TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xxi. everything's a negotiation with you, brekker.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHU HAN WAS A speck on the horizon before Kaz Brekker realised the Hummingbird had stolen at least one of his crew into its' impossible, air-borne depths.

No Inej. That was no surprise. She'd be climbing the rigging or perching in the Crow's Nest or standing right behind him and it wouldn't matter one bit because he'd be none the wiser. These days, Kaz was more concerned about those moments when he did see the Wraith. Seeing her had become more closely associated with danger than anything good.

He wished the same could be said for Echo. Instead, not seeing her gnawed at his attention in a way nothing else could. A lack of her was akin to some sort of profit-lacking dread. It made his hands clench under his leather gloves and his jaw pop as it tightened. Kaz was still deciding how he felt about that, but it would never be good.

He was also deciding how he felt about Jesper who, unlike the other two, hadn't undergone a physical disappearance but a mental one. An emotional one. It was a disappearance that, conveniently, seemed to only affect Jesper when he was near. 

The conclusion was simple... and irritating: Jesper Fahey was hiding something from him. But luckily, once the Prince of Ravka coughed up, Kaz could pay someone to find out what. Until then, well, there were bigger things to worry about.

Amidst varying degrees of visibility, there was one undeniable plus: with no redhead in sight, the things that threatened to spill from his tongue when she was near remained firmly unspoken. It meant he couldn't make anything worse. Or better. Perhaps that was for the best.

The wind whipped across the decking and threw the folds of his coat in every direction as Kaz paced the deck of the Hummingbird and watched the ocean wax and wane below. The shimmering surface of the water made his palms itch. The water he'd swallowed in that poison-induced dream still sat heavy in his lungs. Heavy and unmistakable. Choking.

But the water was a long way away. Shu Han even further. Kaz should have given up his thoughts of the dream as soon as their ship left the ground because it was done. Only he knew of its' bite. Of the hand that incessantly endeavored to pull him above the waves. He should have taken it. Perhaps it would have made everything that followed easier.

Moonlight rippled on the water's surface as Kaz watched. A flying ship. Sure. With everything Fabrikators could do, what was one seemingly impossible feat thrown into the mix? He remembered how Echo had smiled when she'd seen it, with a nostalgia that she fervently denied when Jesper had questioned her about it the entirety of the journey to Shu Han.

I just like engineering, she'd said. Not even she could make that lie convincing.

Now, Jesper eyed him nervously, the rigid seizing of his backbone made him stand even taller, at least a foot above Wylan, who was deeply invested in whispering some hushed words with animated hands.

There was a look. It was so fleeting that Kaz thought it might have been a trick of the mid-morning sun but a second time, a third? Certainly not. And, because he knew how this went, Kaz could only sit in silence and wait for the unfortunate inevitable.

Talking to people was, and always would be, a rather unfortunate side effect of knowing them.

And when the sound of footsteps sounded over the roaring of the passing wind, Kaz looked up from the imperfections in his gloves to find the Sharpshooter peering down at him, nervous, on edge, eyes darting across the rigging in search of eavesdroppers. It seemed he didn't want an audience. Kaz suddenly became a lot more interested in the subject matter.