Chapter Text
Some flowers bloom where the green grass grows; our praise is not for them, but the ones who bloom in the bitter snow. We raise our cups to them
- We Raise Our Cups, Hadestown
This is an old story. It has been told many times, in many ways, with many different faces, and yet we tell it again. This is a sad story. And yet, we tell it anyway. That’s our role, in all of this, and we are nothing if we do not fulfil it. This time, it started - as Inej’s stories seemed to have begun to do so with concerning frequency - with getting kicked out.
“No- please, wait-” her pleas were cut off by the dull, painful thud of a bag being hurled into her chest.
She gasped, winded, and as she stumbled backwards her foot slipped from the top step. Hendrija huffed what might have been a short, breathy laugh as she watched Inej fall, but Inej managed to regain at least some of her dignity as she rebalanced on the gravel. She was shorter than Hendrija anyway, and glaring up at the older woman standing above her on the porch she felt incredibly aware of her smallness.
“Move on,” Hendrija jutted her chin vaguely down the street, “You ain’t wanted here, girl,”
“Please, Hen, I swear I’ll get you the money-”
“No you won’t,”
“I will,” she promised, “Please, just a couple of days, I swear, I just need a couple of days, I’ll get you-”
“Three months. I gave you three months grace, and I haven’t seen a cent. You’re done, now get off my property before I call the stadwatch ,”
“No, Hendrija- Hendrija!”
The door slammed in front of Inej’s nose and she screamed her frustration at the apathetic panels. That was it, then: she had officially been thrown out of every hostel in Ketterdam. Brilliant.
There was, unbeknownst to Hendrija, almost one hundred kruge tightly hand sewn into an inside pocket of Inej’s jacket - but last time she’d tried to pay her with ‘ that type of cash’ Hendrija had refused it.
“You don’t come in here and give me someone else’s money, girl,”
“I didn’t-”
“You earn some money for a room here, or you don’t keep one. You got it?”
Inej wasn’t sure what else Hendrija expected her to pay with, though. There weren’t any jobs to find. Not now. Not ever.
“Fine,” she’d said, “I’ll earn something. How’d you-?”
“You think I don’t know you ain’t worked a day since you got here?” Hendrija nodded to the purple bills tucked between Inej’s fingers, “Where’d you get it?”
Inej squared her shoulders, pretending not to feel the pit crumbling inside her stomach, as she told her where the money was from out loud and apologised, again, to her Saints inside her head. Hendrija’s cheeks blanched.
“At the very least, lass, if you’re gonna steal, don’t steal from him. Nasty way to go, when he gets to you - and he will. Always does,”
Inej had given her a sincere nod, then brushed off the conversation without another thought. It didn’t matter what anyone she stole from might do if they caught her, because they wouldn’t catch her. No-one ever did.
She lingered for a brief moment on the porch of the rooming house, as though Hendrija might open the door and say that she’d changed her mind, or that was only teasing and oh dear, Inej, don’t you take things too seriously. But, of course, she didn’t. Inej didn’t really want her to, she supposed, other than that it would be easier than trying to find somewhere else to sleep tonight. She shouldered her bag, appalled to feel herself stagger slightly beneath the weight. When had she last eaten? There was nearly a hundred kruge sewn into her jacket, yes, but she hadn’t dared to touch it yet. It had only been hers for a couple of days. Inej wasn’t exactly an expert, but she thought it might be best to wait a while before she used it in case someone got wise somehow. The last thing she needed was to end up in a prison cell.
Although , an upsettingly convincing voice added inside her head, at least it would be a place to sleep . Somewhere dry, with a pillow and a blanket. Somewhere she could stay still, lie down and close her eyes, eat once - maybe even more than once - a day and never have to feel the wind. Inej almost laughed out loud at herself. What had she become? What had this city turned her into? She used to be good. Now she would do anything for a bed, for food, for a roof the weather couldn’t chase her through.
A gust of wind prickled down the back of Inej’s neck, sending a shiver running over her, and she reached to turn her collar up against the breeze. It was going to rain soon, she was sure. Where was she going to sleep tonight? She sighed into her jacket, creating a brief pocket of warmth, and began to walk. Prayers first, then food, if she could find something. She had hours until sundown. She’d figure something out.
The Saints didn’t require a Chapel to hear their prayers, but there was a small one in the North of the Warehouse District for anyone who preferred an organised service. Inej attended when she could - she tried to light incense for her parents at least once a week, but more realistically did so about once a month, maybe twice if they were lucky. She leant against the wall of the building next to the hostel, just out of sight if Hendrija was sticking her nose out of the window, and began to dig through her measly bag of belongings. Should she change her clothes to go to Chapel? Her only other shirt and trousers were probably no cleaner than the ones she was wearing, but she ran a comb through her hair and did her best to pull it into a quick, neat braid. At least she’d tried to make an effort. She didn’t think her Saints cared, but people definitely did.
There was a little matchbox in her bag as well, but when she slid it open with trembling fingers she was overcome with the sudden desire to scream and hurl it into the street when she discovered it was empty. She settled for holding it so tightly that the thin card crumpled in her fist, then shoving it back into the bag. She could just leave it for the day; find something to eat and start looking for a place to stay, try to buy matches once the money in her pocket felt safe. But when had she last been to Chapel? Not for several weeks. She couldn’t not go, and she couldn’t afford to turn the matches into an excuse not to return. Her parents deserved better than that. They deserved better than any of this.
She sighed again as she stood back up from the wall and slung her bag across her shoulders, then ventured slowly into the street. It was busy, or busy enough anyway, and she knew that everyone here would have just seen her and Hendrija arguing on the porch bare moments ago so she wasn’t really expecting much when she wove into the crowd, going unnoticed until she parted her lips to venture:
“Excuse me? Does anyone have a match?”
People glanced down at her, or between themselves, all with the same expression as they stepped away and a ring of space was created around Inej. She tried to step forwards and, as though she were a drop of oil in water, wherever she moved the strangers stepped away from her, pace for pace.
“Please, sir,” she tried, turning to try and focus her quiet appeal on the closest individual, “Would you happen to-?”
He shook his head, turning away. Inej dug her fingers deeply into the cuff of her sleeve as she watched him pull a cigarette from his pocket as he walked away. She tried again, and then again.
“Please,” she said, again, as the crowd parted around her, “I’m sorry, but does anyone have a match that I could use?”
From behind the shape of someone’s dusty red coat as they moved away, a boy appeared in Inej’s field of vision. He looked up and caught her eye, then seemed to sigh as he beckoned her towards him with one gloved hand - the other remaining secure over the carved handle of the cane he leant against. He was taller than her but Inej would guess they were a similar age, though his face was aged by the little scars that crossed his pale skin.
“I can help you,”
Inej paused.
At the very least, lass, if you’re gonna steal, don’t steal from him.
Inej had stolen from him twice. The first time nothing happened, except for Hendrija refusing the money - as if her boarding house weren’t full of criminals and as if she didn’t damn well know it - but if he’d gotten wise? What if someone at the house overheard something and passed it on? She swallowed tightly.
“I didn’t ask for help. I asked for a match,”
“I can give you a match,” he said, reaching one of those leather-clad hands into his pocket, “I can also help you,”
Inej frowned. For a moment she studied the matchbox that he held out between them, and then it was in her hand and the boy was pulling away and she didn’t know why but it felt like something… something had happened. The air felt calmer now. She was part way through sliding the box open when he said:
“You have ninety three kruge in your jacket,”
Inej’s head snapped up.
“Excuse me?”
“Ninety three kruge,” he repeated, “That’s how much you have, isn’t it?”
“Wh-?”
“That’s how much you have. That’s how much you took from me, three days ago,”
Alarm bells started ringing inside Inej’s head. There was probably very little point in lying now, and her brain was already trying to click through what to do, how she could get out of here, where she might be able to run - he probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with her with his limp, and he almost certainly wouldn’t be able to climb up a building after her. If she could just make it to a rooftop she could disappear, run until her legs ached, then find a nook somewhere in the skyline to fall asleep and pray the rain wouldn’t be too heavy. But what after that? If he knew well enough to track her here, to a house she’d been tossed from under the safety of a false name, would she ever be able to safely walk these streets again? Maybe if she found somewhere to stay on the rooftops she would be okay - there were plenty of nooks that could form a snippet of shelter, the stadwatch would never rouse her from them, she could steal food from market stalls and storefronts, and finally become fully invisible. No-one would ever have to know that she was there.
But even as these thoughts occurred to her the boy shifted, ever so slightly but definitely intentionally, and a shape that looked very much like a pistol appeared and disappeared between the folds of his immaculate coat. She twisted her fingers around the little box of matches.
“You’ve got the wrong girl,”
“Have I?”
His voice was rough, like two stones being scraped together to form words.
“Believe me,” said Inej, slipping the matchbox casually into her pocket, as though he wouldn’t notice, “If I had ninety kruge I wouldn’t be hanging around here,”
She turned away.
“Ninety three,” the boy corrected, “And I’ll have that back, if you don’t mind,”
Inej hid the brief, disappointed scrunch of her nose before she spun and tossed the matchbox back to him.
“And the cash?”
“I told you, it wasn’t me,”
The boy shook his head.
“I suppose Inej Ghafa must live elsewhere then,” he said, and she knew he’d noticed when she tensed at the sound of her name, “Shame. I was going to offer her a job,”
“Who are you?”
He smiled.
“Maybe I’ll tell you,” he said, “if you tell me how you managed to get in and out of a house with no-one ever seeing you and yet only took ninety three kruge,”
Inej frowned, thinking of the rundown house and its leaky ceiling, up to three sleeping bodies pushed into every room but the attic. The attic was this boy’s domain, and he didn’t share his space with anyone, but it was still not the kind of place that looked prosperous; a door had been balanced on its back atop stacked crates to form a makeshift desk, there was no running water but a slender basin that must have been carried in and out to be refilled at least once a day, uneven and creaking floorboards, a worn down mattress with no bed frame or sheet, a blanket without a quilt. She’d thought finding an entire ninety kruge in those rooms was a miracle.
“There was more?”
“If you knew where to look. A proper thief would have found plenty to take,”
Something in that comforted Inej, just the tiniest bit. She was not a proper thief, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be one.
“How did you get in?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I was there ,” he shook his head, “I didn’t hear you. I didn’t see you. Not until-”
“Until I spoke,” said Inej, the memory returning to her.
She hadn’t known there was anyone close enough to hear her when she slipped the money into her pocket and thanked her Saints out loud. The boy nodded. Inej tracked through her movements in her mind, trying to work out where the boy must have been - outside the room, she supposed, on his way up the stairs perhaps? That didn’t feel right, though, because surely she would have heard his footsteps - at the least the sound of his cane. She drew the floorplan of the attic in her mind; it was barely smaller than the other floors of the house, partitioned part way through with a wall that stretched over half the width of the room to create a more private space for sleeping. Maybe he’d been behind the wall. There was only a very small window on that side of the room, it was where the slope of the roof divided it the most, and Inej hadn’t inspected that tiny slither of glass before she slipped through the larger window on the other side of the room. Idiot , she thought, fingers tensing as she tried to study the deceptive change in the boy’s eyes, what have you done now?
“I had no idea you were there, until then. How is that possible?”
Inej shrugged. She’d wanted to be silent so she had been, why did that matter? The matter at hand, as far as she cared, was why he hadn’t apprehended her when he heard her - and what he might want from her now. There was some kind of angle here, of course, she just didn’t know what it was.
“No-one ever does,” she told him, “Who are you?”
“Were you trained as a dancer?”
“An acrobat. My family… all of us are acrobats,”
Were acrobats.
“It’s your turn to answer a question now. Who are you?”
The boy smiled again.
“You already know that. You just don’t want to say it,”
A beat passed.
“Dirtyhands,”
“I prefer Kaz,” he said as he conceded a nod, smoothly but not quite relaxed enough to not raise Inej’s suspicions, “I found two names for you. I assume Inej Ghafa is the real one?”
She nodded. Why bother lying? She had not known, when she slipped through a window several months ago, who it was that she was stealing from. Would she have done it, if she’d known? She wasn’t sure it would’ve stopped her - it hadn’t stopped her three days ago, had it? She hadn't known he was in the building though, or she might have been careful enough not to part her lips.
“Is that what you’d prefer to be called?”
Inej nodded again, without taking her eyes away from Kaz’s.
“Is Kaz Brekker your real name?”
“Real enough. Do you feel like giving me my money back, Inej?”
Not particularly, she thought, as she released a small sigh and stuck her thumb into her jacket to burst the ugly stitches she’d made around her stash. As soon as Kaz had laid gloved fingers onto the notes they vanished in a smooth folding motion of his palm, and in their place a small card was raised between the pair.
“If you want a more reliable income, come to this address for eight bells tomorrow evening. I’ve got a job for you,”
Inej shook her head.
“You can leave the recruitment kit at home,” she told him, “I’m just passing through,”
“You’ve been here seven months,”
There was a pause.
“I came to pass the winter,” she ventured, “but-”
“But it isn’t ending,”
Inej nodded. Winters had been getting longer in Ravka, the spring short and the summer unbearably hot, but it was worse here than anywhere she’d travelled to across the Eastern Continent. Seven months in Kerch had passed in a twist of frozen ground, dead flowers, howling winds, and endless storms.
“There’s something wrong with the weather,”
The weather has no mercy.
Kaz gave no reply but a nod, as if that was an explanation all alone. He was still holding out the card between them, and after a moment Inej reached out. Her bare fingers brushed briefly against the leather of his gloves, and then the card was in her hand and his was dropping away. She forced her eyes away from the dark, endless pools of his, and studied the words on the card for a moment.
“I don’t read Kerch,”
“You know where Bloemstraat is?”
She shook her head.
“Meet me at the Slat, then - I know you know where that is,” he almost smiled as he added that, “Seven bells half chime, tomorrow evening,”
A moment passed.
“I’ll be there. But you should know: I’ll leave when spring comes,”
Kaz laughed, short and coarse, almost taking her by surprise.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes,”
He shook his head.
“You really don’t know Ketterdam, do you? There’s no spring coming, not here. Barely to Kerch at all; not anymore,”
Not at all? Inej faltered.
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me,”
“Why?”
“Why does anything happen around here? The world’s been thrown off kilter,”
Inej shook her head.
“You should get out of this city. There’s a storm coming; this place isn’t worth sticking around for. Not through that,”
Kaz laughed again.
“No-one leaves this city,”
He turned away, taking only a few steps before he glanced back over his shoulder to say:
“Oh, and Inej? Don’t ever steal from me again. And definitely don’t sneak up on me,”
Inej watched him leave, clutching two matchsticks and a slip of paper between her fingers, wondering what had just happened.