I. Stronger Than All My Men...




I. Stronger Than All My Men...


One more job and she was done.

It's what Mischa told herself every time, climbing the twirling staircase of The Cabaret, tracing the engravings on the silver bannisters with her calloused hands. Bloodied hands. Stained, torn and raw. Her knuckles were still bruising from the week before. There were swirls and blossoming flowers, smooth beneath the weight of her hands. The weight of everything they carried. Flesh and silver, products of the same war. The dichotomy was almost comedic; her hands, rough and thickened from clawing at the walls of this very formidable labyrinth, gliding along a surface that cost more than she was worth.

She'd always liked shiny things.

One more job and she was done. It's what she would tell Marigold, in her poorly decorated, nausea-inducing office, that stupid taxidermy bobcat as her witness, when she'd inevitably be handed another folder, another job, another life to somehow settle her debts. It would grant her the liberty she deserved. It would be a testament to her years of dedication, to the craft and otherwise. To her loyalty, her rotten work, her willingness to kill in the name of kruge.

Yvette Marigold was notoriously known for her unlikely gang—bounty hunters, arms dealers, you name it. She made it her business to find the worst, most desperate men and women, scum of the Barrel and shape them, mould them into something new. Something worthy. Something like Mischa, a mercenary in her own right.

She sat happily perched at the top of the hierarchy. The Don. The Reigning Master. The Puppeteer. The Broker. Pulling at the viscerally entwined strings wrapped around Mischa's heart just to watch her dance.

Marigold was in charge of everything when it came to The Cabaret. She had her men; the loyal soldiers, the hitmen. The ones that just got the job done, no complaints. But they were heavy-footed. Cocky, brusque, and far too ungraceful. They made a mess just to send a message. Effective, but ultimately damaging Yvette's poor attempt to appear as a legitimate businesswoman. As anything more than one of the crime bosses holed up in Ketterdam.

Besides, what did she need her men for when she had her girls. The impoverished, unfed girls she scouted by chance. The ones that didn't know any better, or anything else.

The girls like Mischa, who could blend in like a foggy ghost haunting the harbours. Who could be quick and effective as much as they could be ruthless.

The girls like Mischa who could sustain a constant diet of terror; of looking over their shoulders, of the rigorous regimes and the borderline military life. Those who had no friends—not any more, anyway. Marigold had killed them all.

Poor Penny never stood a chance—in for a Penny, in for a pounding.

After all, it was easier when her employees owed her something. Mischa, for her father's sins against the Cabaret's oath: Blood in, Blood out, to never leave.

She was to repay Marigold for the damages caused by her father's greed; his restless hands, never idle. Too busy pocketing the first shiny thing he sees.

Perhaps she was her father's daughter.

One more job and she was done. It's what she told her father in her dreams. Dreams where she was still looking for him, and she'd find him sitting on the dusty rocking chair on their front porch, one hand on the shotgun, reaching out for her with the other. Like he had loved her. Like he had ever seen her as anything more than clay upon a sculpting table. Dreams where her mother was more than the crumpled-up sacrifice on her kitchen floor, leaking gold. Dreams where she was free of torment and had yet to have the failure beaten out of her, a little girl running through the fields of their safe farmland home.

One more job and she was done. This is how it would end. At her hands. Her own hands. The snake biting its own tail.

It wasn't until Mischa reached the top of the seemingly never-ending staircase, somewhat heaving and half asleep, that she had the wind knocked out of her for the second time that day. She jumped at the sight of Ray, leaning against Marigold's door, one foot placed languidly in front of the other.

She placed a hand where she suspected her heart would be. "Make a noise, would you?"

Raymond Savrim, affectionately Ray, had been assigned the role of Mischa's handler and fence when she was a mere ten years old. She'd been wrapped in the fog of Ketterdam's Fifth Harbour, shivering. He reeked of death and booze, an omen in his own right. Mischa couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him smile. The last time his shoulders weren't so taut. He was devoted to a cause that stripped Mischa of everything that made her human: her family, her morals, her childhood. Instead, her formative years were spent polishing knives, picking pockets in the markets and praying to a deity she didn't believe in.

He had been the one to carry her away, the fateful night she lost her life. He'd torn her, kicking and screaming, from everything she held dear. From her roots. Painfully. Viscerally. He'd been the one to bring her into this life of blood and gore. To teach her what it felt like to have empires fall at her feet. To remind her that she was just as replaceable as the next. Expendable, even.

Because it didn't matter to Marigold that she was a child, so long as she could hold a knife. It's all that she was good for. Fathers perverse prodigy. Mothers antagonist. Marigolds grotesque and fleshy machine.

He had planted that seed and watched it grow.

He was also the reason Mischa was nearly victim of a heart attack at such an unreasonable hour in the evening.

"You are late," he scolded, like a father. But not hers. His Ravkan accent was thick. He had yet to master the Kerch language and somehow managed to butcher every other syllable. "There's a job."

She grimaced, electing to lean against the bannister for a minute. A brief respite, before entering Hell. "Not here for my riveting conversation, then?"

She was a witty conversationalist.

"This isn't a joke, Mischa."

"Saints, is it ever, Ray?"

He kicked her foot. "Come on."

"Ever the loyal soldier," she said, getting up anyway. Stubborn, as always. "You have a mind of your own up there?"

"You're dramatic. It's a job," he rolled his eyes. "I thought you wanted money?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

There was no higher power than greed, after all.

It was with drowsy bones Mischa watched Ray knock on the door like the little soldier he was. She wondered if he grew up with those army green figurines lining his bedside table. Or was he just born a miserable, impressionable man, dying to serve a cause?

Impatient and unwilling to wait, the girl simply waltzed into the office, shoulders back and a wistful look on her face as her brown hair cascaded down her back, braids entwined among the frizz. Mischa was almost as irritable as she was impulsive and, as a consequence, had to take a moment to adjust to the interior. The mud her boots left behind made it look even worse.

Ray lingered, one foot in the door.

The room exuded a light that was unheard of in the Barrel. The walls were white, pure and undisturbed, disregarding the slight scarlet splatter in the far left corner. Business meeting gone awry. The panelling was laced with gold and the floors were newly polished, partly obstructed by the deep red carpet in the centre of it all. On it, sat the desk. The godawful, chipped and unbearably cluttered desk. Mischa hated it. There were lynxes everywhere—the edges of the desk, the arms of the chairs, the corners of the windowsill, the balcony edge.

Tacky.

"Enjoy the vacation?" Marigold's voice was honey. Smooth and criminally disarming.

Mischa scoffed. "That was no vacation."

Vacation, she rolled her eyes. She was addressing the the altercation with Ilya Rykov, a few weeks prior. It had, as suspected, left her feeling vacant, even if it was the right thing to do—taking out a man like him. It still made her limbs ache, even if that was the reason her place was carved out in the world; to kill. The weight of the kruge in her pocket soothed her troubles.

The moment she sat, Marigold tossed a folder into her lap, taking great interest in her face. Looking for a thread to pull until she unravelled completely.

"One last job and I'm done," she told her.

"One last job and we're straight," Marigold corrected, as she often did, canines protruding as she smiled in a sickeningly familiar manner. Always one for the strings.

"So, who's the lucky guy?" Mischa asked, opening the envelope with her favourite switchblade. It had belonged to her father when she found it, discarded in the depths of his drawer. It was dull and grey, then, until she'd meticulously carved a plethora of flowers and swirls into it. Her initials, too. Who said that weapons couldn't be pretty? She sure was.

"No guy. It's a painting," she said, watching as Mischa pulled a cursive invitation from the folder.

"Painting? Oh, how fun," the girl responded monotonously, flipping over the card, cordially inviting Pekka Rollins—Marigold's business associate almost as much as he was her enemy—to a special event down at the Church of Barter.

True to its name, it was a breeding ground for sacrilegious deals.

"There will be a DeKappel on display in the Barter three days from now," Marigold said, lighting a cigarette in her silver holder. Never one to get her own hands dirty. "Its worth two million. And I..." she leaned forwards "want you to take it."

Marigold gestured for Mischa to take the remaining photos out of the file.

The painting was a simple oil landscape, capturing the darkness of The Fold amongst a barren wasteland coated by fog. It was nothing special, and definitely not worth five million.

Mischa looked at the photo and sighed, dropping it in her own lap. "I'm not just an art thief. I'm not your personal decorator. Find someone else."

The girl stood, her boots thudding against the floor and weightless chair moving backwards as she raised, but Marigold made one gesture and Ray was stood I front of her, apologetic look on his face.

"You'll do as I say, girl. Or don't you remember?"

The brunette turned to her, slowly. Spite bubbled in her chest, like a boiling pot turning over and over and over, blistering her throat. "Oh, believe me, I remember. I remember you made me a killer. You turned me into this, and now... you want me to steal art?"

"Sparrow," Ray murmured in warning.

"I didn't make you anything," Marigold stood, too. "Your father made you bait. That's all you are."

"Then why send the bait on such an important job?"

Marigold smiled, sickening. "You may be replaceable, Mischa," she ran a finger over the side of the girls face, "but you're my favourite."

Favourite. Mischa could've scoffed. Do you torture all of your favourites?

And then the woman sat, calm, as though Mischa never turned it down. "It will be held in the east wing, protected by a glass case. Break the case, the alarm goes off. Take out the screws, it goes off. So be quick or be careful—no mess this time."

"...Let me get this straight," Mischa turned the ring on her pointer finger and stopped subtly, reminding herself not to fidget. "You want me to pull a solo heist, in a Church, brimming with merchants and probably every thief in the city, to take a painting that will set off an alarm no matter what?"

Marigold looked at her, unbothered.

"Yes."

"Right, yeah, of course," she rolled her eyes, shoving past Ray only for him to grasp onto her wrist tightly and turn her back around. "Didn't you hear me say no?"

Marigold plucked a picture from the depth of her open drawer with two fingers, dropping it on her desk and slamming the drawer closed. "Did you ever love your father, Mischa?"

Her stomach sank. "Excuse me?"

"I asked you if you ever loved your father?" Marigold gestured to the crumpled picture, and then nodding to Ray to shove the girl back into the seat opposite her.

Mischa took the photo gently in her palm. It was her, bright-eyed and hair curly, untamed as it tended to be, smiling. One of her front teeth was missing, and the arms of either parent wrapped around her, all looking so proud in the landscape of their farm.

Her mother looked golden—radiant. Her father, though only quirked one corner of his lips, looked as content as he could. Considering how evil he was. How in just a few weeks later, he would begin shaping his daughter's girlhood into target practice, into training to be the greatest.

"You're sick," Mischa told her, dropping the picture.

But Marigold was unphased.

"This is all he ever wanted for you, miere. He only ever wanted you to be The Sparrow. Why do you think he leveraged you when he was caught? He offered you up," the woman told her, each word dripping with poison. This was like a bedtime story for Mischa, by now. Marigold told her every night, before tucking her in and shoving the handle of a knife into her palm. "Your father gave you up to save himself. So don't make me kill you, Mischa. Do your job. Be even better than your father ever was, and you might just make a mark."

The Makarov girl—more knife than human—stood sharply, without Ray to push her back down this time.

"I am better than my father."

"You're good—"

"I'm great," Mischa asserted.

Marigold knew she was. Mischa was better than any of the girls she'd plucked off the street. Any of the meandering, wannabe gangsters that had pushed their way into the ranks with nothing but brute force.

She was the best.

Marigold knew it.

The same way she knew exactly how to push her buttons. How to pluck at the strings she had planted. How to navigate the corridors of Mischa's rotted brain just to make her tick.

The urge to prove herself was all that ever pushed Mischa forward. To prove that she was more than what her father made her, more than what Marigold shaped her into. But she was also proud, and spiteful.

"What do you want with a painting, anyway?"

"I don't want it. But somebody else does."

Mischa rolled her eyes, holding back the stinging she knew was bubbling. "Rollins? Naturally."

With her handler trailing behind her, Mischa turned her back on the woman of her nightmares, feeling as though she'd been shot ten times over as her stare pierced into her back.

The girl forced out a "fine. Consider it done."

"Oh, and Mischa?"

"Hm?"

"If you see... The Crows, is it?" she smirked, looking at the photo of the girl and her family before her organisation intercepted their happy lives. "I want them dead. All of them."

Ray piped up, for the first time, in some form of protest, though not so outrageous it constituted an insult to Marigolds authority. He was always careful of that. Too settled into his rank.

"Marigold—"

"I want them dead. I want Dirtyhands' head on a stick," she spat. "And if you don't shoot on sight? Well, you know how it is."

"No fraternising with the enemy, 'kay?" her voice rang out like a screech, even when the heavy door slammed behind the prodigy and her handler in the void of silence.













Mischa had a thing for strays. Perhaps it was something about her; maybe the emptiness in her chest functioned as a beacon to all the lost souls rushing their way through the Ketterdam streets, like the black cat that had nestled up to her leg on the way home. The black cat she'd picked up and brought along.

Maybe it knew that she, too, had been on that operating table, hollowed out and made anew, cold metal pressed against her spine. Maybe it was because the cat—Lucky, she had called him—knew what it was like to be feline and animal, to break your claws fighting your way out.

Kaz could see her silhouette through the slightly cracked window from where he stood outside, shadows cast along the sharp edges of his face where the only working street lamp in the area couldn't reach.

He could see her move the cat gently over to the countertop, a complete disregard for hygiene, and begin boiling water on the stove.

With her back to the window, she was disguised from the audience, only the large, bold "Blood In, Blood Out" trailing across her shoulder blades in a curve and the universal inky mark of The Cabaret on show.

It was supposed to be a show of faith, but it was little more than a marking.

He stood there for a moment, watching her with hands in pockets as she all but glide across her apartment despite there being no one to remind her not to slouch. Integrated so deep into her chemistry, Mischa stood tall even alone.

It was almost admirable.

It would've been, if Kaz didn't know that they were about to try and kill each other. If he didn't have to drag himself and his bad leg up three flights of rickety, wooden stairs, wondering if the foundation would crumple beneath him. If he didn't have to pause before her doorway, catching his breath and adjusting his grip on his cane.

Kaz almost startled when a neighbour suddenly opened his door half way, chain rattling at the movement.

"Pst," the beer-bellied, rounded man whispered, grease pooling along his forehead. "Psstttt."

The Crow turned to him sharply, "What?"

The man, probably a drunkard judging by the way he was swaying, pointed slowly towards Mischa's door as though he was in danger if he made so much as a sound.

And he was—in danger, that is. In danger of Kaz's already thin patience running out and his cane meeting his nose.

"I wouldn't do it, if I were you."

"And what's that?" The boy responded.

"That girl..." he almost shook, "she has the Devil in her. Nobody that comes in has ever left alive," he whispered conspiratorially.

He really thought he was doing Kaz a favour. He could've rolled his eyes, at that.

"Thanks," he drawled, sardonically, moving suddenly to wave him away with his leather-clad hand. "Shoo."

The neighbours door hadn't even fully closed when Mischa's swung open, a silver kettle flying towards Kaz's head and leaving a trail of steam in its wake.

The limping man ducked, looking back partly in shock as the metal hit the wall of the corridor and boiling water spilled out, seeping into the carpet like sin, and made his way through the door with a little more urgency than he had before.

He slammed it behind him, the sound of the kettle hissing fizzling out.

Limping his way into the small, dingy apartment, Kaz noted it hadn't changed. The teal, chipped set of drawers still sat in the centre of the right wall, near the kitchen where the cat sat on the counter, still. The bed was unmade and the small ottoman at the end was open, Mischa reaching for one of the knives inside.

Kaz's cane met the lid before she had the chance, and he slammed it shut just shy of her fingers.

Feeling the hair draping in between her shoulder blades, slick—for once—and entirely tame, it moved with her as she turned her head slightly to the side, taking in Kaz in her peripheral. He hadn't changed since she had last met him. Cheekbones still as sharp, jawline equally threatening. Still devastatingly handsome, in an evil sort of way.

And then she turned herself around, caged in by his cane, and grabbed it swiftly. Pulling it forwards and dodging to the left before the man could crumple her and her ribs, Kaz was forced unceremoniously to stumble into it.

From her safer position as he caught himself with his hands, Mischa delivered a kick to his side, sending him across the room into the chest of drawers. The real wood was sharp between Kaz's ribs, and the vanity mirror propped up against the wall fell down with a large shatter, glass shards sticking into his neck.

The sound of him inhaling sharply almost made her smile.

Almost.

He lunged for her again, throwing his fist towards her face. It was expected, and she ducked, punching him instead. The bruises that bloomed later were bound to do wonders for his complexion.

Kaz recoiled slightly—more from the touch than the pain—and grabbed her arm before she could aim the dagger she had slipped from the holster on her leg, the tip of the blade pointing at his face.

They looked at eachother, then, with her arm in his tight grasp, leather glove wrinkling with the tense grip.

His hair was rustled, and she was breathing heavily. Kaz knew that when Mischa fought, she got tunnel vision; almost as if all she saw was a big, shining stack of kruge where her target stood. It made her ruthless, even when dancing this dance like they had so many times before.

"Makarov," he greeted, breath coming out short.

And then she kicked him in the stomach, pushing his back into the drawers once more and knocking the wind out of him.

She turned around, gracefully, like a ballet dancer from the West Stave dressed in silks and gold, and moved for the half open window. Lucky was moving around somewhere, doing something, claws scratching the floor.

Mischa liked fighting with Kaz; it was like an old handshake. A ritual, almost. Something sacred. They may not have been friends, and not quite enemies, no matter how much Marigold wanted it, but they would always have the rings of blood they left behind; the broken bathroom tiles, their share of scars and sayings. They'd always be bound by some sort of mutual respect born out of their shared experience climbing the ranks of a ladder that wasn't designed for them, first ring built to be just out of reach. They'd be always entangled like a pretty little bow.

Well, usually she enjoyed it. Not so much when he hooked his cane around her foot and pulled backwards, sending her flying face first into the floor.

"Dick," she spat out the blood from her mouth. It splattered on the wooden floor beside her.

Rolling onto her back, her face almost met the bottom of his cane, but she rolled out from under it just in time.

Lay on her front, she hooked her foot around his bad leg and sent him tumbling too. He let out a groan as air escaped him.

Grabbing the head of the crow decorating his cane, Mischa used it to stand and placed it harshly against the centre of his chest, in between rib cages.

"Brekker," she blew the hair out of her face, "what ever happened to hello?"

Kaz groaned slightly, the pressure on his chest and the pounding in his head causing black spots in his vision, but he wouldn't be bested by Mischa. This was the easiest they'd ever been on eachother. There was usually more gunfire and blade swipes involved.

"Sparrow," he greeted again, looking down to his cane. "Do you mind?"

She put more pressure on.

"I think I do, actually," she told him, cat curling up at her ankle once more. "Why are you here?"

Kaz scoffed a laugh, "because I get such lovely hospitality, obviously."

She stared at him for a moment longer. Mischa could've burned the image of Kaz sprawled out across her floor, writhing in pain, into her brain for a rainy day. It made her smirk. And then she lifted the cane, tossing it across the room towards her tattered rug and offering him a hand.

He looked at her, doubtfully.

Mischa just rolled her eyes. "I don't bite."

Kaz raised his eyebrows.

"Anymore," she conceded. That was a one time thing. She shook her arm slightly to remind him it was there. "You've got a bum leg. Man up and take my arm, would you?"

Kaz grabbed her forearm tightly, the leather glove he wore the only barrier between them. It made him shiver.

But Mischa paid him no mind; everyone had their ghosts, and Kaz had probably twice as many. She just turned her back on him, strolling back to the kitchen and reaching in the cupboard for a pot to boil some water now that her kettle was lying in the carpeted corridor, and leaning her back against the kitchen counter once more.

"So, why are you here?" She asked him, dark hair falling in front of his face and lip bloody from where she fell. He looked at her, sharp brow raised. "Well, I assume you're not here practicing your spontaneity."

Kaz rolled his shoulder, moving to grab his cane. The fight had put more stress on his leg than he was used to, and he was close to toppling over.

"No, I'm here because I missed you," he scoffed, sarcastically.

Mischa smirked. "Charming, aren't you?"

"I need to know what you know," he told her.

The girl began making her cup of tea. "What I know?" The man stood before her, silently urging her to speak.

"Good, and here I was worried you were gonna be vague."

"What do you know about Marigold and Rollins," he implored, eyes sharp.

Mischa turned to him. "What I know, is that Marigold is gonna kill me if you keep showing up here. And what's worse, is I don't know shit about Rollins."

Kaz stood tall once more, registering that she was right. If he kept showing up at her apartment, with eyes everywhere and neighbours as nosy as they came, Marigold was bound to catch wind of their rendezvous; that they were sharing information, that she was friends with Brekker's Crows, that she spent her nights in the gambling den despite orders to shoot on sight. And she would kill her for it. She's killed for less.

He couldn't quite bring himself to feel bad, but Mischa could be useful, at times. He could use her.

"Don't play stupid," he deflected, gritting his teeth. "You're her right hand, of course you know."

She shot him a look. "What, you think she sits and braids my hair and we gossip about all the big bads in Ketterdam?"

"Need I remind you of our agreement?" He said, like life was a contract.

Mischa took the pan off the stone and dropped it harshly on the counter. The water burned her arm slightly, but she didn't flinch, instead turning to the boy with a hand on her hip.

"How hard did you hit your head?"

Kaz took a step forward, grimacing as the black cat crawled its way over to him. "Excuse me?"

"I said, how hard did you hit your head?"

The boy nudged the cat away from him with the edge of his cane. "The agreement was, if The Crows are to keep you safe—"

"Fuck the agreement!" she turned to him fully then, arms crossed and scowl on her face, beginning to stalk towards him. It was probably her most attractive look. "How well are you gonna protect me when I'm already dead? Because Marigold is going to kill me, slowly, if she finds out I've so much as caught sight of you and not put a bullet between your eyes. You think she doesn't have me followed?"

Kaz remained standing tall, despite her outburst. He was used to it by now. "You're no good to me dead, anyway. If it's so inevitable, perhaps I should let Marigold have you, since you're not as useful as you used to be."

"Says the guy that can barely walk," she scoffed, moving to make a cup of tea angrily, slamming things as she went. "Useful," she muttered under her breath.

"I expect you to keep me updated," he told her. "Rollins is my priority, not you, as much as you'd like to believe it."

"Then go get your info somewhere else, Brekker."

The man proceded to the door, slowly, feeling the bruises form on his chest already. "Maybe I will."

Kaz knew he was always to tread lightly when talking to Mischa; he might've agreed to protect her under the influence of Jesper and Inej—although, how much influence do they really have? How deep does their allegiance go?—and to use her for information in exchange, but that didn't mean they had to be friendly. They were never friendly. They weren't friends. It was a business transaction, an eye for an eye; Mischa's potential freedom (once all things had been put in order) for Kaz's revenge.

If she wasn't going to hold up her end of the bargain, neither would he. He was a businessman, that's how it worked.

His hand was on the doorknob when her voice rang out again, angry but still melodious, a song the birds would sing on repeat to lull one to sleep.

"But if I were you? I'd remember not everyone is on your side." He turned his head to her, ever so slightly, body engulfed in his large overcoat still facing the door. "Not everyone sees you as I do."

"And how do you see me?"

As a little boy drowning in a suit of armour. A broken shell, masking it with narcissism, by playing God. Machiavellian because he was made that way.

As a man that wanted to remember what it felt like to be touched, even if he couldn't withstand it.

A man that always wanted what he couldn't have.

"I see you as you are, Rietveld."






Note: yayyy. fully fleshed out now - sorry it took so many updates!!

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