✨ Half my soul ✨ Kaz✖️OC.

The flavour of greed

"Geels won't act for a while," said Kaz as he moved down the hall. "He doesn't have the numbers, and his coffers are too empty to hire more hands."

Others came to offer congratulations or make threats against the Black Tips. No one went so far as to pat Kaz on the back, though-that was a good way to lose a hand. Even after being around the Dregs for this long, Anika had not even shook Kaz's gloved hands. There was an incident in a street brawl, where she dashed him, and that was a year ago.

"Pim," Kaz called as the man appeared before him. "Yes, boss."

"Call her." Kaz told him as he nodded and left without another word. Anika knew who her was, it was none other than Aeolian. What business does Kaz have with her again she thought irritability.

No one knew who exactly the Shu girl was, but a few months ago Aeolian appeared in Ketterdam and left with Kaz, Inej and Jesper for a job. What really happened in that job or what was the job about, only they knew. But when they returned to Ketterdam, Inej had already payed her indenture and left the Dregs. She was the best spider in the Barrel, they called her the Wraith, so it came as a shock when Kaz let her leave. But then it made sense in a way as Aeolian came into the picture.

And ever since she came things have changed in and around the Dregs, everyone liked her, even the old man Per Haskell has a soft spot for the Shu spy. But the most shocking revelation was with Kaz Brekker, all these time Anika had know the ruthless, crazy, distant side of Dirtyhands. But Aeolian brings out a side of him that Anika never knew existed, until she actually witnessed it with her own eyes.

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Kaz exited Haskell's room, he limped his way up the stairs. The attic rooms had been converted into his office and bedroom before he shifted to the Crow Club, but still he kept his room at the Slat for times like these when he needed to be near the gang. He knew all those flights of stairs were brutal on his bad leg, but he like having the whole floor to himself.

The room was mostly taken up by a makeshift desk an old warehouse door atop stacked fruit crates piled high with papers. Kaz did the tallies in his head. He kept books, but only for the sake of Haskell and so that he had something to point to when he called someone out for cheating or when he was looking for new investors. He flipped through the previous day's figures. Each sheet would go into his memory with barely a glance.

Aeolian entered the room through the open window, she didn't need to use the roads when the rooftops were faster. She was about to sleep when Pim showed up calling her, so she made her way to the Slat as quickly as possible but by looking at Kaz, it didn't look like an emergency at all. He better give her a good reason why she lost her sleep.

"I've got a job for you," Kaz said his eyes still on the papers, as he felt her presence. "What would you say to one million kruge?"

"You're not in the business of giving gifts. What's the job?" She leaned on the wall behind her.

"An impossible job, near certain death, terrible odds, but should we scrape it..." He paused, his look almost dreamy. Do Kaz Brekker even dream? Maybe, of kruge and revenge.

"Should we scrape it?" she prompted.

He grinned at her, his eyes the near black of bitter coffee. "We'll be kings and queens, Lin. Kings and queens."