015; DEAD GIRL WALKING
THE FARTHER AND FARTHER THEY TRAVELLED FROM WEST STAVE, THE MORE AND MORE IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE DESCENDING INTO A CITY LAID WITHIN A CITY.
Shortly after ducking away from the chaos that had taken the Stave in a chokehold, they'd tossed away their capes and masks behind the Velvet Room, where Kaz had another set of clothes waiting for them. They changed quickly, tossing the rough spun trousers and bulky coats over their existing clothing, collars flipped up to hide their faces. Onyx bundled her quiver and bow in the fabric of her cloak and carried it like a parcel in an effort to avoid suspicion. The use of a bow and arrow made her about as conspicuous as Kaz looked with his crows head cane.
The eastern edge of the warehouse district was reminiscent of a ghost town at this hour. It was populated heavily by immigrants that worked for the city's factories and docks, leaving their shantytowns of plywood and dented, bent tin silent and without wandering eyes. She hadn't been this far on the eastern side of the district in years. Not since her parents died. Not since their home went up in flames and she fled the house, blood weeping from her neck, her lungs burning from the soot and smoke she'd inhaled as she'd blindly ran down the stairs. Now, it felt like that entire night was isolated from the rest of time, as if she was watching it happen through a foggy window.
Onyx adjusted the collar on her thick coat and turned her eyes down, down to the cobblestones beneath her feet. Even now, she could feel the cold cobble beneath her feet that night. It was winter, just the beginning of winter, but it was surprisingly cold. Days before, her mother had even said as much. Her father had just bought her a new coat for what was supposed to be a rather unforgiving winter. It would become far colder than he would ever know, for he would never know that his only daughter would spend that winter beneath different bridges, growing and nursing a determination and vengeance that would've frightened him to his core. She kindled those feelings like a precious flame, until it grew into great bonfire that would one day be enough to consume all those who dared cross her path.
It wasn't until she found the target of her anger that the bonfire would roar into a raging forest fire.
Hendrik Reinsing would never know that his daughter would grow into the same neutrality he took as a weapons maker. He would never know that his Onyx Reinsing would become Onyx Vissier, the embodiment of every foul and amoral thing he wanted to keep her away from. He would never know that a deal gone sour with Pekka Rollins and the Dime Lions would send the Reaper of Ketterdam on a downward spiral of bloodsport and mayhem and revenge. He would never know that the very first bow she strung up in their home would later grow into a Fabrikator-made weapon that mimic the very same one that once hung as a calling card in his shop.
And her mother. Her mother was so, so good. Anika Reinsing would be so disappointed in the woman her daughter had become. She'd always frowned upon the under the table work Onyx's father did for the Barrel gangs, but never forced him to put a stop to it. After all, the sale of weapons to Barrel thugs did come with a rather handsome paycheck and it kept their Homelife away from the slums and poverty-stricken streets. It would seem that in the end though, Anika Reinsing would pay the price for these same dealings with her life. She would bleed out on her bed, throat slit, eyes glassy.
Onyx suspected even now that she was the first to go. Then, they'd taken care of her father. She doubted they knew Hendrik had a daughter, looking back, until his very last moments or directly thereafter. The house was already ablaze when she awoke anyway. She never heard any screams.
Onyx Reinsing was murdered that night, and a young girl grew into a monster that was said to hide beneath children's beds and in their closets, waiting for the right moment to strike. Onyx Vissier was born shortly after, and the wake that followed her was marked with bloodshed and strife, of loneliness and neutrality. Though if the Onyx Vissier that had started that journey of lonely neutrality could see the Onyx Vissier of today, she would've wept. And in some ways, she did. The loss of her neutrality felt like losing a piece of herself, of who she'd built herself into being. And of course, it was Kaz fucking Brekker at the root of the cause. It always was.
They approached an abandoned, burnt out linen storehouse deeper into the district where stadwatch patrols were still present, yet at a lowered frequency. The warehouse district was one of the most secure places in the city, but there were still gaps in patrols, blind spots where laziness reigned supreme, and shadows to hide wicked deeds within. Onyx appraised the building. The windows were busted in the lower floors and the bricks that surrounded them were covered in a thick layer of soot from a recent fire. She was surprised it hadn't already been cleaned out or razed into new building entirely. It was only a matter of time.
Kaz picked his way through the simple padlock at the backdoor, and they entered into the lower story of the storehouse that had clearly taken the brunt of the damage. The smell was still fresh. Perhaps not even a week old. The climbed up a mostly intact staircase to the third floor, where Kaz led them into a stock room. Bolts of linen were piled up high against the walls, largely undamaged, though soot marked the floor in a telltale path from the door.
"Oh, what luxury we've found ourselves in," Onyx commented, lifting herself up onto one of the stacked piles of linen bolts. They weren't terribly comfortable, but anything felt better than a stone floor and restraints. She leaned her head back against the wall. "How long will we stay here?"
"You'll stay here until sundown, at the earliest," Kaz answered. He produced a tin from beneath one of the old sewing machines nearby, as well as a silver flask. He tossed her the flask, then held out the tin. "I'm not sure if you're aware, but you're quite a conspicuous criminal at the moment, Miss Vissier."
"'At the moment,'" she snorted. "I've always been a conspicuous criminal, Mister Brekker."
"The scene on the Stave will change things for you."
"I know."
The silence between them lingered. Onyx traced the edge of the tin with her nail, feeling with the minute dents. Kaz adjusted his grip on his cane. He was still watching her, dissecting her, trying to pull her apart and fit her into a lock that he completely understood and knew the mechanics of. What was it, that he wanted her to say? And what was this tension, that hung in the air like the smoke from the very same fire that ripped through this storehouse? The last time they'd spoken, really spoken, was before they'd even made it back to Ketterdam.
"I had a brother," he'd spoken.
She remembered the way her stomach had twisted. "I had parents."
Now, she had the urge to finish the story-- to freely give away the context Kaz was missing in the equation that made up her shadowy past. But that was one thing that made the Reaper who she was, barring a neutrality that was blown to bits now. No one really knew where she'd come from. Some of the stories said she crawled straight out off the canal, others said she was the bastard of a forgotten Barrel boss. No one knew that a fire in the Zelvar District almost ten years ago was her origin story. For all intents and purposes, her family never existed. Pekka Rollins and the Dime Lions made sure of that.
Onyx turned her eyes out the window, desperate to escape the silence. She could see the edge of the immigrant settlements from here, and in the distance, Sweet Reef and Sixth Harbor. Maybe it was because she knew now-- Onyx knew what she felt, after that startling, pathetic fear had crept up on her as Van Eck was poised to break her arms. Some part of her loathed it. She loathed the way her eyes would habitually search for his now, or the way her stomach twisted when she would find his gaze already on her, waiting. And the other part of her -- the girlish, wanting, stupid part of her -- wanted to sink in to the feeling and let her soul be devoured in it. But Kaz Brekker? Why Kaz Brekker?
Perhaps it was because he was nearly as broken and amoral as she. Perhaps it was because he held his secrets to his chest, locked and guarded behind cold looks and intimidation, just as she did. She knew he was twisted and evil, corrupt and full of greed, but she was no better.
"Do you think the others will be alright?" she asked quietly.
Kaz leaned back against one of the stacks of cloth and leaned his cane against the wall. "I'm sure they're fine. No one was stationed near where the bombs went off. At least the ones we saw."
Onyx slowly tugged off her coat and folded it over her legs, then took a slow sip from the flask. She sighed through her nose. When was the salt time she'd even drank any water? She didn't trust the food or the drinks Van Eck tried to provide her with. "Where are we hiding out?"
"Black Veil," he answered. "I have business at the silos, so we'll make our way there after I've finished at sundown."
She nodded. It didn't make her feel any better, not knowing if her friends had made it out of the Stave all right. Dully, in the back of her mind, she wondered when she'd started calling them her friends, and how she'd let herself become so enraptured with them all. Onyx hadn't imagined leaving Ketterdam and earning herself a treasure trove of friends and comrades upon return. Truthfully, she thought things would go back to the way they would before. She'd see Nina a few times a week, perhaps see Inej or Jesper in passing, and avoid any contact with Kaz. She would've only known of Wylan and Matthias.
"What did he do to you?"
Onyx paused, hand hovering over the nuts packed within the tin in her lap. Why did he care? "I tried to escape, I think it was my fourth or fifth day. It was hard to keep track. Van Eck knew I would try it at some point, I assume, so he had a contingent of his guards waiting for me." She could still feel their steel toed boots jabbing into her ribs, the fingers pulling at her hair. Her stomach twisted. "The rest doesn't matter."
Kaz nodded to the wrapping around her arm. The wound ached, as if sensing someone was paying it attention. Blood was seeping through the bandaging in a few spots. "And that?"
"Van Eck wanted your safe house locations, where you might be stashing Kuwei," she answered, tugging loosely at the edge of the bandage. "I told him I didn't know."
He turned the information over, but his expression didn't waver from its natural state. If he thought anything of it, Kaz didn't let it show. But he still crossed his arms and said, "You do know."
"I know several locations of several safe houses of several Barrel bosses, Kaz." She tossed one of the hazelnuts in her mouth, rolling her eyes. "I know you think rather ill of me, but believe it or not, I don't have any interest in seeing my friends killed or captured."
"I've never thought ill of you, Onyx."
The words seemed to surprise Kaz as well, even though he was the one who spoke them into existence. A fleeting look crossed over his features, there one second and gone the next. It passed by too quickly for Onyx to make heads or tails of what exactly it might have been, that look that passed through his face and over his eyes.
"You should try and rest," he said before Onyx could conjure up anything to say in return. He pushed off the stack of linen, leaving his cane behind as he turned toward the door. "No one should bother you here."
Onyx pulled her knees up close to her chest and rested her head atop them. She sighed through her nose. "When will you be back?"
"Around sundown."
He looked over his shoulder at her. The dull, grey light streaming in from the window illuminated one side of his face, shadowing the other, and Onyx couldn't help but pick apart the physical duality she was being presented with. Kaz never showed her his full self, just half truths and non-contextual pieces. But she was no better. Would they ever be able to bridge the shadowy valley that existed between them, the one that hid their fears and pasts and insecurities? Kaz held her eyes a moment longer, and Onyx nodded, content with his answer. But it was the words that followed, as he exited the storeroom and left her to the silence, that let her doze soundly after his departure.
"I'll come back for you."
─────
Kaz returned for her around sundown, just as the sun was dipping behind the horizon line and the warehouse and dock workers were returning home for the night. Onyx donned her rough spun coat again, packaged up her bow and quiver, and followed Kaz out into the warehouse district once more. They used the crowds of workers returning home for cover, then moved south and east, using the areas Onyx knew best to avoid stadwatch patrols. They moved through residential streets, where window boxes were full of various plants and flowers, and where they were least likely to encounter anyone looking for them. Shortly after, they boarded a smallboat, rowed down Grafcanal, and disappeared into the mists surrounding Black Veil Island.
They moved silently toward the center of the island, picking their way though headstones and mausoleums. At the center of the island, they came upon a large tomb, one fashioned into a large, stone ship, fitted with fake portholes that now glowed with a dim orange light. The muffled hum of voices inside made Onyx sigh. They're okay. They made it out.
Onyx shrugged off her coat and let it fall to the ground. She tore open the door to the tomb. Six bodies inside rose in tandem, fists and guns raised, ready for a fight, and Onyx skirted to a stop in the doorway.
She blinked. "What, no welcome back banners?"
Nina and Inej leapt to their feet. "Onyx!"
They were across the tomb in seconds, crushing her in a tight hug that Onyx couldn't help but let herself fall into. Then, she was engulfed within them. Jesper pulled her from Nina and Inej's hold and wrapped around her in a hug of his own, lifting her off the ground as he cheered, "The Reaper has returned!" over and over again. Matthias stood back, formal and polite as ever, but still smiled with a joy she found herself happy to see. And for the first time in a long time, Onyx felt herself smile and laugh, truly. Jesper set her feet back on the ground and she looked, grinning, between the Shu boy standing before her, and the identical Shu boy hovering a few feet away.
"Saints, I forgot about this," she murmured, looking between them once more. Her eyes landed on the boy before her. "But I think I'd know a merchling when I see one."
Wylan grinned, though it slipped sideways as he spoke. "Sorry about my father."
Onyx shook her head and pulled him into a tight embrace. "Just wait until I tell you all the things I said and did to make him squirm." She squeezed his shoulders. "You are not your father, Wylan. You are so much more than he will ever be."
Kaz rapped his cane against the stone floor. "If everyone is done cuddling, we have a job to do."
"Hold up," Jesper said, slinging an arm around Onyx's shoulders. "We're not talking about the job until we figure out what those things were on the Stave."
Onyx's eyebrows pulled together. "'Things?'"
"Did you miss half the Stave blowing up?"
"I'd have to be dead to not notice that. We saw the one at the White Rose go off," she responded, shoving Jesper's side. "I only heard a second one, didn't see another."
Nina nodded. "At the Anvil."
"Well, apologies, everyone, we were busy trying not to be arrested or blown to bits. I'll pay better attention next time."
"That was your big mistake, Onyx dear," Jesper replied. "If you'd stuck around, you could have nearly been killed by a Shu guy with wings."
"Two of them," Wylan added.
"Wait." Onyx tilted her head. "It may be the days of captivity wearing at my logical thinking, but I believe you just said you saw a man with wings. Two wings?"
"Two guys," Inej corrected.
"Ah, I see. That makes it all make sense." Onyx felt like her head was spinning. How could a man have wings? "So, was it like a bird or what?"
Nina tugged at Onyx's uninjured arm and pulled over to the table at the center of the tomb, where a map of Ketterdam was rolled out. "No, more like a moth, a deadly, mechanical moth." She shoved her into a chair. "Are you hungry? We have chocolate biscuits."
"Oh, sure," Jesper complained. "She gets the cookie hoard."
"Obviously." Onyx crossed an arm loosely over herself as Nina plunked in a chair next to her and dropped a tin of cookies in front of her. Nina leaned her head against her shoulder. She hadn't seen Nina since she was in the throes of parem. And though on the outside, Nina looked similar to her old self, Onyx knew the craving and withdrawal must have still be eating away at her. She swallowed and reached for cookie. "I'm her favorite."
"There were two Shu with wings, and a man and a woman who were," Nina paused, nibbling at at the edge of a biscuit, "not normal."
"Nina's power had no effect on them," Wylan added.
Nina glanced up briefly, humming as she continued nibbling at her biscuit. "Hmm."
Matthias seated himself at the table. "The Shu woman we faced was stronger than me, Jesper, and Wylan put together."
"You heard right," Jesper said. "Stronger than Wylan."
Onyx popped a cookie between her lips and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, no, not stronger than Wylan. What ever will we do?"
Wylan crossed his arms. "I did my part," he objected.
"You most definitely did, merchling. What was that violet stuff?"
"Something new I'm working on. It's based on a Ravkan invention called lumiya," he explained. "The flames are almost impossible to extinguish, but I changed the formulation so that it burns a lot hotter."
"Huh." Onyx crossed her arms over her chest and slowly leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs out beneath the table. She wondered duly if a formulation like that could be applied to her arrowheads. "Sounds like they were lucky to have you there with them, Wylan."
"We were," Matthias agreed, sending a small nod in Wylan's direction. His cheeks flush a dark scarlet. "The creatures were nearly impervious to bullets."
"Nearly. And the same goes most likely for arrows as well," Nina said. "They had nets. They were looking to hunt and capture Grisha."
Kaz leaned back against the wall and propped his hands up on his cane. "Were they using parem?"
"No. I don't think they were Grisha. They didn't display any powers, and they weren't healing their wounds. It looked like they had some kind of metal plating beneath their skin."
Nina turned to Kuwei, translating the description she'd given the rest of them into Shu. Kuwei groaned when she was finished. "Kherguud. When my father made parem, the government tests it on Fabrikators."
Jesper narrowed his eyes. "Is it just me or is your Kerch getting better?"
"My Kerch is good. You all talk too fast."
"Right." Onyx cleared her throat and shifted up in her seat once more, resting her elbows atop the table as she surveyed the map laid out before her. "And why, pray tell, did your dearest Shu friends test parem on Fabrikators?" Her eyes briefly shot to Jesper who, despite his relaxed position, looked anything but comfortable with the topic. "Why not, lets say, Tidemakers or Healers?"
"They have more Fabrikators in captivity," Kuwei answered.
"They're the easiest to capture," Matthias added. Nina's expression contorted. "Until recently, they received little combat training, and without parem their powers are poorly suited to battle."
"Our leaders want to conduct more experiments," Kuwei continued, and this time, it was Onyx grimacing alongside Nina. "But they don't know how many Grisha they can find--"
"Maybe if they hadn't killed so many?" Nina suggested sarcastically.
Kuwei nodded, and Onyx couldn't quite decipher whether he'd decided to ignore Nina's sarcasm or simply missed it entirely. "Yes. They have few Grisha, and using parem shortens a Grisha's life. So they bring doctors to work with the Fabrikators already sick from parem. They plan to make a new kind of solider, the Kherguud. I don't know if they succeeded."
"I think I can answer that question with a big fat yes," Jesper replied.
"Specially trained soldiers," Nina murmured, a furrow forming between her eyebrows. "Before the war, I heard they tried something similar in Ravka, reinforcing skeletons, tampering with bone density, metal implants. They experimented on First Army volunteers. Oh, stop grimacing Matthias. Your Fjerdan masters probably would have gotten around to trying the exact same thing, given the time."
"She has a point," Onyx pointed out, which only deepened Matthias' grimace. "Just saying."
"Fabrikators deal in solids," Jesper spoke up. "Metal, glass, textiles. This seems like Corporalki work."
"Tailors blur the line between Fabrikator and Corporalnik," Nina pointed out. "I had a teacher in Ravka, Genya Safin. She could have been either a Heartrender or a Fabrikator if she'd wanted to-- instead she became a great Tailor. The work you're describing is really just an advanced kind of tailoring."
Onyx felt as though her mind was drowning with information-- so much so, it almost felt dizzying. Men with wings, seeking out Grisha? Did Shu Han really want that many more Grisha to experiment on? "So, let me get this straight," she propped her elbows up on the table, eyebrows raised. "There was a Shu man with wings-- wings that also happen to be grafted or stitched to his back?"
"No, they were mechanical. Some kind of metal frame, and canvas, maybe? But its more sophisticated than just slapping a pair of wings between someone's shoulder blades. You'd have to link the musculature, hollow out the bones to decrease body weight, then somehow compensate for the loss of bone marrow, maybe replace the skeleton entirely. The level of complexity--"
"Parem," Matthias interjected. "A Fabrikator on parem could manage that kind of tailoring."
Nina pushed away from the table. "Won't the Merchant Council do anything about the Shu attack?" she asked Kaz. "Are they just allowed to waltz into Kerch and start blowing things up and kidnapping people?"
"I doubt the Council will act," Kaz responded. "Unless the Shu who attacked you were wearing uniforms, the Shu Han government will probably deny any knowledge of the attack."
"So they just get away with it?"
"Maybe not." Kaz adjusted his grip on his cane and pursed his lips in thought. "I spent a little time gathering intelligence at the harbors today. Those two Shu warships? The Council of Tides dry-docked them."
Jesper's boots slid off the table and hit the floor with an echoing thud. "What?"
"They pulled back the tide. All of it. Used the sea to carve a new island with both of those warships beached on it. You can see them lying on their sides, sails dragging in the mud, right there in the harbor."
"A show of force," Matthias said.
"On behalf of Grisha or the city?" Jesper asked.
Onyx shrugged a shoulder noncommittally as she reached for another cookie. "Either, in my opinion. Or maybe both."
"Who knows?" Kaz shrugged. "But it might make the Shu a little more careful about hunting on the Ketterdam streets."
"Could the Council of Tides help us?" Wylan asked, glancing around the table. "If they know about parem, they have to be worried about what might happen if the wrong people get their hands on it."
"How would you find them? No one knows the Tides' identities, no one ever sees them coming or going from those watchtowers," Nina responded bitterly. "The Shu won't stay cowed forever. They created those solders for a reason."
"It's smart, when you think about it," Kaz commented. "The Shu were maximizing their resources. A Grisha addicted to parem can't survive for long, so the Shu found another way to exploit their powers."
Matthias shook his head. "Indestructible soldiers who outlive their creators."
"Fantastic," Onyx breathed, leaning her head back, tracing the cracks in the stone ceiling with her gaze. She'd been gone only for a few days, separated from information for a short time, but just in a matter of hours, the entire tide of this silent battle had shifted. The Shu weren't following the rules anymore. Onyx let her eyes drift back to her friends then. It was a good thing then, that she and those around her, were spectacular at turning this into their very own game.
"Fan-fucking-tastic."
AUTHORS NOTE
okokokok, i know that cuts off at a weird spot but honestly, i forgot how long this chapter was when i was writing it all out and i really wanted to get this out for you guys since i haven't updated in like, two weeks. i'm gonna try and hopefully push out chapter sixteen in the next week, depending on how busy i am. but as always, let me know what we think :)