NOTE OF AUTHOR: IMPORTANT - I noticed Chapter Six had not been postes, but stayed as a draft. I posted it and put it on its place. I'm sorry for that mistake, readers, I hope it won't happen again.
Six of Crows – CHAPTER 18
Kaz limped over to Inej, who was sitting alone with her legs crossed, sipping a cup of tea calmly.
"I want to show you something," he said, getting her attention.
"I'm well, thank you for asking," she said looking at him as if she had rolled her eyes. "How are you?"
"Splendid," he answered.
His leg had been hurting quite a bit, probably worsened by his state of constant stress and the fact that he couldn't receive letters from Laura, who most likely already knew about someone trying to kill Dirtyhands in the harbour if he knew her well. He knew that she would find a way to keep tabs on him since the moment he told her he had to leave.
He put his cane aside, face twisting in a mixture of physical pain and longing for Laura. He missed Jordan.
"Is your leg bad?"
"It's fine. Here," he said.
He spread Wylan's drawings of the prison sector between them. There were several – from up and from the side, since the prison elevation had a side view and a cross-section showing the building's floors stacked on top of one another.
"I've seen it," Inej said. "Six storeys up a chimney."
"Can you do it?" he asked.
Kaz thought for a moment of Laura in Inej's place. If Jordan hadn't gotten into the play, she would probably still be his spider and would probably the one doing Inej's job, but he knew that Inej was better than Laura in that – Laura had been a great archer and a great assassin, discreet needed, but Inej was agile and the best option for climbing six storeys.
"Is there another option?" she asked, eyebrows raising.
"No," he answered truthfully.
"So if I say I can't make that climb, will you tell Specht to turn the boat around and take us back to Katterdam?"
Don't tempt me, he thought.
"I'll find another option," he said. "I don't know what, but I'm not giving up that haul."
"You know I can do it, Kaz, and you know I'm not going to refuse. So... why ask?"
Because he knew that Inej was someone's daughter and would be someone's lover. If it had been Jordan, he would like someone to at least have asked her if she could, maybe she would be raised to not have to do all of those things.
"I want to make you know what you'll be dealing with and that you're studying the plans," he lied.
"Will there be a test?" she joked.
"Yes. If you fail, we will all end up stuck inside a Fjerdan prison."
She sipped her tea once more, humming in acknowledgment.
"And I'll end up dead," she said closing her eyes and resting her head on the hull behind her. "I'm worried about the escape route to the harbour. I don't like there's only one way out."
Kaz nodded. "Me neither," he answered, putting her bad leg to the side, stretching it a bit. "But that's why the Fjerdans built it that way."
She looked down.
"Do you trust Spencht?"
His heart skipped another beat. Inej was not one to ask stupid questions without a reason.
"IS there a reason I shouldn't?"
"Not at all, but if the Ferolind isn't waiting for us in the harbour..." she hesitated.
The truth was that Kaz could never be sure of anyone in any moment of his life, but there were moments he had to put all his trust and hopes in someone else's hands.
"I trust him enough," was his answer.
Enough for him to know where his money was stashed and where to send it to in case he didn't survive this mission. Enough for him to know that Kaz had someone to provide for and it's been almost a year.
He took a deep breath; the air was a sweet cold breeze.
Spring was coming. His seventeenth birthday would come with it. Jordan's one year-old birthday would come with it and he wouldn't be there. Soon Laura would be seventeen too. A long time ago, they had agreed that in their seventeenth birthday, they'd go out and drink themselves to the ground together.
"He owes you?" Inej asked, knowing him well.
He nodded.
"The navy threw him out for insubordination and refused him his pension. He has a sister to support near Belendt. I got him his money," he explained. He didn't say that his daughter lived with his sister after his wife passed away.
"That was good of you."
Inej's hopes and trust on him were between annoying and amusing sometimes.
"I'm not some character out of a children's story who plays harmless pranks and steals from the rich to give to the poor. There was money to be made and information to be had. Specht know the navy's route like the back of his hand," he said, voice firm as he narrowed his eyes to her.
Robin Hood, he missed hearing Laura telling Jordan that story – he liked the fact that Jordan's favourite story was about someone with a bow and arrows, and that someone was thieve too. It made it sound like she could love both of her parents without even understanding completely that the things in the story were somehow real.
"Never something for nothing, Kaz," she said, not looking away from his eyes. "I know. Still, if the Ferolind is intercepted, we'll have no way out of Djerholm."
"I'll get us out," he promised, "you know that."
Or at least he hoped she did. Inej was one of his most trusted members and if she believed they would be alright, the chance of everything going right was high. It was like her Saints listened to her prayers sometimes.
He hated how his mind insisted on brining Laura up once more, making him remember the image of her kneeling down beside Jordan's cot when the baby was very small and sick, praying for one more night. His heart ached even though he knew Laura and Jordan were alright, well-fed and healthy in the farm.
Still, he trusted Inej enough to fish her support. All her doubts were valid and were his too.
Inej didn't bite his bait.
"I hear that Pekka Rollins was the one gunning for us in the harbour," she said.
"So?" he said, anger rising up his stomach.
Inej hadn't complimented him and had not tried to comfort him either. She didn't have to, it was not her job, but how he wished she had tried.
"Don't think I haven't noticed the way you go after him, Kaz," she said.
How will they know you trust them, Kaz? Laura had said a long time ago, trying to calm him down after his people went behind his back once more. You never tell them anything unless it's extremely necessary. That's now how trust works.
He needed Inej to trust him. She was his friend, even if he didn't admit that out loud.
"He killed my brother," he admitted.
Much like the first time he had told it to Laura, the words made him as nauseated as before as the water hit his ankles, slowly rising to his calf. He wanted to forget him. It would be so easy if he had that power.
"You had a brother?" she asked.
"I had a lot of things," was his vague answer.
Was it that hard for her to believe he used to be a normal child? He had a father, a home, a dog and a favourite colour. He had a brother. He was loved and cared for before the water took away everything in a single wave.
"I'm sorry," she said. She sounded genuine. "Kaz –" she hesitated. Kaz understood at once that she hadn't comforted him before because she didn't know how, "I'll pray for him. For peace in the next world, if not this one."
Those words took him by surprise, making him notice how close he was to her. It wasn't the same. He didn't want to get any closer – maybe she had spooked him with her saints and prayers again, he never knew how to react to that.
Maybe the prayers will make the voices go away, Laura seemed to whisper in his ear. She was religious too, though she seemed to have her faith in a much lower scale than Inej. He knew, however, that Inej had been holding onto her saints for survival for years now, while Laura had been using it as an everyday thing; a prayer before eating, a prayer with medicines if someone was sick. Whatever happened, it was her doing, but only because the saints allowed to happen while to Inej it was the Saint's doing in itself.
"I don't want your prayers," he said.
Was Laura praying for him before going to bed?
"What do you want, then?" she asked.
Money. Vengeance. Jordie's voice to shut up forever. Home... peace. His family.
The answers were all expected.
"To die buried under the weight of my own gold," he lied.
Laura would have laughed, but Inej didn't – she looked disappointed.
"Then I'll pray you get all you ask for," she answered.
"More prayers," he sighed. "And what do you want, Wraith?"
"To turn my back on Katterdam and never hear that name again," was her firm answer.
Good. Kaz would make sure she would get that: her freedom, her family. Herself. He wanted to give those back to her after she had done for him, keeping him alive; if Laura knew half of the things that she had saved him from, he was sure the girl would find a way to gift Inej too, though she didn't need much since Laura seemed more than excited to hear about Inej all the time.
"Your share of thirty million kruge can grant you that wish," he said, getting himself up. "So save your prayers for good weather and stupid guards. Just leave me out of it."
He had enough prayers being made for him back home.
Six of Crows – CHAPTER 21
"You're sure we can't go in as entertainers?" Jesper was complaining. "I hear Wylan really kill it on the flute."
"We go as we are," Kaz insisted. "As criminals."
Nina looked through the book. "They're doing a head count," she announced.
Matthias nodded, after all it was what always happened.
"If procedure hasn't changed, they'll do a quick head count at the first checkpoint, where they'll search the interior and undercarriage for any contraband," Matthias specified.
Nina passed the book to Inej without turning to her, eyes on the snow in front of her still.
"The driver is going to notice six more prisoners when he opened the door," Nina said, worried.
Kaz rolled his eyes.
"If only I had thought of that," he said. "I can tell you've never picked a pocket."
Nina glared at him.
"And I can tell you've never given enough thought to your haircut," she answered.
Laura had been the one to pick him that haircut when they were twelve. He had been cutting his hair the same way ever since.
"There's nothing wrong with my haircut that can't be fixed with four million kruge," he answered, frowning.
Jesper, however, had picked enough pockets in his life to know where that conversation was going.
"We're going to use a bunk biscuit, aren't we?" Jesper asked, head turning to the side in excitement.
"Exactly!" Kaz answered, trying his best not to smile.
"I don't know that word," Matthias said before trying the words in his own mouth, accent much more pronounced than before.
"Neither do I," Nina said, sour look on her face. "We're not as streetwise as you, Dirtyhands."
In any other situation, Kaz would have smirked smugly, proud of his reputation, but now he could only be annoyed.
"Nor will you ever be," he said. "I'll teach something that I've been taught: let's say the mark is a tourist walking through the Barrel. He's heard it's a good place to get rolled, so he keeps patting his wallet, making sure it's there, congratulating himself on just how alert and cautious he's being. No fool he. Of course, every time he pats his back pocket or the front of his pocket, what is he doing? He's telling every thief on the Stave exactly where he keeps his scrub."
Laura had been the one to point out, having been on the streets more than him and after he kept pick-pocketing after she had already joined the Dregs. He was taught well by one of the most talented thieves in the Barrel, but the student surpassed the master now.
"Saint, I've probably done that," Nina grumbled.
"Everyone does," Inej comforted her.
Kaz glanced at Inej. She knew how to comfort Nina, why hadn't she done the same to him?
"Not everyone," said Jesper.
Nina glared at him.
"That's only because you never have anything in your wallet," she answered quickly.
Jesper's jaw opened in a dramatic offended expression.
"Mean!" he accused.
"Factual," she corrected.
"Facts are for the unimaginative,"
Kaz sighed.
"A bad thieve," he continued, "one who doesn't know his way around, just makes the grab and tried to run for it. Good way to get pinched by the standwatch. But a proper thief – a like myself and my great, dear teacher – nabs the wallet and puts something else in its place."
"A biscuit?" Nina asked, confused.
"Bunk biscuit is just a name. It can be a rock, a bar of soap, even an old roll if it's the right size," Kaz answered. "A proper thief can tell the weight of a wallet by the way it changes the hang of the man's coat. He makes the switch, and the poor mark keeps walking, tapping his pocket, happy as he can be. It's not until he tried to pay for an omelette or lay his stake at a table that he realises he's been done for a sucker. By then, the thief is somewhere safe, counting up his scrub."
"Duping innocent people isn't something to be proud of," Wylan said, upset.
Kaz smirked.
"It is if you do it well. Now, we're going to be the biscuit."
"Hold on, who even taught you that?" Nina asked. "Did you have a tutor to pick-pocketing 101?"
Kaz tried to imagine Laura in a classroom.
"Something like that," he said, trying to hold back his smiled.
"Who?" she insisted.
"Laura," he answered.
Inej and Jesper exchanged a look before the conversation went on with Kaz making sure everybody knew the plan on how to get into the wagon filled with people that were going to be thrown and forgotten in jail soon enough to join them.
Nina's question about who was Laura was ignored more than once.