She took a shaky breath. The words came like a string of gunshots, rapid-fire, as if she resented the very act of speaking them. “I didn’t know if you would come.”
Kaz couldn’t blame Van Eck for that. Kaz had built that doubt in her with every cold word and small cruelty. “We’re your crew, Inej. We don’t leave our own at the mercy of merch scum.”
It wasn’t the answer he wanted to give. It wasn’t the answer she wanted.
He thought of Inej asking, Was there no one to protect you? He remembered Jordie seated beside him on a bridge, smiling and alive, the reflection of their feet in the water beneath them, the warmth of a cup of hot chocolate cradled in his mittened hands. We were supposed to look out for each other.
They’d been two farm boys, missing their father, lost in this city. That was how Pekka got them.
She could feel the press of Kaz’s fingers against her skin, feel the bird’s-wing brush of his mouth against her neck, see his dilated eyes. Two of the deadliest people the Barrel had to offer and they could barely touch each other without both of them keeling over.
Brekker’s hands were stained with blood. Brekker’s hands were covered in scars. Brekker had claws and not fingers because he was part demon. Brekker’s touch burned like brimstone – a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die. “Pick one, they’re all true enough.”
“i would come for you,” he said, and when he saw the wary look she shot him, he said it again. “i would come for you. and if i couldn’t walk, i’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d gfight our way out together—knvies drawn, pistols blazing. because that’s what we do. we never stop fighting.”
“He was going to break my legs,” she said. “Smash them with a mallet so they’d never heal.”
Thoughts of moonlight and silken hair evaporated in a black bolt of fury. Kaz saw Inej tug on the sleeve of her left forearm, where the Menagerie tattoo had once been. He had the barest inkling of what she’d endured there, but he knew what it was to feel helpless, and Van Eck had managed to make her feel that way again. Kaz was going to have to find a new language of suffering to teach that smug merch son of a bitch.
