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The silence was thick, winding through the city, draping heavily over Inej's shoulders as she passed into the financial district - leaving behind her the endless twists and turns, the dirt and rot, the pockets of noise that not even the dwindling fear of the plague could fully eradicate in the Barrel. She felt light, like a feather snapping in the wind, her feet ghosting over the streets - cobbled, smooth, cracks in the corners that others never even noticed.
The night was dark and cold and she couldn't stop smiling with her hand on the brick of the wall beside her, her feet swinging before dancing up a pipe. Swiftly. Noiselessly. She reckoned that in some ways she would always be Kaz's spider. Crouching over the rooftops, slipping from ridgepole to ridgepole wasn't strictly necessary anymore but tonight she craved the tightrope once more. The height, the touch of a breeze, the whisper of watch me fluttering in her heart.
No fear.
She had just returned from her first turn aboard her very own ship. Hers. The Wraith. She had savored the feeling of rocking wood beneath her feet, the wind in the sails, the smell of salt in her nostrils, the sound of her parent’s voices like a soothing balm over the wounds she had acquired since she had been snatched from them. She had spent the trip learning as much of the ins and outs of nautical life as she could, learning every nook and shadow of her ship, and pushing from her mind the fact that each day that passed she was drawing nearer to having to say goodbye.
There was a part of her that never wanted to part with them, that wanted to hold on tight and never let go, to always hear her papas voice and taste her mother’s cooking that came ladled with a side of Suli wisdom. But even as she clutched them to her, tucking them into her heart, memorizing every new manner that showed itself on their faces and demeanor, she knew deep down that the voyaging life hunting slavers wasn't for them. Nor was a life in Ketterdam, where greed and gluttony rotted the streets. So she had left them on the soil of their home land, promising to return, to write, to see their faces again.
It was a promise she was determined to keep.
Yet even still, the parting hurt, stabbing deep, a voice in her head whispering at her to tell them all that had happened before it was too late - all the horror, all the pain, all the fragile blossoms of joy that had managed to find their way through the dirty cracks of her heart. But she had kept silent, biting her tongue, even though she was sure that her parents knew there was mountains she wasn't saying. Then the day of their parting came and the elder man had simply smiled, kissed her upon her forehead, and murmured those words she had repeated to herself countless times during her time in the Barrel.
The heart is an arrow, it demands aim to land true.
Inej hadn't been sure what to make of it then, if her papa had been talking about the new adventure she had planned out for herself or something else. Like Kaz. The dark haired boy who had shook her father’s hand with his jaw tight and throat working thickly. The boy who had sent for them, bringing Inej what she desired more than anything, putting them up in a fancy hotel, and fiddling with his tie like a nervous schoolboy and not the toughest, dirtiest, Barrel boss the city had ever seen.
When the time came, she had left Kaz standing on the dock, hand tight on the crows head cane, posture straight, black coat buttoned up to his throat, face set - standing motionless as a statue, beautiful in his sharp lines and silence, until he was nothing but a speck in the distance and a pressure on her chest. Something inside her had told her that it shouldn't have been so hard to watch him grow smaller, to watch him ebb further away, but it was.
It was like trying to breathe underwater.
So she had kept a tally in her head to keep herself from that ocean cold sorrow of all the times they'd touched, remembering every small and hesitant motion, and while lying in her sleeping quarters on the ship she hadn't been able to stop replaying the slide of leather from his long fingers and the cool touch of his skin that made her shiver in equal parts fear and desire. Replaying that look in his coffee eyes, a longing doused in terror, and the smile on his hard face that shone like the first ray of sun after a storm.
And now she was back, her feet touching the filthy streets of Ketterdam with a surprising feeling of homecoming. She hadn't expected that, even with her eagerness over seeing her friends again, of seeing Kaz again. She hadn't thought that she would be so homesick for a place that had cut and leached her dry before sewing her back up in uneven patches and stitches.
Sliding down the pipe, Inej slipped the picks into her hands and swiftly made work of the lock on the window, her smile growing as it clicked open and the glass slid up. Easing herself inside, her leather soled feet touched the carpet and the smell of fresh bread and chocolate tangled around her.
She knew she could have just knocked on the front door despite the late hour, could have roused the two boys running the grand house, and knew they would have flown to her with grins and excitement. But the thought of the look she would no doubt get from the two of them when she waltzed down in the middle of breakfast in the morning was more than enough reason to postpone.
Her room looked exactly the same as she had left it, right down to the hairbrush lying vertically across the vanity. Her heart warmed at the thought of it, that the boys had meant their promise that she'd always have a place there and at the reality that no matter how far she sailed, Ketterdam would wait for her. That her room would wait for her. That Wylan and Jesper and Kaz would wait.
Say you'll return.
She shook Kaz's rough voice from her head before it propelled her back out the window and down to the Slat. She couldn't see him tonight. She needed to readjust. Needed to remember the yards that still stood between them and remind herself that those steps bringing them closer could still take weeks, months, years. Could take a lifetime. Because dreaming of light touches and handholds a thousand miles from home was different than their cruel reality - and if she was honest she didn't want that illusion to shatter just yet. She wanted to hold onto the dream, didn't want to slip into his room and find a new barrier standing tall and unmovable between them even though he had already proven that he was done erecting them.
Trust him, a voice nibbled at her conscious and rubbing her hands over her suddenly chilled arms, Inej pushed it away and considered falling immediately down onto the overstuffed, ridiculously comfortable bed, and sleeping for a day or two - but the enticing smell was curling hotly in her stomach, and with one last glance at the bed and a promise to the sheets that she'd return swiftly, she left her bedroom and made her way silently down the hallway.
There was a single yellow light glowing softly at the end of the hall in the otherwise dark house, accompanied by the barest rustle of noise, a murmur that lost its meaning in the spaces between. Edging closer, Inej gambled her bets in her head and guessed that Jesper was the one twitching in the room.
Since the auction and faking a plague, the dark boy had gotten better at controlling himself - learning how to channel his restless energy into things other than gambling until he couldn't see straight and placing himself in the line of fire until he was glowing with the pulse of his guns in his hands. But he was still Jesper. A bundle of unstoppable energy and if Inej had to guess she would bet that it was him who had stayed up late into the night before inevitably dropping into a sleep that mimicked the dead.
She felt the lightness inside her lift even higher in this warm house, with its intoxicating smells and her friend that she had always been able to count on having her back with guns blazing just a few steps away - and a second later she was all prepared to sneak up on him, breathe a hello behind his ear, and watch as he jumped a foot with a screeching curse. The door to the lounge was caught halfway between open and closed, and sliding into the deep shadows to determine her best course of approach, Inej came to a sudden halt.
Oh.
She was right. In a manner anyway. It was Jesper in the room, his long, lanky body stretched out across the settee that was barely big enough to fit him. And wedged under him was Wylan, the boy's slightly smaller body pinned beneath the sharpshooters, his chin tipped up, his head pushed back into the cushions, his lips open like an offering that the boy atop him was enthusiastically accepting.
Their kissing, her mind dumbly told her, like it wasn't perfectly, blatantly obvious.
They had never told her that they were together, that they had blossomed into more, into this. Never outright anyway. But she'd known, she was the Wraith after all, and secrets were her bread and butter. It had been obvious to her that something had changed between them since the morning after Wylan's face had been restored. She could tell that they had finally tipped from the high wire they had been perched precariously upon the moment they had both awoken.
It was the simple things, the small things, that gave it away - that always gave secrets away.
She had never seen Wylan smile so much. She had never seen Jesper so still - grinning and joking and laughing like always, but with an odd sort of peace about him. His usually restless fingers inching towards Wylan's when they assumed no one was looking. Jesper had always been as subtle as a gunshot but that morning he had been like a gentle breeze instead of a tornado - giddy and jumping and laying back with his feet swinging over the edge of his chair and eyes fixed on one permanent spot. On one permanent person.
That morning she had known but it was in the few days following that they had before they'd pulled off Kaz's mad plan that she had saw just how much had changed. She saw it in their endless stares in each other’s directions with helpless smiles on their faces - Jesper grinning like a cat with milk and Wylan softly, his hand touching his cheek, his hair, his teeth nipping his bottom lip in nerves.
She saw it in the line of Jesper's shoulders, how he moved an inch closer than he had previously allowed himself to the other boy. How his touch lingered, how his jokes took on a different edge, a sharpness that whispered into an unexpected gentleness.
She saw it in Kuwei’s glares and the rumpled tousle of Wylan's curls whenever they emerged from being off somewhere alone together - that same grin on Jesper's face and Wylan's cheeks a deep red.
It was even more obvious after she had started staying with them at the Van Eck house. A brush of a handhold disappearing behind backs, the melodious drone of Jesper's voice as he read to the other boy on late nights, the clang of piano keys whenever she and Wylan's mother left them alone in the music room, the murmurs of the servants that Jesper's bed never needed to be tended to.
Inej knew they were together. Knew that this was going on. And she knew that they were aware that she knew as well despite the lack of an outright declaration that she assumed had something to do with not wanting to shock poor Ms. Hendriks more than was necessary. She knew, so why in all the heavens was she stuck to her spot - staring with something thick and hot gripping her heart? Her dark eyes couldn't help but track the long gentle bend of Wylan's fingers, bunching into Jesper's shirt on his back, or the darker boy's hands slipping through Wylan's ruddy gold curls - gripping tight, angling the boy's head as he kissed him over and over again. Hungrily. Wantonly. Lovingly.
Inej felt like she couldn't breathe just watching it, like something was sitting on her chest - her vision blurred and sharpened, memories tapping against the lock in her head. She felt like she was staggering between two worlds. The Menagerie pressed at her, reminding her that kisses weren't like this, that they weren't given so freely. That the dominance of a body above you wasn't warm and welcoming, that you didn't arch, that you didn't let that little broken moan out to be muffled against another tongue as was happening.
Heart pounding against her ribs, she watched the gentle slide of Jesper's fingers tracing down Wylan's neck, his side, over his hip, gripping tightly on his thigh, and remembered a hundred hands that had done the same to her. But Wylan wasn't slack faced, wasn't squeezing his eyes shut with unshed tears locked away.
He was unraveling, slowly, with each press of Jesper's fingers, his shirt opening wide as the buttons were undone, a flush on his skin in the low light, a dizziness in his blue eyes as they fluttered open that Inej felt matched and opposed in her own head. He was coming undone as the other boy's touch traced back up his naked skin, he was falling apart like this was the most blissful thing to ever happen to him.
"Jes." The boy whispered. Breathless. Full of wonder. Their lips mere inches apart, that cocky grin she'd seen a million times on the darker boy's face before they were kissing again.
Inej had been commanded to say men's names like that, ordered to sound like it was love that had brought them together and not a cruel exchange of kruge. But never had she managed to sound like that. Never had she heard a name spoken in that way in the house of pleasure by even the most talented of women or even through the thin walls of the Slat. Wylan said Jesper's name like the other boy was life. Like being consumed by him would be akin to drinking from the well of Saints and being granted everlasting days.
She told herself to look away, to leave, that this was trespassing too far. But she couldn't because her world was tilting, opening up on itself with each murmur between them, with each touch. She felt like she was unfurling just as Wylan was with Jesper's hands pulling on his body, his clothes - never taking without asking but there was always permission. Pure consent was in every look, in every caress, in every little movement and sound - Inej could see it, hear it, and feel it from where she hid in the shadows.
Jesper pushed and Wylan pulled. Jesper sunk into him and Wylan reached up. They were opposite magnets, a lock tumbling together in catches, weaving together, locking in place. Jesper's mouth was moving over the other boy's neck, licking and sucking, leaving a mark that Inej knew somewhere deep inside her that Wylan wouldn't mind. The pale boy's neck was arching back, opening up his throat, his fingers catching in Jesper's hair that had grown unruly, his leg winding around the lanky one atop his - a flash of skin on his hip bright among the deep shadows around them.
"Gods, Jes." His voice broke, his teeth sinking sharply into his bottom lip, his hand slipping down the back of Jesper's loosened trousers and pulling as the boy moved in a rocking rhythm over him.
"Ghezen, merchling, I want...tell me what you want." Jesper groaned and Inej took a step back, ready to bolt out of the house with panic gripping her throat, because she knew those words, knew what the response was supposed to be - but the boy's dark eyes had searched out Wylan's clear blue ones, his dark lips brushing over fair cheeks and a pink mouth and she couldn't move. Couldn't run or look away no matter how she shook.
"Why do you always ask that?" Wylan murmured, slightly exasperated, slightly unsteady, his nose nudging into Jesper's as he tried to seal a kiss between them.
"Maybe I like hearing you say it."
"You know." Wylan moaned, pushing up and reaching his mouth over to Jesper's neck - apparently giving up on kissing him and instead sucking a kiss onto his skin that had the sharpshooter closing his eyes tightly and breathing unevenly.
But that was the wrong answer and it made her head spin, made something rear up inside her. No, it's the right answer. She told herself, shoving down the memories, the distortion that was trying to twist the things happening before her eyes. What had happened to her was wrong, it wasn't how it was supposed to be. This was right...Saints, if she could only let this wash over all her memories. If only she could let it rewrite the thing that had been broken inside her.
Then maybe, maybe she and Kaz...
But he needed rewriting too, because even if she could she get herself into such a position - with Kaz over her, kissing her, gripping her, and carefully peeling the clothes from her body - she knew that the toughest rat in the Barrel wouldn't be able to do it. Because they were broken in reflected parts, twins in their revulsion and in their desire to overcome.
She could still vividly remember that first touch in the hotel’s bathroom when he had changed her bandages, it was like a fire lighting beneath her skin, a cry of stop ringing in her head before it was drowned out by the thrumming in her blood. Because it was different. It wasn't a man buying her, it was Kaz. His fingers cool and hesitant - his touch, his barest kiss had turned her inside out. And then he'd gone and bought her a ship, arranged a place to keep it, held her hand, and flustered in an entirely unKaz like manner in front of her parents - it had left her wonderfully giddy with a small flickering want for more deep inside her.
She blinked and saw Wylan's hand pressing into the armrest over his head, Jesper's fingers entwined with his, their lips locked once more. This is more, she thought, this eager desire that wasn't cruel or twisted or demeaning or wrong. This is what she and Kaz were working towards - if it was ever even possible. She would even take just a fraction of it and be satisfied.
But as she watched, Inej realized fully that she wanted to feel Kaz's fingers in her hair like Jesper's tangled in Wylan's. She wanted to be kissed like Jesper kissed him, like he was the sun and the moon and whole damn world. She wanted to know what it would feel like to have that expression on her face that Wylan had - lidded eyes, heavy and fluttering, cheeks flushed bright, his lips dropping open into a groan.
Bliss. Contentment. Love.
Jesper's shirt was dragged over his head, dropping from Wylan's fingers over the back of the settee, his voice murmuring too quiet for even her to hear clearly. But whatever it was, it had Wylan grinning and blushing and taking Jesper's face in his hands and pressing a deep kiss to his lips. It struck her suddenly that Jesper was glowing, shinning like he did after a fight - it left her breathless and intoxicated because there were no shots fired, no gambling wheel spun. The sharpshooter was simply tumbling from the settee with Wylan in his arms onto the richly carpeted floor in a tangle of limbs.
It was like looking at a promise that things could change all over again because she could see so clearly that the hole the boy had inside him was slowly stitching up, day by day. Brick by brick.
"So damn beautiful, Wy." He rasped and Inej had to look sharply away as his trousers were pulled from his body to join Wylan's discarded ones. She felt the hot blush on her cheeks and pressing a hand sharply over her wildly beating heart, she closed her eyes and breathed deep, trying to find her footing again. "Have I told you lately how happy I am that you’re a genius, flash bomb happy illiterate?"
Wylan snorted. "Seriously? You're bringing this up now?" There was a pause, a thunk on the floor, a gasp of breath, and a whisper she couldn't make out. "Yes, yesterday I believe...oh! Gods, like that."
"Ready?"
"Yes." Wylan moaned and Inej took an unsteady step back down the hall. Then another and another, carrying her further away as the growing amount of noises rose from the room behind her. But she couldn't shake what she had just witnessed, it had burnt itself into her, trying to force its way into the hidden part inside her that she kept locked down.
This is right, she kept thinking, this is right. This is what I want.
Perhaps she hadn’t known it but this was why she had come home, so she could find this - this closeness that her papa had always told her about in few words and kind actions towards her mother. He had always told her to give her heart direction and now she was finally starting to find her aim. Not just her purpose. But a target for her stubborn, stitched up heart, because they weren't the same.
Aiming for Kaz had never been a safe or wise decision, she had known that all along, since the moment she had first laid eyes on him - since that first day she had felt her dead heart stirring with unwanted emotions. But then...things change. And if she was honest she knew she had been aiming for him for far too long as it was.
Kaz had sneaked up on her. Infiltrated her guard. He had shown her in so many ways that he was determined to shed the dead from inside him, to break down his armor in tiny bits and fragments and Inej would match each step. They would lose no more ground and starting tonight she would stop doubting. It wasn't him keeping her back any longer, it was herself. Her twisted version of how touches were delivered, how kisses were taken, how she could only ever depend on herself.
You can't, he'll let you down, a dark voice in her head tried to argue with her but then she closed her eyes and pictured the two boys - locked in an embrace, kissing with no ulterior motive, no darkness. Kissing and moving together because they wanted to. She pictured her parents warm smiles directed at each other over supper. She pictured Kaz, bare fingers, shoulder propped behind hers, always fighting with her – for her.
She and Kaz might not ever be able to do more than hold hands but what did that matter? Because Kaz made her heart light, made her feel like a girl who wasn't hopelessly tainted and broken. Kaz had given her freedom when he'd bought her contract, had given her hope when she hadn't any, had given her everything. The boy might not know her favorite flower or sweet or song, but he knew the deeper things, the things no one else did. The things that mattered most. And he was trying for more. That was enough.
The time it took to get to the Slat was something that she barely even noticed as she slipped down streets and over rooftops, her heart starting to pound violently as she found herself perched on his windowsill. Swinging inside her eyes immediately caught on him, standing across the room, clothes rumpled from sleep, leaning heavily on his cane, his coffee eyes rimmed with sunshine staring straight at her.
How had he known she was coming? When had he heard her? Never sneak up on me again, she never could and never wanted to. Not anymore.
"You came back." He said, voice rough and rasping, dragging across stone and sending a shiver down her spine.
"Yes." She answered, taking a step forward and looking down at his hands - focusing on the naked, pale skin of his fingers wrapped around the crows head, his delicate wrists visible under his turned up cuffs.
"Good." The cane clicked on the floorboards and when she looked up it was to see him smiling, his hard face open, and much later, after she had told him of her travels, he had taken her hand in his and they had sat against the wall - shoulders touching, his thumb brushing over her knuckles, a hesitant kiss placed against the curve of her clothed collar, his breath warm and ragged. She bent her head towards him, caught his dark, dilated eyes and held them, letting the silence with the promise of more to come in a future that was blurry and clear all at once settle around them.
She thought once more of Wylan and Jesper, no doubt entwined in sleep, and found herself smiling. Her parents had been right, the heart was an arrow and she had had her aim in her sights for quite some time now. But sometimes aim wasn't enough, sometimes you just needed to believe that you could let go and make the shot.