WHEN THEY ARRIVED BACK at the Slat, Kaz was waiting for them in the entryway with Clara and Inej, who had somehow made it back before them.

    Anastasia couldn't help but beam when she saw Clara; it felt like days had passed since the last time she'd seen her, with all of the training and tailoring appointments over the past several weeks.

    "How'd it go?" Clara asked cheerfully, fully dressed with bright eyes despite the late hour. "Wait, are you bleeding?"

    While Anastasia's arm pulsed with a faint, painful throb, she didn't seem to be too worried about it. "Oh, yeah. They shot at me, but it's just a graze. It stopped bleeding on the way back." She said, startlingly casual. She glanced at Jesper, eyes narrowed. "We were never in any danger, so don't worry."

    Instead of letting Clara fret over a superficial injury, Anastasia made her way to the stairs, casting one final look over her shoulder. "Oh, Kaz? I'd check Jesper's pockets. He's got, I don't know, six hundred thousand kruege worth of gems and jewelry in them. Wouldn't want him to book a ship to the end of the world and live out his days comfortably, now would we?" There was a smile in her expression, cold and calculating.

    "We're not done, Anastasia." Kaz called after her. "We need to debrief, and go over what happened."

    But something Jesper had said on the walk back had annoyed her to the point of rage: he'd suggested that, with her powers, she would become just like the shadow summoning general from Ravka. He'd likened them to a shocking extent, and although it had happened many times before, the cockiness in his tone angered her. He thought he knew everything about her from just a few weeks of knowing her. When Inej had mentioned that she shared abilities with the Black Heretic, it had been a simple observation, not an insult.

    She was so resentful of this that the minute she had the chance to get Clara alone, they'd plan their escape. They'd go somewhere far away from Kaz and his ruthless rule over them, away from sweet Inej and her quiet kindness, and away from Jesper's offensive mouth.

⚜︎

    Anastasia fumbled with the buttons on the back of her gown. With the seamstress's nimble hands working the dozen tiny closures, it was easy to get the dress on and off. But by herself, she had to contort herself into uncomfortable and almost painful position to even have a chance at reaching the buttons.

    Eventually, she'd managed to undo all of the buttons, and she stood in front of the small bed, looking down at the fabric of the dress that was splayed across it. It was the nicest thing she'd ever had the pleasure of calling her own, only rivaled by the cloak—Fabrikator made, hand-crafted by a friend of her mother's when Anastasia had reached mortal adolescence—that she'd lost in Fjerda centuries ago.

    She thought of Inej then. The two had become fast friends, despite the fact that they had only met because Inej had broken into her room in the middle of the night. Inej was the only one at the Slat, in all of Ketterdam, really, to be downright compassionate. She'd been the one to offer Anastasia food and drink when she first entered the dining room of the Slat, to respect her for not only her ability, but for who she was as a person.

    It would hurt to leave her behind. But it was necessary in order to get away. One person's respect did not negate countless others' disrespect.

    Anastasia sighed. Thoughts of her future, of where they would go next, plagued her. They hadn't planned on leaving so soon—barely a month in a place that was supposed to last them years.

    She had to talk to Clara, at least before she attempted to get any sort of sleep, no matter how little.

    But when she opened the creaky door to the small bedroom, it wasn't Clara that stood on the other side. It was Jesper.

    He'd taken off his fine clothes and instead wore a shirt of gray cotton and pants that were loose enough to sleep in. His fist was raised, as if he were about to knock, and he appeared to be caught off guard.

    Anger and dread crept up the back of her neck. "What do you want?" She muttered, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

    He crossed his arms in front of him. "I thought we could have a civil conversation, but that just got tossed out the window." He said in a humored voice. His hair was messy, either from sleep or simply mussing it up.

    "No. No civil conversations. Go away." She said. She went to slam the door in his face and lock it, but he stopped it by shoving the toe of his shoe in the crack left.

    His eyebrows furrowed, and he looked almost confused as to why he was there. "You saved my life today. With your little magic shield. So I just wanted to say thank you, and I rarely say thank you. Don't take it lightly." He managed to speak despite the fact that it seemed to torture him to do so, and a smirk crept onto his face. "Never thought I'd owe my life to a Grisha, but there's a first time for everything."

    His words reflected the second conversation they'd ever shared, and it made a deeper feeling of annoyance spike between her ribs.

    Anastasia wished she'd never accepted Kaz's offer. She wished that she'd never brought Clara to Ketterdam, or to Kerch as a whole.

    Finally, after a few moments of silence, she replied, "You owe me nothing if not an apology for shooting me that first night."

    "You talk like you're from a different time." He noted simply.

    Her icy smile sent a shiver down his spine. "I've known the world for far longer than you will ever dream. I've known men like you, too. And trust me when I say this: your looks and your ego won't serve you for much longer."

    Jesper raised his eyebrows. "Is that a threat, Anastasia?"

    Her heart thundered in her chest, but her expression didn't falter. "It's not a threat. Not in the slightest. Just a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've seen it happen before, and so it stands that it will happen again." She said with a certainty that only came with age.

    He looked at her—really looked at her—for a few heartbeats, lips parted.

    And then he was lunging at her, hands finding her jawline as he pressed his mouth to hers.

    There was a subtle thrum of energy when his skin touched hers with no barrier between the two of them. The same buzz that Anastasia felt when she shook the hand of the tavern owner, so many weeks ago. It was a sure-fire sign of a Grisha, of the power that was pulsating through their blood. Less than the warm, soothing sensation that she got when she touched Clara, but still there regardless.

    She yanked herself backwards, away from him, more startled than angry. She was so used to Clara's energy that feeling that on someone else was alarming.

    She didn't say a word. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Instead of yelling at him or disembowling him, she just pushed him away, until he was out of the room and in the hallway.

    The sound of the door clicking shut was relieving, and she sank against it.

    He was Grisha. But...what division of Grisha was he? Anastasia would have been immediately aware if he was like her, so a Shadow Summoner was out of the question. Common Etherealaki—Squallers, Inferni, and Tidemakers—gave an almost electric shock when she touched them, and being near some of them felt like being in the middle of a lightning storm. She could identify a member of the Corporalaki more easily than the rest, just because of how close she had always been to Clara.

    That left him to be a Materialki. It made sense for him to be a Fabrikator; after all, he was wickedly good with a gun, almost like he had control over the trajectory of the bullet.

    Anastasia drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Shock washed over her, and for a few moments, she'd forgotten that he'd kissed her. She couldn't get past the fact that no matter where she went, Grisha managed to find her. She was practically magnetic to them.

⚜︎

    A knock on the door woke her up the next morning, and she sat up with a start, not realizing for a moment or two that she'd fallen asleep on the floor, right in front of the door.

    She hurried to stand up, brushing off her nightgown. Her hand came away sticky with half-dried blood; her graze from the bullet must have opened up while she slept, since she didn't want Clara to have to take care of her wound again.

    Inej stood on the other side of the door, a light cloak in her arms. She wore a soft smile, and her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her onyx eyes drifted to the blood on Anastasia's hand.

    "D'you want me to stitch that up for you?" Inej offered in a quiet voice. She didn't seem surprised to see that the injury had reopened, just a bit concerned.

    Anastasia shook her head. "No, it's alright. It'll heal on its own soon enough, and I'd hate to trouble you."

    Inej didn't look impressed by this answer, for she sighed, pushed past Anastasia, and sat down on the bed, patting the space next to her. "You're bound to get an infection if you don't at least bandage it. It's no trouble for me to stitch it up, really—it'll allow me to practice my stitching." She said, humor working its way into her words.

    "Fine." Anastasia replied, and she pulled her long hair to one side. "Stitch me up."

    In truth, she knew that the slash would heal quickly with or without stitches. Her wounds always did, thanks to the same deep power inside of her that had kept her young for so many cenuries. It wasn't nearly as effective as having Clara fix her up, or, even better, a legitimate Healer, but the cut would be a patch of scarred flesh in a day or two, rather than a week or so that it would take an ordinary human to heal.

    Inej left for only a moment before coming back with a needle, bottle of antiseptic liquid, and sterile thread. Anastasia recognized the medical supplies from her time in Novyi Zem, when she and Clara worked in a hospital there.

    "This might sting a bit." Inej said apologetically as she doused a clean rag with the antiseptic fluid. She pressed it to Anastasia's arm, eliciting a hiss of dull pain. "Sorry."

    Anastasia swallowed. "Don't say you're sorry. It's alright." She managed.

    As she prepped the needle and thread, Inej changed the subject: "So I saw Jesper come out of your room last night."

    Anastasia's eyes widened. She stayed silent, but her expression and her flushed cheeks betrayed her embarrassment.

    "Why do you look so spooked? It's not like there's anything wrong with the two of you talking."

    Anastasia debated telling her the truth of what happened—not about Jesper being a Grisha and probably not even knowing it, but about the kiss that he'd attempted to plant on her. The kind, open look on Inej's face made her want to tell her even more.

    She cleared her throat. "He, er...he—Saints!" She broke off when the needle worked its way through her skin, but she forced herself to continue in order to distract herself. "He came to my room to thank me for saving his life yesterday, at the gala. They were shooting at us, and I used my shadows to make a shield, the same way as when he shot at me in the warehouse." She explained.

    The soft smile on Inej's face, despite the fact that she was pushing a needle through skin, made her pause. "What're you smiling about?"

    "I've met a few Grisha in my life—mostly the ones that can summon water and fire and the like—and they've never referred to what they could do as theirs. Whenever you talk about your abilities, you always say my, like the shadows belong to you." Inej said, dark eyebrows drawn together.

    Shrugging, Anastasia gnawed on her lower lip. "There was a time, ages ago, where I went to a temple on an island in the Bone Road. It had been there for centuries, and I heard whispers throughout Ravka—back when it was very, very bad to be a Grisha in Ravka—that was able to strip people like me of their abilities. I know now that it was not true, but I was young, desperate to distance myself from what I truly was.

    "The people there had me drink a tonic, and I passed out for several days. When I woke up, I was in the middle of the True Sea, nearly drowning. They thought I was dead, so they dumped me into the sea. When I washed up on the shore of Fjerda, I realized that I still had my abilities. Over the years, I've learned to love them, because they are a part of me that I am wholly unable to get rid of. I wouldn't be me without them. So they are mine. Mine and only mine. No one can take them from me, and even if they tried, they wouldn't be able to." She finished, feeling a swell of emotion in her throat.

    That swim to Fjerda, to the closest land mass, had been harrowing, close to the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life, and it had led to meeting Clara. It had been Clara that had taught her to accept the powers she was born with.

    Inej's eyebrows were still furrowed. "How old are you, exactly? You act like you've seen the beginning of the world as we know it."

    A sharp snort came from Anastasia. "I'm four hundred and seventeen years old." She answered. Even saying her true age out loud felt strange; at least using the name Anastasia among the others had grown a bit more familiar, but saying her exact age was odd.

    "You're exactly four hundred years older than me." Inej said, coming dangerously close to bursting into laughter.

    Shock flashed across Anastasia's face. "You're only seventeen? I thought you were older!"

    "I thought you were younger!"

    They both laughed, and Anastasia almost regretted planning to flee in the middle of the night; her plans had been thrown out the window when Jesper came to her bedroom, and the realization that he was Grisha had made her too distracted to do anything other than think.

    Inej took a deep, calming breath. "Anyway, I came to get you to see if you and Clara would like to get breakfast. Kaz is holed up in his office, Jesper hasn't left his room all morning—" She gave Anastasia a pointed look. "—your doing, I suppose. But I'm hungry, and I think it would be nice to do something."

    Anastasia paused before answering. She'd nearly been shot last night, and going out into the city so soon after pulling off a heist didn't seem smart. But her stomach gave a threatening growl, and she was forced to nod.

⚜︎

    Ketterdam was a city that did most of its operation in the evening, when all of the pleasure houses and gambling dens were open from dusk until dawn. So when the three girls stepped out into the watery sunlight of a cloudy Ketterdam morning, they were all relieved to see that the streets were mostly empty.

    Clara looped her arm through Anastasia's, a smile on her face despite the ugly weather. "Saints, I'm hungry. D'you think they have the fried pickles like they had in the Southern Colonies? I've been craving them since we left."

    It felt good to be out in the open, instead of under Kaz's watchful eye in the Slat. He wasn't exactly controlling, but he expected Anastasia and Clara to have turned into hardened criminals practically overnight. Of course, they were hardened criminals—tax evaders, murderers, thieves, and forgers—long before they met him.

    But the air in the Slat was stuffy and constantly humid, so the clear, fresh, albeit fishy-smelling air was a much appreciated reprieve.

    They walked down the street, Anastasia lifting her skirts to avoid stepping in a murky puddle. They soon left the Barrel, and they wandered towards the Financial District absentmindedly, on the hunt for the first tavern that caught their eye. Nothing seemed appetizing enough for two Grisha girls and a spy, however, so they kept walking.

    On a lamppost on the side of the street, two sheets of paper were stuck to the metal. The paper higher on the lamppost was printed with a face, as was the lower one, but they were too far away to tell whose likeness was captured on paper.

    Anastasia ventured closer, curiosity making her leave the safety of being sandwiched between Clara and Inej. When she saw a reflection of herself on the paper, her empty stomach rolled uncomfortably. Nausea and queasiness washed over her, and despite the fact that the air was cool and crisply cold, she started to sweat.

    "Millie," She called back to the others, using Clara's false name. "Come here."

    Clara couldn't hold in her laughter. "Saints, Stas. They got your eyebrows wrong! And why did they make you look like you're six years old?" She snickered, keeling over and leaning against Anastasia.

    Anastasia scowled at Clara's outburst. "This is serious. I'm a wanted woman. Worth a thousand kruege if I'm turned into the Stadwatch."

    "If you ask Jesper, he'd definitely say you're a wanted woman." Inej said quietly, suddenly next to them even though she hadn't made a single noise and her footsteps on the cobblestone road were utterly silent.

    Cheeks flushing scarlet, Anastasia groaned. "How'd you find out?" Her gaze was still trained on the wanted poster, but she wasn't really looking at it any longer; she just couldn't face Inej and her all-knowing eyes.

    "I've never seen Jesper Fahey embarassed in my life until he came out of your room last night, looking like a pup with its tail between its legs." Inej mused. "Besides, you turned pink when I brought him up earlier. It's obvious."

    Clara was absolutely eating this conversation up. "You and him? I would've thought Brekker was more your type—dark, broody, slightly murderous." She said, giggles breaking up her words. "I'm honestly mad you didn't tell me. I've been your best friend for two hundred years!"

    "Saints, Clara, he kissed me. That's it. I didn't kiss him." Anastasia burst. "Now can we go back to the Slat? I'd rather prefer if I didn't end up in a jail cell today."

    "Good morning, ladies."

    Anastasia nearly jumped at the sound of a man's voice, and when she turned around, she found a tall, dark-haired man standing behind them, eyes narrowed with suspicion. He wore the purple uniform of a Stadwatch officer.

    She said a silent prayer to her favorite Saint: Sankta Marya, I never ask you for anything. But please, don't let me end up in a jail cell today. I know I just joked about it, but please. I was kidding.

    Clara took the reins of the interaction. "Hello, sir! How're you doing today?" She said in her usually bubbly voice, not yet using her Heartrender abilities on him. If this went wrong, though, she would fix it in a heartbeat. Literally in a heartbeat.

    The officer's suspicious glare held. "Are you ladies aware that there are thieves running about Ketterdam? It's unsafe for three women to be out on their own."

    Anastasia's heart was thundering away in her throat, and every breath felt like swallowing glass. She was afraid the Stadwatch officer would look past the girls and find the wanted poster with her face on it.

    "Well, sir, as I'm sure you're aware, thieves running around the city isn't a new phenomenon, is it?" Clara was using her ability now, judging by the glazed over look that fell over the officer's eyes. "Trust me, I think the three of us will do just fine out here. We're only getting a bite to eat, and then we'll return to where we came from."

    "And where exactly is it that you came from?" He said quietly.

    It was Inej that answered: "We're under the employment of Kaz Brekker, sir. He wouldn't want us out too long."

    Kaz Brekker seemed to be the magic words, for the Stadwatch officer froze. He swallowed thickly, adam's apple bobbing, and he nodded.

    Apparently, Kaz had this particular officer, if not more of them, in his pocket. Anastasia reminded herself to thank him as soon as they returned to the Slat.

    "Thank you, sir. I hope we weren't too much trouble." Clara said sweetly.

    As they walked away, Anastasia saw him ripping down the wanted posters, crumpling them up and shoving them into the pocket of his uniform.

    Clara's laughter was infectious. "Oh, Saints. I can't wait to tease Jesper when we get back."

    "I'll kill you, Clara Wilde."