Better The Devil You Know (Zoya Nazyalensky)

Seventeen

"We lost her" Brekker grinds out the verdict through the slits of his fangs, eyes refusing to meet Jesper. The barrel rat never loses, not until now. But the sharpshooter does not share the same despondent energy, instead he glows almost effervescent.

"Did we?"

Inej stares at her friend deadpan, Brekker clenches his cane tighter. But it is Ileska who speaks, venomous as ever. "If you don't tell us what you know Fahey, heaven help me I will shove your pistols so far up your ass you swallow them."

The gambler raises his hands in surrender, though his gleeful smile doesn't fade. "Just ask. Just ask!"

Vieder imagines throwing her daggers into his beloved coat, the thought placating her only minimally.

"Do we have an eye on the target?" Kaz's question is just as irritable; it has been a long day, and that was saying something for a bunch of nocturnal teenagers.
Jesper cocks his head towards the back of the carriage, the quartet noting the faint rustling of its content. His grin is the very definition of shit-eating. "I guess I have a magic touch, she practically kidnapped herself."

"Very funny." But even someone not familiar with the constantly gloved adolescent could tell he was pleased.

"You're still driving" Ileska reminds him; Jesper excitable reminds her of the spaniel puppies you sometimes saw the toffs on the Geldstraat walking, all gangly limbs and giddy steps. Best give him something to divert his energy to.

The Fjerdan's thoughts as they roll off through the night - thick clouds waving them goodbye overhead,  approving their mission - are occupied with their stowaway. Would Alina Starkov recognise her? She had taken this mission in a desperate bid to keep another human-turned-potential-weapon out of the Black General's slippery talons (worse than any volcra.) But she had purposefully not considered what came after this, after they took the older girl hostage. Believe me, this was not a crisis of the conscience, for the assassin only had the slightest remnants of a conscience left to trifle with. No, this was Ileska confronting whether her plan had been mistaken.
Given her years of relative success at staying out of Ravkan eyes - there had been a few stragglers who had recognised the whispered descriptions issued by Kirigan loyalists but they were easily dealt with - wanting to smuggle the Starkov to Kerch had been a good bet at keeping the other summoner safe. Even if that safety was at the compromise of a binding indenture, papers could always be forged and unforged after all. But that would not be enough, not now. Visser had surely been captured and, though he was almost certainly long dead, she was sure he had not gone to the grave without spilling his secrets; very few survived the probing talons of Morozova shadow.
Despite her uneasy tenure with the boy, the girl needed another brain on the problem. "What do we do about Visser?"

He looks at her, head mostly covered under the brim of his hat, eyes sleepy but never not alert. "He's dead Panther. I'm surprised we didn't hear his cries as your general ripped him apart."

Ileska ignores the jibe, he was not her general - never had been even when.. - "I'm aware of his fate. He won't have succumbed quietly though: our location, facial descriptions, plan: Kirigan will know it all, and more by this point. Does that not worry you?"

"We have a head start on him and his soldiers. We'll deal with them as needs be if they catch us up "

Her laugh comes out harsh and scathing, quickly rousing the wraith from her light rest. "You don't just deal with the Darkling Kaz, not if you want to survive." Ileska almost gets whiplash as the Bastard palms his hat to dedicate her his full glare.

"And how do you know that Ileska? It's clear you've spent some time at the Little Palace, even clearer you've ran into him before. Yet here you are. How is that? Hmm?" Kaz's voice is barbed and spiteful, arsenic spittle flies from his mouth with every spat syllable. He knows it is hypocritical, he who claims the Barrel as his sole parentage in full irony. But, he wants to see the girl scared for once; desperate to know that he is not the only one shaken by their heist.
Brekker should have known, though, that kids like them - beaten under the foot of those who demanded to be called their betters - do not have the privilege of displaying their vulnerabilities. Should know from how people sneer at the cane that is his lifeline (as though he didn't know how to weaponise it better than most did their fists), that people's assumptions about what make you weak can be more damning than the truth.

The girl with flint for a face seems to defy the laws of reality as that face hardens even further at him now. Vieder does not even show him the courtesy of the Panther. No, she is all devil.

"Well done. The great Dirtyhands figured it out!" He doubts this could even be called sarcasm, so acidic are the pointed darts of her tirade. It is the demon who visited him that first time all those years ago that sits here now. "You will never have access to those stories Brekker, they are far too valuable for your gloved hands."

Kaz can sense the direction of their conversation, can see how his crows gravitate towards Ileska's magnetism. The girl is itching to spill his secrets, for no other reason than to return the double-edged dagger he has shoved her way.

"You have given me no confidence either, Ileska. We are not a partnership of trust. But remember this, if you leave us - if you do anything to drive a wedge between my crew -" his warning goes as close to the flesh of her ear as he can stomach, "Inej suffers for it just as much as I do."

Vieder relaxes back into her seat, desperate not to let any of her present company know the full extent of her unease. "My point still stands. We are no safer than our hostage, indeed she is probably safer than us. We are disposable."

Don't lie to yourself girl. He would not let you off so easily as to kill you.

The serpent in her ear takes the voice of the wizened woman of the Little Palace grounds. Dubbed 'the wicked witch' by the younger occupants of the school, known by Baghra to everyone else. She may owe the woman her life, at least partly, but that does not mean she has to like her.

Shut up.

"I have a few choice tools in my armoury that the Darkling will not be expecting. Otkazat'sya may not possess magic" both Ileska and Inej itch to correct him, but the teen continues  "but that doesn't mean we don't know how to make things go boom."

In a vague gesture of goodwill, she chooses to nod instead of question him further, even if her left eye does twitch. Still, this is not a solution and the girl knows it. If the darkling suspects that the illusive grisha travelling with the Ketterdam trio is indeed her - for a man with centuries under his belt is more than prepared to hunt the world on the slightest edge of suspicion - then Kerch will not be enough to protect her. It would mean a fight, one she doesn't know if she would survive. For that, she needs the power of Alina Starkov with her and not against her.

The only thing to do now was hope that the curiousity of the older girl would be enough to not mark her an enemy.

Author's Note:

Nearly time for our girlies to reunite again 😏