I’d offer you happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.”
For some reason, those words had comforted her. Better terrible truths than kind lies.
“All right,” she said. “How do we begin?”
“Let’s start by getting out of here and finding you some proper clothes. Oh, and Inej,” he said as he led her out of the salon. “Don’t ever sneak up on me again.”
The truth was she’d tried to sneak up on Kaz plenty of times since then. She’d never managed it. It was as if once Kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her.
She’d trusted Kaz Brekker that night. She’d become the dangerous girl he’d sensed lurking inside her. But she’d made the mistake of continuing to trust him, of believing in the legend he’d built around himself. That myth had brought her here to this sweltering darkness, balanced between life and death like the last leaf clinging to an autumn branch. In the end, Kaz Brekker was a just a boy, and she’d let him lead her to this fate.
She couldn’t even blame him. She’d let herself be led because she hadn’t known where she’d wanted to go. The heart is an arrow. Four million kruge, freedom, a chance to return home. She’d said she wanted these things. But in her heart, she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her parents.
Could she tell her mother and father the truth? Would they understand all she’d done to survive, not just at the Menagerie, but every day since? Could she lay her head in her mother ’s lap and be forgiven? What would they see when they looked at her?
Climb, Inej. But where was there to go? What life was waiting for her after all she’d suffered? Her back ached. Her hands were bleeding. The muscles in her legs shook with invisible tremors, and her skin felt ready to peel away from her body. Every breath of black air seared her lungs. She couldn’t breathe deeply. She couldn’t even focus on that grey patch of sky. The sweat kept beading down her forehead and stinging her eyes. If she gave up, she’d be giving up for all of them – for Jesper and Wylan, for Nina and her Fjerdan, for Kaz. She couldn’t do that.
It isn’t up to you any longer, little lynx, Tante Heleen’s voice crooned in her head. How long have you been holding on to nothing?
The heat of the incinerator wrapped around Inej like a living thing, a desert dragon in his den, hiding from the ice, waiting for her. She knew her body’s limits, and she knew she had no more to give. She’d made a bad wager. It was as simple as that. The autumn leaf might cling to its branch, but it was already dead. The only question was when it would fall.
Let go, Inej. Her father had taught her to climb, to trust the rope, the swing, and finally, to trust in her own skill, to believe that if she leaped, she would reach the other side. Would he be waiting for her there? She thought of her knives, hidden away aboard the Ferolind – maybe they could go to some other girl who dreamed of being dangerous. She whispered their names: Petyr, Marya, Anastasia, Vladimir, Lizabeta, Sankta Alina, martyred before she could turn eighteen. Let go, Inej. Should she jump now or simply wait for her body to give out?
Inej felt wetness on her cheeks. Was she crying? Now? After everything she’d done and had done to her?
Then she heard it, a soft patter, a gentle drum that had no real rhythm. She felt it on her cheeks and face. She heard the hiss as it struck the coals below. Rain. Cool and forgiving. Inej tilted her head back. Somewhere, she heard bells ringing the three-quarter hour, but she didn’t care. She only heard the music of the rain as it washed away the sweat and soot, the coalsmoke of Ketterdam, the face paint of the Menagerie, as it bathed the jute strands of the rope, and hardened the rubber on her suffering feet. It felt like a blessing, though she knew Kaz would just call it weather.
She had to move now, quickly, before the stones grew slick and the rain became an enemy. She forced her muscles to flex, her fingers to seek, and pulled herself up one foot, then another, again and again, murmuring prayers of gratitude to her Saints. Here was the rhythm that had eluded her before, buried in the whispered cadence of their names.