West Stave Story [Kaz Brekker X Reader]

Plans and Parlays

~ Y/N POV ~

I am back on an empty West Stave, right where the Dregs territory starts and the Dime Lion turf ends.

I am staring at the presence, at myself. She is facing me from the Dime Lion's turf.

"Before you ask me to choose again, I chose life," I start. "And I am acting like it now. Are you happy?"

The presence is silent. Then I hear her voice from somewhere behind me.

"You are not the scarab queen. You are not the one he throws flowers to."

"Who? Kaz? He doesn't throw flowers at anyone. Only insults and punches."

My other self walks down towards the Lid, toward the brothels with their decadent lights, now absent of the costumes and the girls.

"Where someone seeks a rose, another pulls back from the thorn. That is the premise of spring."

I do not try to argue. I do not know what she means. She walks into a brothel and when I look into the entrance, she is already gone.

I turn around to face the street. She isn't behind me either.

Then a silk is pulled over my head and around my mouth, yanking me backwards into the perfumed abyss.

//

There are six more days until the big breakway. Six more days and then Ro will have his own plan. Then I will be free with the Crows. And my dreams won't involve cryptic entities who look like me and speak nonsense.

Roydan and I step onto the browboat heading down West Stave towards the harbor. This morning, Ro addressed Pekka and spoke to him in private. I waited anxiously upstairs, fiddling with my guns and counting my spare bullets. When Ro came back into my room, he held the news that I could stay out of the Den for longer than an hour but only if I stayed with him the entire time.

We celebrated our victory and Ro's ability to strike a deal with the boss. How did he manage it? I don't know. Perhaps Pekka will make Ro work some extra shifts at the gambling hall in return for a little bit of my freedom. It isn't like Ro has anything else hanging over his head for Pekka to use as leverage.

Now, we both pack in tight with the rest of the tourists as they take in the outlandish sights in the slums. Risqué costumes, fights in alleyways, heated card games. You know, the usual. Ro and I are instead busy scoping our ways out, planning them separately.

"We will make it back on this boat at three bells?" Ro asks.

I nod in confirmation. "At three bells, it should be passing by the old coffeehouse with the missing letters in the sign. If it is punctual."

"Your knowledge of the slums is scary."

"Not scary," I say, tapping his shoulder. "Useful. Very useful."