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“What?”
Kaz’s scream reached Inej through the dark wood of the door of his room on the top floor. He wasn’t waiting for her, she hadn’t announced him the exact date of her arrival: that was the tone reserved for subordinates who disturbed him after sunset, when his clubs were in full swing and the leader of the Dregs withdrew because business didn’t need his constant vigilance to proceed.
“Good evening, Kaz.”
The entrance opened immediately.
“You’re back.” His voice had immediately lost all harshness.
Kaz glanced at the bag with the few belongings that Inej had on her shoulder and rapidly inspected her body, as to make sure she was back in one piece. She would have told him all her adventures, if for once he’d managed to ask instead of demanding.
“Is my window no longer to your liking, Inej?”
He was still wearing his coat, he must have retired for the night shortly before she reached him. He turned his back to take it off and relied on his cane to proceed to the coat rack in the corner.
On a number of occasions she had taken a seat on his windowsill, but she was carrying a luggage now and had first stopped on the lower floors.
“Hello to you too” she scolded him, moving forward and closing the door.
Kaz turned. “Hello to you too, Inej. Welcome back, my dear” he smiled without any intention of concealing his irony.
Inej rolled her eyes. Dirtyhands wasn’t one for pleasantries, he used to go straight to the point, so she did it too. “Did you reassign my room?”
“You were gone for weeks, and the Dregs are expanding. I needed the space.”
“But you said…”
“Furthermore, you’d already vacated that room. Why don’t you go back to Wylan and Jesper?”
Inej looked away from his stare. Kaz had given her the freedom and all the means to pursue her goals, but she couldn’t take for granted that the Slat would be waiting for her every time the Wraith docked at the port of Ketterdam. “I think I will.”
Kaz approached her and relieved her of the bag’s weight, holding the shoulder strap in one gloved hand. “No.”
His desires no longer seemed as unfathomable as they once did, but the way he chose to achieve them followed the usual intricate paths in his head.
“Before I left you told me I would always have my place here.”
“Indeed.”
He moved some documents and placed her small luggage on the desk, then began to take off his jacket. While the water heated up, he took his clothes for the night from a drawer in the wardrobe and placed them on one side of the bed.
“Kaz?” Inej called him back, when she surrendered to the evidence that she wouldn’t receive any further spontaneous explanations.
Without lifting his eyes from the cuffs of the shirt he was unbuttoning, he told her: “Your place is here, Inej.”
Here, on his side, in his spaces?
Was he inviting her to stay with him? Did he mean to host her in his room?
They’d already spent many nights together, side by side, spying on their enemies on the rooftops of Ketterdam. This was different.
“You know where the bathroom is, if you need it” he added, making his intentions clear.
With her mouth open, Inej didn’t respond right away. It wouldn’t be the first form of closeness they faced, but could it be one too many?
She had shared the bed with clammy hands and foul breaths. He still suffered from wet, suffocating nightmares. Monsters under the bed that reached out to devour them, while the sun disappeared on the horizon and the darkness of fear made them as powerful as they had been.
Yet, they had both changed by taking steps towards each other, in a very subtle balance, and that was a fact. She had to continue to have faith, like the unshakable one in the Saints.
“They saw me enter your room.”
“It’s not the first time you’ve entered my room alone.”
“Through the door, Kaz” she specified.
He had taken off his gloves. His hands tightened on the black leather. “Nothing of what they might think will happen. You know it” he said in a low voice, as if the admission cost him some effort, or shame.
“I know it” she hastened to reassure him in her calmest tone.
Kaz and her couldn’t have a relationship from the traditional path, not with their background. However, his armour wasn’t made of just clothes and gloves, and the most important pieces were chipped. It became more and more fragile with every moment they spent together, and Inej wanted to be the only witness to what the cracks would reveal.
“I don’t care of what they think. And if anyone says anything that matters to you, those will be their last words.”
Before some random member of the Dregs was expelled or worse, Inej spoke: “Give me a clean towel.”
And Kaz, who used to count on her even for a new hat with a contract binding them, this time only complied.
They got ready for the night in a silence that had always been comfortable between them, with the street lights outside the window and the starlight softening every shadow and tension. The following hours represented an unknown for the both of them, even for her feet trained to seek balance on the surface of every unexplored ground.
Inej sat on the mattress on the opposite side to where he had placed his clothes. She crossed her fingers in her lap and stared at them.
Kaz joined her, reclined on his side looking towards her. “You can lie down.”
She imitated him, so they were facing each other. Inej had settled very close to the edge of the sheets and didn’t dare to move, each movement would have brought her nearer to him and him to the depths in his head. Kaz too had put as much space as possible between their chests.
Dirtyhands didn’t use to sleep with his gloves on. He placed a palm in the empty space on the mattress: the skin was smooth and pale, his fingers stiff but not shaking.
“Don’t move” he ordered, but it wasn’t necessary.
Inej nodded.
“Close your eyes.”
When she lowered her eyelids, she became acutely aware of having a boy lying next to her. One who would never hurt her, but the horrors that pressed at the edges of her memory didn’t know it. She breathed slowly, filling her mind with the gentleness of Kaz’s palms on the few occasions they had touched her. The hands of the monsters didn’t know how to be kind.
And then Kaz touched her for real.
His fingertips grazed her skin, from a cheekbone towards the chin, like an imperceptible caress. They were freezing.
Kaz lingered on her jaw for a few seconds. He released a gasp and then pressed a little deeper. It was still very slight, but memories of other bruises suddenly struck her and Inej held her breath.
“Breathe.”
Nobody cared about her reactions at the Menagerie. She obeyed.
“And then?” she asked in a small voice.
It was going to be a long night for both of them, she could imagine. Restless sleep and frequent awakenings, rigid positions on the bed and their respective monsters facing each other underneath.
But above, just a boy and a girl.
Kaz sighed and withdrew his hand. She couldn’t see it, but felt it crawl away from her onto the pillow, safe. “And then sleep, Inej.”