#awnfjhoadfnhoja omg no man i'm living for this!

[greedbent]

Kaz Brekker had made a mistake.

To the masses, that was practically impossible. Every move he made was calculated, having long considered all options as meticulously as any skilled swordsman cared for his equipment—making sure everything worked perfectly, accounting for any weaknesses in his armor before diving headfirst into battle . . . That was, after all, how Dirtyhands preferred to be seen. Oftentimes all it took to keep someone well under his thumb was the fear of him always being a hundred steps ahead. They couldn’t so much as wriggle without him knowing and having a retaliation that would hurt so much more—no matter how quick or slow it came.

People thought of Inej as his spider: she could crawl anywhere, get him any information he needed, but at the end of it all . . .

He would always be the one in the middle of the web waiting for his moment to strike. And when he made his mistakes, he mended the tears in that web before anyone could see them. He compensated. He created a new tangle, a new distraction, redirected his enemy’s attention before they ever noticed he’d lost his footing and nearly tumbled through one of the yawning gaps.

Kaz Brekker made mistakes people usually never saw.

Until now. When such a mistake mattered enough that he couldn’t risk making it— But he had.

It was clumsy. Unacceptable. Deserving of more than just a slap on the wrist. Tartaglia caught him off-guard in ways he always did. Kaz never struggled to dig his fingers into someone’s sore spots, never came across anyone who didn’t have at least one to exploit: the one thing that would always get them on their knees if pressed just right. But Tartaglia had never been easy. He was impulsive. He was as feral as a rabid dog, someone who couldn’t be saved and should be put out of his misery (only that he wasn’t in misery at all, but thrived in the chaos). He was an unpredictable whirlwind as much as Kaz attempted to wrangle it, to hone the unpredictability into a predictability. And that was where the mistakes happened.

Kaz couldn’t reason with insanity.

Even the weak points of that chaos were more of a trigger to an explosion than a means of controlling the creature inside; no, if he pushed Tartaglia’s buttons, he wouldn’t get his cooperation. Kaz had his modesty where he needed it; he knew the Harbinger would have no reason not to gut him right here and now if he wasn’t careful.

—and Dirtyhands had plenty of work to do before he was ready to die.

Mentally, Kaz stepped back from that cage. He removed his hands from between the bars where he had been taunting the beast. And his next exhale came tight, hardly much of a relief—as if he’d expelled a mere fraction of the breath now caught and burning in his lungs. As much as he despised this . . . he backed off. (The rabid dog wasn’t his enemy more so than he was an obstacle.)

“Fine,” he said, tone crisp and final. “Then I need you to first start being honest about the job you’re asking of us.” And as much as he despised meeting that icy leer across from him, Kaz still held it unwaveringly. His jaw tightened, but he continued. “The Fatui don’t go sniffing about for random and unassuming valuables like treasure hoarders; some of you are a bit more sophisticated than that.” Some of you was very deliberately directed at the creature sitting here with him. “The artifact in question doesn’t just crumble to dust when it’s dropped. Tell me what’s so special about it and what sort of danger I’m putting my ‘kids’ in.”

It would be a fair assessment to call both men seated at this table ruthless. Truth be told, it was the only reason Childe found his current company at all tolerable to deal with. For at his core, Kaz was just as insufferable as the other Harbingers: always plotting and scheming, more likely to play the long con with everyone he met than simply eliminate problems head-on. From the moment he'd sat down, Childe knew the shrewd stare across from him studied everything. Kaz's (usually) unflinching stoicism was a veil for cogs that never stopped turning.

That was where the two men seated at this table differed.

Childe's sharp gaze did not seek out weakness for the sake of a scheme. When prey exposed its throat, he did not use the opportunity to tie a leash around it to control and exploit at a later time. No, he latched on with his teeth.

The slip in Kaz's composure was only the briefest instant—but that was enough for the ferocity in Childe's blood to target that weak point. Heh, and he hadn't even been trying to earn a rise. How sloppy.

But Childe's (admittedly pointless) veil of civility had its flaws, as well. The less-than-subtle, deliberate taunt in Kaz's "follow-up query" stretched the corners of his grin just a fraction too wide. Teetering on a knife's edge of which Kaz's words tested the sharpness.

"I have no problem with you asking questions that are relevant to the job at hand. However, I don't see how that could possibly be of any concern to you when you stand to profit either way. Besides, I believe I just finished explaining why I'm a poor fit for the job." If he undertook the task himself, there would be blood and destruction...much like what would become of this very tavern if the man across from him didn't tread very carefully.

Shaking his head, Childe tsked as if scolding a literal bearer of his namesake. "Were you even listening to my proposal? And you call yourself a professional." Spreading his hands wide, his gaze once again lazily traversed the room, this time spurred by boredom. "If you have any legitimate questions, you'd better ask them now. Otherwise, this offer has a time limit—as much as I'd love to spend all evening indulging you, I have a few debts to collect before the night is over."

When he leveled the other again, Childe's stare was solid ice: a testament to the ruthlessness at his core. "Unless you'd like to give your wraith the chance to ask her own questions—now that would be worth my time, if the real professional could join us. After all, she's really the one who's services I'd be enlisting." He inclined his chin. Brazen. Inviting retaliation. "Or does everything have to go through Daddy for approval? Can't have your kids making any decisions on their own, now can you?"