𝑽𝑬𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑻𝑻𝑨 | 𝒌.𝒃.

03

• { BASHING YOUR SKULL IN } •

CORNELIS SMEET TIPPED, LOSING HIS footing, hat sliding from his nearly bald head. The boy who had run into him stepped forward, offering his assistance.

The boy was Kaz, but he was not Kaz. His dark hair was disheveled, his manner flustered. He kept his eyes averted, his chin tucked into his collar as if hopelessly embarrassed — a green youth, respectful of his elders. Wylan hovered behind him, shrunken so deeply into his coat he risked disappearing.

"Watch where you're going!" Smeet huffed indignantly, resettling the hat on his head.

"Terribly sorry, sir," Kaz said, brushing the shoulders of Smeet's jacket. "Curse my clumsiness!" He bent to the cobblestones. "Oh dear, I think you dropped your wallet."

"So I did!" Smeet said in surprise. "Thank you. Thank you very much." Then, Smeet opened his billfold and drew out a crisp five-kruge bill. "There you are, young lad. Pays to be honest."

Kaz kept his head down but somehow managed to convey humble appreciation as he murmured, "Too kind, sir. Too kind. May Ghezen be as generous."

Kaz could almost hear Feta laughing at him.

The portly lawyer went on his way, hat askew, humming a little tune, oblivious to the fact that he'd just run directly into the card dealer who had sat across from him for two hours in Club Cumulus.

• • •

"They couldn't give less of a damn," Jesper marveled.

"Hm?" Feta glanced discreetly at the marks they had just left behind. "Oh, they never do. You haven't noticed?"

"Don't look at them," Kaz chided.

"It's fiiiine! We've established their heads don't leave their asses."

"Maybe not," Kaz said, moving through the crowd without looking back, "but if we can have eyes in a crowd so can they. Really Jesper, you ought to know by now the fatter the wallet, the softer they are in the head. Men like that think all the world's a stage and they don't even know what play they're in."

Feta smirked. "As long as they're in the spotlight."

Jesper glanced down at Feta, her bright head of curls bobbing alongside him. It felt like he'd known Feta forever but truthfully it had only been a little over a year; they'd probably known each other longer inside of the Dregs than they had outside of it now. So maybe he had no right to be surprised.

Not like she ever sounded particularly rueful in the times Jesper overheard her, but her commentary on the crowds around them was far more cynical since joining the Dregs, since joining Kaz. A bitter, stupid part of Jesper wondered if that was the actress in her, becoming exactly what Kaz wanted to see. She'd done it with Owen Marshall, the owner and head director of a flashy little theatre nestled between the Lid and East Stave. He said she should learn to dance and she danced until her feet bled; he thought learning guitar would be smart after a guitarist bailed on a bar gig and she hadn't put it down for weeks.

"Since when have you known that universal truth, Feta?" Jesper said, trying to poke fun but still half bitter.

Feta smiled easily, ignoring the bitter half. "Since my family were Grisha in Fjerda and our survival depended on being forgettable."

Kaz watched the immediate guilt that swam over Jesper's features. Perhaps Jesper had known this and forgotten about it himself. "Save the sob stories for the Slat," Kaz said.

"Not a sob story," Feta said lightly. "Just a reminder that people are horrendously open to suggestion."

"Too true, Siren," Kaz conceded, almost approvingly. "It keeps you in business. Very flashy, obnoxious business." Feta guffawed. "All this talk about needing to be forgettable and yet you paint yourself in glitter every night."