THE SCENE ABOVE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. EXPLANATION IN COMMENTS. :)

---

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." - Faramir, The Two Towers

---

---

all because of a magician on a stave

his golden coin flicking between his fingers

and a boy saw that and felt tricked

and what happened to the magician?

kaz brekker killed him

---

DELICATE...TAYLOR SWIFT

---

viii: BLOOD

---

\ ˈbləd \

1: the shedding of blood

also: the taking of life

---

---

She could hear him breathing.

She was acutely aware of that as she sat by his bedside, unable to pull her eyes away from the rise and fall of his chest to do anything else. It was the deep, steady, and unfailing rhythm of the room, and she was afraid to speak and disturb this pattern.

He was on his side, back facing the wall, face towards her. It was almost peaceful, with only the smallest crease between his brows. He looked almost younger in his sleep, without the pressure of maintaining his appearance and reputation on him for just a bit.

He'd been asleep for three days, just barely floating into consciousness a handful of times. His body had been healed of all surface wounds (Thank the Saints for Ilya Zenik), but Inej knew that it was in desperate need of rest.

But yet, now his breathing changed, and he slowly stirred as he woke up. She leaned just a bit closer, and his dark coffee eyes fluttered open to meet hers. For a moment, they just stared at each other, before he breathed her name in greeting, eyes fluttering closed, " Inej ."

" Oh, Saints, " was all she got out before taking his head in her hands, desperately bringing him closer and closer, certain he was going to disappear into thin air. Her hands found their way into his hair as he rested his at the base of her neck, curling them into the hair.

The leather was rough against her skin, but she found she didn't care, crawling onto the bed as he made room for her. His hands were feathers against her skin, tracing her face and the curve of her spine. She smiled at him, at the look on his face. He looked like he always did when he touched her like this, like he was trying to crack a complicated lock. She would never tell him to his face, but he looked adorable.

"He burned it," he whispered suddenly, voice the sound of a stone against tile. "He asked me who I was married to when I was fucking gagged, like I could speak. And then threw it into the fire when I didn't answer. But I couldn't I tried to, I would have, but he took it and burned it and—"

"Kaz, what?"

"My ring," he said, voice tired. "Maat threw it in the fire." He closed his eyes, hanging his head. "I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry, I tried so hard to be strong, to fight—"

She placed a finger against his lips, and his handsomely dark eyes flew open to meet hers. Her hands turned so her thumb rested on his lower lip, and she swiped it across the broken and chapped skin. "It's okay," she said softly. "We will find a new one, we will rebuild."

"And, my Kaz?" He looked at her. "Do you think the presence or the absence of a ring on your finger changes how much I love you? Our love is not stored in these two rings, it is stored within us, and no force, no fire, can take that, my love."

His eyes had closed as he listened to her speak, nodding along to her words, the stitch and tear of her voice. His hands held hers, the leather a familiar feeling in her hand. "I am going to rip him apart," He said in a voice so light he might have been discussing the weather, eyes still closed. "I will kill him. Make him beg for mercy for everything he did. Make him wither on the floor like the pathetic worm he is."

"Okay, Kaz," she said as he began to continue. "We can plot revenge later."

"No," he said, voice airy as if he didn't care. But he did, she could tell, from the barely noticeable tremor in his voice, the stiffness of his body, the too pleasant smile stretched across his face. "He took so much from me. My name, my pride, my ring, my watch. I will take his life in retribution."

"No, he didn't."

"What?" Kaz asked, eyes snapping open.

"We took your watch. I have it here, I'll go get it." She told him. He blinked at her, once, twice, three times, before he leaned forward, mouth inches away from hers. She closed the distance in reply.

His hands were in her hair in an instant, gentle, cradling. She thought she heard him gasp "Thank you," but she was too busy with the fire spreading in her chest at this feeling. They pulled apart, and he took a shaky breath, before smiling at her, eyes shining with unshed tears, as he held her head in his hands.

"Thank you," He said, now clearly heard by her. His hand left her face to wipe away his tears, a red flush spreading across his cheeks. "Thank you, thank you, thank you...fuck, sorry." He furiously wiped the tears away.

"Hey," she said, "You can cry now. It's okay, you're safe."

He blinked at her for a moment, the words processing. But then his face crumpled and he curled closer, chest heaving as he sobbed. She desperately wanted to know what he had endured and would ask him eventually, but she was content to hold him here, in her arms, safe from the world.

Her hands in his hair, his hands splayed against her back, this felt right. Her peppered kisses calmed his salty tears as they soaked through her shirt. "I missed you so much," He admitted, and she pressed another kiss to the crown of his head, eyes squeezed shut against the tears.

"I missed you too," she said, and he pulled away, sitting up. She followed suit, watching cautiously as his hands cupped her face. The touch was gentle, unlike how any other man had ever held her there. It was tentative, searching, yet prodding and desperate all the same.

"I forgot your face," He murmured, wincing as if the words pained him. "I never want to forget your face again." How? She longed to ask. How, when you have never forgotten anything in your life?

She expected the kiss and all its hunger. But that didn't change how it made her feel, the way her heart was beating in her throat, making itself known. It wasn't a clash of tongues, teeth, and lips like the forced kisses in the Menagerie had been. It was a gentle pulling, the thrum of the tides in their very lips.

It was Heaven on Earth and she would kill to feel this way every day.

---

Sitting on the bed, the moon shining upon his face, he thought of death. She was asleep beside him, chest rising and falling in steady breaths, alive, alive, alive. Logically, he knew he should try to go back to sleep. He was still recovering, but all he could think about was what he told Inej he would do to Evert Maat.

He had never once regretted killing, regretted the drive to destroy to reap his vengeance upon those who crossed him, who harmed him. And this was no different, of course, but there was also a part of him that never wanted to see Evert Maat again.

I thought you were a king, once, he had said. But you are a coward. Alone, shivering and afraid. You are a coward, Kaz Rietveld, and I cannot wait until you meet your maker.

How could Kaz live with himself if he didn't face Maat again? If he turned tail and ran? But why wouldn't he want to run, burrow into the safety she had brought with him? Logically, he knew that this wouldn't last. He would have to rebuild the Dregs from whatever they had been reduced to in the past five months. He would never stop fighting, he'd sworn as much. There was no rest in his line of work.

Yet, he had faced Pekka Rollings, the man who took everything, the man whose very name could send him spiralling into rage and fear. If he could face that man, and whisper dirty secrets and get in his head without batting an eye, he should be able to ruin Evert Maat with a wave of his hands and a short order.

But, that poisonous voice cooed, Pekka never saw you as Maat did. He never saw you snivelling on the floor, begging for mercy, and for the girl, you could never let go of. You can kill innocents who never saw your true fear, but freeze in your boots when it comes to those who have seen how much of a coward you are.

Unwillingly, he looked over at Inej. She had seen him at his lows, at the brink of hell, and brought him back by simply saying his name. She had flinched as he spoke of Filip, though, at the cruelty he wrought, the thing he had become, all those years ago in the church and the bathroom that had become his confession behind the screen.

What if he spoke of Saskia, who he choked with her own red ribbon? Or Margit, the woman who pretended to be Pekka's wife, who he threw into the harbour? Or the men who handed over their information, the hands he'd broken then cut off, leaving them to bleed out in bed. Would she flinch at those stories?

Or what about the magician who'd changed it all? What would she do if she learned of Kaz's obsessive hunt, which was fruitless until three years ago? Would she pray for the man he'd half-convinced himself wasn't real, he'd seen on the other side of the road, an innocent domino in the fall of life?

When he'd seen him, for a moment, Kaz had just stood there, the vile memories of his magic trick flipping through his head. He'd shook his head, returned to the Slat, and vomited for two hours into his toilet, trying not to sob. And when he was done, when the waters stopped drowning him, he'd set out.

He didn't remember how he killed the magician. But when it was done and the man was gone, he'd returned to the Slat and gotten stupidly drunk, sitting in the corner of his room, hating himself and hating the man who'd ended it all. She'd found him the next day, and been the one to deal with him and his hangover. He never told her what happened, but she had seen the blood on his clothes.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He really needed a shave and a good haircut. Inej stirred, "Kaz? What time is it?" She asked blearily.

"Go back to bed Inej," he said softly, "I'll go in a few." He could feel her eyes on him, but she hummed and turned over. Her breaths evened out seconds later, and he looked at her finally, tears in his eyes.

The people of this world—the people who she rescued and the faithful who looked for their newest saint—called her the Holy Killer, the Saint of Vengeance, names he would never earn. He killed for profit, not for the lives of others. He killed for himself, to forward a goal, and to nurse old, bitter wounds. He had killed many innocents. She killed for the freedom of innocent people, and since she'd become a pirate, had not taken a single innocent life.

He was not holy. While the faithful whispered about her being a Holy Killer, a Grim Reaper with the holiest scythe, he was the Sinner, the King of the Crooked Kingdom. He had hands stained with blood and dust and water. He was a thief.

Inej had never asked him to be a good man. He would never be a good man, he would never have the luxury of that innocence. He was forged from corruption and pain, but he was also hers and only hers. He was more hers than she had ever been his. He would get on her knees to please her if his Queen so decreed it.

One day, he would find Evert Maat and make him beg for death. He would remind Evert who he truly was when he wasn't chained down, when the waters were mere puddles under his boots. But right now, those thoughts had no place.

He was not a better man for Inej, but here, with her, in her presence, he was a man. He was not a king, a demon, or a sinner. He was hers, and he only wanted to be hers. He wanted to touch her with clean hands, and he could not do that while planning the death of man. So he put the thoughts away for now and allowed himself to fall asleep next to her, hand in hand.

---

---

i'll tell you a secret now

wraiths and demons are long time lovers

they always float back to the other

and when you take one

the other comes wailing

---

YOUNG GOD...HALSEY

ix: WRAITHS

---

\ ˈrāth \

1: the exact likeness of a living person seen usually just before death as an apparition

2: an insubstantial form or semblance: SHADOW

---

---

THE WRAITH HAS COME, FEAR HER. THE WRAITH HAS COME, FEAR HER.

He sat in the chair in the cell, staring at the six words, repeating them in his head over and over. The red eyes of the painted crow stared at him, taunting, begging Evert to raise his hands against his artist. His hands stayed on his legs.

Dries Swan's words came to him, unbidden, "She was Brekker's spider for a while, people called her the Wraith."

Evert rose, pacing as he thought. The Wraith had been a spy for Kaz, and it seemed she still had enough connection to him to adopt his sigil, to use it to warn of her incoming vengeance. Enough connection to even stray from the sea and flee inland for him.

It hit him like a rogue wave, causing him to sit down.

What had Dries said her accursed name was? It had been lost in the blur of the past few months and the whispers of her Sainthood. Inej Ghafa. The name repeated in his head like a mantra, as he also recalled Kaz's confession of his wife's name.

Inej.

Inej Ghafa was the Wraith, Queen of the Seas. And he had found her King in Kaz Brekker. They had married, they were husband and wife. He remembered the look in his eyes as he threw that gold ring into the fire, face stretching into a grin. Ghezen had not forsaken him yet, and he was still giving gifts in the forms of a man's weakness people would kill to know.

He rose, work to be done. He would find the Wraith and lead Kaz Brekker right back to him. He would break them both and deliver the greatest gift the Merchant Council could ask for. Their banes would be no more, corpses in the ocean. He wondered who he should kill first, whose reaction he longed to see more.

Would she scream his name? Would she fight? Would he scream, would he try to manipulate? What dirty secrets would either of them try to leger against the judge, jury, and executioner? Would it matter?

Evert Maat was an arrogant man, but he knew that. But he also knew that Kaz was arrogant too and that he was no less human than he. That he could be broken, stripped and beaten down until there was only something else, something he'd tried to bury, left.

Ketterdam had convinced herself she had a king when all she had was a clever thief who had enough armour and shelter to stand in the storm that was the thrum of trade, of profit, of greed, without a single falter.

It was all smoke and mirrors, and Evert had been patient enough to find the reflected item, to find the love that was being hidden. There wasn't much time, he knew before Kaz retreated fully to lick his wounds. He would have to strike fast, with only a small crew.

Thank Ghezen then that the men he'd brought from the country were still alive.

---

It had been a week since he'd woken up fully now, and Inej could tell he was already itching to get back to work. Ever since he'd learned that they were hiding out in a safe house in the warehouse district, he'd been talking more and more about the Dregs

Right after Inej had learned of the arrest, she'd made sure to send money to Ketterdam to pay off their paroles. (And if some of that money was courtesy of Ravka, with their coffers finally steady again, no one needed to know.) Since then, the Dregs had waged brutal territory wars and had regained most, if not all, of the territory that had been stolen.

There, in the end, hadn't been many losses. Kaz had been powerful for long enough that it would take more than his arrest and four months without him in charge for the Dregs to fall in the way the Dime Lions had. The gambling halls were still up and running, and he would be able to cut his losses.

And if the Dregs were to be believed, he had Yasmine, the girl who'd been with young Alka on the steps that day, to thank. She had been a lower level lieutenant, but the highest-ranked one after everyone else was arrested. Inej had no doubt Kaz would promote her once he was in the position to do so.

She stepped into the safehouse's small office, where she found Kaz, pouring over papers and reports from the past few months. It was an achingly familiar sight as if nothing had ever changed. All they needed were their crows, who she almost half expected to materialize in the room, and squawk out 'Where were you? We're hungry! Feed us, now!'

She snorted, and he looked at her, an eyebrow raised. She told him of the image of talking crows in her head, and he just shook his head. "Finally cracked now, haven't you, my dearest Captain?" he asked, tone displaying his clear amusement.

"Perhaps, but I hear it's all the rage now. It's quite fashionable to be a bit insane."

"Well, I guess I've been ahead of the trend for once."

She snorted, "Like you follow the trends."

"You never know, my dearest Inej, I could very well be secretly obsessed with the trends. Helps to blend in, perhaps."

"Well with that haircut, I don't think anyone could call you fashionable."

He gave her a weird look, fully turning away from his work to step closer to her, "Now when did Nina Zenik possess my wife?"

"Now, now, don't go run your tongue about Nina, especially when her husband was the one to do most of your healing. Nina helped burn away the Pneumonia."

His face darkened, looking away as he squared his jaw. She pressed a hand to his cheek gently, but he pressed into it to kiss it.

They were close enough now that when she lifted her hand she touched his chest. She could feel his heartbeat from under his dark clothes, steady and assuring of his recovered health and strength. Hesitantly, she put her head on his chest, and he took it openly, wrapping an arm around her. They stood there, silent and still, for a long moment, the only sound being their breaths in the room.

His sharp voice broke through the silence, "Where were you?" Why didn't you come earlier? Why did you all leave me to rot for so long? Why didn't you come for me?

"I was," She cleared her throat, "I was chasing a lead, for months. I wasn't even close to a port until a month or so before we got you out. I acted immediately. As for the dregs, they tried to come, once they regrouped and had the strength again. It only ended in more arrests and death, but they're out now."

"No mourners," he whispered, eyes closed.

"No funerals," She replied, voice like prayer. "They tried Kaz, we all tried. We would never have stopped trying and fighting until we got you home, until you were in my arms again."

The kiss comes quickly, the 'thank you' he always struggles to put into words. When they pull apart, heads pressed close, noses brushing, he looks at her. His eyes scan every inch of her face, committing every little part of her to memory.

"Inej," He asked, "Not tonight, but soon, could you go out for me? Make sure you think it's safe enough for me to at least return to the Slat?"

She smiled at him, "I think I could do that. Just for you." He smiled back, somehow pressing closer, as she continued, "How does next Saturday sound? Six days from now?" He nods. "But are you sure? Do you not think you should wait a bit longer for this to all die down?"

"We're kings and queens," (Practically Gods) "Treasure," he says softly, the barest quiver revealed in his voice, "I think we can handle this."

---

Evert Maat looked at the three men he'd brought with him.

There was Afon Makarov, a rogue Grisha, who had fled Ravka after being accused of War Crimes. There was Tom Willems, thin and reedy, but the mastermind behind the first arrest. And finally, Mads van Vliet, an unassuming man but a man with minor connections to the slave trade, but just enough that they'd gotten their Grisha boy and their unpickable chains through him.

They were in a small pub deep within the Government District. The two Swan men who had funded this all had been furious at their loss, but Evert had assured them they had a plan to get Kaz back and score even more treasure.

The men had given them until the middle of July. It was tight, especially considering the few spiders they'd sent out had come back with no intel as to where he could be. Evert found he was not overly surprised.

Mads spoke suddenly, voice low, "The Wraith, she is a fearsome fighter. It will be hard to catch her off guard, but if we play it right we should achieve that. She is clever, yes, but she is as human as you or I."

"She hunts slavers, no?" Tom asked, running a hand over his scruffy beard.

Mads scowled, " Yes she does. That woman has entirely overthrown the entire system, robbing men of profit. And if the rumours are to be believed, the ones I've heard from one of my associates, she was one of Tante Heleen's— yes that Tante Heleen —whores for a bit."

"What changed?" Afon asked, leaning back in his chair as he crossed his large arms over his chest. Evert leaned closer as Mads spoke.

"I don't know exactly, but someone paid off her indenture, about a year into it."

Evert put the pieces together after a long moment in which the men were silent. "It was Brekker," he said, and the three other men's eyes snapped to him. "It had to have been. He didn't keep a record of who he indoctrinated into the Dregs, of course, but there was a large payout, around the time people started whispering of her. How else would she have found herself in the Dregs?"

The men nodded along, following closely. Tom spoke next, "So the Wraith owes Kaz Brekker. Perhaps that is why they wed? Could we be guessing or overcompensating for the nature of their relationship?"

Evert shook his head, "I saw the look in Kaz's eyes. He loves the Wraith dearly, and people don't just marry to settle a debt. Marriage is almost always for love or for the mutual good of two families, you know that. "

"Or tax benefits," Afon added.

"Or tax benefits," Evert added, hastily continuing, "The point is, I have no doubt that Kaz and Inej are in love, and that she is the most direct line to his heart we can grasp."

" Evert," Mads pressed, "She is one of the most dangerous women in the world. We can't just jump her, I am telling you. And if we do, she is a fearsome fighter. She learned the art of escape from Kaz, who you and I both know is talented at in most circumstances. This is a high risk."

"And it's one I'm willing to take. If you aren't, fine. Go back home, and claim none of the glory and the revenge you deserve. What do you say, Mads, friend ?" Tom and Afon looked between them expectantly, tension in their shoulders. Finally, Mads dipped his head into a nod.

The tension flew away in an instant, and Evert leaned back into his chair. "Besides, I know exactly who to ask when it comes to kidnapping Wraiths."

---

Evert came to Hellgate in a fine rowboat, the waning moon the only light. He docked and lit a lantern, taking the path up to the black prison.

The guards of Hellgate lead him down the dank and dampening stone walls, their boots sloshing in the puddles that had taken up permanent residence on the floors. But that soon gave way to a cleaner cell block, clearly, a gift the prisoners' money could give.

Evert was let into his old friend's cell, the man's cold blue eyes entertained as he looked upon Evert for the first time in thirty-seven long years.

"Jan," Evert said, warmth seeping into his tone, unwillingly. "Hello, my old friend."

"Evert," his tone was less warm. "Hello...friend. Long time no see."

Much had changed in the other, they each noted.

Jan's hair was unkempt, untidy, but his clothes looked fine, even on him. His eyes were cold, distant, conniving, and bitter. The sides were streaked with white, accentuating the gaunt face that had been the face of beauty in his youth. Now, he just looked old, broken. Evert looked upon one who was one of the greatest victims of Kaz Brekker's rule.

Evert, broad-shouldered and handsome as ever, displayed his age in a much more beautiful way. His dark, slicked-back hair had streaks of grey throughout, his thick goatee white around his mouth. The set of his brows was firm and displayed anger that was reflected in his green eyes. He wore a glittering watch of gold on his left hand.

"I need your help," Evert said, softly.

"And what will I get in return?"

"I cannot release you, you know as much." Jan nodded. "But I can assure you that should you help, the one who put you here will be brought to justice and pain."

"My idiot son? You have my blessing." Evert shook his head, and Jan looked at him, as the realisation dawned. "You're going after Brekker."

"I am. I have."

"Evert, you fool! Do you wish for death that much?"

"I do not fear a man who snivels on the floor, begging for his wife to save him under his breath."

"What have you done? " Jan cried.

"I arrested him, back in January. I'm surprised you didn't hear. I spent the past few months breaking him down so his trial would be nice and neat, but the bastard escaped. I need him back, and I have a plan, but I need to know something."

"What?"

"How did you manage to capture the Wraith?" Jan looked at him, eyes wide. "I know you did so. So, tell me, how did you do that?"

Jan laughed bitterly, "You have lost your mind, old friend. The tools I used you cannot imagine getting before the Wraith and Brekker learn of your plot against them. I suppose you mean to use her as leverage? It doesn't work."

"I told you, Jan, I do not fear Kaz."

"Then you are a clown in the circus, playing for the crowd. You walk to certain and painful death, Evert, not to a shining victory. My advice? Run. Give up. You may capture the Wraith, but the price for her bondage is too high."

"Is that how you ended up here? A merchant councilman, a man from one of the greatest trading houses in Kerch, in Hellgate, spewing prophecies of death?" Evert snarled, lip curling up in disgust.

"I was like you once, certain that Kaz Brekker was one I could best. But that ended with me in prison, and if what you say is true it will end with you dead. Farwell, Evert. May death find you swiftly, should you choose to go forth with this foolishness."

---

She was somehow inches away from him yet miles away from him. Right next to him but an eternity away, unreachable across the void that was space. One set of voices in his head, the windchimes in the breeze and the rushing river, urged their son to draw closer, sending his heart into his throat. To hold, caress, explore, prod, to learn.

But there was another set, too, an equal and an opposite. The sons, the children of the waters, told him to draw away, to do nothing with his hands but make them his weapons. This was the pattern he had always known, the war in his head that would forever march.

In the end, the breeze and the river won, and all he knew was her, the woman who would hunt and lay the early steps for his return to his kingdom, the City of Sin. Desperate and longing, all he knew was that he was to love her until there was nothing left, until the darkness settled and she would go out into the Barrel once more.

Her breath was hot against his skin, his hands against her hips, steady, grounding, the rock amongst the tides that still fought to rise.

"Don't go," his voice whispered into the still room.

"And here I thought you were itching to get back to work," her tone was teasing, and it brought a smile to his lips.

"I am," he breathed, "But I am greedy, Inej. So very greedy. You are not mine, and I will let you go, but I cannot deny that I know this place is safer than the world outside."

"Do you wish for safety?"

"Sometimes. In dreams, in flashes, in moments like these. Where I can give you all you have ever demanded of me, but I also know we cannot ever be safe if we want to continue to rid the world of the evils that made us." She nods, caught in his words like a fish on a hook, "I wish for safety when I forget the world is cruel or when I rest, but we will never stop fighting. There is no safety here."

They were moving slowly around the room, in circles. It would have looked like a dance to any onlooker, and perhaps it was. But it was also the tides, the need to pull closer and old memories that would always be there, no matter how much they had grown. They would move on, they had, but those memories would forever be a part of who they were, and would always have some say on the way they moved, those tides.

"One day," Inej promised, "When you and I are old and grey and when we are dead to the outside world, we will learn this safety."

"Swear it," his voice had gone brittle, the golden fields in his head once more, "Please."

"I swear."

Darkness had fallen. Their eyes met in the dark, and Inej drew as close as she could, leaning her head up so she could look upon his face. "I love you," she whispered, and he repeated it back, words barely audible.

"I will see you at dawn."

"Dawn?"

"Dawn."

"Swear it." A pause. "Please."

"Kaz? Why are you so concerned?"

"The Barrel is dangerous. I fear for you. There is trouble in the air." She felt it too, but she instead chose to just answer his request.

"I swear."

"No mourners."

A smile, a knife in the dark.

"No funerals."

She was halfway out the door when he spoke from where he still stood in the middle of the room, eyes trained on something far away. "I love you."

She swallowed, "I love you more than you could ever know."

---

The men came from nowhere.

She knew these streets, these streets had been her home for years. But she had been Queen of the Sea much longer than she'd ever consistently haunted these streets. Perhaps she was distracted? Was she still wheeling from leaving Kaz, his words, the future safety that she had promised him?

Yes, she decided, that was it. She was caught off guard from something that had happened hours ago, yet she could best these men, only one of whom had a weapon. The silver knife was wickedly curved, the light of the moon causing it to glow in the late night.

The man lunged, closing the distance quickly. His knife hit hers, the clang as she disarmed it and it hit the tiled roof resounding throughout all of Ketterdam.

Crouching, she moved to sweep his legs out from under him, knives in hand should his companions choose to join the fight. Too late, she saw him pull a flash bomb from his belt, the dark having made it no more than a blur on his belt.

She covered her eyes on instinct, her second mistake as a hand grabbed her collar. She had heard the other men approach, but her eyes had burned and her ears rang from the closeness of the bomb.

Whirling, knife in hand, she faced her attacker, coming face to face with a grinning man, whose face had been so carefully described to her, she knew who he was. Her grip on her knife loosened, by just a fraction.

When she spoke, her voice was cold, as cutting as a ship through still water, "Evert Maat."

"Hello, Wraith," he murmured, deep pleasure in his voice.

In her anger, she had focused only on Evert Maat, her third mistake. Strong hands forced her back, and her knife clattered to the floor as her arms were wrenched behind her back. She stifled a cry as the man kicked the back of her knees, sending her to his knees.

She struggled against the grip, her knives all out of her reach, and the man was much too strong. All she could do was...

She sent her leg back, hitting the man in the groin. He yelped, the grip on her hands loosening just enough for her to shimmy out of it and bring a knife into her hand, and then into the soft flesh of his hand.

He wailed, and Inej sent a poisonous grin at Evert. She was perched on the tiles, some three feet away from him, backed close to an uncrossable jump. The other two men had blocked her other two exits, and the third rose on shaky legs, clutching his hand close to his chest.

"Come to finish the job you started on my husband, I suppose?" She asked Evert, "Come to correct your failures, Evert Maat?"

"Perhaps," he said with a shrug. "But you realise not how important you are to me, to my goal."

"I suppose you plan to trade me for Kaz to someone? Have someone grab him now, and then sell us to the highest bidder?" She glanced at the man to his left, who stood with clenched fists. "I suppose you are a slaver? You have the look of one."

"The Wraith doesn't know my name?" He chortled.

"I admit to that being the truth, but perhaps it's because you are that insignificant. Give me your name, and I will give you mine, an even deal. Not that you know those."

He frowned, "I am not a fool to give you my name, lovely."

"I," she whispered lowly, "Am not your lovely."

"Surrender now Wraith," Evert said loudly, cutting through their conversation.

"Or what?" She asked. "Normally that comes with a promise of mercy, but you don't know that do you? Shooting a man in his bad leg? Torturing him because you can? Burning his ring because he didn't speak while he was gagged?"

Evert shrugged, "I did what I thought to be necessary."

"I find I don't care." The men were drawing closer now, but she stood her ground. "You can kidnap me, Evert, but your arrogance will catch up to you. You only know a Kaz Brekker who was broken down and at your mercy, but he is not that when he is free."

"Funnily enough, you aren't the first to warn me of this fabled ferocity. I'm afraid I will have to see it to believe it." He was mere feet in front of her now. "Do you not fear what you know awaits you Wraith? Kaz has told you what I did to him, do you think you will receive any more or any less."

She rose from her crouched position, a queen to the very end. "Fear has no place in the Barrel."

"You best learn it then, Wraith."

"I did. And so will you, before the end."

She had drawn another knife, the carving of a dragon upon the blade. It had been a gift from Zoya, a token of appreciation for Inej's work to keep the children of not just Ravka, but the world, safe.

She threw the knife towards the men and sent herself tumbling off the side of the building. There was a shout, the feeling of the air going solid, and then the world went black.

---

Dawn had come and gone, and she had not yet returned. He waited and waited, until night fell again, and his fury consumed him.

He did not remember the few days that followed. He returned to the Barrel with little care, sucking the air out of all people as Dirtyhands made his furious return. The other gangs hid in the shadows, terror clawing into their throats. The Dregs awaited their orders.

Soon everyone knew the news: Kaz Brekker had returned with a vengeance.

She was gone, his anchor, the thing he tried to be a good man for and around. But to save her from Evert (For who else could have taken her?) this good man would have to step aside.

Evert was a fool. He had been a fool the second he'd stepped into Ketterdam, convincing himself that Kaz Brekker was the same as Dirtyhands, the demon that ruled Ketterdam. Evert would soon find himself the jester in Kaz's court, his fools hat red with his own blood.

Evert had met Kaz Brekker, breaking him down into Kaz Rietveld. But he had not met Dirtyhands, the young god of Ketterdam. And it was too late for him to rectify that mistake. Whether it be dawn or midnight, it had always been too late.

Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.

---

---

listen closely as his shining star is gone now

and he is no more than a priest with no temple

a god with no home, a demon with no chains

brick by brick

brick...by...brick

brick...by...

brick...

---

PATIENCE...THE LUMINEERS

---

x: SANCTITY

---

sanc·ti·ty | \ ˈsaŋ(k)-tə-tē \

1: holiness of life and character: GODLINESS

2: the quality or state of being holy or sacred: INVIOLABILITY

---

---

The Wraith was a much different prisoner than Kaz had been. She was silent, collected, eyes scanning and learning all, where Kaz had been messy, disjointed, eyes eternally unfocused. But perhaps after enough torture, Inej would be much of the same.

He sat across from her now, much as he had with Kaz all those months ago. She was pointedly ignoring him, her eyes steadily trained on the wall. They were both silent, awaiting the other's need to fill the silence.

In the end, Evert caved first, to little surprise of Inej. This man was not a silent watcher like she was, he was not one who used his voice to spill secrets more than anything else. "They call you a living Saint."

The woman just shrugged, eyes still on the wall. Her eyes were as dark, if not darker, than Kaz's, lost twin pools of black ink. She seemed utterly unconcerned with where she was like it was just another Tuesday for her.

"Why do they call you that?"

"Perhaps because I save children from a fate no one deserves?" Her voice was deep, strong, a voice that fit a captain of the True Sea well. "Or perhaps the forgotten people of this world see themselves in a woman like them, a girl forgotten by her world?"

"And who has forgotten you?"

"You forget I grew up in the reign of Alexander III."

"So you are of Ravka then?"

She met his eyes then, for the briefest second, "You really are quite the fool. Of course I am of Ravka, Evert Maat. It is only the people of this Saints forsaken country that take girls from their beds, so they seldom take their own."

"Do you think perhaps that you delay the inevitable when you return those girls?"

Her face remained calm. "You truly believe this all to be inevitable? That just because it has been this way for centuries that changing the world is hindering fate? You believe that every child of the Ravkan countryside in our world will end up as slaves?"

"Well, no," he said, "But the gods have plans for us all. Those instances are part of their plans for those children."

"Ravka reveres the Saints, not the gods. Yet, have you thought that their rescue was also a part of these gods' mystical plans? Or are you grasping at straws to justify the evil in this country, to turn me into some devil?"

"Oh," he said with narrowing eyes, "Does Sankta Inej now believe herself to be the holiest woman alive? I know what you have done, I see the blood upon your hands."

"I admit to not being a pure soul, Evert Maat. But I have made the world better and safer for the children who were like me, I have become the saviour I never had," She met his eyes in challenge, "Can you say the same?"

"I will rid the world of you and Kaz, so I can say the same."

"Tell me, Evert, what has Kaz done that is so heinous in the eyes of you?" Her eyes twinkled in the light of the oil lamp that Evert had by his feet.

"Do you not know? Do you not see? Or have you turned a blind eye to the suffering he has caused? How many innocent lives has he, or even you for that matter, taken? You want to know what he has done, Wraith?"

"I have taken enough innocent lives to make me a murderer but I have rid the world of three times as many unholy men, who deserve not my mercy. And Kaz seldom takes a life if it doesn't benefit him and provides a means to his end."

"And what is that end?"

"Revenge and money, most of the time. Noble enough causes."

"Peace and penance for a tortured soul, perhaps?" Evert asked, and when she shot him a wary look, he continued. "Don't think I missed the boy beneath it all, the one he has failed to bury despite what he insists."

"Don't speak of what you don't know. Do not preach my husband's sins to me," her voice had gone quieter, but her eyes burned with the defiance that had been in Kaz's for the longest time. "I made peace with my sins and his long ago, I'll have you know."

"No, I am not blind to what he does, what he has done, to survive and to crawl his way to the top of the Barrel." Evert leaned back in his chair, taking in her words carefully. "But you are blind and unaware of his mercies, the way he has helped rid this world of the evil that made him."

"And what is that evil?"

She was silent for a long, suffocating, moment.

Finally, she replied.

"Powerful men."

---

He did not pray for her, his mind was much too focused on other things to pray. And he knew anyway that she was in the mind of her Saints anyway, that she would pray where he did not. All he could worry about was how he would walk straight into the trap they'd set and not get bit by the circling sharks.

The trap couldn't have been more obvious if they tried. They made little attempt to hide their trail down to a warehouse at the edge of the city, and from Roeder's report, there were few visible defences, but plenty of places in which they could be easily hidden.

Oh, the arrogance one success could buy.

Kaz stood leaning over his desk, making final preparation for the carnage he would wreak after nightfall when the knock came. He barely had time to ask who it was before the door flew open, as Jesper rushed in.

He straightened, asking "What happened?"

Jesper was out of breath as he spoke, words coming out at breakneck speed, "So, you know how we keep tabs on Wy's dad in Hellgate, right?"

"I distinctly remember helping you set the whole thing up."

"Yeah, yeah, but we just got last month's full report."

"And?" Kaz said after a pause.

"Evert Maat visited him. Four days before he took Inej."

Kaz's eyes snapped to attention, and he looked sharply at him. He felt his breath leave his lungs when he met Jesper's grey eyes, and the fear and confusion. He always tried to be smart, to be three steps ahead, not just for himself, but for them. So they wouldn't be lost the way he had been, the way they'd all been once.

"Looks like I have one more stop to make before getting Inej back."

"Don't go, Kaz, not yet at least. Wait, let me help."

"I can't just leave her." His voice broke halfway through. "I have to, Jes. Don't involve yourself in this."

"Kaz ."

"What if you're caught? What if it goes south? You and Wylans life would fall apart at the seams. I won't let you risk that stability, that safety."

"Please, Kaz, I'm trying to help."

"I know what he is doing to her. I know what she is enduring. I will not leave her to suffer, not when I am so close. She wouldn't do it for me, I won't do it for her."

"I-" Jesper sighed, tears shining in his eyes. "Stay alive. Don't throw this all away. Come home to us, bring her home."

"Do you know what Evert said to Jan?"

Jesper shook his head, "No. No, I don't"

Kaz nodded slowly, eyes closed. Finally, he spoke at length, "It shouldn't matter to me, shouldn't it? I can't change the past, I can't change the fact they spoke, for whatever reason. I'll likely never know what they spoke about, or how that relates to much of anything. So why does it? Why do I want to tear Jan apart piece by piece, why do I want to burn the world down, just to get her back? It won't fix anything." A pause. "Won't it?"

Jesper wouldn't meet his eyes. "I don't know Kaz. I don't know, but what I do know is that going after Jan isn't the solution. Just go get Inej. Don't spill more blood than is necessary. Don't end everyone who hinders you."

"That's all I've ever done," Kaz defended, pulling on his suit jacket.

"I know, Kaz. Just don't, for once. You will spill enough blood tonight. Don't add one more. Let Jan rot. Let him suffer."

He's not your demon to handle, he's Wylans.

"Yeah," Kaz said, voice choked. "Yeah, of course." He pushed past Jesper, purposefully brushing his shoulder against his.

"No mourners," Jesper said to his retreating form.

"No funerals," He said back. He would never be certain if Jesper heard him.

---

Kaz walked silently through the Barrel, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

He thought of Inej now, as he so often did in moments like these. But he also thought of Jesper's words, his plea to spare a man who he knew to be evil. His plea for there to be one less body on the Barge tomorrow.

Kaz would let Jan live. He would let him continue rotting, to continue to wither away. Maybe one day his son would look upon him and laugh, show his father his strength. The strength that had been denied for it was not the strength Jan had wanted. This was not Kaz's fight anymore.

It had been, once, many years ago. When Wylan was still in fear of his father, when Kaz knew he had to face Jan so one-day Wylan could too. So that one day, Kaz could step back, hand the entire Van Eck estate over to Wylan and let him live the comfortable life he and Jesper now had. The one he didn't have, had truly never had. The one they all once deserved.

It had been Inej who he had first spoken to of the Barge, and he would never forget sitting on the floor later that night, drunk as all hell, the sudden realisation he'd fended off for years crashing around his ears. He finally recognised what he had earned, and what he had lost forever in the process.

He realised he had entered an alley, and stopped dead in his tracks. For no reason. He felt no danger, heard nor saw anyone around him. He was alone, standing in a decrepit alley like some weirdo, but he found he couldn't move his feet.

I know what she is enduring.

That was it, wasn't it? She was where he had been, he could feel it in his bones. Jan had almost broken her legs, driven her to the edge, but he had not harmed her. Evert was though, he knew it. However big or small the injuries, that man was lost, a man who had dived headfirst into the rush of power he had gained.

He took in a breath, and when he heard it shake, he frowned. Closing his eyes, he ran a hand over his face. He couldn't lose her now. Suddenly he was seventeen again, seeing those silver claws take her up into the air, hearing Van Eck's voice in the air. He saw her face, the terror that had taken them for the briefest second.

He had to sit down.

His steps were more unsteady than he would have liked as he stumbled over to a pile of rubble, putting his head in his hands. The desperation, the exhaustion, the weakness in his bones, it scared him. He did not fear the coming fight, but rather the feeling growing in his bones.

She was his world. She had rescued him from the depths like some Saint of Old, a holy woman. She was the Holy Killer, extending her bloody hands to him, bringing him, the greatest Sinner, into her pious world. She had been the one to approach him, she had been the one to tell him that if he wanted to be hers, he would have to open up, to shed his armour, to become some semblance of a man.

It had neither been a cruel demand, nor an impossible one. It had always been her reminding him that he was deserving of being better, he deserved to love and laugh and live, that he didn't have to hold himself to some unreachable standard. That his armour was hurting him long before it was saving him, now.

He had thought she had been sent from the Saints in those moments, a holy messenger, delivering their word to the one they had forsaken once but never would again, not when she was his and he was hers.

This wasn't her absence on the sea, where he knew she was in danger but he knew she had power, had an advantage, where he knew she was far away and out of his control, where she was feared and loved. This was her, mere feet away, mere moments away at any given moment. Torturously close, unsafe, and so close to his grasp. Slowly, he wondered if he could truly do this alone.

"Kaz!"

His head snapped to the entrance to the alley closest to him, eyes landing on Jesper, Nina, and her husband Ilya. He glared at Jesper, as they approached, and the other man gave a sheepish grin. It had been Nina who spoke, and who now drew closest. "I can handle this," he grumbled to no one in particular, and he could almost hear Nina roll her eyes.

"We won't let you throw yourself into this alone," Nina said reverently. "Whether we are your friends, your crows, your subordinates, it doesn't matter. We will not abandon you to a trap, one you know awaits you. We won't let you be a fool."

"I know a trap is coming, and that gives me an advantage, dearest Nina." He growls, roughly running a hand through his hair. "You aren't coming, that's final."

Nina grabbed his arm, and his eyes snapped to meet her, glaring cooly. She returned his glare with one of equal frustration and anger. "You aren't the only one who wants her home, Kaz. You can't do this alone, Kaz. Take at least one of us."

He was silent for a long moment, and he felt his friend's eyes on him as he thought. They were fine enough company, he reasoned and will be helpful in a fight. Sighing heavily, he nodded slowly, "Fine."

He blinked up at Nina as she offered a hand to him, taking it slowly, allowing her to help him up. His leg groaned in protest, and he bit down a groan as he walked on, through the dark City of Sin.

---

Inej found she felt little fear. She also found that infuriated Evert Maat to no end. He hurt her, slapped her, threatened her, but she just smiled and took it. She knew who and what came. She had even tried to warn this idealistic fool of it, but he hadn't listened and she knew his fate had been sealed then.

He only ever asked one question: "Why are you a Saint?"

Her replies varied: Do you think you should be one? I have a good publicist. I have no idea. Because I want to make this world better, and because I have made it better.

It was the last that made him furious. He had convinced himself so much of the evil of the Barrel that any counterpoint sent him spiralling into amusing anger. She knew Kaz was only moments, days away, that he would come soon. Evert's anger amused her, as he seemed to convince himself that they would snag Kaz whenever he came.

When he wasn't questioning her, he would boast about how he had set a trap for Kaz and how he would have them both soon enough. He never stopped reminding her that she was a mere pawn in the game of chess he was sure Kaz was playing with him. Kaz, meanwhile, was not playing some 2-D chess.

He never had, never would.

She had gotten very little sleep if any in the maybe four days she had been here, so a crashing sound did not immediately startle her when she heard it, mid interrogation and torture. She was much more focused on Evert, slowly slipping away into madness in front of her and the very real possibility of her needing to retreat into her mind soon.

But it drew Everts, and when he swore, she knew who had come. She smiled at him, and spoke her final words to him, with a bowed head, "I hope the Saints pity you, Evert Maat. You will need it before the end."

---

---

all power corrupts, silly boy

this world was made for tyrants my child

lock your doors, say your prayers

dirtyhands has come to see the rough work done

---

PATIENCE...THE LUMINEERS

---

xi: TYRANNY

---

tyr·an·ny | \ ˈtir-ə-nē \

1: oppressive power

2: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force

---

---

His hands were red with blood. Whether it was his or the men's whose lives he ripped from them with no mercy didn't matter, but the blood was slick and slippery. His eyes roved over the piled bodies of the dead stadwatch, barely acknowledging Evert, who Ilya guarded.

He would deal with him later.

He jerked his head to the door as he met Jesper's eyes, and the man nodded, his guns empty but still dangerous. He filed out the door silently, and Kaz walked over to Nina, who was perched on the only chair in the room. "How many?"

"Thirty-six." Amongst the fallen: Everts prized friends who'd he'd brought and been so sure of.

"They're all dead, yes?" He asked, looking at Ilya.

"Of course," they both grinned, and Kaz stripped off his gloves, pocketing the ruined leather. He knew he had one more pair at home, thankfully. The men had come running after someone wriggled out of Kaz's grasp, but they were no match for Dirtyhands and his court of bloodthirsty thugs.

The Corpse Witch, The Dead Son, The Sharpshooter, and Dirty Handed King had come for the Wraith Queen, and they would not be barred from her presence. The last one least of all, and he walked to her now, searching the rooms for any strays. Just as he had expected, there were none, they were all dead in the other room.

Finally, he came to her door, wiping his stained hands off on his jacket before picking the door open, and stepping inside. He felt the weight of her dark eyes upon him instantly, and he smiled to himself as he closed the door behind him, finally fully turning to face her.

She was chained by the arms and legs, the side of her face dark from bruises. His stomach tightened in anger, and he was across the room in two long strides, "Let me get these for you," he murmured, bringing the tools to the lock and opening it fairly easily. He grabbed it before it fell, starting to work on the other one.

She was impossibly close, he realised after a moment, pausing in his undoing of the lock. "All well?" she whispered, and he nodded, mouthing an 'I'm sorry' as he continued to finesse the lock. "Hey, it's okay, I'm fine. Doesn't even hurt." She pressed against the bruise and winced.

"I can tell," he said dryly, as he tried to move to a better position. He blew out a frustrated huff of air. "Shit, come on. "

She looked at him, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the question in her eyes.

"It's an odd angle and the lock is old as all hell. Wait—got it." They both breathed a sigh of relief as it fell away, and she rubbed her reddening wrists gratefully. His voice was breathless as he spoke again, "Are you okay?"

"I've been in tougher scrapes," she said, her perfect lips pulling into an impossibly more perfect smile. He nodded slowly, bowing his head as he took her hands and kissed them. "Your hands are bloody," she said quietly, as he began to open the chain on her leg.

"Really living up to the nickname," the chain fell away, and he threw it to the side, the clang echoing through the room. "I'm sorry they took you. I shouldn't have sent you out."

"If we start listing things we shouldn't have done, Kaz, you and I will be here till the end of time. It happened, you couldn't have controlled it, you know that. It's not all your fault," she said softly, as the final chain fell away and she pressed closer to him, and she found herself sitting between his legs.

"I suppose you are going to tell me this action will have no echo, now?" He teased, and she rolled her eyes, her hands hovering over his sides, a hair's breadth away.

"No," she said, her voice no louder than a whisper, "This action will have an echo, but we will deal with those echoes, as we always do."

He breathed her name. They didn't move. And then they did, they were, with reassured agility and speed, her hands at the lapels of his coat, in his hair, his red hands cupping her face, her hips, the lips only knowing lips. There was no breath between them before they pulled apart, foreheads pressed together.

Tears shined in both their eyes and Inej spoke, "We really need to stop saving the other from a kidnapping." He threw his head back and laughed, pulling her closer, closer, closer. Her hand clutched the fabric of his coat as he kissed the crown of her head, the waters miraculously low and calm. He kissed her wrist, her pulse beating wildly beneath his lips.

"I don't know," he whispered lowly, "I think it's rather fun."

"Maybe for you, but you didn't find me with effing pneumonia and completely out of it." He winced, looking away quickly. "Not that it was your fault, you're just difficult to move in any way when you're that incapacitated. You act like the dead, when you're out of it, you know that?"

His lips lifted into a smile, "Makes it easier to avoid kidnappings in my sleep."

"I don't think there is a man fool enough to even try that. You practically sleep with a knife in your hand."

"Don't we all?"

---

Kaz looked down his nose at Evert, considering his words carefully, as he pulled his soiled gloves back on, one last time. Finally, he looked at Ilya and spoke. "Let him go."

His friends' eyes snapped to attention, curiosity and confusion in their faces. He didn't even have to look upon her to know her lips were pressed in a thin line, her dark brow furrowed as she watched him.

He leaned closer to Evert, who pressed against Ilya's hold, but the Fjerdan Grisha held strong, as proud and strong as the tree of his country. Kaz's dark eyes bore into Evert's cold, unemotional, two distant moons ruled by tyranny.

"You have one week, Evert. To run, to try and hide." He slipped a knife out of his sleeve, a tiny thing. It was the knife he'd used against Oomen, all those years ago, and now it was pressed against the corner of Evert's mouth. "And then I will find you, and make you beg for death, before the end."

Ilya shoved the older man down as Kaz nodded to him, stepping closer to his wife, their matching Corporalki-Red, fur-lined, cloaks. Evert, on his hands and knees before Kaz, glared up at him, spitting towards his face.

It fell short, and Kaz raised a single, taunting, brow.

" Coward ." Evert spit. "Kaz Rietveld, the tyrannical king of cowards. Kill me now, Rietveld, show me your legendary wrath."

"I don't need to show you anything, Evert Maat. I am not 'Kaz Rietveld, the tyrannical king of cowards' as you say. My name is Kaz fucking Brekker, and while I may be a tyrant in your eyes, and to the eyes of the men of this city born into the luxury never given to the Rietveld boys, I am no coward."

"Jer ven een verrhader van Kerch, jongen. " You are a traitor to Kerch, boy.

"I could never be loyal to the country that took everything from me."

"Poor Kaz Rietveld, without his worldly pleasures."

Kaz lurched forward, grabbing him by the neck and lifting him up as he forced him against the nearby wall. He squeezed the man's windpipe as he spoke lowly, his voice tight with anger. "It's Brekker, or I will end you now, and slowly."

Evert was gasping for breath, his friends looking on, making zero moves to stop Kaz. Just as Evert was turning an unnatural shade, Kaz threw him down, pressing his boot down against the gasping man's chest. "Are you getting dejà vu to?"

He leaned down, his bad leg aching as he pressed harder. "One week, Evert Maat. No more, no less. Then you will learn how much of a tyrant I can be, and maybe by then, you'll know my proper name." Kaz stepped away, heading out the door, his crows filling behind in silence.

"Rietveld boys?"

Kaz stilled, and he looked over his shoulder at Evert Maat, who had risen shakily from the floor. For a long moment, he didn't speak, but when he did, his voice was hollow and lost but laced with red string fury.

"I had a life once. A good, happy life. A mother. A father. A brother. A farm, away from the filth of this City of Sin."

"And what happened, Rietveld?"

"Ask Pekka Rollings. Vaarell, Evert Maat. We will meet once more, at the hour of your death."

---

Six nights later, Kaz stood upon a roof, looking out at the fifth harbour. His eyes were dark and red-rimmed from silent tears, as he considered himself and all that he had ever been.

Then he felt only her.

His head swivelled to the window as she opened it, the golden light of her oil lamp spilling out into the street, as she climbed towards him silently. He had turned back to the harbour as she came to his side, Dirtyhands and his Wraith Queen.

"All well?"

"Am I a tyrant?" His tone was airy, casual as if asking the weather.

She blanched, looking at him weirdly. "A tyrant?"

"Yes."

"To the Merchant Class, probably. To the Barrel, maybe. To me, no." He opened his mouth, but she cut him off, "Nor are you a coward, or a Rietveld, not if you don't claim that name anymore. You are Kaz Brekker."

"What am I to you, then?"

She was silent for a long moment.

"My husband, first of all. My partner, my friend. My boss, my informant, my co-conspirator. The man who saved my life, the man whose life I have saved in return. The man who smiles when I think I can't see. The man who gave me everything and then some. The man who put a knife in my hand and forged me to be dangerous. My beloved, the whole of my heart. You are mine, till the end of time."

"Pekka was a tyrant."

"And he paid dearly for that."

"Inej...what if I turn out like Pekka? What do I do then?"

"You will never be Pekka Rollings, Kaz. I swear on my heart and our love, that you will never do what he did to you and Jordie to anyone else. You may sin, and ruin lives, but you have never once touched a child who did not touch you first."

"Hanna Smeet would beg to differ."

"Hanna Smeet grew up perfectly fine, the fine swaddle of her wealth dimming the memories of the monster under her bed that you were to her. Hanna Smeet has forgotten, much like the people of her class forgot you and your brother when the plague hit." Inej said reverently.

"A tyrant forgets. A coward hides. Rietveld's die. But Brekker's, they remember, they stand and face the storm, they continue living, if just to spite the world trying to kill them. You are no tyrant to me, no coward to me, and you are the Brekker in my heart, for we buried the Rietveld boys properly years ago, and I will have it no differently."

He couldn't think. So, he kissed her.

---

---

were they not boys?

shouldn't they have protected them?

they were children you son of a bitch

and he will never forget that

it's all your fault

and now you must pay

---

THE CATALYST...LINKIN PARK

---

xii: UNEQUIVOCAL

---

un·equiv·o·cal | \ ˌən-i-ˈkwi-və-kəl \

1: leaving no doubt: CLEAR , UNAMBIGUOUS

2: UNQUESTIONABLE

---

---

Kaz's promised arrival came like an ill wind at exactly one bell, eight days after he had made his promise of Evert's death. Evert's attempt to run then, had been in vain. Evert felt his presence immediately, his shoulders bunching up as he straightened, eyes leaving the birth records he'd been scouring.

"Kaz," he greeted hoarsely, and the man stepped into the room, the picture of elegance in his fine pressed suits, a clever mockery of the merchant class and their pristine reputations hiding dangerous men.

"Evert," the man rasped in reply, and Evert had to wonder: What made his voice like that, so torn and grating?

"You're right on time, I suppose. Where's your Wraith?" His heart was beating so loud in his chest, he wouldn't be surprised if Kaz could hear it.

The other man's dark eyes glinted, and his face twisted into a depraved grin, his surprisingly white teeth glinting in the only light from the moon. He stepped further into the room as he answered with a simple, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"My death won't change anything, Kaz, you know that," Evert told him, trying not to cower.

"Of course it won't," Kaz said with a half shrug. "Your death is not my final goal, you aren't even a part of that, beyond being a nuisance and a pest. You would have meant nothing to me if you hadn't made yourself mean something. Such is the mistake of many men in our country."

"Our country?"

"Do you think I'm not from Kerch? I thought you called me a traitor to this country." Kaz had straightened to his full height, and Evert was yet again reminded of the country height he had, and those damn birth records he'd found—

"No, of course not. I knew you were of Kerch, of the countryside no less. You have the height I know the boys of my youth and I shared. The countryside is wide open, I suppose you know and leaves room for boys to grow big and strong. Tell me, Kaz, when did you come to Ketterdam? By what means?"

Kaz just laughed lightly. "You think yourself quite clever, don't you Evert? Thinking you know everything about me because you found where I was born and to whom, and the family name I have not claimed for over two decades?"

Evert shrugged, and Kaz asked one more question. "Before you die: Why? Why did you call me a traitor to our country?"

"A true man of Kerch, with patriotism, with love for his country, would serve. Would respect the men in charge, the way the world works. He wouldn't dig his hands into places he has no business, he wouldn't overturn the world just to prove a point. You hate this country, don't you...Kaz? And therefore, I name you a traitor."

Kaz was silent for a long moment, but when he spoke, he spoke at length, slowly approaching Evert.

"I hate the country of Kerch that made me. Despise it. And perhaps I am a traitor to the part of Kerch that is a country, with laws and corrupted men who make monsters in charge. But I love the side that is her beauty, the rolling green and yellow of the countryside." Kaz met his eyes. "You are from the countryside too, you know what I speak of. The dawn rising over the endless grass, the simplicity, and the safety."

"Does Kaz, brother to Jordan, crave safety?"

Kaz blanched, shock consuming him for the barest moment. But Evert knew he had made a mistake in the instant where that shock disappeared, and all that was left was cold, burning, and passionate, fury.

Kaz grasped him by his throat, and spoke with a fierceness so tight, it was mere words away from snapping. "You dare name my brother? When men like you are the reason he is gone?"

Evert managed to look confused, and Kaz threw him down, shoulders shaking.

"You don't get it, do you?" Evert just looked helplessly up at him, wishing for him to just kill him. He couldn't catch his breath, and the rough leather against his skin had been so uncomfortable he would never think of leather the same way. "You don't fucking get it!"

"It's your fault, and all men like you's faults that I am here! That I left my beautiful countryside! That my brother is dead, and I am a monster with hands so red I can never join the one I love when we both die!"

"You failed us. Every adult who should have helped us loved us, prevented us from being on the streets during the Queen's Ladies Plague was too busy saving their own hides and collecting their own fortunes to care about children! They coddle their children but look upon the ones in the streets who have no choice! Because they have no family, no one! They are alone." Evert stood still, shocked at the tears in Kaz's eyes. "Do you know what it's like to be alone, truly alone, Evert?"

"The world hates boys like me. You, and every man who spoke against the staves, refuse to see that it is your fault this cycle exists. I know most Barrel bosses, and many are like me. Left behind, forgotten ." Kaz met his eyes, cold fury in his eyes and sharpening his tongue and the words that came from him into knives of ice.

"The Staves are abominations against Ghezen and all his works and if Kerch wants to forever strive, they must go!" Evert protested, and Kaz sent a furious boot into the side of his head.

"You. Pekka Rollings. Jan Van Eck. Men of old age who are surprised at the younger ones, the new ones, the ones with time to lick their wounds and scheme and plot, as if that isn't their fault." Kaz said, and Evert blearily looked up at him, blinking slowly.

Kaz sighed heavily, before roughly grabbing Evert by the front of his shirt and pressing him hard against the wall. Evert saw a flash of silver, then the cold press of metal against his pursed lips.

"Did you consider, Kaz..." He coughed, as the knife retracted to let him speak "That maybe the tragedy that befell you was penance for other sins? That you perhaps deserved it, and Ghezen saw it fit to punish you by pushing ambitious men in your paths?"

"Tragedy? Penance? Punishment? Ambitious? Sins? What sin did my brother and I commit? I was nine, he was thirteen! Do you know how it felt to turn fourteen, Evert? And realise I was older than my big brother ever got to be? We were boys, mere children. We weren't sinners, and if you ever reduce what Pekka did to ambition again," he forcefully pressed the knife into Evert's mouth, and the man tilted his head back, trying desperately to get away.

"I will make you know my pain from beyond the grave. I will desecrate your body, ruin everything put in honour of your foul memory." Kaz said, all emotion leaving his eyes. "But for saying it once," he pressed the knife in fully, the cold metal meeting the back of the other man's throat.

"I don't think you need your tongue."

---

He'd forgotten the sweetness and beauty of death.

But as he watched the light leave Evert's one remaining eye, the man's screams silent without his tongue and vocal cords and his gut ripped open, he remembered...just beauty. He'd last thought this in that miserable Ice Court, looking for the man who when Kaz killed, his death would make Evert's look like a plaything.

He sat down heavily in the room, exhausted as he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the blood-splattered wall. He'd killed Evert Maat, thank everything, but the man had spoken his name. He'd brought out Kaz's oldest betterment of the world, and called him a traitor to the only country he'd ever known. And in his final words before his tongue left him...

"Kaz Rietveld, you are the ghost haunted by memories, and you are a ghost out of his grave. Kaz Rietveld, you are no king. Goodbye."

He'd called him by the wrong name. He'd finally seen the shell that made him, the deadness that made him able to kill so easily. The part of him that was already so dead it just saw beauty when he saw more death.

He felt her presence, and without even opening his eyes to find her, he spoke, "Come down Wraith."

There was a whoosh of air, a soft thud, then soft, purposeful footsteps coming towards him, the quietest rustling of fabric. She sat beside him, her knee brushing his. He did not have to see to know she was looking at Evert.

"Any prayers for his soul?" He said, cracking his eyes to look at her.

"For once, no. You were right in what you said. How the World and those in charge have failed you."

"Failed all of us," he had to correct.

"Us?"

"You, me. Nina. Wylan. Jesper. Hell, Kuwei even." He paused. "Matthias. Ilya. The Queen. This world is run by the failed, but I fear failing a child the way those before me did." His hand rested on her leg, rubbing circles into the fabric, and she grasped his gloved and bloody thumb.

"I do not believe you will ever fail a child who needs you. There are children in this world who deserve fear, a reminder that they are lucky, but there are many more who deserve safety that will never be bereft of them."

"Like Hanna Smeet vs the children you save. The ones in the Dregs. The ones we make to be dangerous and alive." Kaz said, a smile growing on his lips.

"Exactly. Hanna Smeet is eighteen now. She will be taking over her fathers business soon, but she has never forgotten Dirtyhands, never doubted his cruelty. She will not hinder you, for she knows that her safety can be ripped from her in the blink of an eye." Kaz looked at her, reaching out with hesitancy.

"Kaz?"

"Hm?"

"Do you truly love Kerch's beauty, as you said?"

Kaz smiled. "Yes. I grew up around true beauty. The dawn would make the wheat field look gold. The apple orchard could always be smelled in the wind, the rough bark of the trees gave me my first callouses. The barn was the colour of the perfect apples my brother and I would lift. My father always got mad, until we gave him one."

"We would sit in the trees sometimes, the three of us, eating apples. They were always too sweet and got soft in the heat, but the juice..."

"When I was younger, my brother Amar and I would climb on the roofs of the caravans at each new stop and eat grapes to celebrate our arrival. Our parents always thought we were going to get splinters or get sick from eating too many grapes, but we never did. They always brought us more." They were both smiling, but Kaz glanced at the corpse and frowned.

"We should go. They'll find him soon enough." She rose, offering her hand to him which he took.

They left under the merciful cover of darkness. Evert had hidden out in a small town, but luckily no one was out, and they knew the language of hiding well. They climbed on to waiting horses, but before they stirred the horses away, Inej had to ask.

"How did you find him so fast?"

"Roeder followed him for me."

She grinned, and they set out of the town, blending into the darkness. The town would never know them, but they would find Evert Maat dead, missing vital parts of himself. There would be no note, no sign, but the crude carving of a watch in his chest.

---

---

what is kaz brekker?

i told you, you silly boy

a king, a demon, a lover

many things wrapped into one

watching over a bloody city

that the gods forsook long before us

what do we do now?

pray for his profit

and for the world to end

---

GHOSTING...MOTHER MOTHER

---

xiii: THE CITY OF SIN

---

Sin: \ ˈsin \

1a: an offence against religious or moral law

1b: an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible

c: an often serious shortcoming: FAULT

2a: transgression of the law of God

2b: a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God

---

---

THE KETTERDAM DAILY

EVERT MAAT FOUND DEAD!

SATURDAY, JULY 15TH, 1893

By: Sander Harwig, Senior Editor

Sometime last night, Evert Maat, the Stadwatch captain who arrested Kaz Brekker six months ago was found violently murdered. Councilman Dries Swan, who claims to have been a part of the plot along with his son, came forward this morning with a statement.

"Maat was trying to rearrest Brekker last I heard of him—yes Brekker escaped our hold, but we were working towards rearrest, along with the arrest of The Wraith. It seemed to be going smoothly until many of our men were murdered and Evert fled. This was the first I have heard of him since last Thursday."

"We do suspect Brekker, but it is unlikely we will be able to rearrest him now. The man has up and disappeared, and we suspect he will not return till the end of the year."

She read the article over his shoulder, her robe hanging loosely around her shoulder, which was bare save for the thin straps of her nightwear, and her hand resting gently on his shoulder.

"Oh, I love how sure Merchants are of themselves. How could they have any clue when I plan to return?" Kaz said with a chuckle, "And I have returned, I'm just not in Ketterdam."

Inej sighed, leaning her head into his shoulder, "I am only half convinced being on the council doesn't rot your reasoning and brain."

"Only half convinced? They're all idiots."

"Except for Wylan," Inej corrected, slowly snaking her arms around him, smiling into his shoulder.

"Of course," he conceded, folding the newspaper up and leaning ever closer to her. "I taught him all that he knows, of course, he wouldn't be a fool enough to rot his reasoning and brain."

"So arrogant! " she mumbled, and he laughed lightly. "When do you plan to return?"

"Not sure yet. It's not hard to control the Dregs from here, but I don't want to make this a long term thing, not yet at least. Maybe in a month or two, but...I like it out here." Inej raised her head to look out the window, to the countryside Kaz had spoken so highly of, in the house he'd grown up in. In the distance, she could see the apple orchard and the wheat field.

"Come," she said suddenly, lifting him up, "I want apples."

"Put on some proper clothes first love, we can't go gallivanting about in our nightclothes," he said lightly, chuckling as he continued, "There are children about. Surely you don't mean to scandalise them."

She rolled her eyes at him, speaking softly as she drew closer, "There's no one outside. Who will see us?"

He just smiled at her, boyish and young. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay."

---

They returned to Ketterdam three months later, making no sign to hide that her King and Queen had returned to govern their court. The Merchant Council spewed endless amounts of propaganda, slander, and cruel words, giving him new and old names. The Sinner and Dirtyhands remained, but he was the Bloody One, the one under their beds, with ears in every dark corner.

The Barrel heard different names. His Dregs called him the King of Thieves, the Crownless King, the King Upon the Broken Throne. They wasted no time before reminding the Barrel who ruled them, dissuading any boldness his arrest had struck into hearts.

He paid no names any heed, beyond the ones he'd had before this whole mess. He did pay attention for any whispers of Jordans or Rietvelds, paranoid Evert had spilt. It seemed though Evert had taken that secret to the grave.

He and Inej choose a new ring, one much like his old one. This was one a bit shinier, a bit thicker, but unembellished as the last, and the one upon her finger. It was simple, if there could ever be something of theirs that was simple. But it was enough, and a reminder that they were not alone.

She found him, a few days after their return, sitting on the roof outside his room, his dark eyes scanning the city, much like he had before killing Evert. She sat beside him now, content with the silence and the peace that had settled between them and over the city.

Kaz's eyes were glimmering as he looked at her. Her head was tilted back as if to soak up the meagre starlight that broke through the clouds. Only the strongest stars could make a breakthrough, much like how only strength allowed one to prevail in the City of Sin.

"Kings and Queens," he mused. "Remember that?"

"Vividly," she breathed, the memory of his boyish smile and the wet planes of his bare chest flashing across her mind.

"I say we've made it. Had a few 'assassination attempts in the process, and plenty of challenges, but I would call this a job well done," He leaned back onto his elbows. "I hated this, when we first came to Ketterdam."

"What?"

"There are no stars. In Lij, you could see so many stars, the constellations. I used to climb on the roof with my Da and Jordie, and we'd watch the stars. Every night before...you know what." She dipped her head in acknowledgement, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

He pulled out his watch, but it was too dark to see the face that much she knew. "That was Jordie's wasn't it?"

"It used to be Da's, and while we shared it, Jordie used it more. I found it in the alley we'd hidden in, tucked away. It's a miracle no one picked it up before me." His face had grown sad, his dark eyes closed, black lashes fanned across his cheeks.

They heard shouts, coming from a few blocks away. They paid no heed to them. The Barrel was made from shouts and gunfire, the smell of smoke and death hanging low. Maybe that was what made the Barrel, the Barrel, not just another impoverished part of a city. The noise, the songs sung to the listening night.

A song rose, one they knew well.

"Holy Killer,

Spare me please,

Queen of Pirates,

Bring me peace,

Saint of Vengeance... "

"They sing of you," Kaz whispered, humming along to the tune. "Many sailors do. I hear it all over the harbour, but they aren't all so kind. Some call you cruel words, but they learn their mistake soon enough."

"Maintaining my reputation, I see." Kaz guffawed, smirking.

"Oh, but of course, my dearest. Only the best for my wife."

She scooted a bit closer, and they sat in silence for a long while, watching the movements of the people below, oblivious to the high eyes above them. "How are you feeling?"

He licked his lips, eyes trained somewhere else, breaths hitching in his chest. "I'm healed, but you know that. Ilya Zenik truly is a gift, but..." he took a shuddering breath. "Why would he not let Kaz Rietveld just fucking die? I was letting him slowly go, now that Pekka is out of the picture. And I only intend to call upon him when it comes to Pekka when I kill him."

"I just want to let him go. He was a boy, 'Nej. He deserves that much, and by the Saint's, I just want to move on. I want to be able to see the Barge and not get scared, hug, and kiss, and live like real people do. Not how demons do."

"You will carry the weight of the end of Kaz Rietveld with you forever, but I think Evert knew that one day, that boy would be a gentle whisper and reminder to not try to go too far, and sought to unravel you and all you worked too. He took joy out of your end, and knew you hated that name and the reminder of loss it brought."

"He almost did, until I got fucking sick. After that, I think it was a lost cause," Kaz said with a bitter laugh. "No use trying to get in my head when I already can't discern what's real and what's a very vivid hallucination."

She smiled, humming along to a tune being sung below. "He's dead though. You won."

"That's very true," he said, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "For all his mind games, and the way he played me, Evert was so damn human. He was a lot like me too, I think, and that's scary. I don't want to fall so easily, to convince myself of my power after one success. Hell, he brought in special people from the countryside, like I won't kill them because I don't know their names."

"One of them was Grisha, you know? I contacted Zoya, and she had him returned to Ravka. He was a minor war criminal, apparently. Was on the Darklings side. They buried him in an unmarked grave." The weight of the Black General's name could be felt in the cold and the ill wind that suddenly blew.

"It was smart," Kaz said, bitterness seeping into his tone, "Using them. I'll give him that. I already knew so little about him, trying to figure out who they were or what they could be used for would be a headache and a half and I had no time to. It was a very well thought out plan. They just didn't plan for me to get out."

They looked at the Harbour, a foghorn blowing over the city. It felt as if the city had never changed, but Ketterdam always did. She stopped for no one, moving and changing at her own set pace. A man with proposals could not change her, nor could Kaz. But they could damn well make history remember them, carve their names into the bones and the corruption the city was built upon.

"When's your next voyage?"

"We'll see, I want to stay here a bit longer."

She looked over at him once more, his face serene. The clouds had thinned, and the moon now shined upon his pale face. He was gorgeous, a handsome devil out of the old stories and the old ages. She could smell the salt from the ocean from here, and a soft wind blew through their dark hair.

Tearing her eyes from the King, the Queen looked out upon the City of Sin and smiled.

fin

"The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all. Bind their hands." - Faramir, The Two Towers

---

You may notice, that this story, at its beginning, middle, and end, have quotes from the Lord of the Rings. I delve into more detail about why I choose the quotes I did for this story in the comments, but they each hold some meaning to this fic. Galadriel, the woman quoted in the last chapter, speaks of a growing evil in Middle Earth, and it inspired me to write this story, about rising and threatened powers. Now Faramir's two quotes in this chapter, additionally hold relevance to the story. I see his speaking of the sword, the arrow, and men and their ability to defend as a reference to the way people protect one another in this story, and the final quote, about who Frodo names the enemy, and how you can never be sure about the truth of the other side, are poignant here. You may notice that Evert doesn't see the facets to Kaz and his actions, and this quote reminded me of this.

One more thing on Lord of the Rings, though. Three times, I use the term, "Before the end", which is a reference to a scene in the Lord of the Rings. When Kaz tells Evert he will make him "Beg for death, before the end." I am referencing the scene at the top, which comes from the end of the Fellowship of the Ring movie. Watch the scene at your own risk, massive spoilers for the end are included.

I'm not sure where I'm really going here. I will point out more on the equivalent Wattpad chapter, but these are things that are really important, at least to me, to understand how this fic came to be. Thank you for reading!