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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years ago

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They've Made of Our Bodies a Bleeding Stair

Jesper and Kaz try to retrieve Inej from Ketterdam without being recognized and murdered—and without Kaz getting ransomed back to Ravka as the the wayward Sun Summoner.

11k | Sun Summoner Kaz AU pt. 2 | Jesper/Kaz, Inej, past Kaz/Darkling content note: non-linear narrative, explicit sex, roleplay of past rape

“I want you to be him.”

“Of course,” Jesper replies. Then, articulately, once his brain’s caught up, “Uh. What?”

“The Darkling.” Kaz has turned his face away. He’s looking at the ramshackle marriage bed that takes up the bulk of this room he’s lured Jesper into. He unerringly picked the right closed door, too; he skipped the squeaky floorboards, as if he knew the exact layout of this—but it’s Kaz. He knows everything, even some dilapidated house in the Kerch countryside. The bed was probably a masterpiece of craftsmanship, when it was carved from some dark wood, a thousand years ago or whatever. The way it looks, it must’ve been old already when the previous owners of this farmhouse got it, and from the state of the house, they abandoned this place decades ago. Quite a lot of the furniture’s missing, either sold off when the place was left or stolen afterwards, but that bed was too worthless already.

The mattress is still there too. Probably fucking teeming with moth larvae and maggots and their combined accumulated shit, so it doesn’t bode too well for Jesper, how forcefully Kaz is staring at it.

“Please say it doesn’t involve the bed.”

“You said yes,” Kaz rasps, which is all the information Jesper needs to start gagging. Fake-gagging, for now, but if he sees even one wriggly little worm he’ll…

Bed. Darkling. That still doesn’t really… Want you to be him—oh—

“Yes, Jesper.” And how the hell with his ramrod tense back still turned towards Jesper—Jesper, who’s done nothing at all, hasn’t said anything except to register his displeasure at the idea of bathing in insect faeces and their squirming little manufacturers!—how the hell Kaz has realized that Jesper’s figured out what he probably means—it must be a confidence trick. Kaz likes those. But how—yeah, it’s not the point, but trying to understand whatever magic Kaz is using on him right now is much, much better for Jesper’s sanity than dwelling on the fact that Kaz might just have insinuated that he wants Jesper to pretend to be the Darkling, specifically the Darkling from that time he told Jesper about back in the Little Palace, the time he threw up after. The time he thought he could suppress his discomfort with touch long enough to seduce the Darkling into a partnership—seduce seduce, which means he wants—to flirt with Jesper? To sleep with Jesper? Is he actually saying he—

Oh. There’s a cracked mirror on the wall above the bed. That’s how Kaz saw his face.

Jesper would chalk the hallucination up to a hangover, but he’s not even drunk. Neither is Kaz, unless this old ruin of a farmhouse they broke into this morning is hiding barrels of wine the local youth haven’t made off with yet. Also, if he was hallucinating Kaz propositioning him he would—well, Jesper at least hopes he’d have enough self-respect not to make himself a stand-in for the man who bought and imprisoned Kaz for two years, controlled him by using his fears and modifying his body and cutting him off from every other person in the whole court, taking every single object he could have used to protect himself, and whatever those weird spines in Kaz’ chest are he’s probably responsible for them too. Jesper would not, actually, like the first and probably only time he’s allowed to kiss Kaz to be some kind of revenge-by-proxy thing where he recites the Darkling’s lines while Kaz swallows back bile, and then Kaz beats him up. Or murders him. It’s pathetic, but Jesper always imagined that kiss a little sweeter. Kissing over Haskell’s corpse. Kissing over the Darkling’s corpse. Kissing over the corpse of some other piece of shit who’s stupid enough to try using Kaz as their possession.

“Just warning you, I don’t have the costume or the script, so don’t expect something worthy of the Komedie Brute,” is what Jesper says instead.

Kaz’ eyebrow quirks. “You’re acted before, haven’t you? Improvised. You can flirt your way into anything. That was the main reason I kept you around.”

“You kept me around because I’m gorgeous, funny, and an incredible shot. I just play myself, if it’s seduction! Why would I improve upon perfection?”

“This isn’t seduction. He’s already locked me in the Little Palace for months at this point. Two escape attempts have failed. This is… speeding up the process,” Kaz says, nonchalantly enough it makes Jesper want to puke.

Which won’t help anything. He’s already agreed. And Kaz doesn’t care about moral objections, only practical ones. “I need more info. I haven’t actually met the Darkling.”

“You’ve met powerful men. You’ve met men who believe their righteous cause entitles them. You’ve met men mired in greed and vengeance—you’ve met me.”

“I like you.”

“Pretend you don’t, then. You used to complain about me in the Slat—of course I know, I knew everything that went on in the Dregs. You hated the way I seemed to know everything, and held it over you—so does he. You disliked my single-minded focus, the way you all seemed like pawns to me, my mockery. The way I held myself as something far superior to you. That’s a start.” Kaz limps a slow quarter circle around Jesper, and his dark eyes are burning with loathing. Jesper would hold him if he could. “You’re not asking why?”

“Uh, now that you mention—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jesper sighs. Of course. He’s never expected anything else. Then he stands up straight, assuming his best the stick in my ass is so long it’s knocked the word fun from my brain pose that hopefully may pass for authoritative and slimes out, “What business, Mr Brekker?”

“Sun Summoner. Or Sunshine. He figured out Brekker’s a fake name on the first day.”

“Kaz Brekker’s a fake name?!” Jesper should have seen that coming, really… what does he even know about Kaz Brekker, truly? Except—

“It’s a name. It’s real enough. It’s feared. It’s mine.” Kaz’s eyes travel over the cobwebbed wall of the farmhouse bedroom, as if he was searching for the next lie to spin. Except that isn’t one of Kaz’ tells—Jesper’s seen him bamboozle and convince marks of the most stupid tales, and when Kaz wants them to believe him, he looks earnest. Young, depending on the role he plays, old, eager, stupid or wise. He doesn’t bother lying to Dregs, or rather: he doesn’t bother convincing them, usually. All his words are backed by the brutality of his cane. Who could be stupid enough to question even his weirdest utterances. “It just happens not to be one I was born with.”

“So what you’re saying is, the Darkling’s just not Kerch enough to get you?” Jesper grins. “Ketterdam, really—you know, I always really liked that about the Barrel, that healthy dose of ‘You are who you want and we don’t give a fuck to correct you.’ Anyway. Got it. You’re Kaz Brekker, but he’s a dick. Mr Sunbeam, what brings you into my office this evening?”

“The fete, Aleks.” Kaz shrugs off his coat, and then the purple kefta, too. He holds out the kefta in front of him, like he’s expecting Jesper to put it on. Well. That’s as good a start as any, and so Jesper turns and lets Kaz dress him into the robe he never wanted to wear.

“Then he says, ‘You must be nervous. After all, there are few gatherings in the Ketterdam slums that involve such spectacle.’” Kaz has sanded down his rasp somewhat, sounding almost smooth and seductive. He goes into a spiel of the Ravkan court and the inferiority of the Barrel that thankfully, he carries all by himself. Jesper wouldn’t even know what to say, except ‘Stop talking shit about the Barrel, you prick’ and that’s not exactly in character.

Kaz’ eyes periodically dart down to Jesper’s hands, and he realizes he’s fidgeting with the hem of the kefta’s sleeves. He stops.

“I am ready,” Kas says in his normal voice. His normal talking to a mark voice. “I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.” He stands up straight. Equally on both his legs. He winces. He’s not holding his cane, Jesper realizes. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.”

“Uh… great. We’ll be great together. Do great things. Better partners than enemies. Some of those rumours even freaked me out, you know—that kid with the wind-up toy in his throat—”

“Think before you speak, Jesper,” Kaz hisses. “Never let me lead. Never give me control. Every word is a cue to corral your prey where you want it—whether a compliment or a barely-there hidden threat.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” Kaz meets Jesper’s eyes. The tense mask of his face breaks into a smirk. “To be honest, I find the subtle craft of manipulation is wasted on you. You’ll obey anyway. Let’s go back to the start, and focus.”

Jesper shrugs off the kefta again and then lets Kaz dress him, again. He does his best imitation of Kaz, of that early Kaz before Jesper learned how he takes his coffee and before he saw the brutal twist of his face, that one time when the Dime Lions had Jesper on his knees and shoved a gun in his mouth. He plays the imperious tactician in his office who told his goons to drag Jesper up four flights of stairs with a bag over his head, ready to be shot for his debts, and then sold him on the one thing that gave his life meaning.

He insults Dirtyhands’ father and mother to his face, and gets really into it, too: Ketterdam’s full of idiots who’d miss the love of their life because they were busy trying to pry cobblestones off the streets to sell for half a sausage, and the harbour’s so filthy even the fish won’t fuck in it—keeping the brothels in good fish-ness, haha. Because the fish rent rooms so they don’t get fishy sex diseases from the water. Do fish get diseases from sex?

“Kill me now,” Kaz moans, and that one’s probably deserved.

“Anyway, my Sun Summoner, I’m sure you’ll perform well,” Jesper says with just the tiniest hint of slime.

“I am ready. I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.”

Jesper moves slowly, idly: not caging him in against the bed yet but definitely implying he can and will.

“I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.” Kaz swallows. “‘That means a lot to me. You mean a lot,’ is what you say now.”

How come the Darkling’s not constantly slipping on his own slimy slime trail?

“That means a lot to me.” Jesper gives Kaz a deep, smouldering look. The pockmarks on his cheeks. The jumping muscle in his jaw. The hint of a pained grimace from standing unaided. The boyish grin when he’s totally fucked over another gang boss and gets to gloat. The vicious hatred when someone touches his Crows. Licking powdered sugar off his gloves. “You mean a lot.”

And that’s it. The way Kaz looks at him—this is when the Darkling makes his move.

“I have been waiting for you for so long,” Jesper purrs smarmily, closing his eyes, moving in for the kiss, and—Kaz isn’t there anymore.

It was a single step backwards, because Kaz has hit the edge of the bed already, face blotched with humiliation, and the way he looks at Jesper is—angry is the least terrible interpretation. If he backs out now, Kaz is going to kill him for pitying him or catering to a weakness that honestly—how is not wanting this weak? But Kaz is Kaz, and Jesper’s just Jesper, and—

“Focus,” Kaz hisses. “You own Ravka. You will own the Sun, too. You have waited for this triumph—take it.”

“Why don’t we take this to the—” fuck you, Brekker, for making me say this— “bed, then? Take off your clothes. Don’t be scared.”

That’s a good dig. The kind of insult that looks super caring, unless you know Kaz enough to understand he sees any crack in his image as a dangerous failure. Jesper’s getting the hang of this malicious flirting thing, finally. When this is over, he’ll need to scrub the slime off himself twice.

Kaz looks at Jesper while he disrobes. At him, Jesper hopes against hope, at the real person he’s roped into his worst scheme yet with a goal that’s still totally obscure; at Jesper and not the asshole he’s imagining in his place. Kaz’ eyes trace his cheeks, dance over his shaved head, catch on the lips.

Jesper takes off his boots and gun belt, and the kefta. He undoes the fly of his trousers, pulls his dick out, and stops. He glares at Kaz, daring him to object to the attempt at making this slightly less miserable—Jesper’s the Darkling, he’s in charge, so Kaz can fuck off with his masochism. He’s done undressing. He’s not taking off his shirt or trousers. That layer of cloth stays on.

But Kaz doesn’t object. He stands up straight, naked, brittle, wincing, and then glancing away he mutters, “Ignore the antlers. He hadn’t done that yet.”

Fucking Darkling.

The antlers stick out of Kaz’ collarbones, uneven tines of—possession, mutilation, and Jesper’s eyes catch on a tiny set of grooves on the left one. The scabbed-over cuts underneath. The bruise from the gunshot. And even despite that horror, Kaz has a nice chest. Serious muscle, a street map of scars and a smattering of dark hairs—it feels weirdly improper to stare at him, so Jesper’s eyes dance down to his knobbly left knee and the softly twisted right thigh with its knots of scars, up to the face where he’s biting his harsh pretty mouth, and down again. His dick is nice, fat but not too long, rooted in a tangle of dark curls.

It’s utterly limp.

It’s pathetic, how much that hurts. Of course he isn’t into this. Of course he doesn’t find Jesper remotely attractive. Of course this is just some weird masochistic proxy powerplay for him, some attempt to prove he’s stronger now and can bear it or whatever the fuck, and Jesper’s just the sad stupid body he’s using to enact it.

And of course not even that is enough to make Jesper bow out. Kaz asked.

“Do you want me to suck you off first? Get you in the mood, even a little?” It’s not just for Kaz, that offer, though the whole thing will probably be less painful and awkward if he manages to coax out some arousal. It’s not for younger Jesper, who fantasized about being ordered to blow his boss as penance more often than he likes to admit. No, this is so Jesper can bury his face in Kaz’ pubic hair for a minute. And cry.

Kaz raises an eyebrow. He sounds arch and ice cold when he asks, “Jesper, do you think the Darkling would suck my dick?”

“He should have. Saints, what an asshole,” Jesper shoots back before he can think. “You need a better class of lovers.”

“By which you’re of course implying that you are much better than Aleksander Morozova, the General Kirigan, the Black Heretic, eternal Conqueror and crowned Emperor of Greater Ravka, Salvation to Grishadom, Master of the Fold and He who chained the Sun, et cetera and so fucking on and so fucking forth the Darkling himself?”

“Given I just offered you a blowjob without bringing useless power shit into it, yes.”

“Wrong data, incoherent formula. Correct answer.” Kaz’ grin is crooked. Inordinately fond, and Jesper would have settled for no longer desperately hiding terror but this is—

Yeah.

“I’m going to try to make this roleplay as realistic as I can, but I don’t know if I can forget enough about how to have sex to sink to the Darkling’s level. Also, you don’t happen to have the address of that Grisha Tailor who mutilated you back there? I need them to make my dick look weird. Corkscrew, maybe. Some warts. It’s probably green. I’d peg him for advanced neurological syphilis but I am about to sleep with you, so— ”

“Did you know, Jesper, that the Darkling always wears a gag when he has sex?”

“Shutting up now, boss.”

“Don’t shut up,” Kaz replies instantly. Very, very instantly. “Just keep your disparagements somewhat plausible. And… rare.”

Only to jolt me back, he’s asking. “Got it. So I guess I’m supposed to loom over you a little? How close do you want me?”

“I’ll need to—” Kaz turns around and bends over to root around in the pockets of his coat, and it’s even weirder, worse, looking at his ass when Jesper knows Kaz doesn’t like him back. Kaz tosses over a tiny bottle. Oil. “Give that to me. Tell me to prepare myself.”

“Just saying it once more, boss. You don’t have to go through with—”

“Stop thinking about the Kaz Brekker you know,” Kaz hisses. “Stop anticipating my reactions. Stop caring. You are the Darkling. You have been waiting for the Sun Summoner for decades. You’ve formed your picture of them. This delinquent flinching little rat you bought doesn’t quite fit, not his limp, not his fear of touch, not his pathetic need to assert himself, but, well… you have time. He’ll learn how to make himself fit into the space you provide him. He’ll become your Sun Summoner.”

“Have I told you yet that I’m going to kill that piece of shit?”

“You’ve mentioned it, once or twice. In the last hour.”

Jesper bares his teeth: a grin, but not. A promise. “Good. I’ll hold his mouth open while you stuff him full of black powder and set him on fire.”

“Stop stalling, Jesper. That won’t make it any easier.”

That won’t make it not have happened.

“If you’re sure this will help.”

Kaz nods.

“Lie down on the bed, then. Is there a—no, no pillows here, roll up the coat and slide it under your hips.” Jesper turns his face away, listening to the timid, stuttering squelches of Kaz stretching his asshole. Jesper doesn’t know what would be worse: if, after everything, he can’t get it up… or if he can.

Well. He’ll have to. His dick will just have to obey the dictates of the situation, just as Kaz’ body was made into the Sun Summoner. He’s young. He’s still looking at Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, naked, who asked Jesper to sleep with him, and that’ll have to be enough. They’ve gotten this far. They’ll force their way through. That’s how you do it. That’s how you gamble. How you lose big. Kaz might have once tried to explain to him something about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, but Jesper ignored him that night and lost a hundred and twenty kruge to Specht, and he’s never looked back.

“Okay, Mr Sunshine. Let’s consummate our fucking partnership,” he grinds out when Kaz has gone quiet, takes the bottle to slick up his own uncooperative dick, and carefully, he climbs on top of Kaz. The clothes were a good decision: Kaz barely flinches when he kneels in-between his legs and pulls the sleeve over his hand to carefully guide his right knee to rest on Jesper’s thigh.

Kaz is staring up at his face, breathing, just breathing. The antlers in his collarbone frame his bright face—brighter than the candles should allow, like maybe—and his focus is rigid and he’s breathing, breathing quickly—

“Is this teaching you anything yet?”

“Not really,” Kaz rasps, after too long. “Or—I think—maybe it was—” he glances at Jesper’s pathetic, unhappy limp dick. His face twists. “I thought you were into me.”

This is— “I love you. Kaz Brekker, whoever you are. I don’t give a fuck about this Sun Summoner bullshit. I love you. I love you,” because this is—Jesper can’t do this. He can’t. His elbows are locked: he can’t drop his body any lower. He can't go lower than this. “I love you,” until it’s finally over. “I love you. I love you.”

☼

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t know what he does Tuesday evenings,” Jesper hisses.

“You were still with the Dregs, three months ago!” Kaz is wiping his cane clean. It didn’t even really get dirty—they mostly used kitchen knives to do the deed, and in the case of a maidservant who unwisely came to work in the middle of the night, a bullet that Jesper’s already collected and reshaped into something functional, because he might not get to buy new ones. Desperation. Frugality. The Kerch are rubbing off on him. It’s good, though. The fact he’s cleaning the wood is all the confirmation Jesper will likely ever get that Kaz does like the new cane Jesper made him from a cute straight rowan sapling, reinforced with the metal scavenged from all but the most essential buttons on their hodgepodge of clothes. At least there’s one thing of Jesper’s he values. “How can you not know the behavioural patterns of your boss? Are you that brainless?”

“No-one knew what he was up to! He barely came by the Slat. He wasn’t that interested in us.”

“You worked for Per Haskell, Jesper; you worked for that man for years—for nearly as many as I did, when you ran off to Ravka—and now you attempt to convince me you barely know his name?” Kaz still doesn’t look quite as harsh as he used to, or maybe that’s just Jesper hankering for their past. Well, he didn’t used to explain his plans to Jesper as if he was an imbecile—but then, he didn’t used to need Jesper. He had more stooges back then. Now, he only has one. Ally. Friend.

If it’s as weird for him, though, as it is for Jesper being back in Ketterdam after he didn’t die on his revenge suicide plot and the city didn’t, either—well, he might still get murdered for stealing the Sun Summoner or skipping out on debts or something completely unrelated, and Ketterdam’s… well, she’s weathering having her ruling class torn apart twice in short order, once by the Darkling’s conquest and now, by the slow collapse of the Darkling’s overstretched realm after he’s lost his saint/weapon/doll.

The Barrel’s fine—as glary and miserable as it ever was, anyway, but though Kaz would probably insist most of the Mercher’s Council had their hands in gang business one way or the other, their reach was indirect, mediated and secretive enough for the chaos tearing up the Geldstraat not to trickle down as quickly into the slums. And anyway, the involvement of the merchers only ever made life worse for most people. The plight of the rich can only be a blessing.

Right now, they’re inside a nice place in the Zelver district. Close enough to power to feel the death throes, and even disregarding the political manoeuvring and debris and panic everywhere, just looking at the house from the outside made Kaz twitchy, somehow.

His energy almost matched Jesper’s trigger finger.

It’s Haskell’s house, so that unease makes sense.

Haskell’s expensive secret new house far outside the Barrel that they’re despoiling now. They looked as out of place in the beautiful Zelver district as any Barrel rats, with their heads shorn close to the bone so they’ll look different enough to not get recognized and faces wiped with dirt, dressed in a melange of Ravkan clothes they haven’t found a chance to replace yet and tawdry Barrel flash for everything else.

Kaz was wearing two coats when he entered the house, an old rose and amber paisley trench that even Jesper admitted is hideous, though now it’s splattered with blood that actually really ties the colour scheme together. Still gross though, and luckily slung over the chair. Along with the purple kefta Kaz hid underneath, the one he still hasn’t given back. Or burned, which is what they did to the other Ravkan overcoats. On the streets his two coats bulked up his frame so much he looked like a kid that Jesper’s never met, dressed up to play a gangster’s role. He looked nothing like the Sun Summoner anymore, and only somewhat like Jesper’s imagined baby Dirtyhands crawling out straight from the harbour, fifty kilos sopping wet and ready to kill a man and feast on his entrails.

Now, he’s stripped down to a ruffled red shirt over a green undershirt—he conspicuously shunned the yellow one next to it on the washing line—and light blue pinstripe trousers. The shirt is a little large in the shoulders, and he’s cuffed the trousers. They stole everything from a cottage on the edge of Ketterdam. Not quite Barrel flash, but almost—alike in style but with better fabric, something a town edge kid probably bought to look like a cool gangster. Or something Jesper would have bought to look special for a very special date. If he squints, he can almost imagine—it’s the morning after, and—

Ever since the Little Palace the idea of Kaz naked has totally lost its lustre. The idea of his muscular but scrawny, scarred chest, his wiry tattooed arms, his ambiguously demonic hands—it’s all overlaid now with a flimsy ugly sleeveless yellow paper taffeta gown. With normal hands, kept bare as humiliation.

But maybe—maybe they sat together, not on a log in a forest but on a sofa this time, and then in the morning Kaz was cold and he stole all of Jesper’s clothes to wear over his own. That’s much better. (Maybe he just wanted Jesper naked all day…)

Jesper won’t let the Darkling steal his fantasies, too. They’re—

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Jesper really shouldn’t have added tiny spiky worms to the side of the cane, but Kaz’ indignation was just too funny.

“Let me make this clear—” Kaz rasps, once he’s regained Jesper’s full attention. Half-full. ‘Like he’s plundered Jesper’s wardrobe’ is still such a good look on him. “We are both hunted. Neither of us can afford to be caught outside on the streets of Ketterdam and let whoever saw us live. If we’re going to make Haskell’s house our temporary base of operations, we need to make his death as inconspicuous as possible. We cannot safely anticipate which of his visitors to eliminate and which to fool unless we know whether they, in turn, may be missed.”

“Well,” Jesper mutters. “Mitki might come by. If the neighbours don’t chase him off.”

Kaz raises a single, dirt-encrusted eyebrow.

“Mitki’s the newest lieutenant. Might have made it this—”

“Not Anika? I can understand why a flake like you didn’t rise in the Dregs ranks, but she—”

“Ambush. Dime Lions, five weeks after you disappeared.”

“Rotty?”

“Slit throat. Still no clue who did it.”

“Specht? Pim? Neeta? Big Bol?”

“Razorgulls, knife, last year. Bullet to the head, same day. Hellgate. Hellgate.”

“Muzzen? Ruk? Keeg?”

“Another ‘Gull stabbing, just before I left. Hellgate, again. Keeg just disappeared, though. Might still be alive somewhere over the True Sea, if he’s clever. Not that he was, he’s probably floating, poor sod.” Jesper shrugs. After a while, it just gets too much: the beginning of the Dregs’ end is seared into his brain, but there aren’t enough synapses for the tenth—or fiftieth—dead friend to hurt as much. “There’s a reason why I didn’t think twice about running when I lost those fifty thousand. Like I said, boss, it’s been a shitshow since you left. Haskell never wanted for new ones, since he got his kids fresh off the street, but he just stopped giving any shit whatsoever, and since you weren’t there to pick up the slack… well, I can see why he didn’t care, now.”

Jesper spares a bitter look for the mountain of kruge next to Haskell’s foot, the mountain he offered Kaz as soon as he saw him, long before Kaz even tried to hack off both his hands and feet with a dull meat cleaver. Long before Kaz had to settle for cutting down to the bone and then wrenching Haskell’s extremities from their sockets by sheer force of hatred, while Jesper puked into the kitchen sink. The mountain he’d never have amassed as the boss of a gang as shambolic as the last years of the Dregs.

The mountain that’s going to pay off Inej’s indenture tomorrow.

Haskell allowed her to rot there. It’s only fair he pays for her freedom with his life.

“Everyone we could use is gone. And you…” Kaz tips Jesper’s chin up with his cane. The world shimmies a little. “You, of all the old Dregs, survived.”

Jesper shrugs again. This is too much to confess to Kaz, of all cruel bastards, probably far too much, but—they’re sitting in the living room of Jesper’s former boss, the man who sold Kaz out to the Darkling and used the prize money to live in luxury, while letting his gang die on increasingly pointless ill-planned errands. The other end of the table is still flecked and puddled with slow-drying blood—not to mention the corpse, or corpse-pieces, laying there—but over here, they have a bottle of expensive whisky they found in a cabinet and they’re trading swigs from the bottle, all bitter and clean.

“I didn’t take it too well, when you and Inej just disappeared, and then my friends kept dying. Might have gone on a couple of benders. Might have lost some games. Might have lost some fights. Might have had some sexual encounters with people who turned out to be massive creeps. Consequently, I may not have been technically around to be asked to go on some of these errands, or perhaps I just didn’t notice because I was drunk.”

“Jesper.” Kaz doesn’t even sound surprised. Wow. Thanks for having faith in me, boss.

It’s not really that humiliating, though, now he’s said it out loud. He spent two years making bad decisions and occasionally braiding Inej’s hair. Kaz spent that time getting turned into a doll. Who can say what’s worse? He takes another deep gulp and grins. “You know me, boss. I need some external structure in life. I really need a commandeering asshole dragging me into his schemes to be my best self.”

“And yet, you outwitted the Darkling.”

“That wasn’t difficult, to be fair. Tell them I’m Grisha, search the Little Palace, shoot Kaz Brekker in the head, get executed…” Jesper trails off. When the silence grows teeth, he takes a pull of whisky that’s so desperate it makes him cough, but Kaz is still letting him stew.

They don’t really need to talk about it, though. No value in going over what happened in the Little Palace. No value in discussing anything. Everything is fine now. Yes, Jesper did want to kill Kaz. Yes, he’ll die for Kaz.

And they both know why.

Kaz steals the bottle. It’s incredible, actually, Jesper was just holding it—well, maybe he’s a little more drunk than he thought, but Kaz would probably like being complimented on his pickpocketing. “I didn’t even see you steal that bottle,” Jesper says.

“I’d be angry you’re drunk,” Kaz rasps. “But you’ve been completely useless at all stages of the current plan so far. And the previous one, by your planning—I always forget, in my amazement at what you accomplished, that you failed.”

He says that, but his cheeks are flushed pink with alcohol. His pupils are wide when he looks at Jesper. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, swallowing what should have easily been ten more swigs of whisky. Thieving bastard.

☼

When Jesper awakes on Haskell’s second softest chaise longue in the receiving room—neither of them was particularly eager to climb into Haskell’s bed, and, in Jesper’s case, not particularly still able to walk up the stairs either—his mouth is dry, his bladder full and the light is poking his brain even through closed curtains and eyelids. And Kaz—he searches the whole house after finishing his business, but yes, it’s true—Kaz is gone.

So are his cane and his current Barrel flash coat and the kefta, which means Kaz is probably safe. Well. As safe as the escaped Sun Summoner can be. Not kidnapped, at least. More alive than anyone stupid enough to cross Kaz’ path.

He’s taken Haskell’s kruge, and left a note.

In Kaz’ sharp hand, the note reads, “STAY.”

It’s underlined three times, and on the back side Kaz has written, “or you will die,” which to be fair is pretty ambiguous.

‘Die’ as in, ‘I mistrust your competence and assume you’ll get yourself killed if you move a finger?’ Or as in, ‘I’m warning you I won’t go out of my way to save you?’ Perhaps it’s a straightforward ‘Disobey and I am going to personally murder you and piss on your corpse?’ All are very real possibilities, knowing Kaz.

To really understand the message, Jesper needs to get into Kaz’ mood when he woke up—hungover, but how much? Enough he hates the entire world, or so much he hates Jesper more? Also, his current way of thinking. Jesper’s usefulness. A point in favour is the fact that Jesper saved him from a fate worse than death, but on the other hand, Jesper forgot to extract a deal from him and Kaz is so Kerch it hurts, which means he’s pared down solidarity and reciprocity and love into exchange, into deals, and all Jesper’s offering are the first three. They shared a bottle of whisky next to the corpse of their old boss, though, and in general Kaz looked like he was having fun more than once on their dirty, miserable long trek out of Ravka. Way more fun than he had in the majestic Little Palace. Also, Jesper’s incredibly likeable. He’s beautiful and funny and stupidly in love with Kaz without asking anything in return, so really it only makes sense that Kaz has finally succumbed to his charm.

(He dug his hand into Jesper’s hair, that night on the fallen tree and twice afterwards, but—maybe that was only to make Jesper squirm.)

Well, he enjoyed Jesper’s company while they fled from Ravka to Ketterdam, at least. That’s the crux of it.

So why would Kaz anticipate that Jesper might want to run anywhere? There’s a well-stocked kitchen here. A far more sensible assumption would be that Jesper might want to make some waffles or go on a morning jog. No, not that one. Enjoy a lavish breakfast. Have a bath, perhaps, after spending two weeks crawling through the Ravkan forest and the Shu countryside and stowed in the belly of a wine cargo ship and then countryside again, this time Kerch. Jesper’s feet hurt just thinking about it, and that Kaz managed to get here, even at the half-speed they settled on, speaks to—well, the same bull-headed masochism as always, but the fact he still refused to even consider stealing a cart or horse or approach any larger settlement before Ketterdam means he must be even more terrified of the Darkling than Jesper can imagine. He refused to leave any trace whatsoever. (And yet he’s back in Ketterdam, the one city in the world he was connected to before the Little Palace, because…?)

Ketterdam is the only city, village, collection of buildings and people they’ve been to for weeks, which means it’s the first chance Jesper has to gamble, but—even he knows not to stake anything on the possibility there’s someone left in the Barrel who doesn’t know about Jesper Fahey, he who owes Pekka Rollins fifty thousand kruge and just skipped town, kill immediately with extreme prejudice.

Well, Rollins is dead now—the only gang boss courageous or aggrieved or hungry enough to try and covertly resist the Darkling, go figure—but whoever’s head Lion now probably won’t even let Jesper try to spin an argument about how he really owes that money to ‘Pekka Rollins’ Dime Lions’, not any successor organizations. No such luck, and anyway, people stupid enough to bounce on their debts are fair game to any gang in the Barrel. They don’t cooperate on much, not even for mutual benefit, but murdering dishonest gamblers? That’s a team sport.

Jesper’s last recklessly suicidal plan worked out fantastic, so maybe he should find a card table. His luck’s turned. He could win millions.

Which Kaz definitely would anticipate, and warn him away from. Kaz is a buzzkill. Just because Jesper’s going to get murdered on sight in the Barrel…

Because Jesper’s gonna get murdered on sight in the Barrel.

If Kaz wants to rebuild his status in the Barrel, there’s no bigger liability than Jesper. And Kaz wants to, surely. He worked his way up inside the Dregs carefully and diligently, spent more time than anyone sane would inside a tiny attic office adding up numbers, and sucked up to an utter piece of shit like Haskell, just so he could one day become a Barrel boss. And now, to rise again, he has to cut off the dead weight.

Which means Jesper.

That’s why he left.

It’s not even a betrayal. They don’t have an agreement for life after reaching Ketterdam, let alone one that says Jesper can follow him forever and ever just like in the good old days. Inej—but Inej’s actually useful to a new Barrel boss, as soon as her indenture’s paid. Jesper’s the weak link here. Jesper’s screwed.

Which doesn’t mean he won’t go down fighting. He knows the way to the Menagerie—the quickest way, the scenic route, the paths least commonly trafficked by Pigeons and the ones usually avoided by staadwatch or gangsters. He knows Kaz well enough to guess which one he’s taken. If he hasn’t woken too late—and by the sun’s position, it’s still early in the morning—then he has a chance to pass Kaz off and… insult him? Beg? Cry? Sell his father’s soul for a position in the new Dregs? Maybe he’ll just have to wear a Komedie Brute mask for the rest of his life and it’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out later.

Jesper draws his shoulders up to his ears while he scurries through empty alleyways, the collar of his fancy pseudo-Barrel flash coat turned up. He’s almost glad that Kaz made him go hatless and shaved bald—thoroughly unstylish and un-Jesper enough he might survive the morning—but there are drawbacks to the disguise in the damp chill.

Also, the disguise isn’t good enough. After some minutes, Jesper notices that some clusters of metal stay at roughly the same distance to him. Eight clusters of—round, small, definitely mostly kruge with a few Ravkan coins thrown in. Thirteen guns. A rifle. Two of the coin clusters are fairly close together and move in unison. Jesper’s dealing with seven shadows, then.

That’s—a lot.

Jesper’s had a little more training being a Durast now, but what he could really use now is combat training. He hasn’t even been in a battle in over a month, unless you count handing Kaz knives while he carves up Per Haskell, and since Jesper had to puke right after, you probably shouldn’t. He’s fought rabbits. Jesper’s sure fought some rabbits in Ravka. Two deer, too.

He could probably escape his pursuers. It would take time, though, time Jesper doesn’t have when Kaz is leaving him behind without a word. He’ll just have to kill them quickly.

At least there’s one of his favourite surveillance detection routes nearby. One of the rare aboveground tunnels in Ketterdam, not used by Pigeons for obvious reasons of creepiness and also because it just leads to a big courtyard behind a factory: a courtyard that’s easy to escape, when you know the gate’s lock is broken. Kaz showed it to him, just weeks after Jesper got recruited, after the second time the ‘Gulls got the drop on him and beat him to a pulp. In the courtyard, he made Jesper shoot some sparrows and some pigeons to prove his worth. Not crows, though, and for a year Jesper believed that detail was just thrown in to test whether Jesper would obey nonsensical orders. It’s still a plausible explanation.

He’ll just have to ask Kaz, after he begs him for a role in the new Dregs. After he kills these seven pursuers.

If.

He catches the first man off-guard and blows his head off when he exits the tunnel, but after that, it’s a stand-off. Jesper, hiding behind a massive wood barrel for cover, against six men ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Jesper manages to pick off another man by firing into the tunnel and blindly redirecting the bullet into the first nook, but the second attempt at using that trick doesn’t hit anything, and neither does the third. He has eight bullets left now, and five enemies. Even Jesper can tell that’s bad odds.

Retreating across the courtyard, though—the first few meters are fine, there are enough wine barrels and he can just dash from one to another, slightly nudging bullets off their course so none hit him.

Those guys have far too many bullets left, though, by the time Jesper’s forty meters away from the gate. Forty meters without cover. His pursuers aren’t bad shots either—likely Dime Lions, because there’s no way a Liddy would ever get so close that Jesper has to redirect their bullet—and they’re cautious enough that only two of them are crouched behind that barrel next to the tunnel, now, while the rest are still hidden inside.

This might get a little tough—but if Jesper starts manipulating bullets more obviously, will that information travel to the Little Palace? They know the Sun Summoner escaped with a Fabrikator. Is he painting a target on Kaz’ back?

Is he—

Bloodcurdling screams and groans, and Jesper’s too far away to hear any thwacks but his senses have expanded and he knows that metal coating intimately. Knows that cane.

Kaz emerges from the tunnel opening, Inej behind him, and—

Boom.

The Dime Lion’s shot him.

Right in the chest, and Kaz stumbles, falls to his knees.

Keels over.

Jesper shoots wildly while he runs over, whirling the bullets around the barrel that the Dime Lions are hiding behind—two left, Kaz wouldn’t have let any of the ones in the tunnel escape—desperate to hit something or at least keep them distracted and scared long enough to get there, or for—Inej’s pulling Kaz back by his coat, and she’s still wearing a sheer Menagerie dress, she probably doesn’t have any knives to protect—nothing’s hit yet, nothing’s hit, and all Jesper’s bullets are in the air whizzing around but he’s not hitting anything and Kaz is down and Kaz—

Kaz pushes himself to his knees, and then he stands up.

He’s breathing hard, and in the ugly rose/amber/bloodstain trench there’s a hole above his heart, sooty and burnt, but he’s still alive, Kaz is alive, he’s—

“What are you?” a Dime Lion gasps. Jesper’s finally got a bead on her. He sinks three bullets into her head.

“I just killed…” The other one is less lucky, and Jesper only manages to hit his stomach before he runs out of airborne bullets. He’ll die, but it won’t be quick.

“I crawled out of the harbour before. I’ll do it again,” Kaz rasps, and before the Dime Lion manages more than “Dirty—” a wet squelch informs Jesper of his demise.

That’s all of them.

“Kaz, you—” Inej’s much quicker at Kaz’ side, but he moves away before she can touch him to check his injury. Moves quickly enough he’s probably not on death’s door. He is a good actor, though. She looks at Jesper, and he’s about to join her in begging Kaz to get some medical aid, at least, but then Kaz shrugs off the ruined trench coat.

“Those kefta aren’t entirely useless,” Kaz rasps, grinning like an amused fucking asshole who almost gave Jesper a heart attack.

And then, Inej wraps herself around Jesper.

“You’re alive! I was terrified,” she shouts against his chest, slapping his back and grabbing as if she can’t decide whether to kill Jesper or never let go. “I thought you got yourself killed! You just disappeared, no word, I thought—”

“I may have lost a game where the stake was fifty thousand kruge?”

“You—Jes—” Inej squeezes him harder. “I told you to stop. I’d rather have you, with me, than have you die trying to pay me off.”

“I almost won! But there was no chance I’d get out of it, without indenturing myself, and—it all worked out, didn’t it? You’re free! Which reminds me…” Jesper takes off his own coat—blue and green and purple wave patterns, very fancy, a bit on the small side for him—and lays it onto Inej’s shoulders. It suits her, too—it drowns her a little, sure, but the way the coat reaches down to her ankles looks regal, and anyway, Kaz is a good sewer. He’ll fix this. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Before she can reply—tell him again she wasn’t worth risking his life and freedom in every card game he could for two years, when she definitely is, she’s Inej, he’ll do anything for her—he runs away and searches the dead Dime Lions for a new coat for himself, all their money, the rifle, and picks up the used bullets too. Knowing Kaz, he’ll want them to leave this place soon, and Jesper can’t very well try to convince his boss he needs to keep his sharpshooter around when he has no bullets left.

Speaking of—Jesper saunters over to Kaz when he’s done. With his most careless grin, he says, “I want my goodbye kiss before you ditch me.”

“I left you a note,” Kaz rasps. “I should have remembered you can’t read.”

Which as good as counts as a promise that Kaz didn’t intend to leave him behind: that, and the adrenaline of an easy gunfight has Jesper grinning widely. This is the life he wanted. The life he yearned for during the last two miserable years. The Crows are back, baby. He asks, “What now, boss?”

“We leave. Before anyone comes to investigate those gunshots.”

“Novyi Zem?”

“No,” Kaz rasps, just as Inej says, “They’ll let us drown.”

“They what?”

“Move.” Kaz starts limping past the factory, and then doubles back one street over—in the general direction away from the sea. Jesper and Inej quickly flank him. “I went to the Fifth Harbour before I paid off Inej’s indenture. It’s near empty. Old man there said no boats go to Novyi Zem or Eames Chin right now, and no boats come back. Because nothing gets unloaded. Kerch ships can’t dock there. They all get stranded at sea.”

“People started running when Ravka cut us off from the continent,” Inej mutters. “Before the invasion. And now the Darkling’s gone, the Kerch Grisha are either running or dead.”

“Too many refugees, apparently. Something about culture and scroungers and economic migrants. Novya Zem’s closed its ports to Kerch.”

“But I’m Zemeni—”

“You’re just a person. Those borders don’t exist to help you. The harbour watch don’t exist for you, the government doesn’t exist for you—if there’s a choice between cementing their power and your life, every bureaucrat worth their salt will choose the former.”

Jesper wants to argue, but actually, he’d trust Kaz over Novyi Zem a million times. Kaz saved his life when Ketterdam and Kerch would have swallowed him whole. Novyi Zem isn’t any different. “So we’re stuck in Ketterdam, then, where I’ll get shot on sight and you’ll easily get tracked by the Darkling. I only remember one safehouse that’s still uncompromised, as of last month anyway, unless you think we should go back to Haskell’s, boss?”

“Inej,” Kaz rasps. “That shop over there. Buy us a cart. We’re going to Lij.”

“What’s in Lij, boss? Why Lij? Where is Lij, anyway?”

But Kaz doesn’t answer him. Even aboard the cart, directing their new donkey with a seemingly perfect grasp of the roads leading to a small southern Kerch town none of them have ever been to, he refuses to elaborate. He looks tense, though. Jesper reshapes his many new bullets while he walks alongside. If there’s a fight waiting for them in Lij, they’re going to win.

☼

Kaz paces the length of the room. Window, door, window, door—there’s not much space beside the marriage bed, and the air draft of his passing caresses Jesper’s shorn head.

He’s put back together now, dressed in his socks and his boots and his underpants and his trousers and his gloves, though his torso’s only covered by the open purple kefta. Despite the cane, he limps more heavily than before he trekked for weeks through the Ravkan forest. He’s not fully recovered yet, if he’ll ever be.

Jesper’s on the floor. He climbed off the bed—off Kaz, after he ruined Kaz’ stupid get proxy-raped by the proxy-Darkling again plan. He said what he said, and the silence that followed was all the answer he’ll get, and then he sat down on the floor. It’s as good a place to wait as any. Probably more hygienic than the bed, anyway. He watched Kaz dress, until he almost looked like the Barrel lieutenant they both wish he was still allowed to be, and now he’s watching Kaz Brekker Dirtyhands the Sun Summoner pace holes in the old dusty floor of an abandoned farmhouse an hour’s walk outside of the small Kerch town of Lij.

He’s not getting murdered, though. Not for what he almost did. Not for what he said. That’s as good as this was ever going to go.

“It was worse this time.” Kaz directs his rasp towards the floor. He doesn’t stop moving. “I froze. Why was it—it was you. I knew you were—you’d never—with you it should have been more tolerable. Not worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.” Jesper still can’t decide whether he should be ashamed that he was too squeamish to go through with it. Kaz doesn’t seem as angry as he could be, that Jesper totally fucked up this whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Not the mocking disappointment he doles out at Jesper’s predictable failures—gambling, distractibility, lateness, no impulse control and so on—and not the seething hatred when Jesper does something he hasn’t anticipated.

“I turned it over and over in my mind. For a year. What I did wrong. How I could have turned this to my advantage. How to excise this weakness. I thought I’d found—but there’s nothing.”

Jesper would offer to brutally desecrate the Darkling’s corpse again, but it clearly doesn’t help. Kaz won’t let this go. Never mind that he was a teenage thief imprisoned in a palace. Never mind it was him against the whole entourage of the most powerful Grisha. The man who crowned himself Emperor.

Sometimes you’re just fucked. And there’s nothing you can do. Life isn’t fair.

“There is a way to beat him,” Kaz hisses. “And I will find it.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“What—”

Jesper grins a shark-grin. “You’re not in Ravka now, are you?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it? No, boss, listen—he didn’t beat you alone, either, right? He had his Tailor making you into a doll. His Fabrikators locking your cage. His soldiers. Hell, Haskell selling you out—so really, it’s your victory that I found you.” Now that Jesper’s trying to explain his gut reaction, it just seems more and more logical. “Why can’t you have your own gang? You practically rescued yourself. You took a look at a boy who’d have gotten shot in a few weeks because he couldn’t pay is debts and he couldn’t stop fucking gambling—you had me dragged up to your office. You took that chance. You saved my life so I could save yours. That’s… planning ahead. Planning years ahead. Well done.”

Kaz finally, finally stops pacing. He sinks into the mattress just slightly to the right of Jesper, so he can sprawl out his legs without making contact. He looks at Jesper, but he’s silent, and his face isn’t giving anything away.

At first, that makes it feel like he’s actually listening. Actually considering what Jesper told him, and agreeing. Kaz is a quick thinker, though. He doesn’t need this long to realize that Jesper’s correct, which means he’s coming up with counterarguments—arguments why actually, he’s still weak or whatever and needs to force himself—and Jesper really, really can’t watch him do this to himself again. Why this, anyway? Why is this the weakness he fixated on?

“Why is that creep so obsessed with making you touch people, anyway?”

“Because it’s easy. Necessary. Even a child does it. Touch is what makes us human, and the Sun Summoner is human, whatever lies he tells himself,” Kaz recites. His eyes are bright. Wet.

“Bullshit. You terrorized the Barrel for years and it didn’t matter at all that you never touched anyone. It was just you. It didn’t even really sink in for me, that you don’t touch people, until I saw the way he dressed you up, how miserable you were.” That’s probably a good place to leave it, but Jesper’s livid. Jesper could mince and mangle fifty Darklings with the pure force of his loathing, and there’s not even a single one around here. That energy has to go somewhere. “You’re trying to tell me the Ravkan fucking palace couldn’t change protocol a little and adapt? If it never mattered in the Barrel, it never mattered at all. He just picked something. If you’d been allergic to shellfish, that’s the only food he would have served you, and he would have said you’re weak for your windpipe swelling up. He wasn’t able control you because touch made you weak. When you’re in control, it doesn’t matter. Because you fucking kill whoever touches you. You don’t bow to them. They bow to you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look away from Jesper, though. He just stares down at him, with his eyes still wide and still wet. He mutters, “You’ve turned quite opinionated in my absence, Jesper.”

“In your presence. I’m quoting your words back to you—sort of, it was about the cane, and I’ve forgotten half of it. But you were right. You were always right.” Jesper laughs. “See? Now you’re teaching yourself through time and space! Your masterplan is incredibly fucking elaborate!”

“My—I’m not falling for it.” Kaz is grinning, though. “If I agree now—by this time tomorrow you’ll have done something incredibly stupid and you’ll throw the whole Everything I do is your triumph because you saved me thing in my face. I’m not responsible for your awful jokes!”

Pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, Jesper wails, “My plan! My ingenious plan! Foiled by the dastardly Dirtyhands, oh no!”

Kaz laughs at him. Kaz laughs, and laughs, and Jesper joins him.

It takes a while before Kaz stops, gasping for breath. No-one in Ravka’s ever told a good joke, Jesper decides, because he’s made way funnier jokes before that Kaz didn’t even chuckle at, but gift horses and mouths and so on. Colour’s returned to Kaz’ face: his cheeks are blotchy and red, even after his breathing’s evened out. Kaz mumbles, “You know, that’s exactly how I imagined it.”

What? Oh. Jesper’s sprawled on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, his shirt pulled out of his trousers—his trousers, which are open, and he still hasn’t tucked away his dick. He forgot. There were more far important things to do, and now… well, he probably looks more debauched than Kaz in his purple kefta, with just his prick exposed to the chilly night-time Kerch air while he lounges on the ground. He ghosts a finger over it.

“Do you want me to—do you want to watch, boss?”

“I’d—” Kaz swallows. “Saints.”

Jesper turns a little, so Kaz can get a better view. He doesn’t undress, in case that’s an integral part of the fantasy, just gently trails his fingers down his still-limp dick—though it’s definitely waking up now—and looks up at Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t meet his eyes anymore, but that’s fine: more than fine, when he’s alternately looking at Jesper’s cock and at Jesper’s lips. Jesper darts out his tongue, and Kaz’ pupils blow even wider. Jesper licks down his palm and starts jerking off in earnest. “Hey, boss,” Jesper mutters, and when the head jerks up Jesper blows him a tiny kiss.

“What do you think about?” Kaz rasps.

“I just look at you. That’s enough. I like your face.” The tiny quirk of his lips, the way his eyes dart back down. “What are you thinking about, boss?”

“I didn’t expect you to enjoy this as much.”

“Seriously, boss, I know you’re not that stupid. How many times—”

“Not me,” Kaz mumbles. He gestures obscurely at the room. Jesper. The wall. The floor. The floor again. “This. It’s—not proper. Demeaning.”

“I wasn’t feeling demeaned until you started talking—”

“I was going to make you my right hand, once I took over the Dregs. Not my whore—”

“You were?” slips out, small and breathless, before Jesper remembers that this is for Kaz. This for him to enjoy. The warmth expanding in Jesper’s ribcage can wait. “There’s nothing bad about this. You like it. I like it. I don’t see anyone else in this room, and even if—a very clever guy once told me that you don’t bow to the world. You make the world bow to you.”

☼

It’s scratching that wakes Jesper. Scratching like the sharpening of a knife, quick, impatient, desperate—but it’s Kaz who’s on watch right now, Kaz who found this shallow cave they’re spending the night in, and Kaz wouldn’t let any danger come this close unnoticed. Unfought. Kaz wouldn’t just leave Jesper to his fate—would he?

He wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Kaz is sitting at the mouth of the cave. The moon drenches his matted dirty hair in its white glory, his handmade trousers, his naked wiry chest. His chest which he hasn’t bared for a second since Jesper gave him the kefta, even pulling off the Sun Summoner chemise that they tore into threads while still wrapped up in both of his coats: but now he’s half-naked, head bending down to look at those tines sticking out of his clavicle. Those antlers, those keratinized tumours, those bone cancers. Whatever those mutations are, he wants them gone.

In the right hand, he’s holding the knife that Jesper made from buttons so they could cut the blanket into trouser-shapes. In the left hand, he’s holding one of the protrusions growing from his body.

And then, he starts hacking again.

Viciously, helplessly, like a sick rabbit mutated into its own trap. He misses, once, and the knife sinks into his collarbone: but silently he tears it out again and cuts at the cancerous bone, and the knife’s sharp but the only dents that Jesper can see are tiny, glowing, lighting up the knife that’s flecked with his own blood.

☼

Jesper stirs the potato chunks. Thankfully, the old hearth still works, at least after he and Inej fed it with firewood they brought from the market, and so he’s cooking potatoes in butter and water. He mashes them up with some heavy wooden implement he found in a cabinet, once they’re soft enough—he washed it of course; he doesn’t want to eat moth shit—and then Inej passes him a wooden board of carrots in neat small identical pieces. Show-off. Jesper loves her so fucking much.

“Careful, don’t let it burn,” she says, twirling her knife, and Jesper—well, he meant to stir the pot of what’s apparently becoming stamppot. He did. He didn’t mean to think of how he’ll get Inej and Kaz out of Ravka—

And that’s when Kaz limps into the kitchen. He wasn’t still asleep when Inej and Jesper went into town to get some food—as if the Bastard of the Barrel ever sleeps in, even when he’s far from his titular Barrel—but he begged off the trip. He told them to say they’re working for Johannus Rietveld, if they’re asked, who’s apparently inherited this farm, but—they weren’t asked a thing, anyway, and who knows what Kaz did in the meantime. Who knows what weird cover identity he’s cooked up that they haven’t yet had to invoke. And whether it’s weirder than the one Jesper just created.

Jesper gives him a tender little smile. “Had a good morning?”

“No.”

“Because of last—”

But Kaz can read Jesper at least as well as he can read himself. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he rasps. “You’re the least terrifying person I’ve ever met.” Which probably means Yes, I’m rattled, but I won’t take it out on you. Too much.

“Thanks, darling.” And obeying Inej’s sharp elbow, he goes back to stirring the potato mash, and the slices of rookworst smoked sausage she’s dumped into another pan as well. “We decided Inej needs a proper homecooked meal, now she’s free, and we both haven’t eaten anything worth eating for ages, either.”

“You cook?”

“I grew up with my Da. It was either him or me. We traded off, if you want to know, and I’m pretty good apart from when it mysteriously turns into charcoal. And we didn’t find any Zemeni spices in the Lij market—this isn’t Ketterdam, and this old trader I talked to, she said it’s because maritime traffic to Novyi Zem is down to trickles at this point there’s a real dearth of spices, she couldn’t get them at any reasonable price—”

“Don’t burn the stamppot,” Inej orders.

“Anyway, we found a recipe tacked to the wall behind the oven, so that’s what I’m making now. Something super Kerch. Stamppot—you’ve ever eaten it?”

Kaz makes a sound that’s deeply indecipherable. Jesper can’t even tell whether it’s mournful or happy.

“Anyway, we’re almost done. Spinach now, please—Inej made me stick to the recipe, you know—and then the fried sausage and some salt and… you’ll stay with us for lunch, right, even if it isn’t royal Little Palace fare?”

“We ate unseasoned burnt rabbits in the forest,” Kaz replies curtly. He’s gotten over whatever strange emotion took hold of him, then.

“Yeowtch, they were awful. Why didn’t you remind me to take them off the fire. I know how to smuggle us into Novyi Zem,” Jesper says, carrying the deep pot over to their chosen clean bit of floor. Next to the windowsill, so Kaz can sit down with a little less discomfort—the house has been cleaned out apart from the marriage bed, really, and making Kaz go in there now… Making Inej go in there now, when it’s where last night he and Kaz had sex… And it’s not like they were loud, but who knows what Inej read into them pacing around each other for an hour. This is much less awkward. Besides, Jesper’s recently had some great experiences with floors.

Inej doesn’t stop playing with her knife, even after she balances her stamppot served on woodboard on her knees and digs in with her slightly bent spoon. She hasn’t set it down all morning, even carried it into town when they went looking for something to eat, and while she’s been supervising Jesper’s cooking—making sure he’s reading the recipe, keeping him on-track, bickering with him over unclear or illegible instructions—she’s been twirling it around her fingers. A truly remarkable feat, given that it’s the piece of shit knife that Jesper cobbled together from coat buttons, and he didn’t know what he was doing at all except that it should probably be sharp. Inej really needs to talk him through the finer points of balance if she wants him to overhaul the thing.

“They’re not letting in any more refugees from Kerch, you said,” Jesper starts setting up the explanation for his ingenious plan, while he passes over Kaz’ portion and another spoon he dug out from the bottom of a cabinet and small-scienced back into shape.

“The rich Kerch started running first, when the Darkling advanced. Anyone who’d ever had a Grisha indenture… They probably got in. They had the money. As for the rest… well, we’ve all heard of what happened in Fjerda, unless we’re Jesper and too busy drinking and playing Makker’s Wheel—”

“Hey! I was trying to pay off your indenture,” Jesper complains, while nibbling on his surprisingly decent if underspiced potato mash. “I’m Zemeni. They’ll let me in.”

Kaz still hasn’t touched his food. He hasn’t put it away either though, hand cradling the board instead of throwing it at Jesper. Maybe it’s because he’s too curious about the plan. Jesper should have waited, but he was too excited, and now Kaz is frowning as he replies, “So you keep saying. How does that help us? I assume you wouldn’t leave the two of us behind, after all that trouble you took.”

It feels good, to hear him say that. Almost good enough to forgive that Kaz doesn’t like his lunch. “That’s where my plan comes in. I’ve finally figured it out. If we’re married—”

“We can’t marry each other,” Kaz rasps. Before Jesper gets too sad about that, he continues, “In case you haven’t yet learned to count, we’re three people now.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been thinking it over for so long. But divorce exists, you know so I was thinking that our story should be—and I’ll write to Da, but I thought you should probably agree first—I married one of you and then fell in love with the other but I still loved both, so I was trying to—”

Inej coughs. Laughs. Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and then she says, “You’re going to tell your father about your marriage in a letter—your multiple marriages, because not only did you get married without inviting him, you already traded in your wife for a younger, prettier model. You lothario!”

“If you think that Kaz—actually, are you younger than Inej?”

Kaz, spoon in mouth, glares down at him.

“I’m trying to save our lives here. I’d appreciate some cooperation! And Da will forgive me, when he sees how happy I am with my new bonebreaking gangster wife and my old knife-twirling gangster wife who I had to divorce for petty bureaucratic reasons. Do you like it?”

Another spoonful of stamppot disappears into Kaz’ mouth. His eyes are closed while he chews, and then he looks away. His voice is hoarser than normal when he mumbles, “It tastes exactly the way I—it’s good.”

“Better than unseasoned rabbit charcoal. Anyway, it might throw the Darkling off our scent some more, if we disguise Kaz as a woman—and don’t be sexist. Women come in all shapes and sizes, no-one’s going to suspect a thing. Also we’re from Ketterdam. If any woman like Kaz can marry anywhere, it’s here. It’ll be a scandal, if they refuse to honour our marriage. Letting a few poors drown outside Zemeni borders, sure, but breaking the mutual recognition of administrative documents?”

Jesper is actually pretty proud of his reasoning here. That makes it even more annoying when Kaz rasps, “No-one will ever believe I’m your wife. I can’t even touch you.”

“No-one’s going to believe I love you? Are you sure?” Jesper flutters his eyes up at Kaz.

“He has a point, Jesper. You won’t be the first desperate refugee forging a marriage to leave.” Inej twirls her knife again. “You’ll need to act the part.”

“We’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to be touched, and if they have a follow-up question, they’d better direct it to the barrel of my gun. I’m not letting anybody non-consensually grope my beloved Kerch wife. Never again. Not over my dead body.”

“Won’t they think it’s weird if Kaz—sorry, your beautiful Kerch wife doesn’t let you touch him?”

“I don’t care. I told you. Let the world bow to us. I love my ingenious, vicious Kerch wife, completely independent of any physical contact we may or may not ever have. I respect my stubborn loyal deadpan Kerch wife far too much to cross those boundaries just for social custom. Also, my sweet murderous Kerch wife has a mean right hook.”

“Thankyou for the demonstration of your acting skills,” Kaz rasps drily, scratching his spoon on his serving board for the last flecks of stamppot. “We’re not going to Novyi Zem, though. There are more amplifiers than just the Stag he forced into me, and we’re going to find the rest. I’m going to tear apart every miserable molecule in the Darkling’s body, cell by fucking cell.”

“And you just let me keep talking?”

“It was entertaining.” Kaz licks his spoon, and then the board. Any second now, Jesper will tell him there’s more left in the pot. “Write your Da. We’ll keep your plan as a backup, in case everything goes horribly wrong. You’ll need a ring, though, to make it official,” and Kaz starts rooting through the kefta pockets.

Jesper can’t breathe. Is Kaz really…? He can’t breathe until he looks at Kaz’ stretched-out, gloved hand, and—

“How the fuck did you steal that one?! I was just wearing it!”

#jesper fahey #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kaz x jesper #dimtraces makes things #shadow & bone #shadow and bone

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urukyra · 5 years ago

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Min’atoa Station Post Mortem

Min’atoa Station, my 6-month capstone project for my Game Development course at Yoobee Colleges, in which I fall down a rabbit hole, drown in a pool of tears and learn to make magic. Or, less poetically, scope too big, lose and remake multiple assets multiple times, and launch a game that falls well short of my goal - yet shows a glimpse of a potentially amazing experience.

My aim was a linear 3D narrative game - think Gone Home in a Myst type setting with a terrorist theme.. I reckon I got halfway, so there’s only 90% left to go.

Team vs Solo

Tutors urged us to push our boundaries, and in my Goodest Boi team I stretched my wings into new areas and thrived. In other teams (whether real or not) I’d felt held back by low expectations. My mantra was ‘play big’. I love to learn, and that means embracing looking stupid, stumbling before you can walk. I chose a solo project, so I’d be propelled to shine, and I was pleased I did. The gasps of surprise from the class even at my prototype were validating. A teacher once said more learners rust out than burn out - having a tutor that believed in me created its own empowerment magic.

New Idea vs Darling

I was torn between:

A new game, designed for addictive game-play loops, replayability, marketing hooks, commercial

Min’atoa - unknown market, unproven gameplay, not replayable, huge scope, high risk.

The gamedev mantra “kill your darlings” echoed in my head. I brainstormed great alternatives that I loved. And yet, YOLO, carpe diem. I left a ‘safe’ life doing what I was told for this. The window was open - now or never. I’d never “finish” Min’atoa left to my own devices. It needed a structure for existence - the force-field of deadlines, accountability, of expert help. I knew it was too big, so I ‘maimed’ my darling - reduce scope, use existing assets, basic textures, no puzzles - just a story game. That seemed do-able (cue evil laughter). So I talked myself into ‘story-only-Min’atoa.’ Call me crazy, but I don’t regret it.

Tools

I got overwhelmed.comparing narrative tools: Inkle, Twine, Yarnspinner, Ren’Py, Ink. Prairie, Fungus, Novel-software, Scrivener. My author friend Peter cut through my angst by wryly observing that Shakespeare used a quill pen. For my Myst-type story - linear, non-branching, no dialogue - Google docs was fine!

Writers Block

Although I had a plot, I couldn’t start. Tutor Matt P got me to put story beats in linear time order, then rearrange them into the order the story needed. Write short ‘memory joggers’ of each plot movement onto Post-It notes. This simple process broke the writer’s block.

Later, I found myself blocked again, and dedicated an entire week turning these brief notes into strings of story.

Story gating

Player autonomy is a key feature of game design. In game writing, each story elements has to stand on its own in whatever order players come across them, and the plot still has to make sense. So story games build artificial ‘gates’ to order key story elements (eg in locked rooms), to achieve greater dramatic tension and plot cohesion,

I fit the plot into the game’s natural gates: portal, balcony, room, and controller balcony, and Arrivals (and later,,Departures) desk drawers; Doors opened with buttons, and crystal docks.. I felt clever making drawer locks, and hiding keys and crystals. The gates were not infallible, but ‘good enough’ in playtesting.

The downside was, the story game became a puzzle game. It changed how players played, from a slow pace that encouraged reading, to active, testing interactable objects to see what they did. In retrospect, i wish I’d deliberately designed for the slower game feel of Gone Home, where players interact with passive objects whose function was to add atmosphere.

Story Element Workflow

There were 25 notices and 21 letters, each with two gameObjects - players click on a 3D object in the scene, to bring up UI with its matching 2D readable. This meant 92 assets whose materials change when I edit their words. A simple workflow was essential.

Playtesters noted the 25 notices were easily legible; that removed 25 UI assets.

For the 21 letters, I felt clever about my idea of stationery. I made stationery (paper, design and font) for each character (Tris, S’tiel, Priestess and Council). Each in-game letter automatically populated its UI stationery with a text string. Instead of 21 UI assets, I only needed four.

I was smug about this at first - I’d polish text; and the UI automatically updated. But for beta, for the first time I had to have textures on all 46 3D documents. It was an awful workflow. I’d play through, click on each letter or notice, bring up UI stationery with its unique string, snip it, create 46 materials from the snips, and tile these to fit each gameObject.

It was so tedious to change materials, it created a mental barrier to improving the text, even if it was way too long, or made me cringe. I deleted eight noticeboard posters that were too embarrassing. I left “Lorem Ipsum” text on most letters. I wish I’d fixed these. I did find ways to automate this process, but events overtook (see refactoring section) so I didn’t get time to code this.

Localisation

The more words, the more difficult and expensive is localisation, reducing the potential market, if I were doing it again, I would aim to

reduce word count dramatically, and use more images

have illegible 3D textures (see for example Zelda, Breath of the Wild) or develop an alien text / symbols

retain the process of populating 2D UI assets with strings, so that it would be easy to populate strings in different languages.

Prioritise Your Intuition

Sam Fleury, Runaway Play gave an NZGDC talk on prioritising your intuition to reduce burnout and improve personal effectiveness. He noted that our tendency to try to ‘push through’ a wall was often driven by feeling unworthy. It often led to bad code (or other work) that had to be redone.

When I noticed my brain clearly saw the chains of logic, I coded quickly and cleanly When my ‘programming mind’ lost it’s edge, went ‘fuzzy’, if I continued to push I wrote bad code, and felt burnt out. I found it took an active decision to resist the ‘imposter syndrome’ urge to push on. I’d step back, take a rest, or pivot to a task that used another part of the brain (art or story).

I took note of sunshine, various foods, coffee and rest affected my focus and set up the right environment. Dancing barefoot on the grass is great therapy.

More often than not, when I came back I’d see a bigger picture, and pivot to a different priority, or to a fresh, cleaner approach. I’d never pivot when I was nose to the grindstone.

I heartily recommend this practice. It was vital for a solo dev on a big scope game. Pacing myself was not costly, I wrote better code in less time with less stress. And it might seem obvious, but burnt out, tired devs don’t make games that are fun, intriguing, and delightful,

Attributions

I wanted assets that left the option open to allow commercial use. This hugely limited choice for the game’s many imported assets: ~20 sound effects, music, five fonts, five paper textures and plugins, .

I recommend designing a good filing system for attributions. I did record them as I went, but not in one place. Finding them months later cost time I’d rather spend on my game.

Brian and I made most of the images and icons from scratch. But right at the end I realised an image used fan art I’d made for #Myst25 from Riven, a game by Cyan Worlds, Commercial use violated their very generous terms for fan art.

I wrote to Cyan, saying I’d remove it, but it’d be a lovely Easter egg for Myst fans. Hannah Gamiel, Director of Development, Cyan Inc immediately wrote back to give permission to use it, which was typical of the lovely Cyan approach to their fans.

Refactoring

We’d planned for Brian being away for 3 months OE, but didn’t factor in a month to reinstate his melted server and hospital with pneumonia. Since Yoobee had only Unity 2018, I’d coded the prototype, Sabotage, from scratch in 3 weeks.

Once Yoobee got Unity 2019, I reverted to Min’atoa with Brian’s code, which was robust and elegantly effective, But since we were both new to Unity it used unusual approaches - event signals, listeners via parented assets, and master controllers with enums. After painfully watching me struggle, my tutor Woody spelt out the stark choice: strip out Brian’s code and he’d help me rebuild it, or struggle on alone.

I chose to strip it out. I really wanted to step up at coding, and Woody was brilliant at it. Although Min’atoa would not be finished to the level I wanted in other areas, I could do the writing and art later.

Deleting two years of scripts left 416 fatal errors; removing ‘missing scripts’ from assets took hours. It would be an enormous task to rebuild. I brutally trimmed my asset list of Brian’s features (a fully functional inventory, and putting items down). and features I’d planned (writing, art, animations, codes and puzzles).

Then I got intensive tutoring from Woody. I learned:

keep it simple - add complexity only as required

use prefabs - get one asset completely right, then 20 others work

get the essentials (story gates) working - doors, drawers, lifts and locks. ..

Within a month, most of the functions worked again. My crowning achievement was replacing Brian’s inventory with a scroll-selectable list that appears on hover (over a lock that takes multiple items) and shows what carried items fit in.

I was also pleased to get different endings working (including one that pivots the whole scene). I’ll never know what Min’atoa would be if I’d made the other decision, but I do know I would not have learned as much as I did.

The biggest code drawback was no inventory for the 21 letters,they’re just lost . The player can’t refer back to any letter they’d collected. Woody had shown me how to do it, but I spent the remaining time fixing bugs I had, and improving art and gameplay. This is such a major drawback that if I get time, I’d like to issue a patch for it, and I (think) I now know enough to do it. .

Result

I launched a game that I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, I have another game in my public itch.io portfolio. Overall, for pretty much a solo game made in a limited time, it showcases my capabilities and adds to my credibility as a game developer.

On the other hand, I wish it were more fun, that the story was better, the puzzles more difficult, the game design was more complete. The main failing with the game was the story. I have so much to learn and I plan to fully engage with expert writing mentors next year to learn to

create empathy and connection with the main characters

reveal through what’s not said, rather than tell

reduce word count (strict 140 character limit per item)

use environmental storytelling.

Given the need to limit scope, I only included very basic puzzles, that were not at the level of complexity or engagement of good competitors, like Aporia or Eastshade. Brian and I had designed more complex puzzles, but specifically removed those for scope reasons. If I were to do it again, I would prioritise adding to the puzzle component in simple ways such as:

embed hidden clues, codes and hints

add images, sketches and drawings .

Not having clues to choose different endings is a major omission. For much of the development, I placed puzzle items to make life easy for me, rather than for the player’s satisfaction, The player finds them in obvious places, one after the other repetitively, instead of having to use deductive reasoning.

I would put more time into thinking about how to make it fun for the player to discover hidden items, work out lore-logical places for them, and hint at their location rather than make it so obvious.

Conclusion

There are definitely things I want to improve in Min’atoa Station, but for now, the game is out ‘as is’.

Next time I’d invest time early to “find the fun”. Find the fun in the story, puzzles, and gameplay from the player’s perspective as early as possible and build from a solid base of a proven enjoyable gameplay experience.

At the end, my measure is not even the game. but instead what I have learned. I'm a person with new skills. Looking back my progress seems humbling and miraculous. In 2017, I first clumsily opened Photoshop, my first ever digital tool. In 2019, I made Min’atoa Station, a credible 3D game. Without diminishing Brian’s enormous contribution, or that of my tutors, it was ‘my game’. I designed the world, characters, story, gameplay, modeled and textured 3D assets, 2D assets, the menus, animations, lighting, audio, did the voice acting, used many plugins and more..I ended up coding everything, I listened and learnt, I asked for help and got lots, I struggled and fought and.. Lo.

As I reflect on the end of my time at Yoobee, my journey as a game developer has been, and I hope will continue to be, intense and exhilarating. To me, it’s been an incredible privilege to learn to make worlds from my imagination come to life.

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