughter’s wedding, Miss.”
“There’s no way you won’t be able to think of a way to assume a different identity,” said Jordie. “Jesper says you love a disguise.”
He was right, of course, but Kaz kept quiet. Eventually, he said;
"I have something for you."
Jordie's brows rose as Kaz reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of Gemensbank papers. Jordie took them and broke the seal, shuffling out the deeds to read them with Sanne peering over his shoulder. Kaz knew what they said, and watched Jordie read the words that moved the ownership of the farm in Lij, and all properties and profits, from Johannus Rietveld to Jordan Johannus Rietveld, in Ghezen's sight. The bank teller hadn't even blinked. The convenience of names gave the impression it was passing between family members.
Which, he supposed, it was.
“The farm,” breathed Jordie. “Our farm… Kaz.”
He nearly hugged him, then seemed to remember and pulled back at the last second.
“I have no use for it.” said Kaz, staring at his boots. “You might. At the very least, it should stay… in the family. If I was killed, it would probably just be seized with the rest of my assets.”
Jordie turned to face him properly.
“I– thank you, Kaz. You didn’t have to do that. Let alone so quickly.”
Kaz jerked his head dismissively. It was just land. Assets and money and land, the buy and sell of stocks and properties. He was too used to it.
Jordie touched his face, just briefly, then winced as Kaz pulled his head away.
"Sorry."
Kaz gritted his teeth and shook his head, stamping the harbour waters down. It was fine. It was fine.
He nodded past Jordie, at the empty building just behind them.
“That was one of the banks that helped Pekka con us.”
“That’s an empty building up for rent.”
“I know,” said Kaz savagely. “It was one of the banks.”
Jordie stared at the gabled roof for a minute, then looked at Kaz’s cane.
“That wasn’t–”
“Yes,” said Kaz. “That’s the roof I came off of.”
Jordie looked so weary, for a moment.
“Kaz…”
“What?” said Kaz tightly.
They stared at each other for a long, long moment.
“Nothing,” said Jordie. He reached into his coat and produced a brown paper package. “Happy birthday.”
Kaz took it slowly, weighed it in his hand.
“It’s not until next week.”
“Well, I’m not here next week, am I?” said Jordie, in a startling flash of his teenaged amiability. He frowned. “Twenty. Didn’t think you’d seen ten.”
“I like to beat the odds.” Kaz tucked the parcel into his coat. “...thank you.”
Jordie smiled in relief. Kaz stuck his hand out.
“Until next time.”
Jordie took it, relieved, and Kaz bent all of his terrible will into ignoring whose hand he’d just taken, even with his gloves on, jaw clenched.
“Until next time,” he said, making it sound like a promise Kaz wasn’t quite sure he’d meant to make. He squeezed his hand and let him go. Kaz hissed out an exhale through his teeth as Jordie turned to Jesper and Wylan, leaving Kaz with Sanne.
Jordie’s fiancée didn’t approach, thank Ghezen.
“It’s been good to meet you, Kaz.”
Kaz bowed his head and kept quiet.
“I can’t tell you what a relief it was...”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Miss.” muttered Kaz.
“No, it was.” said Sanne, hands clasped in front of her. “It’s weighed on Jordie for years. I know he’s got a new set of things to worry about… but they won’t press half as heavy as his uncertainty about whether or not you were even alive.”
“Sometimes not knowing is better.” Kaz mumbled.
“I don’t think you believe that,” said Sanne. She was piercingly astute, beneath the silliness and lace. In that, she reminded Kaz of someone else he knew. “I should give my best to the others. Vaarwell, Kaz. And thank you...”
She smiled and went off to the others, leaving Kaz wondering what on earth she was thanking him for.
After a minute, Inej came silently to stand next to him, watching Sanne hug Wylan.
“Interesting few days.”
Kaz dropped his head wearily.
“So you could say.”
“You’re sending them back to Belendt so soon?”
“Of course I am. Any thug in this city wouldn’t hesitate to get the jump on Jordie if they worked out who he was, and I don’t blame him for getting out of this damned city. Better he leaves again, and quickly.”
He resented him, but he didn’t blame him. Not for that.
Inej looked up at him.
“How are you feeling?”
“Does it matter?” said Kaz snippily.
“Well, Jesper thought you might have a concussion.”
“No concussion,” said Kaz. He felt like his skin was crawling with ants, and nearly pitied the first small fry thug that tried to pick a fight with him after all this, but he was physically mostly undamaged. He needed to go and sit in his office in the Slat and just… think. He knew it tended to be destructive, but he didn’t know what else to do.
“At least come and have coffee with us before you slink back off to the Slat. Wylan wants to ask you about Boreg.”
“Wylan has some interrogational habits that I resent.”
“I can’t imagine who he might have picked them up from.”
“Neither can I, I assure you.”
“Will you come?” said Inej.
He could never refuse her, these days.
“...yes.”
She smiled at him, but it was a little creased. He hated that he knew she’d worry for him, now. He regretted that he’d told her anything, given her the ability to work it out.
“You don’t need to–” Kaz began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t tell me my business, Kaz.”
“Don’t throw my own lines back at me, Wraith.”
She smiled properly, then.
“You have to pay for me, though. I seem to have misplaced all my kruge. I only have Ravkan vlachki.”
“How convenient.” said Kaz drolly, but he felt a little lighter, if only a little.
Jesper came forward to walk with Kaz after ten minutes of Kaz stalking along on his own, feeling anxious. They’d seen Jordie and Sanne off without incident, and Kaz’s face had betrayed practically nothing, but he’d kept his distance from the others when they’d headed off, and it was making Jesper nervous. They’d started this entire business, and he couldn’t tell whether or not he ought to be sorry or not.
“Kaz, I’m–” he started, then stalled. What could he say? There was nothing. He didn’t know what had happened, and it wasn’t his place to ask, or to come to Kaz hoping for some validation.
“What?” said Kaz sharply.
Feeling his ears heating, Jesper shook his head.
“Never mind. I just thought you might want to… go for a drink, sometime at the weekend.”
He knew how he looked. How tone deaf it seemed. Pathetically trying to maintain his importance in the eyes of Kaz, of all people. Grimacing, Jesper turned away, ashamed–
“You know,” rasped Kaz, eyes fixed ahead. “I hear that the touring production of Mister Crimson and the Imp is going to finish with a short run at the Stadlied.”
Jesper turned back to him.
“...the one with Arend Visser?”
“The very same.”
“That hasn’t been announced! I’d have heard about it.” said Jesper incredulously. “How do you… actually, never mind, you always know.” he paused. “I love Arend Visser.”
“As you so enthusiastically told me as I hauled your drunken ass out of the Kooperom last Ghezen’s Day.” said Kaz sourly. “I believe you told Wylan he was your hall pass.”
Jesper winced. “Might have done. In jest, I promise… but–”
“But what?”
"You hate Mister Crimson and the Imp. You said it was the very pits of theatrical ineptitude."
"Fairly sure I didn't," said Kaz.
"You did! I heard you! And I remember because I got annoyed at you–”
“Do you want to go or not?”
“I– yes!” spluttered Jesper. “Can we steal jewels while we’re there?”
“You’ll never notice me doing it,” said Kaz, as they turned down the passageway that led to the coffeehouse.
“Part of the entertainment of the night is trying, Kaz.” he paused. “Can we go to Jordie’s wedding, too? I heard the all of you.”
“Do you want to steal jewels there, as well?”
“You cannot pickpocket people at your brother’s wedding.”
“Why?” said Kaz.
“What do you mean why?” demanded Jesper, as Kaz yanked the door open.
“Get inside and stop questioning me,” he clapped him on the back and pointed to the booth in the corner. Jesper beamed. “And tell Rie when she comes to take your order that I want the package she’s been saving for me.”
Jesper groaned as Wylan and Inej caught up with them, but he didn't drop the smile.
“You’re a menace, Kaz, but you’re my menace. I’m sorry we made you have a horrible week.”
“Shut up and go and sit down,” said Kaz. “I’m not doing this now.”
The implication being that he’d discuss it… another time.
Jesper really hoped that was true. Some things were too heavy to carry alone.
He smiled at Kaz, and got the faintest glimmer of one in return.
“STOP BLOCKING THE DOOR.” an Exchange clerk boomed from behind them.
Kaz scoffed and cut in front of Jesper to get inside.