The Shadow Crow (A Shadow and Bone: Season 2 Fanfiction)

Chapter 1: Queen of Shadows

Ketterdam. 

Kaz, Inej and Jesper walked the streets of Ketterdam. 

'Home, sweet home,' Jesper quipped. 'Straight off the boat from Ravka and no one was waiting to kill us as soon as we arrived. Yay! That's a good sign.' Inej simply smiled, and Kaz kept walking ahead, stone-faced. 'I think I might celebrate with a little dice and debauchery.' 

'No debauchery,' Kaz snapped. 

'Dice, then.' 

'No dice. We have stops to make.' 

'What's first? Tante Heleen?' Inej asked. 

'We get to the Crow Club,' Kaz said, and stepped into an alleyway. They came out a second later to see the sign on the front of the club had been replaced. 

'Where's our sign?' Jesper asked. 

'It's been replaced,' Kaz said bitterly. 

' "The Kaelish Prince?" ' Inej said, as if the word was a bad taste in her mouth. 

'What sort of name is that?' Jesper asked. Kaz fixed his gaze on one of the security guards, who turned his neck away from them, inadvertently revealing a tattoo on the side of his neck. 

'Dime Lions,' Kaz growled. 

'Pekka Rollins owns the Crow Club?' Inej asked. 

'Where does that leave us?' Jesper asked. 'Are you saying we have no home?' Kaz stayed silent, his mind floating far, far away, to a place long ago. 

'How do you feel, boy?' Pekka said to a much younger Kaz from long ago. The younger Kaz said nothing. 

He remembered the quiet, the dark, his older brother Jordie coughing next to him - all the dead bodies from the plague that had struck Ketterdam when he was younger. 

'My suits. All my hats,' Jesper mourned pitifully. Kaz whirled around to them. 

'Split up. It's not safe.' Just then there was a loud whistle. 

'You three! Hands up!' one of the constables said, rushing into the area with several others, pointing lights and guns at them. 

'Kaz Brekker,' one of the men said, looking at the three of them. 'Jesper Fahey. And Inej Ghafa.' The three raised their hands in surrender. 'Only a matter of time before you turned up.'

'Is there a problem?' Kaz asked. 

'For you? Yeah. You're wanted for murder.' 

'What?' Jesper said, lowering his hands. 'But we just got back in town.' They pointed their guns at him, and he raised his hands again with a loud, exasperated sigh. 'Unless it's a crime to kill volcra.' 

'Very funny, gunslinger,' the officer snapped with a sarcastic smile. 'Now, very slowly, hand over those shooters. And you. Give up the cane.' Kaz and Jesper did as they asked. 'And you, spy -' But when they looked, Inej was nowhere to be found. 'Oi! Where'd she go?' they called out. 

'Yeah. She does that,' Jesper quipped. 

'Two's enough for now,' the officer said. 'Come on.' They came up to them with handcuffs, cuffing them without so much as a struggle. 'Off to Hellgate to await trial.' 

During the cart ride, the cart jostled along, and multiple times one of the prisoners' hands landed on Kaz's knee, making him take panted breaths, his memories flashing in and out.