✨✨✨
All of my friends are settling down
They're only kids but they're married now
Let's follow the lights, follow the crowd
Baby we got to get out
Let's get out of this town
I want an ocean view, somewhere
As long as I'm next to you, I don't care
I don't wanna live my life in circles
I just wanna find an empty road
Let's get away from here, let's go
All of my friends are settling down
They're only kids but they're married now
Let's follow the lights, follow the crowd
Baby we got to get out
Let's get out of this town
All of my friends are settling down
They're only kids but they're married now
Let's follow the lights, follow the crowd
Baby we got to get out
Let's get out of this town
Let's get out of this town
Let's go
Let's go
Let's get out of this town
Let's go
Let's get out of this town
Let's get out of this town
Let's get out of this town
Let's get out of this town
✨✨✨
(Djerholm)
It took two more days of travel to reach the cliffs that overlooked Djerholm.
Djerholm's harbour was crowded with ships, but its tidy streets marched to the water in orderly fashion, and the houses were painted in cheerful colours. Even the warehouses by the quay were colourful. It looked the way they'd imagined cities as a child, everything candy-hued and in its proper place.
They glanced up to where the Ice Court stood like a great white sentinel on a massive cliff overlooking the harbour. Matthias had called the cliffs unscalable. They seemed impossibly high.
"Cannon," said Jesper.
Kaz squinted up at the big guns pointed out at the bay. "I've broken into banks, warehouses, mansions, museums, vaults, a rare book library, and once the bedchamber of a visiting Kaelish diplomat whose wife had a passion for emeralds. But I've never had a cannon shot at me."
Aeolian pressed her lips together. "Hopefully, it won't come to that."
Jesper nodded in agreement, even though he loves a challenge. He'd rather not be shot by a cannon.
They slipped easily into the traffic of travellers. Signs of Hringkälla celebrations were everywhere.
"What are they?" Wylan asked, pausing in front of a peddler's cart laden with wreaths made of the same twisting branches and silver ribbons.
"Ash trees," replied Matthias. "Sacred to Djel."
"There's one in the middle of the White Island," said Aeolian. "It's where the drüskelle gather for the listening ceremony."
Kaz tapped his walking stick on the ground. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?"
"The ash is sustained by the spirit of Djel," said Matthias. "It's where we may best hear his voice."
Kaz's eyes flickered. "Not what I asked. Why isn't it on our plans?"
"Because it's the holiest place in all of Fjerda and not essential to our mission." Matthias folded his huge arms.
"I say what's essential. Anything else you decided to leave out in your great wisdom?" Kaz looked at him.
"The Ice Court is a vast structure," Matthias said, turning away. "I can't label every crack and corner."
"Then let's hope nothing is lurking in those corners," Kaz replied.
Kaz steered them seemingly aimlessly through the streets until he found a run-down tavern called the Gestinge.
"Here?" Jesper complained.
The whole place stank of garlic and fish. They were expecting a warm meal at a cozy place by the fireplace, not a run-down tavern.
"What's a gestinge?" Wylan wondered aloud.
"It means 'paradise'," said Aeolian. Even though she's adjustable, she'd hope that after her near death experience, the ship and the trekking. At least before the mission, they'd all share a proper meal together. But Kaz had other plans.
Even Matthias looked skeptical because gestinge was the opposite of paradise.
They secured a table on the tavern's rooftop terrace.
Jesper looked down at his plate and moaned. "Boss, if you want me dead, I prefer a bullet to poison."
Nina scrunched her nose. "When I don't want to eat, you know there's a problem."
"We're here for the view, not the food." Said Kaz.
From their table, they had a clear, if distant, view of the Ice Court's outer gate and the first guardhouse. They watched the traffic come and go through the gates as they picked at their lunches, waiting for a sign of the prison wagons.
Aeolian's appetite had finally returned, and she'd been eating as much as possible to build her strength, but the soup she'd ordered wasn't helping. There was no coffee to be had so they ordered tea and little glasses of clear brännvin that burned going down but helped to keep them warm.
A boxy black wagon was rolling to a stop at the guardhouse.
Kaz bobbed his chin towards the road. "Look." He reached into his coat pocket and handed Jesper a slender book with an elaborate cover.
"Are we going to read to each other?" Jesper opened the book un enthusiastically and peered at the last page, puzzled. They were in a stinky place, with the worst food and now a book reading? He thought to himself, suppressing his urge to hurl the book away.
"Hold it up so we don't have to look at your ugly face." Kaz said.
"My face has character. Besides—oh!" Jesper said. Then passed it to Wylan, who took it tentatively. Then he grinned. "Where did you get this?"
Matthias had his turn and released a surprised grunt.
"It's called a backless book," said Kaz as Aeolian took the volume from Nina and held it up. The pages were full of ordinary sermons, but the ornate back cover hid two lenses that acted as a long glass.
"Clever," Aeolian remarked as she peered through. "You look like the rest of my life."
Kaz looked at Aeolian in a way that every young girl wanted to be looked at.
To the other patrons on the terrace, it looked as if they were handing a book around, discussing some interesting passage. Instead they had a close view of the gatehouse and the wagon parked in front of it.
Aeolian lifted the backless book again. The wagon driver unlock the iron door. "Saints, Kaz!" she said as the door swung open.
Ten prisoners were seated along benches that ran the wagon's length, their wrists and feet shackled, black sacks over their heads.
She handed the book back to Matthias, and as it made the rounds, the group's apprehension rose. Only Kaz seemed unfazed.
"Hooded, chained, and shackled?" said Jesper. "You're sure we can't go in as entertainers? I hear Wylan really kills it on the flute."
"We go in as we are," said Kaz, "as criminals."
Nina peered through the lenses of the book. "They're doing a head count. The driver is going to notice six more prisoners when he opens the door."
"If only I'd thought of that," Kaz said drily. "I can tell you've never picked a pocket."
"And I can tell you've never given enough thought to your haircut." Nina looked at him.
Kaz frowned and ran a self-conscious hand along the side of his head. "There's nothing wrong with my haircut that can't be fixed by a million kruge."
A light smirk passed Aeolian's face. "Give me the million, I'll fix your hair for a lifetime." Then she turned to the wagon. "We're going to use a bunk biscuit, aren't we?"
"You spoke my mind," a sly smirk passed Kaz's face.
"I don't know that word, bunkbiscuit," said Matthias, in confusion.
Nina gave Kaz a sour look. "Neither do I. We're not as streetwise as you, Dirtyhands."
"Nor will you ever be," Kaz said easily. "Let's say there's a tourist walking through the Barrel. He keeps patting his wallet, making sure it's there. Every time he pats his pocket, he's telling every thief on the Stave exactly where he keeps his scrub. Now, a bad thief, just makes the grab and tries to run for it. Good way to get pinched by the stadwatch, but a proper thief—like myself—nabs the wallet and puts something else in its place."
"A biscuit?" Wylan asked.
"Bunk biscuit is just a name. A proper thief can tell the weight of a wallet just by the way it changes the hang of a man's coat. He makes the switch. It's not until the tourist tries to pay for that he realises he's been done for a sucker." Kaz explained.
"When did you become a proper thief?" Nina asked.
Aeolian answered instead. "Ever since Ivanovski."
Back in Ravka Kaz disguised himself as a sculptor named Ivanovski and she as his assistant, to check the Royal archives and steal the blueprints of the Little Palace.
That very night itself, they disguised themselves as guards again and waited for Inej and Jesper. And that's when she told him. "You're a proper thief Kaz Brekker."
"Am I?" He raised a brow.
"Yes," she nodded. "You don't look like a thief, you don't act like a thief and clearly you don't work like a thief. And that makes you a proper thief."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he tipped his hat.
After that night it had always sticked with Kaz, that he was a proper thief and she saw that in him. When no one else did and it meant something, but not until this very moment, he had said it out loud.
Wylan shifted unhappily in his chair. "Duping innocent people isn't something to be proud of."
"It is if you do it well." Kaz gave a nod to the prison wagon. "We're going to be the biscuit."
"Hold on," said Nina. "The door locks on the outside. How do we get in and get the door locked again?"
"That's only a problem if you don't know a proper thief. Leave the locks to me." Kaz said.
Nina squinted at Aeolian, even though she didn't say a word the Shu girl knew what Nina wanted to tell her. 'Why the hell did you call Kaz Brekker a proper thief, now he can't shut up about it.'
Jesper stretched out his legs. "So we have to unlock, unchain, and incapacitate six prisoners, take their places, and somehow get the wagon sealed tight again without the guards or the other prisoners being the wiser. Any other impossible feats you'd like us to accomplish, boss?"
The barest smile flickered over Kaz's lips. "I'll make you a list."
➖➖➖➖➖
Proper thievery aside, Aeolian would have liked a proper night's sleep in a proper bed, but there was too much to do. Nina was sent out to chat up the locals. After the horrors of Gestinge's herring, they'd demanded Kaz provide something edible, and were waiting for Nina in a crowded bakery, with hot cups of coffee mixed with chocolate.
Wylan noticed that Aeolian and Kaz only had dark coffee, they never drank milk coffee, he never preferred black coffee and he wondered how Aeolian drinks it. Because she loves chocolates and sweet stuffs but her coffee was always dark.
Matthias mug sat untouched before him, slowly cooling as he stared out the window.
"This must be hard for you," Aeolian said quietly. "To be here but not really be home."
He looked down at his cup. "You have no idea."
"I think I do." She sipped her coffee.
Kaz turned away and began chatting with Jesper. He seemed to do that whenever she mentions home. She didn't really know how to go back to Shu Han, but Kaz knew she wanted to go somewhere far from Ketterdam.
"Don't worry about Nin's," Aeolian looked at Matthias. "She's very good at this, you know. She's a natural actress."
"I'm aware," he said grimly. "She can be anything to anyone." Then he gazed at her, "you're an actress yourself."
"I'll take that as a compliment, blue eyes." She put her mug down. "And your eyes keep searching the crowd for her."
"They do not," Matthias protested. "Nina is everything you say. It's too much."
She batted her long black lashes. "Maybe you're just not enough."
Before he could reply, the bell on the bakery door jingled, and Nina sailed inside. "Someone needs to start feeding me sweet rolls immediately."
It had taken Nina less than an hour to discover where the prison wagons passed by. She even informed them that the on going wars in Ravka had come to an end, the Shadow Fold had finally been destroyed. Everyone eventually came to know that the Sun Summoner who was presumed dead somewhat escaped her fate and returned to Ravka to take the Fold down, but the Darkling also escaped his fate and returned for his Sun Summoner.
This had lead to an ongoing war between men and Grisha, and the Grisha of the Second Army and the Darkling's Grisha's. Ravka had become a hot spot for wars, and none of them had expected the war to come to an abrupt end. Was the Shadow Fold destroyed for real? Or were they only rumours circulating around and did the Darkling really meet his death yet again? But right now, they got a bigger problem to focus on, and that's to find their way into the Ice Court before Hringkälla began.
Aeolian had her poker face on but behind her bewitching eyes, Kaz had seen a glint of shadow, when Nina mentioned Ravka.
They had to trek almost two miles out of Upper Djerholm to locate the tavern. Aeolian felt close to collapse, her mind had been heavy and the lack of rest, and her injuries had tired her.
Nina took a few minutes to tailor Jesper's forearm, hiding the Dregs tattoo. She would see to Kaz, Aeolian and her own tattoos that night.
"No mourners," Jesper called.
"No funerals," they replied.
They camped in a dry gully bordered by a tangle of shrubs, and took shifts keeping watch. Despite her fatigue, Aeolian hadn't thought she would be able to sleep, but the next thing she knew, the sun was high above them. Nina was beside her with a piece of one of the pepper cookies she'd bought.
"Where are the others?" she asked, looking around the empty gully.
"In the road. Kaz said we should let you sleep." Nina munched on the cookie.
She rubbed her eyes. She supposed it was a concession to her injuries. Maybe she hadn't hidden her exhaustion well at all. She took the cookie from Nina and hurried up to where Kaz and Matthias were watching Wylan fuss with something at the base of a thick red fir. It took less than a minute for them to pull the tree down so that its trunk lay blocking road.
As they waited in the gully, Aeolian considered all the things that might go wrong. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't see Kaz approaching her, until she smelt him. He didn't smell of blood anymore, but his peculiar smell of fine leather and sea salt still remained.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out something delicate and handed it over to her, it took a moment for her to realise that, it was the petal of the bleeding heart flower. She picked it up on her way to the harbour, it was her mother's favourite flower, she had totally forgotten about it, until now. It was dried now and a part of it, stained with her blood.
"That night...it fell from your pocket," Kaz said. "I wanted to give it back...but, there was never a right time..."
She pressed the petal on her chest, "it used to be my mother's favourite flower." She didn't know why she said it, but she did, he was thoughtful enough to keep it with him. "Thank you, Kazuki." She smiled at him, "you're really a hope of peace."
Kaz looked at her, and for once in his life he thought of what to say to her. But before he could, a prison wagon rumbled into view. Aeolian was already gesturing to the others, unaware of what's on Kaz's mind. Wylan and Nina were heading towards them, so Kaz handed Aeolian his walking stick and headed towards the cart.
Aeolian watched Kaz limping away, whatever pain he might have been feeling, he disguised it well. He was like her. He slipped his lockpicks and in seconds, it sprang open, he shoved the bolt to the side and opened the door.
Aeolian tensed, waiting for the signal. It didn't come. Kaz was just standing there, staring into the wagon.
"What's happening?" whispered Wylan.
"Maybe they aren't hooded?" she replied. From the side, she couldn't see. "I'll go."
Kaz was still standing there, perfectly still. She touched his shoulder briefly, and he flinched. Kaz Brekker flinched! What was going on? She peered into the wagon. The prisoners were all cuffed and had black sacks over their heads. But there were considerably more of them, they were standing, pressed up against one another.
She gave Kaz another little nudge. Does he want me to poke his nose again? She thought. But at least this time he didn't just stand there. He pushed himself up into the wagon, his movements jerky and awkward, and began unlocking the prisoners' collars. She signalled to Matthias, who leaped out of the gully to join them.
Kaz unlocked six sets of hand and foot shackles. One by one, they unloaded the six prisoners closest to the door. They led them to the edge of the gully. Once they were out of view, Nina dropped their pulses, sending them into unconsciousness. She even injected the prisoners with a sleeping solution to prolong their rest.
"Are we just going to leave them there?" Wylan whispered to Aeolian as they hurried back to the wagon with the prisoners' hoods in hand.
Aeolian said. "We're doing them a favour."
"It doesn't look like a favour. It looks like leaving them in a ditch." Wylan looked at her.
"Quiet," she ordered. With that word, her whole demeanour had changed, as if with a single sharp command she'd stepped back into the spy she was. This wasn't the time or the place for moral quibbling. If Wylan didn't know the difference between being in chains and out of them, he was about to find out.
Wylan eyed her nervously. Matthias started to feel comfortable with her. An easy habit to fall into, because of the way Aeolian was, but unwise. She was a spy after all, a dangerous actress who collects informations and kills people, she can be acting all along and none of them will be able to tell.
Aeolian cupped her hand to her mouth and gave a low, soft bird call. Matthias wondered from where she had learn that call, but this was not the time nor the place for questions so he locked Wylan into place first, then Nina. Nina met Matthias eyes over her shoulder, and the look they exchanged could have melted miles of northern ice.
Jesper was next, panting from his run back to the crossroads. He winked at Aeolian as she placed the sack over his head. She locked Matthias collar and stood on tiptoe to place the hood on his head.
Nina was bobbing her head towards the wagon door. She still wanted to know how Kaz was going to lock them in. "Watch," Aeolian mouthed.
Kaz signalled to Aeolian, and she leaped down. She shut the wagon door, fastened the padlock, and slid the bolt home. A second later the opposite side of the door pushed open. Kaz had simply removed the hinges. It was a trick they'd used plenty of times when a lock was too complicated to pick quickly or they wanted to make a theft look like an inside job. Ideal for faking suicides, Kaz had once told her, and she'd never been sure if he was sincere.
Aeolian gripped the lip of the door and swung herself up, squeezing inside. Immediately, Kaz started replacing the hinges. She shoved a hood over Nina's surprised face, then took her place beside Jesper.
But even in the dim light, she could tell Kaz was moving too slowly, he was being clumsy. What was wrong with him? She heard the ping of metal as Kaz dropped one of the screws. She peered at the wagon floor and kicked it back to him.
Kaz crouched down to replace the second hinge. He was breathing hard. She knew he was working in low light, by touch alone, but Aeolian didn't think that was why he seemed so agitated. She heard footsteps, one guard shouting to another. Come on, Kaz!
She heard another ping Kaz cursed once under his breath. Suddenly, the door shook as the guard gave the chained padlock a rattle. Kaz braced his hand against the hinge. The hinges held.
The cart surged forward, rumbling over the road. Kaz took his place beside her. He shoved a hood over her head, and the musty smell filled her nostrils. He would put his own hood on next, then lock himself in. Easy enough, a cheap magician's trick, and Kaz knew them all. Bodies shifted against her back and side, crowding up against her.
Despite the rattle of the wagon's wheels, she could tell Kaz's breathing had got worse: shallow, rapid pants. It was a sound she'd never thought to hear from him. It was because she was listening so closely that she knew the exact moment when Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and the deadliest boy in Ketterdam, fainted.
When they brought the loan agreement Mister Hertzoon had signed to the bank, they found that: for all its official-looking seals—it was worthless paper. They were evicted from the boarding house two days later.
"The city is winning so far. But you'll see who wins in the end." Jordie told Kaz.
The next morning, Jordie woke with a fever. In years to come people would call the outbreak of firepox that struck Ketterdam the Queen's Lady Plague. Kaz's fever came on two days after Jordie's.
When the fever reached full fire, Kaz dreamed he had returned to the farm. When he woke, Jordie was lying next to him, staring at the sky. "Don't leave me," Kaz wanted to say, but he was too tired. So he laid his head on Jordie's chest. It felt wrong already, cold and hard.
He thought he was dreaming when the bodymen rolled him onto the sickboat. When they tumbled him into the shallows of the Reaper's Barge, Kaz tried to pull Jordie from the water. He thought that heaven would look like the kitchen of the house on Zelverstraat and smell like hutspot cooking in the Hertzoons' oven. He still had Saskia's red ribbon. He could give it back to her. He closed his eyes and waited to die.
Kaz expected to wake in the next world. Instead, he woke surrounded by corpses. Jordie's body was beside him, barely recognisable.
Kaz's vision had cleared, his fever had broken. When night came, and the tide changed direction, Kaz forced himself to lay hands on Jordie's body. He was too frail to swim on his own, but with Jordie's help, he could float. He held tight to his brother and kicked towards the lights of Ketterdam.
The last hundred yards were hard. But Kaz had hope now, hope and fury, twin flames burning inside him. They guided him to the dock and up the ladder.
Jordie's body was caught in the current, his eyes were still open, and for a moment, Kaz thought his brother was staring back at him. I should close his eyes, thought Kaz. But he knew if he climbed down the ladder, he would never find his way out again. That wasn't possible any more. He had to live. Someone had to pay. Vengeance was waiting, vengeance for Jordie and maybe for himself, too.
In the prison wagon, Kaz woke to a sharp jab against his thigh.
"Kaz." A euphonic whisper.
Another jab to his thigh.
"Kaz." Aeolian's voice. He felt her pull away from him. Somehow, in the cramped confines of the wagon, she managed to give him space.
"Keep talking," he rasped. "Just keep talking."
"We're passing through the prison gate. We made it past the first two checkpoints." She said.
That brought him fully to his senses. They'd gone through two checkpoints. That meant they'd been counted. Someone might have even laid hands on him, and he hadn't woken. He could have been robbed, killed. He'd imagined his death a thousand ways, but never sleeping through it.
He'd kept his gloves on, something the guards might have easily taken note of, and a frustrating concession to his weakness but if he hadn't, he felt fairly sure he'd have gone completely mad.
Behind him, he could hear the other prisoners murmuring to one another in different languages. He could only hope that the rest of his crew, hooded and burdened by their own anxiety, hadn't noticed anything strange about his behaviour.
He hated that Aeolian had seen him this way, that anyone had, but on the heels of that thought came another: Better it should be her. In his bones, he knew that she would never speak of it to anyone, that she would never use this knowledge against him. She relied on his reputation. She wouldn't want him to look weak. But there was more to it than that, wasn't there? Aeolian would never betray him. He knew it. Kaz felt ill. Though he trusted her with his life, it felt much more frightening to trust her with this shame.
The wagon came to a halt. The bolt slid back, and the doors flew open.
As their his hoods were yanked free. They were standing in a large courtyard, surrounded by marble so white it almost glowed blue. It was as if they'd wandered into some dream-like version of the harsh lands they'd travelled in the north. It was impossible to tell what might be glass or ice or stone.
The Fjerdan guards were gesturing over their papers, trying to make the numbers and identities of the prisoners match up to the group before them. This was the first real moment of exposure, one Kaz would have no control over. It was a calculated risk, but now Kaz could only wait and hope that laziness and bureaucracy would do the rest.
"You okay?" Aeolian asked Nina as she looked sick. The wagon ride had been a lot for them all. Kaz felt himself drawn towards her voice like water rolling downhill.
"I'm fine," Nina whispered. "But I don't think we have to worry about Pekka Rollins team any more."
High above the courtyard, five men had been impaled on spikes like meat skewered for roasting, backs bent, limbs dangling. But their Dime Lion tattoos gave them away.
Kaz scanned the faces some were too swollen and distorted in death to identify. Could one of them be Rollins? No, Kaz refused that possibility. Pekka Rollins belonged to him.
The guards were arguing with the wagon driver now, and one of them was pointing at Aeolian.
"What's happening?" Kaz whispered to Aeolian, his tension rising.
"They're claiming the papers are out of order, that they have a Shu girl instead of a Shu boy." Her eyes still on Pekka's men, she looked the least bothered, among them. Even though the guards were pointing at her and she might be the one in trouble.
"And the driver?" He bumped his shoulder against her, to grab her attention.
She wasn't expecting him to do that. "He just keeps telling them it's not his problem."
Whatever happened back in the wagon, was keeping her mind occupied. She never gave much thought to why Kaz was the way he was, but now things were making more sense.
"That's the way," Kaz murmured encouragingly. But he could clearly see her mind was somewhere else.
Finally, one of the prison guards sighed and signalled to his cohorts. As anticipated, guards split the group into men and women. They entered a chamber where an old woman sat. A human amplifier, she gripped the wrist of each prisoner, to identify Grisha.
Nina trembled as she held out her arm. She dropped Nina's hand and waved her along. Had she known and not cared? Or had the paraffin they'd used to encase Nina's forearms worked?
As they were led through an arch on the left, Kaz glimpsed Aeolian disappearing into the opposite arch with the other female prisoners. He felt a twinge in his chest, and with a disturbing jolt, he realised it was panic. She'd been the one to wake him from his stupor in the cart. Her voice had brought him back from the dark; it had been the tether he gripped and used to drag himself back to some semblance of sanity.
The male prisoners were led clanking up a dark flight of stairs to a metal walkway. On their left was the smooth white bulk of the ringwall. To their right the walkway overlooked a vast glass enclosure. Looking down, they saw rows of heavily armoured wagons capped by domed gun turrets.
"What are those things?" Kaz whispered.
"Torvegen," Matthias said under his breath. "They were still perfecting the design when I left."
"Tanks," murmured Jesper. "I saw prototypes when I was working with a gunsmith in Novyi Zem. Multiple guns in the turret, and that big barrel out in front? Serious firepower."
There were also gravity-fed heavy artillery guns in the enclosure. Above it all hung a banner in silver and white: STRYMAKT FJERDAN
When Kaz glanced at Matthias, the big man muttered, "Fjerdan might."
Go on and flex, Kaz thought. Doesn't matter how big the gun is if you don't know where to point it.
Wylan looked as if he was ready to wet himself. Helvar appeared grim as always. Jesper just grinned. "Well, we've managed to get ourselves locked into the most secure prison in the world. We're either geniuses or the dumbest sons of bitches to ever breathe air."
"We'll know soon enough." Kaz said, but in the back of his mind he thought of her. Aeolian will be fine. He had to stay sharp.
They were led into another white room, this one equipped with tin tubs and hoses. The prisoners started to strip down. Kaz swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He could do this, he had to do this. But it only brought back the memory of Jordie's cold flesh, the way it had grown loose in the salt water, the bodies crowding around him in the flatboat. His vision started to blur.
He was going to faint again, and this would all be over. Aeolian had once offered to teach him how to fall. "The trick is not getting knocked down," he'd told her with a laugh. "No, Kazuki," she'd said, "the trick is in getting back up." More platitudes, but somehow even the memory of her voice helped.
He was better than this. He had to be. Not just for Jordie, but for his crew. He'd brought these people here. He'd brought Aeolian here. It was his job to bring them out again.
The trick is in getting back up. He kept her mellifluent voice in his head repeating those words, again and again, as he stripped off his boots, his clothes, and finally his gloves.
He saw that Jesper was staring at his hands. "What were you expecting?" Kaz growled.
"Claws, at least," Jesper said, shifting his gaze to his own bony bare feet.
The guard tilted Kaz's head back roughly and forced his mouth open, feeling around with fat fingers.
"Ondetjärn!" the guard exclaimed. "Fellenjuret!" he shouted again as he pulled two slender pieces of metal from Kaz's mouth.
They were exclamations of surprise meaning: I've found/caught something.
The guard cuffed Kaz hard across the face. Wylan panicked of what Kaz might do, but Kaz didn't react. If they were not after the ten million kruge package, Kaz would've broken both of the guard wrists by now, Wylan knew that. And he was thankful in a way that all of them knew how to be in character.
They were shoved into line for an ice-cold shower. And were handed prison uniforms and lead to the holding area with the rest of the prisoners. In that moment, Kaz would have given up half his share of the ten million kruge for the familiar heft of his cane.
They were herded into an already crowded cell. Matthias sat down with his back to the wall, Kaz rested against the iron bars, watching the guards depart. His hands felt impossibly bare.
Kaz waited. He knew what was coming.
"Hey, cripple," the man said in Fjerdan. He tried again in Kerch, "Hey, crip." He needn't have bothered. Kaz knew the word for cripple in plenty of languages.
The next second, he stepped left, and the man lurched forward. Kaz helped him along, seizing the man's arm and driving it through the space between bars, all the way up to the shoulder. He braced the man's forearm against the metal. He threw his weight against his opponent's body, and dislocated the man's shoulder.
As the man opened his lips to scream, Kaz covered his mouth with one hand and pinched his nose shut with the other. "You scream, and I'll make sure it never works right again, understand?"
He released the man's mouth and shoved his arm back into its socket. The man rolled over on his side, curled up on the bench, and began to weep.
Kaz wiped his hands on his trousers and returned to his spot by the bars. He could feel the others watching, but now he knew he would be left in peace.
Matthias came up beside him. "Was that really necessary?"
Matthias couldn't even understand why Kaz was this ruthless, he could've just thrown a punch or something. But he always takes it to the next level, and he prayed that, they get out of the cell as quickly as possible because he didn't want to be trapped with Kaz in there for long.
"No." Kaz replied.
But it had been: to make sure they were left alone, and to remember that he wasn't helpless.
➖➖➖➖➖
Nina and Aeolian sat waiting for the guys to come and rescue them. Aeolian gently touched the rough patches on her back, Nina had tailored her tattoos and the others as well. She leaned her head on the iron bar and closed her eyes, she didn't want to think anymore. And she needed to clear her head up for the climb ahead.
Nina was observing her, ever since they left Ketterdam, Nina was uncovering more and more truths about the Shu girl. From her being an actual princess, to keeping the secret of the Shu government to herself and there was more. Nina couldn't blame her for keeping these things from the crew, they all had different lives, and they all came from different backgrounds. But Kaz not knowing about Aeolian's past still came as a shock to Nina, because Dirtyhands knows everything.
Nina had the urge to tell Aeolian about the deal she made with Matthias, if she explained it well, the Shu girl might understand: why it was a necessity to end the life of the Shu scientist before they head back to Ketterdam, because if they do, he'll be under the protection of the Council Members and it'll be next to impossible to eliminate him. They can let the ten million kruge go, because the havoc jurda parem will unleash on the world is not worth the money.
But will Aeolian understand? Because she looked like she needed the money, and what if she blurts the plan out to Kaz Brekker? Kaz would kill her and Matthias without a second thought. She couldn't tell how deep, Aeolian's loyalty is with Kaz. And what bond they really share, so even though it feels like she's betraying a dear friend at the end of the day, Nina knew; if Aeolian was in her shoes, she'd do the same because this is who they really are.
Nina slowly turned to Aeolian again, her eyes were closed, her long dark lashes laid perfectly still on her cheeks. She looked so peaceful, but Nina could hear the beating of her heart, it wasn't as smooth as it used to be before.
She whispered to herself "I hope you forgive me, doll. For what I'm about to do." As she leaned back on the wall and waited for Kaz Brekker to show up and rescue them.
✨✨✨
💰 I've been busy lately + was anxious 💰
I hope you all are well (: