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Jesper
Jesper was absolutely positive that he had been paid today. He was also positive that 2 glasses of whatever swill was on tap at The Crow Club was not equal to a week’s wages. Despite that his pockets are empty.
He nods towards Rotty across the Club’s hall and fidgets anxiously until Rotty crosses the room. “We’ve got a Dipper.”
Rotty’s eyes widened, “You sure, Fahey?”
“Unless we’re serving straight absinthe now, I’m sure.” Jesper was prepared to walk in a straight line to prove he was sober, if that’s what it took.
“What’d they knick?”
“My own waistcoat pocket, if you can believe it. They must be good.”
Rotty met Jesper’s eyes questioningly. Jesper almost groaned-- he’d cried wolf too many times, it seemed.
“Sure you haven’t lost a bit more than planned at the tables?”
Jesper poked Rotty in the chest, distinctly annoyed, “I haven’t been to the tables! That’s why I know there’s a Dipper!”
The potential for a physical altercation had turned the heads of a number of patrons, Pigeons and Dregs alike. Fahey removed his finger from Rotty slowly, but it was too late-- the dull thud of metal against wood was approaching.
Soon enough Jesper found himself pushed back by a well-known crow-topped cane.
“Hiya, Boss,” Rotty said nervously, “I’ll just get back to the door, shall I?”
Kaz sneered at his underling, “You will if you know what’s good for you.”
As Rotty half-jogged back to his station, Kaz turned on Jesper, his eyebrows drawing close in anger. Jesper raised his hands in surrender.
“What did I tell you about scaring off the Pigeons?” He rasped.
“Don’t?” Jesper replied, attempting a jovial smile but only managing a grimace.
“It’s good to know all those fights haven’t dulled your wits entirely.” Kaz lowered his cane from Jesper’s chest and placed it back on the floor, leaning on it slightly. “You’re off tonight. Why are you here?”
“Enjoying the atmosphere?” Jesper offered lamely. Kaz had warned him off partaking in Makker’s Wheel just 2 days ago, said he was wasting his kruge when he already had debts that needed repaying. Kaz was right, of course, but the tickling feeling had gotten under his skin again, begging for the danger of high stakes.
“Go home, Jesper,” Kaz said, nodding towards the doors with his chin.
“But Boss,” Jesper started, ready to explain about the pickpocket.
Instead, Jesper caught his leather coin purse from midair. He looked back at Kaz, astonished, “You’re the one who hooked me?”
Kaz nodded sharply and marched off as Jesper stared, still flabbergasted.
Jesper made it all the way to his room before he thought to look inside, realizing that the purse was quite a bit lighter than it had been earlier. Inside were two kruge and change, just enough to feed himself for the week, and a note-- “The Black Tips said you’re square now. Make sure it stays that way.”
It was unsigned, but Jesper knew exactly who wrote it. He flopped onto his thin mattress with a groan and cursed the day he’d met Kaz Brekker.
Inej
It’s just an hour before the Club opens when Inej alights on Kaz's windowsill, swinging in to deliver her news. Kaz doesn’t bother to look up at her approach, too busy with a pile of kruge and playing cards. “What business?”
Inej struggles not to roll her eyes. Would it kill Kaz to appreciate her work, just once? Looking at her directly was the least he could do.
Kaz begins to shuffle through a deck of cards as Inej speaks her piece, “I watched Van Tel’s shop all week, the Dime Lions stopped by but didn’t stash the package there.”
The deck is now flying in an arch between Kaz’s hands. Is he checking for creases? Missing cards?
“Is that all?”
Now the cards are moving in an almost continuous circle, arching both above and below his hands, moving incredibly fast as if to outwit gravity. Inej can’t decide whether to be impressed or annoyed.
“Can you at least look at me? I’ve spent two nights watching the cobbler.”
Kaz shrugs and suddenly the shuffling of the cards has changed shape again-- they’re a triangle now, peaking between his hands then settling back into a straight line.
“If that’s all, I’m going to bed.” Inej huffs.
There’s no response to Kaz beyond him dropping a seemingly random selection of cards from his deck to the surface below, forming a perfect stack on the desk while still shuffling the remaining cards in his hands.
Eyes narrowing, Inej reaches out her hand lightning-fast and cuts right through the arch of Kaz’s shuffle. The cards fly all over, including a few into Kaz’s lap.
Finally, Kaz looks up and meets Inej’s eyes. His eyebrows are raised in surprise but other than that his expression is inscrutable as always.
“Good night.” Inej bites out, turning from the room with a dramatic flourish of her scarf. She reaches the door before turning back. “Feel free to practice your card tricks in your own time.”
This pulls a faint smile from Kaz. Satisfied, Inej leaves, closing the door just a bit too hard as she finally heads to bed at 2 bells.
Jesper
“Want me to show him my guns?” Jesper offers as he saunters next to Kaz on the busy dock front.
The crowds part before Kaz as the sea parts for a Squaller, Dirtyhands' reputation and signature crow-headed cane keeping the Ketterdam citizens far away.
“I doubt it will be necessary,” Kaz responds crisply.
“So what’d he do? Steal from the Crow Club coffers? Look at you the wrong way?”
Kaz, as always, is unappreciative of Jesper’s humor. His fierce look remains in place as they prepare to intimidate the stall keeper.
“He’s getting too close to Fifth Harbor. If he wants our business, he’ll pay our fee.”
“Always knew there was a huge profit margin in shiny red apples.”
Jesper runs his fingers against the smooth handles of his guns, preparing for his role as the heavy. Which was actually quite ironic, considering his lanky frame. He was far more intimidating with his guns out of their holsters then in.
“If he wants Fifth Harbor clientele, he’ll need fresher stock too.”
They were within eyesight of the stall’s owner when Kaz stopped, his hand shooting up in a signal for Jesper to pause as well. The stall keeper, a ruddy man with a dirty apron on, was preparing a bundle of apples for his sole customer, a harried looking woman. Jesper felt a sudden intense homesickness-- the mud and grime of the streets were very Kerch, but a woman at market was as normal a sight in Ketterdam as it was in Novyi Zem. Someday, when he could finish his degree, after he’d paid off his debts, when he could make his Da proud… He’d go back. He would.
The woman moved to hand over her coin. Kaz moved in closer until she was covered in his shadow. Before the coins could exchange hands, the woman looked up with a gasp at Kaz’s looming figure, terrified.
“Mevrouw, would you mind if I examine your purchase?”
Shaking and silent, the woman nodded and carefully held out the bag of apples. Before Kaz could take hold of it, the apple vendor was running towards the nearest alley. Jesper didn’t need a signal from Kaz this time-- he took up his guns with alacrity and shot.
Now the street truly was silent. The vendor turned, hands in the air, the smoking crater of Jesper’s bullet just an inch from his foot.
“No need to run! We’re just here for inspections!” Jesper proclaimed, all smiles and bravado. He walked over to the vendor and draped an arm across his wide, uncomfortably sweaty shoulders, forcing the man back to his stall. If Jesper’s revolver happened to dig in slightly to the vendor’s pudgy midsection it was purely accidental.
Jesper looked on as Kaz removed the oyster knife from his pocket, digging out a portion of each of the dozen apples the woman had purchased.
“Smit, you are aware that Fifth Harbor is Dregs territory, yes?”
“Of course, Mr. Brekker, sir.” Smit responded nervously, his voice a pitch higher in fear.
Kaz took up an untouched apple and stabbed his knife through it viciously, causing Smit to jump. Kaz stalked towards him, the impaled apple oozing white slush down his arm as he held it in the air. Jesper had never seen an apple look so grotesque before.
“So in a way, Smit, your merchandise is my merchandise.”
“If you would like some apples, sir, I am more than happy…” Smit trailed off as Kaz threw the apple, landing it neatly knife-side-up on the crate in front of the vendor.
Kaz continued to stalk forward, all darkness and menace, “And your merchandise being my merchandise means it’s my reputation on the line.”
Smit was fully trembling now under Jesper’s grasp. Jesper, meanwhile, was unmoved by another one of Kaz’s dramatic displays-- he was just curious about how this performance would end.
Kaz pushed aside a few apples from the top of the crate, then began to stab at the ones below mercilessly. With each impalement Smit jumped. Jesper noticed they had pulled in a crowd-- this was far better than the Komedie Brute for entertainment, especially in the Barrel. They should charge admission next time.
Kaz held up yet another seemingly-normal apple, shining a dark ruby red against the black of Kaz’s gloves. Slowly, he carved across the apple, letting the tension come to a climax for the surrounding audience. Jesper wasn’t sure whether Smit would piss himself or pass out first.
One half of the apple dropped to the cobblestone street below, exploding in a mass of grainy, white puss. Jesper gagged.
“A Fabrikator can cure the outside of your months-old apple. And after that it’s not your problem, is it? The merchandise has been sold.”
Kaz grabbed Smit’s neck, letting the pale gloop of the apple’s other half roll down the vendor’s dirty apron, “Perhaps you would do me the favor of selling me a dozen apples.”
Smit’s voice was pitched as high as a flute, “I would never…”
“You would never sell shoddy merchandise to me, I’m well aware. But you sold a dozen to this woman just now without a blink.”
The woman in question went white as a ghost, clearly hoping Dirtyhands would be done with her and let her return home.
“Pack me up a dozen of your fresh apples, Smit. It will be your last sale in Ketterdam.”
Smit fumbled amongst his crates, taking up just the fresh ones on top. Smit looked up to Jesper for permission, who nodded, and then handed the bag to Kaz.
Kaz stabbed at another apple and inspected it. It must have met his approval because he looked back at Smit and rasped out, “You’ll be gone by twelve bells.”
“The deal is the deal, sir.” Smit whistled out. Jesper had little doubt that he’d be on the very next train out, based on his cowering.
As soon as Kaz pulled himself upright and clacked his cane back down on the street, the crowd disappeared, vanishing back to their business of buying and conning. It was the Barrel, after all.
Jesper reached into the bag of good apples, then yelped as the beak of Kaz’s cane topper dug into his hands, “You get paid in kruge , not apples.”
Kaz placed his cane back on the ground and Jesper withdrew his hand, checking the mark for blood and scowling, “What are you going to do with a dozen apples, anyway?”
Kaz shrugged and strode off back to the Club, inscrutable as always. They passed the normal riffraff along the way-- dock workers, sailors, overtaxed mothers, drunk fathers avoiding their children, and the abandoned children they’d left behind, shivering on stoops and at the entrances to alleyways. The Barrel had become familiar to Jesper over time,but he feared that the day he ever got used to the empty looks of half-starving children he’d have lost his soul entirely.
There was a hitch in Kaz’s step and he signalled for Jesper to stop, moving to lean against a wall in the nearest alleyway. Surprised, Jesper stood beside him as lookout, “You all right, boss? Was it the Herver job?”
Jesper examined the alley for threats but only saw three dirty underdressed kids, pulled up close to the wall in a pile of rags. He looked away quickly, just in time for Kaz to saunter away without explanation, looking entirely at ease.
Jesper blinked and went to catch up, glancing back at the alley once more. One of the kids, a tangle-headed girl wearing a much-abused apron, pulled a shiny red apple from its pocket, gasping in delight. Smiling, Jesper saw the other children pull apples from unlikely places as well with awe in their eyes. They seemed to find them in every crevice and pocket, creating an ever-growing pile of apples. Jesper would guess there were a full dozen, in fact.
He jogged after Kaz, knowing better than to mention his act of charity to the boss’s face. He couldn’t help the extra skip in his step, though-- Inej was going to love this.
Inej
Inej hadn’t had a chance to clean the blood from her knife before fleeing back on the rooftops. It had dripped into her wrist sheath, growing sticky as she made her way back to Kaz’s rooms to report.
Kaz’s dark hair hung lanky in front of his forehead and he pushed it up with a hiss, his eyes fixed on the papers on his desk. He didn’t look up as Inej approached shakily, “Hello, Wraith.”
Inej took up her customary seat without answering, pulling her knees in tight. She knew Kaz would have no sympathy for what she’d done tonight and she feared the Saints wouldn’t either.
She pulled the bloodied knife from its sheath with some effort, “Do you have a handkerchief?” She hoped she sounded unaffected.
Kaz looked up at that, glancing over her in a way that always felt intimate. Too much so, sometimes. Inej had become a wraith, a ghost, a woman of shadows; no one saw her anymore. But Kaz always had, even in that first moment of meeting. She shivered, unable to tell if it was from the scrutiny or the waning adrenaline.
“More guards than expected?” Kaz asked, voice betraying no feelings at all.
“On the rooftop,” Inej responded quietly, looking into Kaz’s eyes as though she could force him to understand her feelings.
Kaz nodded instead and held out a handkerchief, eyes still penetrating. Inej grasped the cloth and got to work cleaning her blade, “I’d apologize for ruining your handkerchief but I imagine it’s seen blood before.”
To Inej’s surprise, Kaz smirked, the left corner of his lip upturning slightly, “Stole it off Hoeder this morning. Feel free to burn it later.”
Unamused, Inej looked back at her knife and focused on the repetitive motion, willing the memories from the night to dissipate. Instead, she kept seeing the wide eyes and gasping mouth of the guard, his left shoulder bleeding from the deep knife wound she’d just delivered. She’d grabbed the knife and moved to strike at his throat before remembering herself. It had been close. Too close. She’d almost become a murderer tonight.
“This will happen again.” Kaz rasped.
Inej suddenly felt murderous in a way she hadn’t when she moved to kill the guard-- she flung the knife at the wall, just missing Kaz’s left ear. She opened her mouth to shout, to scream, to cry out the agony of the fact that she’d attempted to steal a human life, but nothing came out.
Calmly, Kaz stood from his chair and yanked her knife from the wall, handing it back to her handle-first. Inej took it up again and looked down at the blade. She feared the knife would be covered in blood forever, even if it was blood only she could see.
She moved to pick up the handkerchief and continue her polishing, but it had suddenly disappeared from her lap. Puzzled, she looked under one of her legs, then the other.
“It’s vanished.” She murmured. How could she have lost it so quickly?
Kaz coughed and Inej looked up, only to see him back at work on his mysterious papers, “Maybe it’s in your hair.”
Inej considered throwing the knife at him again. “In my hair ?”
She stabbed the knife into the arm of Kaz’s chair viciously, causing Kaz to look up. Inej glared at the man across from her, infuriated, and pulled her braid forward. Just like Kaz had said, the handkerchief was there, tied on at the bottom like a gruesome ribbon.
Suddenly, the tension filling the room disappeared and Inej felt like she could breathe again. There would be other nights like these, other nights where she’d be forced to make terrible choices. And there would be a night in the future where the choice to take a life would be made for her. But she had to believe her Saints would forgive her.
Struck by the ridiculousness of Kaz tying her hair in a bow, Inej laughed, smiling widely. Kaz smiled in return-- a precious real smile with a glimpse of teeth.
When Inej returned to the balcony to head home she was still smiling broadly, no longer dreading sleep.
Inej
Inej was in the rafters, looking down into the dark where two men were dimly lit by a single lantern. She was close enough to hear, to see the ropes binding Kaz’s victim to a chair below. She imagined she could hear the drip of blood as well-- the victim’s bound arm slowly dripping scarlet onto the half-rotting boards below.
Inej descended to stand next to Jesper, his bright orange waistcoat a beacon in the midnight black of the warehouse.
“Will he kill him?” Inej whispered, afraid of the answer.
Jesper jumped in surprise at her sudden appearance, “You almost killed me. Give a man some warning next time!”
Inej couldn’t manage even a half smile for Jesper’s feeble humor. The sharpshooter returned to gliding his fingers up and down the pearl grips of his pistols, a clear sign that he was as unsure of the man’s fate as Inej was.
Like a demon summoned from the darkness, Kaz’s voice resounded in the empty hall, “It’s a simple question, Van Tel. Did the Dime Lions come by your shop yesterday or not?”
Despite the months she’d spent in the Barrel, Inej still felt a worrying empathy to those caught in Kaz’s grasp. She looked on at the shivering man, a simple shopkeeper, his pupils wide with fear and teeth clicking together. The Suli girl who had walked the tightrope would have stopped this. The Wraith did not.
The sound of chattering teeth was overcome by the shlink of a knife being folded open. It glinted against the light of the lantern, almost blinding in the monochromatic night.
Kaz held it up as if to strike, eyes still intent on Van Tel.
“Left or right?” He rasped, as deadly as a venomous snake. Kerch, an island, didn’t have snakes like Ravka did, so Dirtyhands would have to be the snake’s replacement.
“W-what?” Van Tel stammered, pulling uselessly against the chair.
“I can be merciful,” Kaz expounded, “I know you didn’t agree to take the package, they were complaining at the Emerald Palace yesterday. I just want to know whether the Dime Lions came inside.”
“So that’s why he sent me off to the Palace yesterday,” Jesper muttered to Inej, “He even gave me fifty kruge. Said it was for doing a good job for Haskell.”
Inej’s throat was too dry to talk, but she knew she was as complicit in this man’s torture as Jesper-- she was the one who had spied on Van Tel & Sons Cobblers for days, waiting for the Dime Lions to stop by.
“I’ll ask again. Left eye or right eye?”
She didn’t want to be here for this. She didn’t want to stand by and watch as Kaz took out an innocent man’s eye with his oyster knife. But if he did, she knew she would stay. And that made it worse.
Kaz flicked the knife open and closed. The noise pulled a fearful whimper from Van Tel.
“Tell me or I remove your eye with my knife.”
Kaz closed the knife again, putting it into his left coat pocket, and took out another glinting metal object from his right pocket.
“Then I pluck it out with these, roots and all.”
Van Tel’s face was stark white. His mouth opened and closed without sound, eyes now fixated on the tweezers in Kaz’s upraised hand.
Inej felt Jesper’s fidgeting increase, his fingers running more rapidly against his guns, his foot tapping briskly.
Suddenly, Kaz turned to face Jesper and Inej, a maniacal glint in his eye, “Be quiet or your eyes are next.”
Jesper stopped immediately, his whole body freezing.
Kaz approached Van Tel, “Did they come into the shop or not?”
“No, no, no,” Van Tel was babbling now, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Kaz put his tweezers into the left pocket, then took up another knife from his right one. Inej was confused at the appearance of a second oyster knife-- why would Kaz have 2?
Kaz brandished the second knife towards Van Tel, “I don’t need to take just one eye. I’m happy to take both.”
“No, they didn’t come into the shop!” Van Tel hollered, his voice echoing in the empty warehouse.
Wrong answer, thought Inej. She’d seen Doyle and Byrne go inside with a package. But she’d also seen them leave with that same package, yelling threats at the shop as they hurried away.
Kaz reached into the pocket once more, pulling out… Inej blinked to make sure she was seeing accurately in the darkness. But no, that was definitely the same pair of tweezers he’d pulled from his right pocket. The ones he’d just moments ago placed in his left pocket.
“Last chance. If you’re in my territory, I expect your loyalty,” Kaz brought the knife in his left hand to Van Tel’s throat, “And honesty.”
“I’m s-s-sorry. Please, pl-please f-forgive me.” Van Tel sobbed.
In a flash, Kaz swept the small knife downwards and Inej gasped, unable to keep quiet any longer. She’d seen Kaz’s violence unleashed before but rarely up close.
But instead of an eye or a throat, Kaz has cut through the rope around Van Tel’s left wrist, setting one arm free.
“You’ll remember this conversation the next time the Dime Lions come by,” Kaz threatened, his rasping declaration making the hairs rise on Inej’s arms.
Subdued and silent, Inej and Jesper followed behind Kaz as he exited the warehouse, leaving Van Tel to his own devices-- unharmed but still bound by one arm.
The lights of the East Stave, full of life and excitement, approached. It was almost overwhelming for Inej after the darkness of the warehouse. In the halo of a streetlight, Kaz turned back to Inej and Jesper, “Good work tonight.”
It didn’t feel like good work at all. It felt like the dirty work that Kaz normally accomplished without Inej watching on.
Kaz extended his arm towards them and Inej took an unintentional step backwards.
“Your tweezers,” Kaz said, nodding to Jesper.
Reaching out slowly, Jesper took the tweezers from Kaz. “How many knives do you have in that coat of yours?”
Kaz’s mouth quirked upwards in a half-smile, a look that Inej had become familiar with during her nightly office visits. She felt her heartbeat slow slightly, somehow reassured that Dirtyhands had remained at the warehouse and Kaz was with them now.
“You mean this?” Kaz held the oyster knife and flicked it open.
“Do you buy them in bulk or something? You should get a few for Inej.”
“There’s only one knife, Jesper,” Inej chimed in, “It was sleight of hand.”
Jesper looked back at her, “I don’t get it.”
“That’s normally the state of affairs,” Kaz quipped.
“A magic trick, Jesper. He won’t tell you how it’s done, though. I’ve asked.”
Kaz shrugged and started off again, his cane clicking against the street. Leaving a confused Jesper on the street, Inej took to the roofs, alighting from the glare of gambling and drinking to fade into familiar shadows.