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A PROBLEM VERA has come to realize since she found her way to the captain's cabin, where she's supposed to spend her time until they rendezvous with the mysterious client Nikolai supposedly is bringing them to, is that the sailors on the Volkvolny might be smart and they might be quick. But they don't know her.
Nikolai does.
It means he has an advantage to read all the tiny tells and emotions in her. It also means he knows her from a time when she was younger. When she'd come to Os Alta at fourteen, she'd already been good at hiding her thoughts and feelings behind a mask of calm, cold nothingness. It'd been a necessary skill to learn in Fjerda to survive.
But, in comparison to today, she'd still worn her head on her sleeve for everyone to see. Especially around Nikolai.
And she doesn't like that fact one bit.
It makes her plan to get off this vessel, find somewhere to hide, and figure out a plan how to deal with the fallout of her actions, so much more complex.
At least, on the bright side, she's got all the important information right at her fingertips now that she's been assigned to sleep in the captain's cabin; the entire place is littered with charts and Vera would bet some money on the fact that if she looked, she'd find all the information she needed.
Blowing out a long breath, Vera leans back where is lying in a hammock, flipping the dagger in her hand over and over. She'd since cleaned the blade of Ivan's blood and polished it, no trace of the events of what happened on the whaler left on it.
"Gee, what did that poor knife do to you?"
Vera's eyes shoot to the entrance just as Nikolai steps into the cabin, closing the door behind him, her gaze narrowing narrow she flips the knife over again while he lets himself fall into the chair at the desk.
"Maybe I'm imagining your face."
Nikolai gives her a grin in response and her eyes narrow further before she turns back to the blade, beginning to flip it over in her hand again.
"It's a pretty weapon," he says and when Vera looks back at him, she finds him watched her intently. "If I remember correctly also the one you used to slit another Grisha's throat not too long ago."
He realizes his mistake the moment Vera's body tenses, her eyes becoming cold steel. At once, her hand stops and the weapon goes still as she sits up. Before, Vera had been relaxed, open. Now, she was poised for attack, her walls back up before he even registered it happening.
