CHAPTER TEN
▪▫▪▫▪

DYING FELT STRANGELY LIKE SLEEPING. The place during sleep where the body is asleep yet the mind still holds a sliver of consciousness. Not so little as to dream but enough to yearn. And she yearned for something else.

Unlike her near death in Kribirsk, this wasn't shameful. She had died poisoned by the toxins in a beautiful rare flower—the ones she spotted outside—in the home of a living Saint. Sankta Neyar was a brilliant person indeed.

Yet, there was something missing. There had been no explosions. Her mother hadn't been screaming in agony as she died. No one had wailed and screamed for her to stay back in the land of the living. Death had offered its hand and Kira was nearly sure she took it.

But she still felt strangely alive.

Perhaps this was it. Condemned to eternity to think and mull over her own thoughts, the demons in her past.

Reminding herself that no one would really care if she died. What had she really done that would make her worthy of someone's grief? Her own parents had cast her out, a worthless grisha bastard they wished death upon.

The faint buzzing in her ears grew louder, and the familiar sounds of the people gambling and drinking at the Crow Club echoed in her head. Confusion sparked within her. Had she survived? Had they found a way to save her and bring her back home?

They. Kira searched in her head for who she meant with the words. What had happened? Who would even want to save her?

Her eyes fluttered open and were met with a ceiling. Her brows furrowed. The Crow Club. Kaz. How had his name slipped her mind? The Bastard of the Barrel was unforgettable and she was...

Propping herself on her elbows Kira's eyes swept the room around her. The washing basin to her right. The window with the splattering rain to the left. The office beyond the bedroom. Kaz's room. Again it had slipped her mind, her own personal haven in Ketterdam, in the Crow Club, and she hadn't remembered it.

Perhaps the nearly dying part had damaged her head. No matter, she couldn't have forgotten much else. Kira sat up on the bed, opening her mouth to call him.

Kaz?

No sound had left her lips. Kira tried speaking again.

Kaz!

Her hands flew up to her throat, her eyes widening. She tried to scream, yell, talk, and plead. The room remained silent. The Whisperer of the Barrel had lost her voice. Kira tried not to panic, but the question echoed in her head:

What's the worth of a mute Whisperer?

Kira instinctively reached for her rings, as she usually did when something was wrong when something perturbed her armor. Her hand was bare. Kira's eyes snapped down. The golden bands were gone and it seemed a weight had come crashing down on her. No matter how much she wanted to think she'd burnt her past to a crisp, she still carried the ashes with her, because she was all of it and the rings meant she was someone. But without the rings? Who was she? A mute Whisperer? A girl with no name? Nothing.

Kira quickly fumbled around the bed, looking for the rings but they were nowhere in sight. She screamed. Silence.

Raising her hands Kira tried to feel the gold of the rings somewhere in the room. Anywhere. But she couldn't feel anything. She felt nothing. No tingling feeling from using her abilities, no wave of power radiating off her.

Her breathing grew ragged. Her eyes snapped to the metal of the buttons in the coat hanging off the wall. She tried to snatch them off. Like she had so many other times. Nothing happened.

Her voice. Her power. Her worth.

They were gone.

Her breathing started failing, coming out in uneven shallow breaths, her mouth had dried and her eyes were stinging with unshed tears.

No, no, no, no, no. This couldn't be happening. She'd rather have died. Why would anyone save someone as useless as her? A bastard grisha disappointment. A mute, powerless, no one.

She stood up from the bed, trying to get down to the club because perhaps it was all some twisted cruel dream. Her knees buckled as she stood and Kira leaned on the wall. Her breathing was ragged, desperate, and finally... Finally, tears started streaming down her face.

She screamed. The silence remained. She sobbed. Silence. She begged for someone to listen and how she hated begging. No word left her lips; not even the truth, not even a lie.

And then she heard it.

The telltale sign of his cane against the floor. Her eyes widened in panic.

Kaz couldn't see her. Not like this.

Weak. Useless. Worthless.

He'd throw her out like a bad investment. Their deal of mutual help depended on her skill as the Whisperer, on the worth she'd created for herself. But she was nothing. He might've even killed her.

The door opened as Kira pushed herself off the wall. She knew he was there, but the tears were making him a blurry mess as she stumbled through the room. Weak. Worthless. He was speaking, she knew that from the rasp in his voice but her breathing was louder.

Kira's legs gave out from underneath her and she toppled forward. Prepared to fall onto the ground. Only Kaz's hands stopped her from collapsing, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her body against his for support.

She tried to move out of his grasp—because he mustn't have known the toll the poison took on her—she tried to tell him to let go of her. She didn't deserve to be held by him. Everything that made her what she was had disappeared. He couldn't possibly want her now.

"Kira," Kaz's voice echoed through her head and she stopped struggling as she felt his hands grip her waist tighter. Like he'd never done before. She peered up at him, through eyes that were surely bloodshot and lashes that were surely coated with tears. His eyes were nearly black, a color that looked strangely like home. Inviting. Devilish.

She tried to speak, to tell him that, but no sound left her lips. A sob broke through, leaving her mouth as silently as the words she'd tried to speak.

And suddenly the tears on her cheek were brushed away. She didn't know when he'd found the time to take his gloves off, he hadn't let go of her waist, but she was acutely aware of Kaz's bare hand holding her face, the pad of his thumb brushing away the tears. But his touch felt cold—instead of lighting her skin on fire, it was ice against her cheeks.

"Don't go soft on me now, Whisperer," he said, voice raspy, deep. She shivered. "The fun is just beginning."

She tried to speak. Fun? You want me to stay? Even though I'm broken? She wasn't the Whisperer anymore, was she? How could she be when she couldn't even speak her mind, or play the part? Batting her eyelashes wasn't enough to survive the Barrel and she was bare of everything that made her who she was. Going back to Ravka wasn't even an opportunity, they wouldn't recognize her without the rings, and anyone could tailor themselves to look like the princess.

"Stay," Kaz spoke and she looked into his eyes again. Kira frowned. Since when did Kaz read minds? "You still owe me a month of bartending for the DeKappel."

Through tears and pain, Kira's smile was involuntary, no matter how small it had been. Kaz's lips tugged up. She still managed to make the Bastard of the Barrel smile—at least that remained true.

She tried to speak again and this time she merely closed her eyes in frustration, leaning against the feel of his hand as she remained silent. Cold. She pushed the strange feeling away, because Kaz had never so willingly touched her as much.

"Truly good players know not to play the game but their opponents," Kaz told her. Kira frowned at him as her eyes fluttered open. "You don't need your voice. Or Small Science. You know how to play the game, Whisperer. And if you can't beat the odds flip the board and reign the chaos."

Chaos. My specialty. She wanted to say something, desperately. All she could manage was a smile. One where she tried to convey how much it mattered to her that he wasn't throwing her out on the streets, that he wanted her to stay. That he wanted her.

He ran his thumb across her bottom lip and muttered, "That's the smile."

"Kira!"

Kira frowned as Inej's voice echoed through her head, piercing through the foggy state of her mind like an axe. She looked up at Kaz but he remained still, motionless, and now that she really saw him, as her consciousness reined back, his eyes were glazed over as if he was in a trance. His touch felt like Death.

She got out of his grasp, stumbling back. Her head snapped to the DeKappel on the wall, to his bed, to the room around her. The Crow Club had been blown up. What was she doing here?

How could she forget her family? Nikolai. He'd surely want her alive, after all, he'd already mourned her once. Inej. Her best friend, she was calling for her somewhere in the distance. Jesper. Her Zemini brute. Genya. Nina. Wylan. What kind of poison made her forget the people that fought for her life?

All but Kaz.

But he wasn't there to tell her she was worthless. He was there to tell her to stay. Like she needed before dying. Someone asking her to stay even if she was gone. Someone wanting her. But she wasn't about to die and this Kaz wasn't real.

"This isn't real," she whispered, but her voice wasn't there, it was far off, from where Inej's had come from.

"It's a dream!" Inej said.

A hallucination. Courtesy of the flowers outside. A cruel and twisted hallucination that made Kaz her one condition to die a worthy death. That made Kaz feel like Death itself coming to take her. And she had fallen straight into its cold embrace.

"Wake up! Kira!"

Her eyes snapped open.

She gasped for air but realized all too late she had something weird in her mouth and inhaled it. Kira began coughing as Inej removed the hand she was holding to her mouth to force-feed her whatever it was that had saved her from the poison. Inej held something blue for her. A butterfly.

Kira grimaced, wiping a tear she felt on her cheek away. She shoved the nightmare to the back of her head, it was no time to deal with that. "Tell me I did not just eat that."

"You did not just eat this," Inej said with a relieved grin, "This one is for Kaz."

Her eyes widened and Kira sat up, nearly head-butting Inej if it wasn't for her speedy reflexes. Kaz was laying on the floor, unconscious and unmoving. But he didn't look like Death, he looked like home. Kira snatched the butterfly off Inej's hand and crawled the short way to Kaz.

With a deep breath, Kira opened his mouth, ignoring the way he jerked at her touch, and shoved the butterfly down his throat, holding his mouth closed with one hand as she held his head with the other. "Kaz! Wake up!"

She could see his eyes moving through his eyelids, wild as if looking for something.

It seemed both of them had chaotic hallucinations. But then again, they were both raging chaotic storms, weren't they? Storms that only found tranquility with one another. That's why Death looked like Kaz. Because Kira would willingly take his hand and let him lead her to hell—and she would bask in the way it burned as long as the devil held her hand. And he was her Devil, wasn't he?

"Kaz!"

He didn't move. Kira looked up at Inej and the others with a panicked look before looking back down at Kaz. She moved her hand from his mouth and held his face between her hands, brushing her thumb against his cheekbones.

She clenched her jaw. If Kaz died, she would crawl down to hell and drag him back to life—after sweetly and respectfully murdering Sankta Neyar and using her insides to paint Kaz a welcome back from hell sign.

"Darling, wake up!"

His eyes snapped open, dark and infinite. His voice was so low, she was sure it was only for her ears, but he muttered her name.

Kira's lips tugged into a bright smile.

Death might've looked like Kaz. But Kaz, the real one, he looked like Life itself. Chaotic. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Welcoming. A life where maybe, just maybe, she was valuable despite how shattered she was.

And if she couldn't beat the odds, she'd flip the board around and reign over the chaos. Like Death had taught her.

▪▫▪▫▪