he was gone.
Damage.
S he followed him anyway.
If you ever cared about me at all.
Inej actually snorted as she vaulted over a chimney. It was offensive. She’d had numerous chances to be free of Kaz, and she’d never taken them.
So he wasn’t fit for a normal life. Was she meant to find a kindhearted husband, have his children, then sharpen her knives after they’d gone to sleep? How would she explain the nightmares she still had from the Menagerie? Or the blood on her hands?
She could feel the press of Kaz’s fingers against her skin, feel the bird’swing brush of his mouth against her neck, see his dilated eyes. Two of the deadliest people the Barrel had to offer and they could barely touch each other without both of them keeling over. But they’d tried. He’d tried. Maybe they could try again. A foolish wish, the sentimental hope of a girl who hadn’t had the firsts of her life stolen, who hadn’t ever felt Tante Heleen’s lash, who wasn’t covered in wounds and wanted by the law. Kaz would have laughed at her optimism.
She thought of Dunyasha, her shadow. What dreams did she have? A throne, as Matthias had suggested? Another kill offered up to her god? Inej had no doubt she would meet the ivory-and-amber girl again. She wanted to believe she would emerge victorious when that time came, but she could not argue with Dunyasha’s gifts. Maybe she really was a princess, a girl of noble birth trained in the killing arts, destined for greatness like a heroine in a story. Then what did that make Inej? An obstacle in her path? Tribute on the altar of death? A smudge of a Suli acrobat who fights like a common street thug. Or perhaps her Saints had brought Dunyasha to these streets. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? Maybe this was the way Inej would be called to account for the lives she had taken.
Maybe. But not yet. She still had debts to pay.
Inej hissed as she slid down a drainpipe, feeling the bandage around her thigh pull free. She was going to leave a trail of blood over the skyline.
They were drawing closer to the Slat, but she kept to the shadows and made sure there was a good distance between her and Kaz. He had a way of sensing her presence when no one else could. He paused frequently, unaware he was being observed. His leg was troubling him worse than he’d let on. But she would not interfere at the Slat. She could abide by his wishes in that, at least, because he was right: In the Barrel, strength was the only currency that mattered. If Kaz didn’t face this challenge alone, he could lose everything—not just the chance to garner support from the Dregs, but any chance he would ever have to walk the Barrel freely again. She’d often wished to chip away a bit of his arrogance, but she couldn’t bear the idea of seeing Kaz stripped of his pride.
He dodged over the rooftops of Groenstraat, following the route they’d laid out together, and soon enough, the back of the Slat came into view—narrow, leaning lopsided against its neighbors, its shingled gables black with soot.
How many times had she approached the Slat from just this angle? To her, it was the way home. She spotted Kaz’s window on the top floor. She’d spent countless hours perched on that sill, feeding the crows that gathered there, listening to him scheme. Below it, slightly to the left, she spotted the sliver of window that belonged to her own tiny bedroom. It struck her that, whether the auction succeeded or failed, this might be the last time she ever returned to the Slat. She might never see Kaz seated at his desk again or hear the thump of his cane coming up the Slat’s rickety steps, letting her know from its rhythm whether it had been a bad night or a good one.
She watched him crawl awkwardly down from the lip of the roof and pick the lock on his own window. Once he was out of sight, she continued over the steep pitch of the gable to the other side of the Slat. She couldn’t follow the way he’d gone without giving herself away.
On the front of the house, just below the roofline, she found the old metal hook used for hauling up heavy cargo. She grabbed it, ignoring the disgruntled warbling of startled