#I'm free! well sort of I have an idea for a coda in which jesper roleplays the darkling so.......

[doorsclosingslowly]

Someone, Broom in Hand

Kaz died before he turned sixteen. That’s the story. When he reappears, it’s at the side of the Dark General, wearing the thin fluttering robes of the Sun Summoner. Jesper travels to the Little Palace to punch his fucking teeth out.

Kaz[/&]Jesper | 7.5k | content note: nonlinear narrative, past and offscreen abuse

The purple kefta is too big for Kaz. Jesper doesn’t want to think about why he dumped his coat over Kaz’ head, except that Kaz looks weird and cold in his ugly fancy yellow paper taffeta shirt, his one layer that he’s wearing apart from the underpants that leave his knees bare.

That he looks uncomfortable at all should be nothing but a trick of the violent light: there are two separate lit fireplaces in the bedroom, so awkwardly placed that they were probably retrofitted by a Fabrikator. It might have been David, though then Jesper would surely have heard a treatise on the stones used to erect the Little Palace, or Gaz, or Lizaveta or any of the other Materialki Jesper’s been bunking with but—but anyway, if Kaz felt like wearing more, he could order an attendant to fetch another shirt or two. Unless there’s nothing he owns that isn’t thin and revealing and fucking yellow. Unless he’s not allowed… Unless he can’t even dress himself anymore without a gaggle of attendants. Man moves up in the world and forgets everything he knew: tale as old as time.

“Just like you forgot us,” Jesper mutters, less viciously than he should.

The Kaz-doll makes no comment. No protest. No further manipulation of Jesper’s old affections. No snide mockery for Jesper passing his kefta on to the man that less than an hour ago, he tried to kill.

He just pulls the coat on. With his odd bare fingers—no claws after all, just thin and human—he closes button after button, including the top four that Jesper’s never once used, struggling to pull the material over the bone-tines sticking out of his chest. (And who back home would believe that Dirtyhands has ordinary fingers and a totally fucked up chest?) It would be easier to leave it open, but Kaz, even now he’s a sunny lapdog, doesn’t do easy. When he drops his arms, the too-long sleeves fall down over his hands, and with his thumbs he traps the fabric there. Sad little improvised half-gloves, more than Jesper’s seen him wear in the month since he let himself get conscripted into the Little Palace. He looks back at Jesper.

There’s no Thank you—Kaz Brekker never knew that word, and it seems in the two years they had him, whatever else they forced on him the Ravkans failed to teach him any more manners—but there is something new in his glare. It’s not just the purple washing the colour off his smooth—his way too smooth face. No. It’s something old: defiant, and angry, and scheming, just barely breaking through the placid paint and the rust beneath it.

Bit by bit, as he buttons up Jesper’s kefta Kaz simultaneously pulls on the moth-bitten coat of Dirtyhands he’s kept way back in the wardrobe of his brain, the ruthless killer, Bastard of the Barrel, Dregs lieutenant and future gang boss unless he gets murdered first. And it didn’t stick the first time. Pulls it over whoever it is that he was before. Over the doll beside Kirigan.

Over that person in the corner, that cornered boy, brittle and alone and stripped of armour and weapon and self, and Jesper wants to kill every single fucker in the Little Palace.

“Back home, you had a plan for everything,” he says instead. “I’m not assuming it’s a B or even a Z or a Q squared, but I know you. I know you’ve considered it. What do we do now your beloved long-lost friend’s shown up to help you steal the Sun Summoner?”

☼

Yesterday, Kerch accepted the terms of the Ravkan crown. Ex-crown. Dark fucking empire. Whatever. Test all children and send the Grisha to the Little Palace, conscript some people into the First Army—though what they still need an army for when they have the Fold is anyone’s guess—send food, booze, and, worst of all to the fastidious greedy Kerch, pay tribute without receiving anything at all in return. It was in the mouth of every paperboy on the streets, every mercher, every gang boss. By Ghezen how could we just surrender? they moaned, and Do you want to end like West Ravka? and Didn’t you see him? Kirigan’s going to crown himself king of everything. He’s unstoppable. And that boy next to him, the Sun—

Honestly? Jesper doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He’s paying fifty kruge just to sit on Inej’s bed for an hour and braid her hair. Ketterdam can burn to the sopping wet ground for all he cares. The world can rot. Like the Dregs did. Like everything Jesper cared for.

Inej, though, watched it.

“I had to see,” she’s whispering into Jesper’s ear, barely moving her miserable red-painted lips even though his hair should block out most lines of sight already. Inej’s smart, though, and desperate: if Jesper keeps returning to the Menagerie as nothing but a smitten small-time gangster with an incredibly vanilla hair fetish, he won’t catch attention. Tante Heleen will have fewer reasons to raise Inej’s rates. Jesper can barely pay for a visit a month as it is, and even those he allows himself mostly because he’s given up the hope of ever paying off her indenture unless he wins big.

“I snuck out yesterday. I had to see. Heleen got a new girl from Ravka six months ago, and she believes, too. Had a cheap pamphlet with her, last thing she had, of the new Saint. The illustrations… they looked just like Kaz.”

“Fu—” Inej elbows him. Jesper presses his lips into the braid over her ear. “Forget about Kaz Brekker. You’re the only one who matters now. He died, and you ended up here.”

She’s trapped in the Menagerie now because Kaz disappeared into the harbour like so many orphans before him; because he didn’t tell Jesper jack shit about Inej’s situation that might have helped him keep her safe in the Dregs; because he allowed senile Haskell who knows the names of all his five hundred thousand miniature boats and literally nothing else to stay in charge of the Dregs instead of killing him as soon as possible, which allowed Haskell to let the payments for Inej’s indenture lapse, which meant three months after Kaz just disappeared from his life Jesper got back to the Slat to find that Inej, too, had gone without a trace, and it was only luck and a pervert old Dreg that Jesper soon afterwards ‘accidentally’ shoved off a roof talking about the girls at the Menagerie that meant he found her again. Found her, only to realize he can’t help her at all.

Inej pulls Jesper’s ear back to her mouth. “I saw him, Jesper. I saw Kaz. Kaz is alive. He was there. I saw him.”

“You what?!” A sharp elbow darting out of her red sad nightgown that would have slipped right in-between his ribs if it was one of the knives she still mourns, and he’s not even given anything away. Heleen’s a hell bitch, but what use would she get out of random surprise?

“I saw Kaz. He’s the Sun Summoner. I was far away but—it was Kaz, standing next to General Kirigan, holding his hand, when the Merchant’s Council signed the terms of surrender. It was Kaz. I’m certain. Sankt Kaz.”

“I—” Jesper burrows his face into Inej’s hair. “You didn’t happen to have a knife on you, did you? A really tiny one she couldn’t confiscate. A super lethal one. Might never get as good a chance again.”

“Jes—”

“Fuck him sideways with a rusty shovel. That traitor. Did you forget how you ended up here? He left us. Saw a bigger pile of cash and skedaddled, I bet. He always wanted to be king. Guess becoming the Darkling’s queen was the next-best option.”

Inej doesn’t even defend Kaz. Jesper pulls away from her so he can look at her face. She always looks sad these days, unless she has specific painful orders to perk up, but it’s deeper now. She’s not doing the gesture, not holding her hand against her chest. Faith, now, is just one more thing Kaz Brekker took from her. Jesper can’t blame her, even though he never believed. Not even when Ravka’s new ‘Sun Summoner’ started gaining them the whole continent. Power’s power, though, no matter whether the stories around it are true. If Kaz truly is the Sun Summoner, then it’s not just Kaz Brekker who sent her back to the Menagerie—but one of her Saints. Fucking asshole.

He buries Inej in his arms. It’s all he can do now, to hold her until this month’s hour is up, because it’s not like he can just murder the Ravkans special weapon in retribution, can he? Can…

“This changes nothing,” he whispers. “The only priority is still paying off your indenture. Kaz quit the Dregs. He left us, and that means he’s nothing now. Less than nothing. I have a good feeling about the Makker’s Wheel at the Emerald Palace this weekend. Lots of pigeons there for the ‘Fete of Unity with Mother Ravka’ or whatever, and the minder thinks I’m hot. It’s risky, of course, but if I do this right—”

☼

Jesper’s just about to crawl right back out from under the bed—weapons raised, since hell knows what Kaz was planning back there, and fuck Jesper for apparently still harbouring enough trust in the guy to follow his lead two years after he deserted—but then, a series of clicks and rumbles heralds the opening of the door. Footsteps, and it slides shut again.

Shit, that was close.

And Kaz wasn’t bluffing, after all. Well, well… it certainly means something that Kaz, beloved Saint and Sun Summoner and ally to the Darkling, just told his attempted murderer slash old friend and-or stooge to hide. Kaz never did anything without a motive, be it profit or power or vengeance, and even this degraded, polished version surely isn’t so far gone as to engage in ideas as base as altruism. Ergo, Kaz will want to use Jesper for—something, though what is there he wants when he’s basically a prince of—but he isn’t, is he? He’s in a cell. A cell Jesper can unlock.

Three pairs of footsteps move around the room. One of them might be Kaz, but without his limp, it’s hard to recognize him. None of them says a word, which… it probably means this is a routine visit. Whatever’s going on, they all know their role.

Two pairs stop moving, while the third one—circles around them, it sounds like, and then someone else stumbles a little and catches themselves. Jesper hopes they’ll hurry up. He’s in mortal danger, technically—Kaz can still choose to reveal the intruder inside the Sun Summoner’s private room and-orprison, but, prison. Jesper’s far more useful alive, and so, hiding under the bed is fucking boring.

There’s not even anything interesting in-between the slat frame and the mattress. It’s the only place where you could hide anything—that Jesper can think of, at least, but there’s just nothing there at all, and Kaz used to be a real magpie. It’s a gaping void, just like everything else in this room. Like everything else in this palace, a chasm painted over with gilt and power. Unless—something’s stuck to the underside of a cross brace. Jesper slides a fingernail under the edge, and it comes loose easily enough. Not exactly a cache worthy of Dirtyhands, and anyway, it’s just a… a mangled piece of paper. A paper that looks like it’s been chewed on and spat out—and an entire corner actually torn off, or bitten, maybe—and whatever used to be printed onto it mostly rubbed off except for a couple of letters here and there, RAV. Curved lines and tiny hats. What would Kaz need to hide in his room? Apart from weapons he doesn’t have. Other people’s jewellery, dito. The only thing that Jesper knows about him now is that he’s trying to open the door. Trying to leave. It’s probably a map, then.

Which means an escape is planned, and Jesper’s just providing the desperately sought means. Good. That means he should have even more leverage here.

Somebody stumbles again, this time taking two steps to catch themselves. Almost as if they’ve jerked away.

“You’re falling behind,” slimes the smooth, rich voice of the Darkling. “On second thought, our people would miss you at the celebration. I’ll inform the staff that you wish to dance, all night long.”

☼

“You’re hanging around here because you heard that General Kirigan and the Sun Summoner are due back this hour, aren’t you?” The woman in a tidemaker’s kefta that just sidled up to Jesper speaks unaccented, high class central Ravkan. Even if her dark skin is an indication of Zemeni heritage, she came to the Little Palace long before the Darkling’s recent territorial acquisitions. She’s no ally, just like the rest of the crowd that surrounds them: an old-school Grisha, veteran Second Army, not someone whose loyalties may yet be pliable. Not someone like Jesper, whose skin started crawling the moment he showed his skills to a Ravkan occupation officer so he could sneak into the Little Palace. She’s friendly, though, and looks at Jesper’s face with clear appreciation. “You must be new. Hi. I’m Nadia.”

“Jesper,” he says, throwing a flirtatious grin like a blanket over his nerves and anger. It’s almost fun, playing the suave infiltrator assassin Grisha. Except Inej’s still in the Menagerie. And Kaz is still a piece of shit. “Yeah, I just got here! They didn’t test for Grisha ability in Novyi Zem when I was little, so I barely knew who I was… but once I heard about the Darkling, about this place, I crossed the True Sea as soon as I could!”

“That must have been so hard. So lonely. This place is…” She grimaces. “This place was our sanctuary. You’re lucky you’re Materialnik.”

“Why?” It’s the first time since his arrival that anyone’s had even a neutral opinion of Durasts, let alone good, and granted, it’s not like he cares that much about the ability his Ma died from, and he’s only talked to a dozen people since arriving yesterday, but…

“Listen, I know you want to see the Sun Summoner, and don’t tell anyone I said this but…” Nadia pulls Jesper a few paces away from the crowd on the training grounds, into a corner formed by two enormous bales of hay. Well-chosen: he can barely see the crowd that just surrounded them peek out behind the yellow stalks. “You’re sweet—”

“Listen, you’re gorgeous, but we just met—although, on second—”

“No!” She laughs, but it’s bitter. “You’re cute, but no. It’s my duty, to her, to protect you. The new ones. You’re Materialnik, so you’re not combat, so you’re not going to actually meet the Sun Summoner. Ever, if you’re lucky.”

“He’s that bad?” Kaz was always a dick, if Jesper’s honest—it was part of his charm—he was just a charming magnetic one, and back with the Dregs Jesper hated his ruthlessness just as much as he admired it. He was worst to his fellow Dregs and his enemies, though: he could charm a mark when needed. So it’s a tad unexpected that Kaz earned himself the hatred of a Grisha indoctrinated from childhood to see him as her Saint and saviour. Apparently, he’s just that talented. That obnoxious.

Well, Jesper’s not complaining. That makes his plan much easier.

“He killed my best friend,” Nadia whispers urgently. “The last time I saw her they were taking a walk, and then I found her, blisters and burns all over her body. Who else? There’s a reason he’s not allowed to have weapons. I heard the Darkling doesn’t let him go anywhere alone, or he would murder us all. He killed Baghra too, I’m sure—she was our teacher, but she disappeared two years ago. Just stay away from him, alright? He looks harmless, but he’s a rabid dog. Oh. There he comes.”

Jesper barely manages to whisper, “Thank you,” before she pulls away from him and returns to her previous place. Back to the crowd of Etherealki and Corporalki on the training field, but she finds her place in the last row, standing—hiding—behind two men much taller than her.

Jesper follows into the crowd. No need to alert Kaz that the past is hot on his heels, and then—

Well. There he is.

There someoneis, anyway.

If Jesper trusted Inej just a hair’s breadth less, he’d have cursed her and sneaked back out of the Little Palace the second he sees the person holding General Kirigan’s hand. Sure, the Sun Summoner is male, with dark brown hair and dark eyes and pale skin, and just a little bit taller than Kaz was at fifteen, but that’s where the similarities end. Dirtyhands had his impeccable mercher’s suits in a grim mockery of Ketterdam’s upper class, and gloves to feed the rumours, and a cane to walk and kill. His hair managed to be at once floppy and severe; just like his gaunt face, in the right light, made him look utterly captivating and not just like an annoyed scheming rat. He looked exactly like the Bastard of the Barrel should. Not pleasant or easy, but the person Jesper once would have followed into any lion’s den.

This—this Sun Summoner, on Kirigan’s arm, is beautiful. Healthful. Pristine.

Barely even a fucking person.

It’s the face, mostly.

You could never tell what Kaz was thinking, just looking at him, because he was, after all, thinking in layers upon layers of incomprehensible schemes at all times of the day and then went to bed and dreamt about ploys and deceptions. Jesper could barely follow him the three times total he deigned to explain part of his plans. But you could always tell that Kaz was thinking. Planning, scheming, plotting his greedy bloody vicious way out of and into every possible house on every possible street.

The Sun Summoner looks empty. He’s staring straight ahead, but he’s not even doing thatwith any kind of purpose. He’s like a pet on the Darkling’s arm. He looks more airheaded than all blackout drunk heirs and heiresses in Ketterdam combined.

It’s incredibly eerie, because now he’s searching for it Jesper can sort of read Kaz Brekker back into the Sun Summoner’s face. This face is much smoother, without the marks of past firepox, plumped and rosy-tinted, but that might partially just be a testament to the quality of Ravkan cooks—or, how skint the Dregs always were. He has a normal haircut. It probably suits him better, unless your standard for beauty is Dirtyhands, and unfortunately Jesper—anyway. The Sun Summoner doesn’t have a cane, either, and he doesn’t need one, apparently, because he isn’t limping. Ravkan royal healthcare, but honestly, Kaz could have pressed a Grisha healer into service back in Ketterdam only he always insisted—well, whatever. Fuck his words of wisdom. Fuck him. Fuck Kaz. Jesper shouldn’t even be remembering that snake.

Kaz Brekker betrayed Inej, left her to rot in the Menagerie, so whatever role he’s playing right now in whatever scheme this is—because it has to be a scheme that put Kaz into the yellow robe he’s in right now, so thin it’s translucent, and sleeveless too in the Ravkan winter. The Dregs tattoo on his arm is gone. Two Inferni are flanking him and the Darkling, their hands perpetually on fire just so Kaz can parade about in a robe no Menagerie slave would go outside in, but still, it’s Kaz. It’s definitely Kaz Brekker. Jesper can see it now.

Fuck him. He traded the Dregs for this. He abandoned them to Haskell’s mismanagement and let Inej go back to the Menagerie. He betrayed them all.

(Of course, Jesper abandoned Inej now too, and without a word, but—after that last catastrophic loss in the Emerald Palace, there’s a zero percent chance the Dime Lions wouldn’t have strung him up by his own entrails—or sold him into indenture, trying to make back at least a fraction of the fifty thousand kruge he owes—so really, he had no choice. It’s the next best thing, right? If he can’t help her anymore, at least he can kill the bastard that started all their troubles.)

Kaz just walks off, hand in the Darkling’s grasp, towards the Little Palace. Carelessly following the other man’s lead.

The old Kaz would have noticed Jesper.

☼

Footsteps and then, a series of clicks and pieces of wood and metal rubbing stones. The door. Kaz’s legs, taking steps backwards to the bed in a perfect, healthy gait. The rich soft creaking of the bed as he sinks down again, and in front of Jesper—the same two muscular, pale, bare, identical hairy calves. Like the legs of a statue, or one of those de Kappels he used to like, except the right leg is trembling finely. Barely noticeable if it wasn’t right in front of Jesper’s face. Those Ravkans maybe aren’t so crafty after all.

Then: nothing.

After what feels like an hour in which Jesper doesn’t dare move, even though the Darkling must have left already, a hand drops off the edge off the mattress. Middle and index finger erect, then crooking twice in quick succession. It takes a moment to connect. Jesper hasn’t seen those signals in such a—move, path clear. Yes. That’s what it was.

Jesper wriggles out from under the bed, annoyingly free of dust. Pristine. Empty, just like everything else.

“Didn’t think the Sun Summoner needed to use our secret code, boss,” he drawls up at Kaz from the floor. Kaz, with his barren black eyes and his new porcelain doll face, picking at the wide open collar of his yellow shirt.

“Never drop a tool you can still use,” Kaz says. A beat. “Didn’t think I was your boss anymore.”

“You aren’t.” Jesper turns his head away, looking at the spotless floor and the intricately painted walls from his low vantage point. Exquisite, imposing, empty: a Saint’s cage, as beautiful and terrible as Inej’s room in the Menagerie. The bare wall hiding the inaccessible door. “That guy really fucking hates you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. Jesper turns his head back to watch him again, even though that won’t give him anything more: Kaz used to be willfully inscrutable even back in the Barrel, but after whatever Grisha surgery they did to him, there are only traces left of the real person trapped inside him. Dollface, Jesper thinks again. Who’d have expected they’d turn fucking Dirtyhands into a dollface?

It’s Kaz who turns away, fingers clawed into his neckline. His voice is rough, even if it’s a shadow of the damaged rasp that used to be him. “I thought about it sometimes, back then. The first time.”

Every fibre of Jesper’s being wants to interrupt with, What are you talking about? I don’t speak cryptic anymore. I’m out of practice. He should get off the floor, raise his guns, resume—but whatever it is, whether it’s some stupid new Grisha power, whether it’s zowa, or his memory of Kaz is just coming back, he doesn’t—

“It was like this. I was on my bed already, usually, when it grew hard—and I thought you would be up for not being on the bed, and there wasn’t much else in my room. I imagined watching you. I didn’t touch it. That was better.”

Uh. What.

“He probably knows I threw up after we—I tried to hide it. I thought I could manipulate him into seeing me as his partner, I thought I’d healed, that I’d practiced enough—but he just saw that I was still weak. He saw he could control me. But if he didn’t do it again because I threw up, I’m—”

He was right. Jesper would have stayed on the cold hard floor back then for him. Even now, Jesper would crawl around like a worm jerking off for the fucking asshole he got himself trapped in the Little Palace to murder, if that meant Kaz never had to—

Kaz pulls the neckline of his flimsy thin single ugly yellow shirt closed. The shirt that doesn’t protect him. The shirt he didn’t choose.

☼

Jesper’s imagined the Sun Summoner’s quarters, of course. Most of the Grisha in the Little Palace are wretched gossips—or Jesper’s been charming as many people into spilling as many secrets as possible to him so he can plan his attack, same difference—and anyway, he needs a backdrop for his imagined kill shots. It’s Kaz Brekker, after all. Dirtyhands. The ex-Bastard. You’d want to rehearse that death. Think of some witty one-liners.

Nadia said it was gorgeous inside, like a dollhouse. Lizaveta, who Jesper’s been told to shadow so he can learn how to become a proper Durast, insisted it’s totally empty. Grzegorz said there were live kittens inside, so the Sun Summoner could sate his lust for innocent blood, Sayyna thought there was a giant swimming pool, and a lovely naïve boy from the edge of the permafrost up at the former border insisted it was just like the quarters of all other Grisha, except with a little more privacy. Since they’re all siblings fighting for a world that will be kind to Grisha.

Jesper, privately, imagined a few stolen paintings and a mishmash of furniture. Because he’s an idiot.

This is just like—

If it is the Sun Summoner’s bedroom at all. It should be. Jesper did his homework: he followed the Darkling and his Sun Summoner creature that wears the skin used to house Kaz, and a variety of Materialniks, to the end of this specific corridor, five times in total. Watched the Materialniks unlock a hidden mechanism, and then the two most powerful men in Ravka—in all charted countries, ruling everything this side of the True Sea but pockets of Shu Han and even that’s a matter of time—they walked inside, hand in hand. The Darkling always left, after a while, alone, and so it only made sense to assume that the hidden room that Jesper just snuck up to and unlocked is, in fact, the Sun Summoner’s room. Kaz’ room. It’s the best time for breaking into it, too. There’s going to be a party in two days, so hopefully everyone’s too busy, and even if the Sun Summoner’s out doing preparations then Jesper can just hide in here and kill him in an ambush. That’s probably easier, actually.

First, though, he locks and hides the door again, because… yeah, he went to Ravka expecting to get caught. At some point. This is a suicide mission for revenge, after all—suicide is in in the title. But it’s no fun if he gets caught before the gory glorious revenge part. Before Kaz admits he was a piece of shit. Both guns cocked and ready, he turns around, and actually inspects the room he broke into.

No. Nothing changes, even when he blinks and blinks again. That wasn’t a faulty first impression.

The room still looks like a fucking prison cell.

A fancy, clean cell, but a cell nonetheless. It’s empty except for the bed, and Jesper owes Lizaveta more money than he has on him (though to be fair, technically, Jesper’s fifty thousand kruge in debt anyway, so does it really make a difference at all if he’s a few Ravkan coins more in the red), and even the windows—Jesper’s had enough training now that he can look at the windows and see the subtly reinforcing mesh inside the glass. No curtains. No curtain rods. Nothing—there’s a subtle mesh inside the bedclothes too and the frame of the bed looks far too sturdy to be torn apart by anyone who isn’t a skilled Materialnik. There are meshes in front of the fireplaces.

Nothing in here that can be used as a weapon.

Not against others, and not against oneself.

No escape.

There’s nothing in this stark white massive room but a person, acting like he never did before and still looking more like himself than when he was walking through the training grounds. It’s probably the distance from other people. He’s got his back to Jesper and he’s in the furthest corner from the door, which should be a tactical misstep because he can’t escape from there but really—it’s as good as any other location, in this room. There’s nothing of use to anyone left, not even to someone as shrewd as Dirtyhands used to be before he lobotomized himself into the Sun Summoner. Or before he was—

Kaz pushes himself up from his kneeling position using the walls he faces. He mutters, “I beg your forgiveness for keeping you waiting, Aleks.” His voice sounds odd.

“Are you crying?”

“Jesper?!”

Kaz turns so quickly he has to brace himself against the wall again lest he fall over. His translucent shirt ripples. His dark eyes in his weird new too-handsome face trace over Jesper, again and again. If they were fingers, Jesper would feel like he’s being caressed. No, that’s the wrong thought. A thought from a book he won’t admit he’s read. Jesper’s got his guns out. He came here for a reason. A bloody, glorious reason.

“Inej wouldn’t want me to do this, but she’s locked up in the fucking Menagerie,” he announces, just to see whether Kaz can feel even a shred of guilt. “Just so you could be a Ravkan prince in ugly yellow lingerie.”

“Just follow my—”

No, then. Or maybe it’s just the new face Jesper can’t read. Not that it matters. “Shut up. Do you remember what you told me when I joined the Dregs? About what you’d do to traitors? Well, I have added a couple of my own ideas.”

“Shut up, Jesper. You can monologue when we’re done, but—”

Jesper aims right between his weird, smooth pebble eyes. “When you left us, you knew it would all go to shit. Inej’s in the Menagerie, and there’s no way to get her out again. Haskell let the Dregs collapse after you disappeared. No Dregs, no kru—”

Kaz flinches. “Quick. Get under the bed. Now.”

Whether it’s surprise, a sex instinct, or—far worse—a lingering sense of loyalty, Jesper obeys instantly.

☼

“We’re lost,” Jesper moans. They’ve been surrounded by trees for four days. He’s not even sure they’re trudging vaguely southwards anymore. Everything looks the same. What wouldn’t Jesper give to be back in Ketterdam already, with its lovely street names and pedestrians and garish landmarks (and gangsters about to string him up), or at least somewhere in Novyi Zem where he sort of understands the landscape. Or what’s left of Shu Han, so Kaz can unclench.

“We’re not lost,” Kaz rasps. “Keep going.”

“How do you—the map.” The half-chewed-up map hidden under Kaz’ bed, the map he snuck into his coat—Jesper’s kefta, whatever—even though he probably already knows it by heart.

“Yes. The map.”

“Why the fuck are you telling me to choose where we’re going if you’re memorized the map?!” What an asshole. Jesper just clean forgot what a piece of shit Kaz is. He forgot it so utterly he’s helping him break out of Ravka, without even extracting anything in return. He’s a fucking idiot. “Is it so you can blame me when we get caught?”

Kaz, the dick, rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t I rather not get caught at all? Think, Jesper—what’s the one advantage you have over me?”

“I’m prettier,” Jesper shoots back. “My winning personality. I have a better tolerance for hard liquor. Fashion sense. I’m funny. No, wait—I’m a much more generous lover.”

“He doesn’t know you,” Kaz hisses, making the pronoun sound even more slimy than the guy it’s referring to, which is honestly quite a feat. “Do you think this is my first attempt? He’ll send people to every single route out of his core territory that poses any advantages. He has enough soldiers for that. What he doesn’t have, though, is enough soldiers to watch every route your bird-brain might pick at random.”

And then, he stalks ahead viciously. No. Limps ahead.

It’s been growing much more pronounced over the days. At first, even without a cane he walked just like any person with two healthy legs, and that’s what Jesper expected. The Ravkans healed their Saint’s leg, didn’t they? That’s what they would do. Only Kaz can think around enough corners to make his bad leg into an advantage. But with every passing day, Kaz’ gait has grown closer to what Jesper remembers from back before the world went to shit. Kaz was touchy about accommodations back then, though, or people being nice in general, so Jesper hasn’t even brought up improvising a new cane. All he’s dared to do is slowing down his own steps to what he remembers would have matched Kaz, back then.

And insisting on taking breaks. Like he does now.

“It’s almost night, you refuse to make light despite being made of sunshine, and I’m hungry,” he complains.

“I’d assume that Ketterdam has made you soft,” Kaz rasps, “o cherished crown jewel of crime and commerce, and what’s the difference.” He limps back to the fallen tree that Jesper has chosen as their camp site, though, so he must be a just few steps short of utter collapse.

Jesper unwraps the two woollen blankets he’s been carrying on his shoulders. They didn’t get a chance to steal much, mostly because Kaz was a prick about it and didn’t even let Jesper go back to his room: apparently there was time for Kaz to fold up a paper bag into a facsimile of an envelope and write an address in Djerholm onto it and have Jesper talk a stable-hand into riding out to deliver it, right now, but no time to search anywhere else for supplies. They took just whatever they found in the stables, which amounted to extra coats, some boots, the blankets, and horse feed. And gloves. Kaz declared it was time to run as soon as he’d found gloves.

Balefully, Jesper chews on his oats. Even wrapped in his blanket, the night is cold, and Kaz—who’s still wearing nothing but underpants besides the robe/gloves/Jesper’s kefta/stolen coat combo and ill-fitting boots without socks—is shivering violently.

“We should steal you some real clothes from the next house we see,” Jesper mutters. “And some decent food.”

“We’re not stealing anything until we’re in Shu.”

They’ve had this argument before. Jesper shouldn’t be as thrilled about that as he is. There’s no way to resolve it, until they find the border—or until Kaz keels over from hypothermia, because then even his rational fear of detection won’t keep Jesper from finding some trousers. For the time being, though—

“I’m going to sit closer and steal your body heat. In exchange, you can wrap my blanket around your legs.”

Kaz glares. He can do it masterfully again: just like the limp snuck back as soon as he left the Little Palace, his face over the days grew thin and pockmarked. Vicious. Jesper’s commited it to memory, in case Oily, Tall and Dark steals it again.

“If you freeze to death tonight, this was all for nothing. I could be sleeping in a palace right now. Well, a dingy side house, with the other Materialniks, but joke’s on them. This whole escape would have been much more complicated if I’d been a Squaller. Or a Sun Summoner, who refuses to even use his power to warm us up.”

“Leave it.” Kaz runs a finger roughly over where his collarbone should be, and he shudders. The temperature, or something worse, some new pain he’s not revealing—but carefully, he leans his blanketed side against Jesper, and allows Jesper to throw his own blanket over him, too.

“I’ll make you a new cane tomorrow. With a head, too, if we can scavenge enough metal from the buttons. Not a crow. You haven’t earned that until we free Inej, but maybe… a worm.”

“That’s just a stick,” Kaz mutters. “Go to sleep.”

Easy for him to say: Kaz is taking the first watch, and so he’s not balancing on a fallen log in the cold without a blanket, trying to fall asleep sitting up while leaning against Kaz’ shoulder with as little contact surface as physically possible. After some hours or minutes, though, Jesper’s suffering is too much for even Kaz to handle. Who knew there was a limit! Who knew Kaz had heard of mercy! Maybe he just doesn’t like Jesper wriggling next to him. He fists a lock of Jesper’s curls and pulls his head down into his lap.

“I didn’t help you because I want to fuck you, just so you’re aware,” Jesper jokes, because this is actually—it’s actually almost comfortable curling up on the fallen tree with his head on the blanket on Kaz’ thighs, even though there’s the remnants of a branch digging into his hip and they’re on the run from all Grisha in the world and also the new, expanded Ravka that covers nearly every country on this continent and Inej’s still imprisoned and if they actually manage to get back to Ketterdam, Jesper’s going to be in so much shit. And still, it’s… “I mourned you, you know, when Haskell told me you’d died. I wasn’t just angry because the Dregs were a shambles without you.”

Kaz is quiet. Jesper sort of wishes he’d touch his hair again, or his shoulder—and he never seemed to have any trouble touching the Darkling, so what, is Jesper not good enough—but he also looked like a void back there, like in order to endure it maybe he had to smother—

“That’s not why I mentioned that fantasy back there,” says Kaz, lyingly. Sure. He just happened to invoke Jesper’s obvious past crush for no reason whatsoever. The awfully convenient infatuation Jesper didn’t have sense nor skill to hide back then. Kaz is exactly the kind of person who’d exploit someone’s first love. The person who’s realize, long before Jesper did, that maybe, he’s not actually completely over—but maybe that wasn’t the important bit then. It went on. And that story about the Darkling—

“You thought I’d help you out of pity?” Jesper would have done, if he hadn’t been so angry—if he hadn’t been already so freaked out by the placid expression, the clothes that looked expressly designed to torture the Kaz he knew, the cell… It wasn’t pity. What is it you feel when a person you knew—maybe not his secrets or his past or his thoughts or what trouble he just dragged you into because he’s a secretive dick, but still, you knew him, it was burned into your heart, his movements and the codes he taught you and just when a heist was about to trigger one of his fears he’d never mentioned and you needed to get him out now… What do you feel, when that person comes back from the dead, and comes back wrong. Like a stag with too many tongues inside its mouths and its hands locked behind its throat. Except the other way round, because Kaz Brekker was terrifying, and what he was made into or what pretended to be was only scary because it wasn’t. Anyway. Kaz is a manipulative commandeering asshole again, so it doesn’t matter. “You despise pity.”

“It’s a tool, just like everything else. One he couldn’t take. And pride just gave me—pity got me out of the Little Palace, didn’t it?”

“Something did.” Jesper tips his non-existent hat, and Kaz slaps the top of his head to make him stop wriggling. He keeps the hand there this time, knotted tight in Jesper’s hair. It stings, but it’s also… Jesper closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep before inevitably, it’ll leave.

“Pride. It was my fault.” Kaz’ voice almost sounds the way it did back home. Harsh, vicious—and damaged. Human. “I thought I could bear it. He was—the Sun Summoner could have no weaknesses, he said, nothing for our enemies to use, and I allowed myself to think… ‘our’ enemies. I practiced. It was easier, after a while, to bear touch. I thought—it seemed like the best option, to stand at his side, and to make him see me as his partner I should… I was tired of being a prisoner. I thought I could use him.”

That’s bad enough, but… “But you’re limping again,” Jesper hisses. “If he’s forming you like a clay doll to make you his perfect Sun Summoner, he should have started with healing you.”

“They did, when I first came to the Palace. I didn’t want—but I learned to accept it. After my first escape, he broke it again, personally. Had it tailored over, afterwards, every few days. Incentive for cooperation.”

There’s nothing Jesper can do to fix this stagnant, lifeless voice. He could hug Inej, at least, but this—

“It’s what I would have done, too. He was just better than me, and he didn’t need another one, so he had to change me.”

“By dressing you up and making you look like a doll. If you tell me it was a sex thing, at least I could—no, still couldn’t relate. His taste’s shit. That beauty was pretty ugly,” Jesper mutters into Kaz’ thighs.

Kaz pulls at his hair again—probably a rebuke, but the sting travels down Jesper’s spine to—well, it’s time to change the subject rather quickly. What’s there to… oh yeah, his head’s on a blanket. That’ll do. “I just had a great idea,” he says, and—yeah, his voice is still completely normal and steady. A little loud, maybe. Kaz hasn’t moved his hand away, though, so it can’t be too obvious.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Fuck off, my bright idea of breaking into the centre of Grishadom to kill you in a murder-suicide attack because what else was I going to do, let the Dime Lions grind me between millstones to press out the fifty thousand kruge I may perhaps still owe them—”

“You what?!”

Jesper powers on, because that’s really a conversation best left for when he’s not lying in a forest with his head in Kaz’ lap and trying to forget, desperately, the way it felt when Kaz pulled his hair. The way it feels when he does it again. “I’m just saying, it saved you. You’re welcome. So anyway. We only have one pair of trousers. I was going to suggest we alternate wearing mine, but we both know I wouldn’t get them back.”

“Your so-called idea is… interesting,” Kaz mutters, voice almost pulled asunder trying for both disturbed and mocking. “But I’m far more interested to hear about the fact you skipped out of Ketterdam without paying your debts. A crime punishable by death in every gang. Every gang in Ketterdam, the city where you want us to go.”

And yeah, that’s occurred to Jesper, but… “That’s a problem for later. You’ll think of something, boss, if we make it that far. You always have a plan. For now… I wouldn’t—well, I would carry you if your legs freeze off, but it wouldn’t be fun for either of us, so… You sewed yourself up constantly back home, and I’d wager sewing is just like swimming. Once you know, you can never forget.”

“Skills are useless if you lack every materia—Jes—”

“Yeah, I definitely can turn a button into a needle now. We just need to tear the second blanket into some vaguely trouser-shaped pieces, and for thread—well, we could just tear up your Sun Summoner robe, it’s useless anyway.”

“Jesper,” Kaz rasps again.

“I’m a genius?”

“No, you’re still an idiot. Why not, though?”

☼

Kaz Brekker disappeared between Sunday and Tuesday night. That’s all Jesper knows, and it’s that precise only because Kaz has been experimenting with the payroll recently. Apparently, handing out wages on late Tuesday maximizes the chances of flushing as much money as possible back into the coffers of Dregs-owned establishments, and he’s also taken to handing out the money personally. Some weird power play that Haskell hasn’t yet forbidden: everyone knows Kaz barely bothers to keep his accomplices informed about the job they’re currently doing, and the big boss tolerates him mostly because Dirtyhands is still more useful insubordinate than dead.

It’s Wednesday now, though. Wednesday afternoon.

And Jesper still hasn’t gotten paid.

Kaz is gone.

Jesper’s in Haskell’s office, inquiring about everyone’s money. Too irritated by the games of Makker’s Wheel he was forced to miss out on last night to perform anything but the most pro forma I remember my boss’ boss is technically my boss and can kill me pleasantries. Instead of promising to kick Kaz’ ass, though, like Jesper hoped, Haskell just tells him Pasko will give him his wages tomorrow.

Haskell won’t say anything else. Just, “That boy got himself mixed up in something he couldn’t handle alone, and it fucked him. You won’t like what you find, when you go looking for the dead.”