Trigger Warnings: Mention of murder and slavery

---

Words: 1,757

---

They're going to meet in Lij, the largest village in the area Kaz grew up in. He goes south with Inej at his side, searching for some form of comfort from her. They arrive the day before and stay at a hotel his mother booked for him.

And for the first time in over almost 20 years, he calls himself Kaz Rietveld. The receptionist hands him the keys, eyeing his leather gloves as he takes the keys, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Their room is thankfully on the first floor, and he sits on the edge of the bed for most of the night, trying to distract himself from the anxiety. He and Inej grab a quick dinner, a couple sitting in the corner of the dining hall, faces turned away and pressed close to hide the movement of their lips as they speak.

That night, the two of them lay in separate beds, Kaz staring at the ceiling. He hears the steady rhythm of Inej's breathing, tethering himself to it as he closes his eyes and eventually falls into a fitful sleep, plagued with shadowed figures.

Dawn comes too soon. He bathes, trying to calm his racing heart with beads of cold water. Water has always been his enemy, but now it reminds him of who he is. He is the bastard of the barrel, and he won't be swayed by this.

He adjusts his dark clothes in the mirror, pausing when he feels Inej behind him. Her arms, slowly, carefully, wrap around him. He breathes in deeply, savouring the touch, remembering to associate touch with good things, good memories, not the bad.

"Are you ready?" She asks him quietly, as he turns around and she fixes his collar a bit.

"As ready as I'll ever be," He admits as Inej beats the non existent dust off his coat.

"You look handsome, Kaz."

His lips quirk into what could almost be considered a smile. "Thank you."

They leave the hotel, heading to a café in the centre of Lij, where they plan to meet. Just as they're about to turn the corner, Kaz hesitates on the sidewalk, causing Inej to glance at him.

"What?" She asks.

His breaths are growing rapid, and she can see the sweat beading on his hairline, but that cannot be from the non existent heat. He looks around wildly, opening mouth to speak, but no words can be forced out.

"Kaz?"

He shakes his head. "I can't do this," He whispers.

"You have done a hundred jobs, my love. Cracked the ice court, outsmarted an entire city. You can do this, I know."

"I can't—"

"I know you. You can do anything you put that demon mind of your to, and this is no different."

"It's my mom. What if she hates me? I'm not the boy she left, sweet Ghezen, I hate this." He runs a hand through his hair, and Inej takes him by the wrist, gently squeezing as she brings her hand down. He watches the path of his hand with wide eyes.

"You can."

"By all the Saints, I know you can."

♛♢♛

Clara sits at the table with Aleid, who is happily reading away at her book of Kerch fairy tales. She catches a glimpse of a nutcracker as Aleid presses the book down to take a sip of her apple juice.

Clara looks out the window for the approach of her boy, both excited and nervous. Aleid just reads away, unconcerned with the world.

Clara remembers how Aleid came home a few weeks prior confused at the stories she had heard of Kaz Brekker from her classmates. "They call him a demon, Mama? Is he a demon?" Clara had told her no, but the bitterness remained. Clara would always know a different Kaz from who her classmates would be raised to know as the enemy.

Clara's heart leaps into her throat as she sees a man turn the corner, a woman by his side, heads tilted to one another. Some sixth sense, deep within her, knows who that is, who approaches.

She straightens, a thousand things she wants to say rushing in. She glances around at the relatively empty café, wondering what these people will think when they see her and Kaz meet for the first time in...23 years.

Ghezen.

The bell to the door rings as they enter, and Clara stands. She meets her son's eyes, so much like his fathers, so much it hurts. They stand and stare for a moment, before Clara runs to her boy.

He's the one who hugs her tight, surprising her and even himself. Her tears come first, but he's the one who clings to her as she runs her hands through his short, dark hair. Eventually they sit at the table.

And he doesn't stop staring at Aleid. He looks partly lost, partly scared, and there's a deep threaded sadness weaved into him. Clara introduces herself to Kaz's companion, the elusive Inej he spoke so highly of.

He reaches his hand out, gloved in leather, out to Aleid, who looks up from her book. He smiles at her, flicking his hand, making a coin appear. Aleid's face widens in shock, and Inej and Clara smile.

He hands her the coin, which she takes gently. "How did you do that?"

"That's a secret," He tells her, a peculiar sadness in his eyes.

Clara talks with him, trying to know him. He's guarded, even to her, and she has the distinct feeling talking about everything is much harder than it was to write it down. Especially when it comes to Jordie.

Clara knows enough to be content, but there's a part that wants to know it all. But she can see the pain in his eyes, and the leather gloves on his hand, and she knows prying will do no good.

The thing that surprises her is Kaz's voice. It's deep, like his fathers, but it's raspy. She knows it's from something, the lost years. She asks. And it comes back to the root of it all. The Queen Lady's Plague. That conversation drops.

"Ma?" He asks after a few minutes where they sat in each other's comfortable silence.

She looks at him, "Yes?"

"Do you, by chance remember the name of the boat that took you?"

Clara hesitates, and Kaz pauses himself. "Sorry," He corrects, "I shouldn't have—"

"The Heir."

Kaz glanes at Inej, who tilts her head, thinking. "Ma, Inej...she takes down slavers. She has been for almost ten years now. If you want...she could find the men who took you."

The indication is clear.

She has to admit, there's a part of her that craves that. Craves to take her pain out on those who inflicted it. For a second, she entertains the thought, the savage things she could do. But she wavers in her anger from day to day. Maybe she would kill them today, and regret it for the rest of her life.

"No." She says. "Find the ship, end their empire. I don't need my revenge though."

"Ma..." Kaz says, and her heart clenches at the look on his face. He doesn't understand how one couldn't coddle a grudge the way he does. Brick by brick, she remembers. But her heart has long since grown old, and grudges don't hold well.

"I will be happy if no other human is taken by them. That is enough for me." Kaz looks at Inej, then at his mom, and finally at Aleid and her face, not sharpened by cruelty as his is. He doesn't understand. Clara wants him too. He never will.

"Do not make my capture, your burden, my boy," She tells him. He swallows, and looks at Inej, whose face is dark. It takes Clara a second to put the pieces together, but when she does, she understands why Kaz wants her to be angry the way he is.

He sees Inej in Clara. Or he sees Clara in Inej. And she sees the way he looks at her, like a ghost haunting a house, unwilling to let go. He wants to give them the knife, because he loves them both and he hates the thought of them at the mercy of someone else.

The conversation falls silent until Kaz asks Aleid about school and she goes on a whole spiel about her friends and her teachers, particularly her math teacher who doesn't like her for no good reason. Kaz's eyes flash, but it's gone before Aleid notices. Clara doesn't have to wonder if Kaz would do anything to the teacher should he actually try something.

An hour later, they're walking back to the hotel where Kaz and Inej are staying. Clara and Kaz walk ahead, talking quietly, while Inej walks with Aleid as she talks about her best friend ever, a Kaelish girl named Isla.

Clara nearly jumps with surprise as Kaz grabs her hand, clinging to it the same way Aleid does. Clara can't stop the wish that someday she'll hold her son's bare hand again, but she knows how much that will ask of him, deep in her heart.

And all she wants, all she's ever wanted, is for her children to be happy.

And if that means reading them stories in a cold room above a restaurant, so be it. If that means understanding a demon, who cares? If that means bending over backwards and taking a knife to the gut, she would do it in a heartbeat.

Kaz and Jordie were the flame that kept her going in the cold, painful nights, spent in the house of a twisted Ravkan man. Aleid was her shining star in cold work nights. And now, one of her boys walks by her side, deriving something she knows she'll never understand from her presence, and her little girl laughs, twinkling like her stars.

And her boy and her man rest in the clouds, watching over them. A handsome Ravkan captain named Yakov Zaytsev still writes to her, and she remembers the flowers he sent her when she told him when she had learned of Vidars fate.

Maybe one day, she'll stand in a chapel again, and vow herself over rings to be his, and he'll vow to be hers. Maybe Kaz will be there, in the back, smiling with a woman at his side. The present has its troubles, but she can only see them smoothing out as she walks with her girl and boy, with her family.