“Kaz—”
“There’s a discolored brick in the wall behind the Crow Club. Behind it you’ll find twenty thousand kruge . It’s not much, but it should be enough to bribe a few stadwatch grunts.” He knew their chances would be slim and that it was his fault. “You’d have a better shot on your own—even better if you left now.”
Inej narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. These are my friends. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Tell me about Dunyasha,” he said.
“She was carrying quality blades.” Inej took the shears from the table of the vanity and began cutting fresh strips of cloth from one of the towels. “I think she may be my shadow.”
“Pretty solid shadow if she can throw knives.”
“The Suli believe that when we do wrong, we give life to our shadows. Every sin makes the shadow stronger, until eventually the shadow is stronger than you.”
“If that were true, my shadow would have put Ketterdam in permanent night.”
“Maybe,” Inej said, turning her dark gaze to his. “Or maybe you’re someone else’s shadow.”
“You mean Pekka.”
“What happens if you make it back from the Slat? If the auction goes as planned and we manage this feat?”
“Then you get your ship and your future.”
“And you?”
“I wreak all the havoc I can until my luck runs out. I use our haul to build an empire.”
“And after that?”
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll burn it to the ground.”
“Is that what makes you different from Rollins? That you’ll leave nothing behind?”
“I am not Pekka Rollins or his shadow. I don’t sell girls into brothels. I don’t con helpless kids out of their money.”
“Look at the floor of the Crow Club, Kaz.” Her voice was gentle, patient—why was it making him want to set fire to something? “Think of every racket and card game and theft you’ve run. Did all those men and women deserve what they got or what they had taken from them?”
“Life isn’t ever what we deserve, Inej. If it were—”
“Did your brother get what he deserved?”
“No.” But the denial felt hollow.
Why had he called Jesper by Jordie’s name? When he looked into the past, he saw his brother through the eyes of the boy he’d been: brave, brilliant, infallible, a knight bested by a dragon dressed like a merch. But how would he see Jordie now? As a mark? Another dumb pigeon looking for a shortcut? He leaned his hands on the edge of the sink. He wasn’t angry anymore. He just felt weary. “We were fools.”
“You were children. Was there no one to protect you?”
“Was there anyone to protect you ?”
“My father. My mother. They would have done anything to keep me from being stolen.”
“And they would have been mowed down by slavers.”
“Then I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to see that.”
How could she still look at the world that way? “Sold into a brothel at age fourteen and you count yourself lucky.”
“They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. “You protected me, Kaz.”
“The fact that you’re bleeding through your bandages tells me otherwise.”
She glanced down. A red blossom of blood had spread on the bandage tied around her shoulder. She tugged awkwardly at the strip of towel. “I need Nina to fix this one.”
He didn’t mean to say it. He meant to let her go. “I can help you.”
Her gaze snapped to his in the mirror, wary as if gauging an opponent. I can help you. They were the first words she’d spoken to him, standing in the parlor of the Menagerie, draped in purple silk, eyes lined in kohl. She had helped him. And she’d nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job.
Kaz could hear the drip of the faucet, water striking the basin in an uneven rhythm. He wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. Tell her to get out , a voice inside him demanded. Beg her to stay.
But Inej said nothing. Instead, she gathered the bandages and shears from the vanity and placed them beside the basin. Then she flattened her palms on the counter and effortlessly levered herself up so that she was seated on it.
They were eye to eye now. He took a step closer and then just stood there, unable to move. He could not do this. The distance between them felt like nothing. It felt like miles.
She reached for the shears, graceful as always, a girl underwater, and offered them to him handle first. They were cool in his hand; the metal unpliable and reassuring. He stepped into the space framed by her knees.
“Where do we start?” she asked. The steam from the basin had curled the wisps of hair that framed her face.
Was he going to do this?
He nodded to her right forearm, not trusting himself to speak. His gloves lay on the other side of the basin, black against the gold-veined marble. They looked like dead animals.
He focused on the shears, cold metal in his hands, nothing like skin. He could not do this if his hands were shaking.
I can best this , he told himself. It was no different than drawing a weapon on someone. Violence was easy.
He slid the blade carefully beneath the bandage on her arm. The towel was thicker than gauze would have been, but the shears were sharp. One snip and the bandage fell away, revealing a deep puncture wound. He cast the fabric aside.
He picked up a strip of fresh towel and stood there, steeling himself.
She lifted her arm. Cautiously, he looped the clean piece of cloth around her forearm. His knuckles brushed against her skin and lightning cracked through him, left him paralyzed, rooted to the earth.
His heart should not be making that sound. Maybe he would never get to the Slat. Maybe this would kill him. He willed his hands to move, knotted the bandage once, twice. It was done.
Kaz took a breath. He knew he should replace the bandage at her shoulder next, but he wasn’t ready for that, so he nodded to her left arm. The bandage was perfectly clean and secure, but she didn’t question him, just offered her forearm.
This time it was a little easier. He moved slowly, methodically, the shears, the bandage, a meditation. But then the task was complete.
They said nothing, caught in an eddy of silence, not touching, her knees on either side of him. Inej’s eyes were wide and dark, lost planets, black moons.
The bandage on her shoulder had been looped under her arm twice and tied near the joint. He leaned in slightly, but the angle was awkward. He couldn’t simply wedge the scissors beneath the towel. He would have to lift the edge of the fabric.
No. The room was too bright. His chest felt like a clenched fist. Stop this.
He pressed two fingers together. He slid them beneath the bandage.
Everything in him recoiled. The water was cold against his legs. His body had gone numb and yet he could still feel the wet give of his brother’s rotting flesh beneath his hands. It’s shame that eats men whole. He was drowning in it. Drowning in the Ketterdam harbor. His eyes blurred.
“It isn’t easy for me either.” Her voice, low and steady, the voice that had once led him back from hell. “Even now, a boy will smile at me on the street, or Jesper will put his arm around my waist, and I feel like I’m going to vanish.” The room tilted. He clung to the tether of her voice. “I live in fear that I’ll see one of her—one of my —clients on the street. For a long time, I thought I recognized them everywhere. But sometimes I think what they did to me wasn’t the worst of it.”