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“Break her legs.”
Inej stopped breathing. No. No. She thrashed on the table, but it was useless; Van Eck’s ice-cruel eyes had her pinned in place just as securely as the hands of his guards. One of them lifted a pipe, tipping it back and forth as if examining it. Inej shuddered, trying to jerk away again. A hand fisted in her hair and yanked her head down to the table with a faint thud.
Jan Van Eck held up a hand. “No. I don’t want it to be a clean break. Use the mallet. Shatter the bone.”
Shatter the bone. Her legs…her legs. She was a tightrope walker, an acrobat, a spider, a spy. What could she be if not that?
She sobbed at the thought of losing her freedom again, of her secret world being snatched from her. If she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t fight, couldn’t defend herself. For so long she’d worked to earn the grudging respect of the Barrel, and if she lost it…the thought tightened like a vise around her ribcage. Memories flickered behind her eyes, a hundred advances she’d met with violence until boys and men learned to back off.
She twisted against the guards’ grips, imagining what would have happened to her a thousand times over if she was helpless. Panic seized her as she jerked, all wild animal fear. She wasn’t Inej Ghafa. She was just a lynx, just a creature with no name pressed to the bed—the table —by laughing hands, just a spider with fire licking at her heels, just, just-
“No one will be able to put you back together again, Miss Ghafa.”
“Don’t,” she gasped, as her blood turned to ice. Bit by bit, freezing her from the inside out. “Don’t. Don’t. ”
Her legs, she needed her legs, she needed—she needed—
Kaz, please.
The mallet lifted, metal glinting in the air like a strange silver sun. And Inej screamed.
“ He’ll never trade if you break me!”
Van Eck lurched forward slightly, holding up a hand, and the guard froze. Inej gulped air, choking on it, stagnant in her frozen lungs.
Then Van Eck smiled, a slow, serpentine curl of his lips. “Perhaps that’s a gamble I’m willing to take.”
Inej didn’t have time to scream again before the mallet came down and shattered her into a million miniscule pieces.
-0-0-0-
Her left leg was worse. She could feel the splinters of her kneecap and the ends of her femur and tibia floating around, grinding together. Her right, the mallet had landed in the middle of her shin. It didn’t hurt any less, but at least she could bend it. When moving the barest inch didn’t make her throw up or pass out, anyway.
“How long,” she rasped.
Bajan looked away. They hadn’t put her blindfold back on, just shackled her wrists.
“Only a few hours. They’ve forbidden me from trying to treat you.”
Of course. Inej closed her eyes, hissing as agony rolled over her in waves. She didn’t want to look at her legs. She didn’t want to see.
“Inej, I’m sorry. I had no idea he was going to-“
“Kadema mehim,” she choked out, tipping her head back and looking at the ceiling.
He jerked back. “Don’t say that.”
Inej swallowed hard and forced herself to look him in the eye. Without her knives, without her body, the only weapon she had left was her faith. She would sharpen it as best she could and aim for Bajan’s black heart. “You are forsaken. As you have turned your back on me, so will they turn their backs on you.”
A sheen of sweat glittered on Bajan’s forehead. “I don’t believe in any of that.”
Inej laughed, soft and dark. “You will.”
She turned her face away and turned herself cold, a hollow shell, a doll. She ignored his pleas, her gaze distant and unfocused even when he moved to crouch in front of her. His hands ghosted over her skin like old clients’ once had, but she was practiced in not so much as trembling under his touch. Eventually, he left her alone. Inej did not emerge from her space deep inside herself. She couldn’t.
Kaz Brekker would not come for a worthless investment. No one had ever saved Inej but herself, and she did not have the strength this time.
She closed her eyes. She was finished.
-0-0-0-
Kaz stood across the bridge from Van Eck, a light breeze ruffling his hair as guards approached with Inej. It was only when they stopped that he could see her feet weren’t touching the ground.
Either they didn’t trust her not to run away or fight, or…
Her left knee looked wrong.
Something was wrong.
A fire was kindling in Dirtyhands’s gut. He looked at Van Eck.
Another miscalculation. He never bargained for Inej, unbroken. Just Inej. He was sloppy around her and it was never him his mistakes hurt.
His blood pounding in his ears meant he barely heard any of the negotiations. When they traded the hostages he shoved Alys forward so hard she nearly fell. In retaliation, Van Eck’s goons lowered Inej onto her feet.
She crumpled silently, just catching herself on her hands and landing heavily on her right hip. Kaz’s fingers itched to put a knife through Van Eck’s skull. Every piece of him was dying a slow, miserable death as he forced himself to stay still, watching Inej crawl, hand over hand, the short distance between them. She was shaking, covered in sweat, and Kaz imagined running to her, carrying her to safety, plan be damned.
But their lives— her life —rode on him keeping his composure. So he waited, and imagined a thousand ways to torture Van Eck while he did.
As soon as she was within reach he pulled her up, Jesper coming to her other side to lift her legs off the ground. She leaned her head on the sharpshooter’s shoulder.
“Give her to me,” Kaz growled.
“But-“
“Just keep them busy.”
The stadwatch was approaching. Van Eck was gloating. They had no time. Still, Kaz hefted her into his arms as gently as he could and set her on the bridge’s railing. She had her eyes closed, breathing shallowly.
“Inej,” Kaz said.
She opened her eyes. They were glazed with pain, barely focusing, but she held his gaze.
“There’s a boat just below you. We need to drop. Use your hands.”
She was an acrobat. She would manage. She had to.
Inej nodded once, then took a deep breath. Before Kaz could second-guess the plan, she tipped backwards.
He didn’t wait to watch her fall. Already he was turning, twirling one of her small blades between his fingers, lunging to embed it in Van Eck’s heart. The guards were no longer a worry, lying in spreading pools of blood, pocked by bullet holes that had been unnecessary after twin headshots. Unless those came second.
“Best keep this here ‘til you find a good Healer,” he growled in Van Eck’s ear. “Or you’ll bleed out in less than a minute.”
Then he let go and vaulted over the bridge without a backward glance. Inej was half sitting up against the side, staring at nothing. This close, the damage to her legs was more obvious. None of the bones had broken the skin, which at least meant she wasn’t at risk of bleeding or infection, but Kaz’s stomach roiled at the thought of what was happening under her skin, invisible.
“Inej,” he croaked. “Inej, stay with me.”
“Not going anywhere,” she mumbled.
The plan was in shambles and it had barely started. The plan hadn’t accounted for an Inej who couldn’t walk, who couldn’t even stand. He’d never even bothered to imagine it. It was impossible.
It was right in front of him. His own leg throbbed in time with the beating of his heart.
Cheers erupted from the streets. Fireworks boomed. The plan was in motion, perfect for Kaz and Inej to get back to the Slat and hole up. If Inej could walk. Even if Kaz gave her his cane—which he would, immediately—she wouldn’t manage it. Kaz looked at the flat of wild geraniums that hid their costumes. Inej had turned her head and was gently touching one of the flowers with what must have been a monumental effort. Her gaze slid past them to find Kaz watching her.
“These are my mother’s favorite,” she said.
Fuck the plan.
As soon as they were within reach of the bank, Kaz picked Inej up, cradling her as gently as he could and resting his cane in the crooks of his elbows. She ran her fingers over the crow’s head as if it were a favored toy.
Careful not to so much as brush her legs against anything, Kaz navigated the chaotic crowds of the Barrel. Agony burned up and down his leg, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Inej, so still and small she hardly seemed real. He headed for the Slat, not even breaking stride once he was inside until he found the room they’d given to Nina and Matthias. The two of them had stayed behind with some of the Dregs on guard in case the stadwatch tried to take over while they were gone.
“Inej!” Nina cried as soon as she saw her in Kaz’s arms. “Kaz, what happen-“
“Fix her,” Kaz growled, laying Inej on the bed as gently as he could.
“I’m not a Healer, I’m not even a Heartrender anymore-“
“Fix. Her.”
“I can’t. My power-“
“Then take some fucking parem and get the job done.”
“Hey,” Matthias snapped, pushing Nina behind him. “Stop it, Kaz. Just because Inej is hurt doesn’t mean you can take it out on Nina.”
Kaz breathed in and out through his nose. “Whatever you have to do. Just fix her. Please. ”
Nina nodded, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and gently pushed Matthias aside. She got to the grim work of putting their Wraith back together.
-0-0-0-
“I tried, you know.”
Kaz had been slumped, half asleep, in the chair beside her bed, but at the sound of Inej’s voice he jolted upright.
“What?”
“Van Eck. I tried to warn him, I said I was no use to you if I was broken, but he didn’t care.” Inej blinked at the ceiling, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “I tried to escape, too. There was nowhere to go.”
“Inej…”
Kaz doesn’t finish the sentence. The silence hangs thick and awkward in the air around them, until Nina comes through the door.
“Oh! You’re awake! How are you feeling?”
Inej tentatively took stock of herself. Her legs were pounding with pain, but it was less all-consuming than it had been. “Okay.”
Nina laughed. “Only you could have two of your legs in pieces and feel okay. I gave you everything I know of to help the pain, though, so I suppose that’s a sign it’s doing something. How much do you remember?”
Inej shook her head as images flashed through her head, coupled with mismatched snatches of sound. “Not much.”
“Well, after he traded Van Eck’s wife for you, Kaz carried you all the way back to the Slat. You were in and out of consciousness, not really focusing on much. I splinted your legs as best I could and now it’s just a waiting game.”
Inej looked down at where a blanket had been pulled over her lap. “Can I see?”
“There’s not much to see, at the moment.”
“Can I see?” Inej repeated, harsher.
Nina bit her lip and peeled the blanket back. Both her legs were wrapped in bandages up to the thigh, covering all the skin and the outlined forms of the splints. They seemed too large for her body, graceless and clumsy. She tugged the blankets back down.
“There’s a lot of swelling,” Nina explained hesitantly. “I’ll keep an eye on it, re-splint as it goes down.”
“Will…” Inej hesitated, plucking at frayed threads. “After I heal. Will I be able to walk?”
Kaz turned away. Nina grimaced.
“I’m not sure. That kind of break…it will probably be painful.”
“Right. Obviously. Um.” Inej glanced up at her, then away, her gaze darting around the room. Without even trying she was identifying escape routes and places to hide weapons and cataloging information from the furniture and belongings strewn around. She forced herself to stop as a sob bubbled in her chest at the reminder that she would never be a spy again. “Can…can I be alone, for a moment?”
“Of course,” Nina said, and all but ran from the room. Inej tried not to take it personally.
Kaz stood up more slowly, leaning heavily on his cane. He watched her for a long moment.
“You carried me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“It must’ve hurt.” More than that; he must’ve refractured the bone.
“It was worth it,” he said quietly.
Before she could find the words to respond, Kaz left the room. Inej slumped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
She would walk again. She promised herself that much. and if she needed a cane, or something else, then…then she would find a way.
A spider had spun a web in one of the upper corners. The light danced on a thin silver strand stretching halfway along the wall. Inej imagined a tightrope, and her heart ached. She could never be that way again.
Back in the Ice Court she had told herself she was no one’s spider, no one’s Wraith. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to her until this moment. She hadn’t known the value of it until it was ripped away.
If she was no longer the Wraith, if she could no longer do Kaz Brekker’s bidding, where would she go? Nowhere in Ketterdam would take her. Even Tante Heleen would turn her away now. Inej laughed, lowly. The one thing she’d wanted for years, at such a terrible price.
If she had nothing but her place in the Dregs, then she needed to do everything in her power to keep it. She needed to prove to Kaz that she was still useful.
-0-0-0-
After a few days of lying in bed, Nina presented Inej with crutches. Kaz stood at the side of the room, his expression dark and unreadable. Inej tried to ignore him as Nina helped her stand and fit the crutches under her arms. She closed her eyes for a long moment against a fresh wave of pain, trying to put as little weight on her legs as possible.
This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t stand and use her hands at the same time. Unacceptable.
“This is temporary?” she asked, looking to Nina.
She nodded quickly. “Probably. In a few weeks, when you’re stronger, we can look at some other options.”
A few weeks. Inej stared at her feet. “I want to go outside.”
“We’re on the second floor, it’s really not a good idea for you to try-”
“Then carry me down, I don’t care.” She needed to get out of this room before she screamed. She was trapped enough as it was in her own body.
Nina glanced at Kaz, then carefully negotiated lifting Inej. Kaz carried her crutches ahead of them, paving the way with his black-eyed stare. People stared anyway, and Inej tried not to feel like a small and broken bird as Nina marched outside the Slat.
“Don’t overexert yourself,” she warned as she set Inej down. “Just a couple of minutes, and then you go back.”
Inej nodded, and Nina ducked back inside, leaving her and Kaz alone. He still wasn’t looking at her, so she did her best to walk away from him, awkward on her crutches. She felt vulnerable and exposed, no way of protecting herself from anything.
She didn’t tell Kaz not to follow, so he kept pace with her as she made her way to the corner of the building and stopped.
“I want you to know that I’m doing my best,” she began. “Once I’m off of these, I’ll figure something out. I’ll find a way to work again. I can still be a useful asset. I just need some time.”
Kaz stared at her in shock. “Inej-”
“I didn’t know if you would come. After. But you didn’t know.” Her breath shivered in her lungs. “Now? Now you see. I can’t walk, much less climb walls and balance on tightropes. He broke my legs. I’m never going to be the same. So if you want to give another soft-footed Menagerie girl a deal, just tell me now so I can leave.”
Kaz grabbed her wrist. “Even if I had known, I would have come for you. If I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you. And no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together, knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”
Inej stared at him. Her pulse fluttered beneath his gloved fingers.
“I don’t care if you never take another step in your life,” Kaz said fiercely. “I want you home. ”
“I-”
“Do you think I’m useless?”
Inej stared at him. “What kind of question-”
“Am I useless, Inej. Dead weight. A burden on the Dregs, on you.”
“Of course you’re not.”
“Then neither are you. However this ends, you have a place in the Dregs. As long as you’re alive, you will never be nothing. If you ever trusted me at all, trust me on that.”
Inej couldn’t speak. She barely managed to nod. Kaz released her wrist and jerked his head back toward the door. “I think that’s enough walking for today.”
“But-”
“You want to give yourself the best chance at healing? Take it slow, Wr—Inej.”
She sighed and followed him back into the Slat. Nina carried her upstairs again, but Kaz was the one who had her sit up so he could braid her hair. After days of letting it hang loose, it felt like reclaiming a little piece of herself.
-0-0-0-
Inej spent four weeks, an eternity, carefully pacing herself until she wanted to scream. Jesper and Wylan kept her company most of the time, when Kaz was busy keeping the Dregs afloat and Nina and Matthias were busy doing…other things. They helped stave off the worst of the boredom, and once Inej trained them out of treating her like a small wounded animal it was sort of fun, sometimes. At last, she graduated from her first set of crutches. She sort of expected to have a cane, like Kaz, but Nina brought in something else.
“Forearm crutches,” she explained, tightening one of the straps over her own arm to demonstrate. “I doubt you would do well with a cane, with your injury. This way, you’ll have some more mobility, and more importantly, you’ll be able to use your hands.” She let go of the grip, letting the crutch swing in the air. “Obviously not both at once unless you want to reinjure yourself, but it’s something.”
It was. Inej nodded and held out her hands for the crutches. “I can work with that.”
She practiced as much as she was allowed to, and started keeping knives on her person again, just in different places. The little blades at her knees moved to her elbows, and Kaz even added a similar mechanism to the bottoms of her crutches. They were Fabrikator-made, same as his cane, and good for breaking bones, but Inej still preferred her claws. The thought of snapping someone else’s legs made her stomach turn.
One day she snuck out unsupervised and tried to pull herself up the drainpipe with only her hands. Weeks of holding most of her weight on her arms made it surprisingly easy, and when Nina found her sitting on the roof an hour later she very nearly passed out. Inej tucked the memory away to examine later and savored for days in her victory.
Van Eck hadn’t taken everything from her.
She had nightmares, of course, always waking up alone and carefully checking over her legs before falling back into a restless sleep. Usually they were just flashes, barely remembered in the morning. Then…
“Use the mallet. Shatter the bone.”
“He’ll never trade if you break me!”
And the mallet comes down. And down again.
And again, and again, and again. Forever and ever, fracturing her into pieces, grinding her into dust, and pain is tearing her apart at every seam but it won’t stop, she can’t even fall into unconsciousness. She just watches, awake, as Van Eck takes everything.
Shadows swallow her, and out of the darkness Kaz’s face looms. She reaches for him.
“Kaz, Kaz, please, help me.”
His lip curls. “Another wasted investment.”
He leaves her there alone.
“Kaz! Kaz , don’t, don’t, come back, please, I can’t-” Inej sucked in a shuddering breath, collapsing forward with her head in her hands.
Cool fingers wrapped gently around her wrists, pulling them away. Kaz Brekker looked at her, his ungloved hands steady on her skin.
She was still dreaming.
At least this one was nicer.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said.
Definitely a dream. Inej threw her arms around him anyway, burying her face in his chest. He said nothing as she cried, only holding her and stroking her hair.
When she woke in the morning, there was a note on the pillow beside her head.
It wasn’t a dream.
Inej avoided him for three days. She was still more than capable of disappearing; or maybe it was that Kaz knew when to let things go unfound.
-0-0-0-
“I have a job for you.”
Inej sat up straight as Kaz closed the door behind him. It had been almost three months since her escape, and she was beginning to think she would never hear those words again. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, Dirtyhands.”
He offered her the barest smile. “I mean it. Yesterday you nearly beat Helvar in a fight.”
Inej did not point out that Matthias had let her almost win. Most people weren’t druskelle. She was ready.
“Tell me everything.”
Kaz told her. The Black Tips were trying their old trick of stealing pigeons off the boats in Fifth Harbor, and it was time for another meeting. Not a parley; Kaz wanted no guarantee of peace this time.
“You’ll be my second with Jes,” Kaz told her.
“Don’t get me shot,” Inej teased, remembering Big Bolliger, but Kaz’s expression turned deadly serious.
“Never.”
Geels brought Elzinger and Drost. Inej wondered if he remembered their meeting before the Ice Court, or if he just brought Elzinger with him always, the way Kaz did Jesper. Somehow she doubted Geels was capable of sentiment.
She could see Drost eyeing her hungrily on her crutches. As much as she wanted to put him in his place there and then, she forced herself to keep leaning heavily on them, standing just behind Kaz. Let them think her weak. She’d prove them wrong soon enough.
“Geels,” Kaz said by way of greeting.
“Brekker. I see you’ve brought another cripple to the party. No more roof climbing for the Wraith, hm?”
“I suppose he keeps her around for her other talents,” Drost leered.
Inej grit her teeth, determined not to react, while inside her blood boiled. The place where her Menagerie tattoo and then her scar had once been itched.
“Kindly tell your man to refrain from speaking,” Kaz said. “He lowers the intelligence of the entire city any time he opens his mouth.”
Geels smirked. “Not a parley. Seconds can speak if they want.”
“And weapons are allowed, so if another comment is made about Inej I will cut out every single one of your tongues and feed them to you slowly,” Kaz replied.
Drost laughed, thinking Kaz was bluffing. He was newer to the Black Tips, too arrogant for his place. His laughter died as he looked in Kaz’s eyes and realized he wasn’t joking.
“No, please, if you find it so funny,” Kaz murmured. “You know, the last time we met Oomen was in your place. He found it very amusing to get between me and my Wraith until I ripped out his eye and dumped him in the sea.”
Drost lowered his gaze.
“Stay out of Fifth Harbor, Geels. That’s Dregs territory. I won’t ask again.”
“You’ve been distracted. Gone on that Ice Court disaster, leaving Fifth vulnerable.” Geels’ eyes flicked to Inej, and she braced for whatever he was about to say. “Didn’t seem to care so much a few weeks ago when you were mooning over your broken little whore.”
Kaz’s cane connected with Geels’ skull and the two of them went down together. A gunshot split the air. Drost lunged for Inej and she turned, clicking the releases for the knives at her elbows and driving one into his gut. It was a short thing, not enough to do major damage, but it certainly bought her time to pull another of her knives and slash his face. His foot swept her other crutch out from under her while he shoved her arm away and she found herself falling, gracelessly, slamming into the cobblestone street.
Get up. To lie down was to die. Inej pressed the release on both of her crutches and stabbed the knives on the ends into Drost’s thighs. She twisted. He howled in pain as she scrambled back and up, fumbling to get her feet under her.
Pounding feet and a guttural cry drew her attention to Geels, racing out of the courtyard as fast as he could go. Elzinger and Jesper were wrestling on the ground, but even as Inej watched Jesper pressed one of his pistols between Elzinger’s eyes, freezing them both.
Inej gave Drost another gash on his stomach to remember her by and gripped his collar when he bent over in pain.
“I’d like to hope that you’ll let this be a lesson to you about underestimating me,” she told him, “but you’re not going to live long enough to put it to good use.”
It felt good to bury her knife in his chest. He looked down at it, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, and Inej yanked it out. He swayed on his feet for a moment before he collapsed. Elzinger was scrambling to escape himself, but he paused for half a second, looking back at his fallen comrade. Inej bared her teeth, and he kept running. She turned to find that Kaz and Jesper were both watching her.
“I think we did all right for ourselves,” she told them, stowing her knives and getting her crutches back under her. She nudged Drost’s lifeless leg with her crutch. “None of them ever learn, do they?”
“Inej, you gem,” Jesper said, grinning as wide as she'd ever seen him. “You miracle, you.”
He threw an arm around her shoulders, ruffling her hair and tearing strands of it out of her braid. She laughed and pushed him away.
“Thanks, Jes.”
He ruffled her hair one more time and started loping back to the Dregs they’d brought along, probably looking for Wylan. Kaz fell into step beside Inej.
“Your legs?” he asked, low.
They hurt, but it was rare that they didn’t hurt these days. It was well worth it to send a message to the Black Tips, to all of Ketterdam: Inej Ghafa was not out of the game.
“Fine,” she said. “You?”
Kaz scoffed. “I could walk the length of this city in a day. I’m fine. Better now that Geels is no longer able to run his mouth.”
Inej glanced down at his gloves, slick and glistening with blood, and realized he’d made good on his threat.
“So. Am I still your best investment?”
Kaz stopped, giving her a deep, searching look. She let him. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t asking because she needed to be useful, or because the only part of their relationship that mattered was the business. It was just that once upon a time, not so long ago, it had been the closest Kaz was willing to come to admitting he cared.
She was asking if he still did.
“Always,” he promised, then jerked his head toward the Dregs. “Come on, I think Nina had plans to drag us out for celebratory waffles.”
“I did!” Nina shouted, emerging from the crowd and bounding forward to throw her arms around Inej. “You deserve it.”
“What if we’d lost?” Inej asked.
“You weren’t going to,” Nina informed her. “But if by some twist you did, they would be comfort waffles. Very versatile. Are you coming or not?”
Inej glanced up at Kaz and couldn’t stop a grin breaking out on her face as the reality of the night settled into her bones. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
-0-0-0-
Not everything was a triumph, though. A week later the lot of them took the night off and went dancing. Or, mostly the others danced. Inej and Kaz watched from the sidelines, content with Nina or Jesper occasionally running over to twirl them and making sure none of their friends made complete fools of themselves. Then a slow song began to play and some of the more rambunctious dancers left the floor, and Inej found herself presented with a black-gloved hand.
“Kaz, I can’t-“
“I can hold you,” he said.
“But your-“
He shrugged. “Maybe I’m having a good day.”
“Maybe you’re not. ”
“Inej. Let me?”
How could she say no to that? She unstrapped her crutches and tucked them into the booth they’d been occupying, allowing Kaz to take her hands and pull her onto the floor. With his hand on her hip he helped take some of her weight, and she could tentatively push down on their joined hands like a crutch. Neither of them would be able to do it for long without deeply regretting it in the morning, but it was worth it for a song or two.
“Thank you,” Inej whispered as they moved slowly across the floor.
Kaz only smiled at her. She heard Nina squeal and grinned as she glanced over; she and Matthias were dancing, but Nina looked ten times happier to see Inej. Wylan and Jesper had given up; if Inej strained she thought she could hear Wylan complaining about crushed toes.
It was nice.
The song was a long one, so when it ended Kaz switched to wrapping a hand around her waist, lifting most of her weight, until they got back to their table. Matthias and Nina were already on one side, laughing at Wylan as Jesper pulled him off again for a jauntier dance. Inej slid into the booth, feeling warm and happy, and it was several moments before she realized something was wrong.
“Hey, um, Nina?”
“Yeah, love?”
“Did you take my crutches when you sat down?”
She frowned. “No. Did they fall under the table?”
A search revealed that they did not. Inej fought down choking panic and tried to be reasonable. Calm. Collected. Something.
“We’ll find them,” Matthias assured her. “I’ll get Jesper and Wylan, we can watch the exits while you two look around?”
“Please,” Nina scoffed. “Wylan can look around in here, I’ll play bouncer.” Her expression serious again, she took Inej’s hand and squeezed. “We’ll find them. It’ll be okay, Nej.”
Inej nodded, tears threatening at the assurance, but luckily the three of them left before any spilled. She scrubbed at her eyes and tried to act normal, but she didn’t know how to be normal alone at a table.
Her crutches were gone. She couldn’t walk. She was trapped, and alone, and if the others didn’t come back-
They will come back.
She was so helpless it hurt , her heart fluttering behind her ribs.
“Miss, are you alright?”
She flinched at the voice, her head snapping up to find an older man standing at the end of the booth.
“You look lonely over here by yourself, is all,” he continued. “I saw your friends earlier, wanted to make sure they didn’t leave you alone.”
“I’m fine,” Inej said, or tried to. Nothing actually came out. She slid to the end of the booth, her hands shaking. She needed to get out.
If she could walk-
A sob threatened at the thought. Her legs already hurt more than usual, aggravated by dancing. If she hadn’t gone with Kaz, if she hadn’t tried to take back a little extra bit of joy, this wouldn’t be happening.
The man moved aside a little, making room, but still looming as she gripped the table and tried to figure out what to do. The exits. Her friends were watching the doors. If she could get that far, then…something. They would have to take care of her, because she was useless.
“Are you sure you’re alright, miss?”
A hand splayed across her back. Inej’s mind screamed danger, danger, attack , excruciatingly aware that she could do nothing, that this man or anyone else could hurt her and she could not stop him.
He could drag her to a back room, to the alley outside, could force her downdowndown like she was fourteen again. Like she couldn’t fight. She was shaking apart at the seams, vision blurring.
Another hand on her leg, just above her knee, and she was gone.
-0-0-0-
Kaz never should have left her alone. He was scanning through the bar for whoever had stolen her crutches, his grip on his cane white-knuckled and nearly trembling with rage. How dare they.
At last he spotted them, laid on a table like some prize, ringed by a gaggle of teenage boys. He smacked the closest one with his cane, hard enough to hurt but not damage, and snatched the crutches back.
“These do not belong to you,” he growled. “You have three seconds to leave before I start cracking your skulls open.”
The boys fled and Kaz started toward the front door to get Matthias. He was nearly there when Wylan ran up to him, wide-eyed and breathless.
“It’s Inej, I don’t know what’s wrong with her-“
Kaz shoved past Wylan and everyone else in the place, not slowing until he reached their table. Inej was nowhere to be seen, but one of the bartenders was hovering anxiously beside the table.
“I was just worried about her-“ he began.
Kaz bared his teeth and shouldered him aside, crouching down. Sure enough, Inej had backed herself under the table, her eyes gleaming and her knees pulled into her chest. She was trembling. If she saw him in front of her, she didn’t show it.
Kaz lunged back to his feet, snarling. “What the fuck did you say to her?”
“Nothing!” The bartender backed away as he advanced. “I just asked if she was okay, but she wouldn’t answer me.”
“Did you touch her?”
“Of course not! Well…well, I touched her back and her knee, but nothing like what you th-“
Dammit. Kaz turned away, ignoring the rest of the man’s blathering. He tucked Inej’s crutches into the crook of his arm, unwilling to lose them again, and crouched down as Matthias appeared.
“Is she okay?” he asked, half shouting in the crowded bar. The noise was doing nothing to help Inej.
Actually…
“Shut the place down, Matthias. Yell fire if you have to.”
“I don’t know if I-“
“I don’t remember asking ,” Kaz replied coldly. He didn’t know what Matthias did, but by the time Nina, Wylan, and Jesper arrived, the music had stopped and some of the other patrons were leaving.
Kaz’s leg was already aching from crouching; he couldn’t imagine what Inej was feeling, balled up tightly under the table.
“We have to get her out,” he said. “Home. As soon as possible.”
“Inej,” Jesper called softly, but she didn’t seem to hear him. “Inej, hey, it’s Jes.”
Inej turned her face away, pressing closer to the wall. Kaz’s heart twisted.
“Back off,” he said. “Give her a little space.”
Some people were gathering, curious onlookers. Kaz glared at them until they sheepishly moved along. As people emptied into the moonlight, he sighed and pressed his fingers into his eyes. The night had gone wrong so quickly. It wasn’t fair. Not to Inej.
-0-0-0-
When she could think beyond the high white buzz of staticky fear and agony, she could hear snatches of voices.
“-nej, Inej, can you hear me? Fuck, this is bad, where’s-“
“What the fuck did you say to-“
“-want to come out? That position isn’t good for your legs.”
Inej shook her head, pressing deeper back into the darkness where no outstretched hands could reach. She was safe here. Her body was on fire, but she was safe.
“Inej, listen-“
A hand came from the side, a boy, a man, and Inej screamed inside her head (not out loud, she was always safer silent) as she scrambled back, back, away.
“-thias—scaring her—okay. Hey, Nej? Can you hear me? It’s Nina. You’re alright, you’re safe. If you won’t come out, can I at least join you under there?”
Inej considered, then nodded. Nina crawled into the dark space with her. The outside world was starting to trickle in more as the worst of the panic bled away. It was very quiet. Too quiet.
“It’s kind of gross under here,” Nina commented. “You want to get out? Because I do. Promise the rest of us are here to protect you.”
Inej bit her tongue. That was wrong. They weren’t supposed to. She was supposed to protect herself. She was supposed to prove herself, be useful, be strong. Not hide because she couldn’t handle being alone for a moment.
That settled it. She eased her way out, stopping several times to close her eyes and breathe through the pain of unlocking her joints and using her legs to push herself out.
Kaz crouched in front of her. “Can I touch you?”
She shook her head. She didn’t need help. She didn’t. Kaz moved back, and Inej pulled herself up to sit at the table. She couldn’t stop a few tears from spilling over as her vision went hazy with pain, but she waved off the others’ offers to help.
Fine. She was fine.
Be fine.
“Do you know what happened?” Nina asked, gently.
Inej shook her head.
“Okay. That’s okay. We’re gonna go home now, okay? Who would you like to carry you?”
Inej froze. “No.”
“Nej, you might not be feeling it yet, but you really shouldn’t be-“
“I always feel it,” she snapped, cutting Jesper off. “I want…I want…”
Wordlessly, Kaz passed her her crutches. She snatched them and pushed herself to her feet, trembling all over but finally able to breathe. Everyone’s hands hovered close to her, not quite willing to touch, and Inej hung her head and breathed.
It hurt. Not just the places where her bones had been smashed; the throbbing had consumed everything below her waist. She felt dizzy with it, but she was determined to walk by herself. She was useful. She could save herself.
“Inej-“
“I’m fine.”
She had no memory of making it home. Only steely determination and exhaustion and agony. She went as fast as she could, because if she was moving it was something to focus on that wasn’t the pain or the leftover fear shaking her limbs, and because she wanted to leave the others far behind. She locked the door behind her in her room, safe and secure, and then her body failed her.
-0-0-0-
“Oh, Saints, oh hell, Inej? Inej, can you hear me?”
A hand shaking her shoulder. Inej groaned and rolled over, then hissed as the movement woke a new fire in her bones.
“I’ll get Nina, don’t try to move-“
“Wylan.” She grabbed his wrist, pulling him back down. “Stay.”
He hesitated. “Inej, do you know that five seconds ago you were unconscious on the floor?”
“I’m fine. What time-“
“It’s been about an hour. We were giving you privacy, shit, someone should’ve checked, let me see your head-“
“Wylan! I’m fine, I fell asleep.”
“On the floor?”
Inej closed her eyes briefly. “Everything is fine. ”
“Okay, well, you should at least get off the-” Wylan reached for her and she flinched automatically. He drew back. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m just…” she pushed herself up on her elbows, trying to ignore panic bubbling in her chest. She’d never put the straps on properly and her crutches were lying somewhere in the dimness, maybe kicked away by her feet, what if she’d lost them again? Her legs burned.
Wylan, at least, seemed to know what she needed without her having to ask. “Your crutches are right here, I’m sorry, I moved them out of the way when I came in.” He passed them over without touching her and Inej held onto them, but she barely had the energy to hold her head up, much less walk anywhere. Still, the weight of them in her hands was a comfort. A weapon and a tool at her disposal. She wasn’t helpless.
“Should I go get Kaz? I should get Kaz, probably, he’ll know what to-”
“Wylan, please. Help me sit up. At least give me five minutes before you go haring off for the cavalry.”
He hesitated, then gently wrapped an arm around her, easing her up. “Okay. But only five minutes. Everyone’s really worried about you, you know.”
Inej leaned her head on his shoulder, felt him stiffen briefly in surprise before relaxing, carefully, as though afraid to jostle her. “I don’t want them to be.”
“We’re only worried because we care. You don’t want us to care?”
She shook her head. “That’s not…no. Yes. I don’t know.”
“You don’t want us to help,” Wylan supplied. “Or pity you, or, or leave you behind.”
Inej figured her silence was answer enough.
“I know what it’s like to be useless,” Wylan said softly. “You’re looking at everyone else, and they can do it, and you can’t, and you know that if you were different you could help them more. Not slow them down.”
Inej nodded. “I used to be the best.”
“Yeah,” Wylan said. “You did.”
Grief welled up inside her, as fresh as it had been in the beginning. “I was the best in the Barrel. I was Kaz’s second just as often as Jesper was, and, and now?”
“I know. Can I give you a hug?”
Inej nodded and let him pull her in. For just a moment she let herself cry, remembering only a few months before, before the Ice Court, before everything. She’d been so confident, so sure of herself. There was no law that applied to her except gravity, and some days not even that.
Never again. Not the same way.
She had grieved a version of herself before, a Suli girl who walked the tightrope and played with her friends and fell in love with a kind, gentle boy and never had to know what it was like to bleed a man’s life from his veins. She’d mourned that girl, and then she’d created herself anew.
Now she had to bury that version of Inej, too.
When she had wrung herself out, Wylan stroked her hair. Without breaking their embrace, he murmured, “If you’re never going to be the person you were, maybe you need to stop trying.”
Inej sniffed. “Yeah?”
“Like…like my father, he wanted me to be his heir. Smart and good at business and all of that, right?” Wylan pulled away only far enough to face Inej rather than sitting side by side. “And it was miserable. Even after I was on my own, I wanted to be what he wanted me to be. And I couldn’t. I can’t.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. Inej nodded.
“But what I can be is this. I can be the demo man, I can be your friend, I can be the one who teaches everyone ballroom dancing, I can be Jesper’s boyfriend. Yes or yes?”
“I…yeah. You’re all those things.”
“You know what else I am, Nej?” He smiled, and she thought his eyes looked watery.
“What?”
“I’m happy. I really, really am. I’m not going to pretend it was easy, you know, or that I don’t still have days where I feel like you all would be better off without me, but most of the time I’m happy. It hurt a lot, in the beginning, to stop trying. Maybe not trying hurt more than the trying ever did. I don’t know. But it is easier now. And…and Ghezen knows I can’t force you to do anything, but I want it to be easier for you, too.”
“Yeah,” Inej whispered, her voice thick in her throat. “I think I do too. I just…I don’t know how. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a contract, or a job. I mean, technically I haven’t paid off my indenture yet.”
Wylan hummed. “We can fix that, I’m sure. You’re dating Kaz Brekker, after all.”
Inej stared at him. “I’m what? No. We aren’t…Wylan!”
“I’m telling you what I see!” He held up his hands, don’t shoot. “But seriously. If you can’t remember a time when no one wanted anything from you, maybe you should make new memories.”
“Maybe,” Inej murmured.
Wylan stood up and held out his hand. “Come on. You need to go to bed. You need cuddles. Nina told me to make sure you were warm. She said it’d help with…everything.”
Inej accepted his hand and let him help her take the last few steps to her bed. He pulled the blanket over her, then poked around the room until he found two more and piled those on, too. Once he was satisfied, he went back to lock the door. Inej lifted her head.
“I locked that. How’d you get in?”
He grinned sheepishly and held up a pair of lockpicks. “I asked Kaz to teach me. I wanted to be useful.”
“And here you are lecturing me.”
“I never said I was perfect!” He set the picks on her nightstand and climbed carefully over her before squirming under the covers. “Is this okay?”
“You’re already doing it.”
“I’m sorry! I’m used to sleeping with Jes. Seriously, though.”
She wriggled back, pressing closer to him. “It’s good, Wylan. Thank you.”
“Go to sleep. You can talk to the others in the morning.”
It was easier than Inej would have thought to drop back into unconsciousness, warm and safe with a friend at her back.
-0-0-0-
Two and a half hours after Wylan crept upstairs to check on Inej, the merchling came back to the common area of the Slat. Everyone else had long since gone to bed, leaving just Kaz, Jesper, Matthias, and Nina sprawled around a table, waiting.
“She’s asleep,” Wylan reported. “We talked.”
“About?” Kaz asked.
“None of your business,” Wylan said, looking pleased with himself. Kaz thought he might have rehearsed this.
“It’s Inej. She is my business.”
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. None of you can go in there, I already promised her you’d wait until morning. I’m going back up to keep her company in a minute. But, Kaz?” Wylan jerked his head back toward the stairs as if indicating they should talk in private.
“She was okay with you there?” Kaz asked while they made their way up to his office.
Wylan looked puzzled. “All of you said I was the least threatening option. That’s why I went.”
“You never know,” Kaz muttered under his breath. “What did you want to talk to me about that can’t be said in front of the others?”
Wylan blew out a breath. “Inej doesn’t feel useful. I think…she didn’t say this directly, but I think she feels sort of defenseless. If she has her crutches, we’ve all seen her, she’s perfect, but if she doesn’t…she can’t get away. Or fight, much. Based on her reaction when I first came in, I think that’s mostly what happened tonight. She just got scared because she was trapped.”
Kaz nodded slowly, already trying to remember some of the exercises he’d done when his injury was newer, strengthening it. Maybe some of those would help Inej.
“What else?”
“Like I said, she doesn’t feel useful.”
“It’s not her job to be useful.” It’s her job to be here. To stay alive.
“I’m just telling you what she told me. Look, you bought her indenture, right? She still owes you?”
Kaz narrowed his eyes. “She doesn’t belong to me.”
“Obviously. But it’s a contract. It’s business. Those were the terms, that she spies for you, and you get her out of the Menagerie, right?”
Kaz’s insides felt hollow as he grasped what Wylan was saying. “She doesn’t think I would-”
“Send her back? Not really. But the whole reason she’s in the Dregs is because she could spy for you. Now that she can’t…she’s scared. And I get it, you know? I was terrified the whole Ice Court job that you’d figure out I wasn’t any use to you and drop me into the ocean or something.”
“But we didn’t.”
“Because I’m good at demo,” Wylan said. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t still be here. With Jesper, maybe, but once I wasn’t around to be your leverage anymore you would’ve just cut me loose, if you couldn’t use me.”
“I told her already that it doesn’t matter,” Kaz ground out. “I don’t care if she never so much as eavesdrops on a little old lady. It’s not important.”
“Try overriding a year and change of knowing it was very, very important with one conversation,” Wylan said wryly. “As long as there’s a contract with a clause she can’t fulfill, she’ll be nervous. Some things, she has to work out herself, but if I were you, I’d be trying to make her life easier.”
Kaz tilted his head, considering Wylan. “You are not the same as you were when we met,” he said.
How could Wylan have gotten all of this out of Inej, when Kaz was interpreting the barest signs and dragging confessionals from her with hooks?
Wylan just ducked his head. “I try. I’m gonna go back to Inej now. Don’t bother coming in the morning unless you have good news.”
“Protective,” Kaz muttered to himself as the merchling disappeared down the stairs. It was supposed to be his job, but right in this moment he found he didn’t mind so much.
He went to his desk and pulled out the books. Inej’s contract versus everything he owned. A balance needed to be made.
-0-0-0-
Inej took a deep breath and knocked on Wylan’s door. It was Jesper’s door too, technically, but she didn’t want him to know she was here yet. If Jesper knew, Kaz and Nina and Matthias would know soon enough, and…this was for her. Her and Wylan.
He opened the door, his hair a mess and goggles resting haphazardly on top of his head. His fingers were smeared with grease.
“Oh, hey, Inej. Jesper’s not here, but-“
“I’m not here for Jesper. I’m here for you. Get ready, we’re going out.”
“Out where?”
Inej was already turning away. “To see your father.”
Wylan swore under his breath and ducked back inside. Inej started down the street toward the Van Eck mansion, and a moment later he tumbled after her, still tugging on a jacket.
“I’ve arranged some things. Called in a few old favors. We’ll have half an hour with him before we have to worry about guards or the stadwatch. ”
“What are you going to do?”
“Mostly I’m going to help you. Along the way I’ll make sure he knows he didn’t break me. That’s all.”
Wylan looked nervous at that. Inej told him the rest of the plan, and when they were still a block away from Van Eck’s house she slid her crutches into two new loops in her belt and pulled herself up the nearest drainpipe to the roof. Wylan continued alone while she followed him from the rooftops, still quiet despite her extra supports. She’d done a lot of practice that the others didn’t know about.
She didn’t bother to check if Wylan managed to make it inside. She’d gathered up everything she knew about Van Eck and coached him on exactly what to say. Everything had its lever.
She scoffed at herself. Every day she was thinking more like Kaz.
Voices drifted up from the open office window as she swung her legs over the edge of the mansion roof and stowed her crutches again. Van Eck always left it open in the daytime. Inej found another drainpipe, leading down about a foot away from the ledge, and began to slide down. Descending was harder without her legs to brace herself, but she managed.
“Actually,” Wylan’s voice said nervously, “I’m here on business.”
Her cue. Inej gritted her teeth and swung her legs up, wincing as she slid over to the window ledge and inside.
“As it happens, so am I.”
Van Eck whirled as she pulled her crutches out again and made her way to stand beside Wylan. “You…but your…but that’s…”
“Surprised to see me? Everyone is these days. I’m here for a message and for recompense. For me, and for Wylan.”
“A crippled spy and a stupid son. What a pair to intimidate,” Van Eck laughed.
With a little click Inej had a knife at his throat, courtesy of her long reach with the crutch. “Insult either of us again and I’ll sever the artery right here and forge everything we need with your blood.”
Wylan squeaked. Inej supposed he wasn’t used to this version of her.
She was tired of men playing games with her. It was her turn.
“Please,” Van Eck whispered.
“ Oh, ” Inej purred. “I like it when men beg. I like it better when they apologize.” She pressed the knife closer to emphasize the last word. Van Eck swallowed as blood trickled down his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Now, I believe you owe Wylan an inheritance and my crew payment for our job. Killing you is a hassle I would prefer to avoid, though, so if you wouldn’t mind signing over a chunk of it now, we’ll be on our way.”
“Even if I do, I’ll call the stadwatch. No court in the world would legitimize it.”
“Which is why you’re not going to call the stadwatch. I scaled the rooftops to get here, Van Eck. I’m just as deadly as I always was. And I know every single one of your dirty secrets.” She leaned forward, almost nose to nose with him. “I broke into the Ice Court when I was sixteen. How much of a gamble are you willing to make this time?”
Van Eck swallowed. “The job was that you delivered Bo Yul-Bayur to the rendezvous point.”
“Bit tricky, seeing as he’s dead,” Wylan put in. “And you kidnapped Inej.”
“I might point out that you aren’t really in a position to negotiate,” Inej added conversationally. “Not this time.”
They left thirty million kruge richer, with some extra things for Wylan, including the mansion when Van Eck finally died. Inej still had plans to get around that loophole as well, but she would need a bigger crew for that. Van Eck’s blood was drying on Inej’s crutches. Turned out she didn’t mind the crack of each one of his knuckles as much as she thought she would.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she’d told him as she left, but she doubted he heard. He still had about eight minutes to sit in agony before anyone would discover him, if Inej’s plan worked out the way she thought it would. But the mercher’s fate was none of her concern anymore.
“You realize we can’t carry everything home,” Wylan said.
“That’s what I brought them for,” Inej replied, gesturing at Kaz, Jesper, Kuwei, Nina and Matthias making their way across the street. She’d had a message sent to them ten minutes after she slid through the window.
“What is this?” Kaz demanded. His eyes narrowed on the blood. “Are you hurt?”
“We’re fine,” Wylan assured him.
“Just tying up loose ends from an old job,” Inej said. “I’d help you carry them, but I’ve got my hands full.”
Nina, Matthias, Jesper, and Kuwei immediately moved toward the same trunk that Van Eck had shown them on the island weeks and weeks before. Kaz stayed where he was, staring at her.
“You could have told me.”
“It wasn’t your fight. And I had something to prove to myself, anyway.”
Kaz hugged her without warning. There was no bare skin anywhere between them but he was warm even through their clothes, and Inej gave into the temptation of letting him take her weight as she hugged him back. He buried his face in her neck and she nearly stopped breathing. Skin on skin in some of their most vulnerable places. She could feel his breath on her pulse-point.
“I didn’t want to hope,” Kaz said quietly. “But I should’ve known. It’s you.”
Inej didn’t have any words, so she just held him tighter until they finally broke apart, dazzling in the Ketterdam sun.
“I’ll race you back to the Slat,” she said, and before Kaz could react she was on the roofs again, and he was laughing at her, the sound echoing off the sky.