One million kruge. And the lives of the crew that found her.
[ “““found”””
retrieving a pretender was one thing — the genuine article breaks the market. far too valuable to be anything but dangerous. obviously that’s why he hadn’t protested her payment. definitely the only reason. ]
[ the plan is to be docked for a short time in the eames harbor off the coast of novyi zem while they continue to chip away at the job. kaz and tamar will investigate the whereabouts of the heart — something nikolai still feels spurned by — his crew will spend a few nights enjoying the comfort of a hospitable inn, and nikolai will shackle himself in his cabin and try not to make a mess when the demon feeds. it's a plan he's less than enthused by, but a necessary one. he just doesn't enjoy the feeling of being something that must be bound and hidden away — but of course, kaz will likely be unsympathetic about his complaints regarding the lack of attention he's receiving, and so he keeps his moody disposition to himself.
he's not sure how much faith he has in this current plan, but he nonetheless takes comfort in the fact that there is a plan at all, as flimsy as it may be. he used to think that if anyone could pull off a miracle, it would be him. now he thinks it just might be kaz brekker instead.
the chains, at least, allow him to get some sleep — restless, plagued by nightmares and interrupted by his unwelcome guest, but the poor quality of his rest is less important when he's gone days without. kaz is the one to lock him in, a bizarre feeling when it's been zoya for so long. at least they both share a poison tongue. nikolai is both unhappy and grateful to be left alone, and finds the more pleasant side of his dreams involves blue eyes and careful hands, quiet whispers and stifled words, the closeness that they shared, those stolen moments of intimacy. he likes the build of kaz's body — lean, strong, made for his hands. he likes the sounds that he can pull from it. he's eager to hear them again, but realistic about how much he can push for. kaz allowed him an enormous amount at once, and nikolai imagines there must be a period of recovery, or possibly regret.
everything about kaz is fascinating, a handsome puzzle to be put together or taken apart. people have always been puzzles to him, locked boxes he's eager to fit the right keys into, and to ponder away at kaz brekker keeps his mind from sinking too far into the darkness. it gives him something real and present to hold onto, a promise that kaz will appear in the morning to unshackle him and won't point out that nikolai's smiles are on the edge of too bright lately, his laugh just a little too quick to be genuine.
on his second night confined to his ship, he escapes. the shackles don't break — the demon simply tears them from the wall, weakened from the previous night of struggle. nikolai grapples for control, fails to fully grasp it. at least there is no one on the ship. if he can steer the demon away from the coast, surely he can avoid disaster.
he flies to the deck, lands with a rattle of chains — and then spies movement. panic seizes him, and he loses his tenuous bit of control. kaz brekker is on the deck, maybe going to his cabin, maybe prowling the ship in sleeplessness or deep thought, maybe defying his orders just for the hell of it. nikolai has never wanted so badly to hit someone in his life. he has never wanted to hurt someone less.
he can't say any of those things when the tongue in his mouth is foreign, teeth glinting at the promise of fresh blood. his blond hair frames the dark pits of his eyes, his claws digging into the wooden floors in an attempt not to move. not again, he pleads to himself, to the saints, to anyone that might be listening. no one, of course. this time, he'll split his throat open. this time he'll do something he won't recover from.
his movement is restricted when he launches himself at kaz, chains keeping his wrists and ankles barely a foot apart, and perhaps it's his saving grace. kaz swings his cane before he can snap his jaws at him, landing a blow with precision that shatters one of his ribs. if nikolai was nikolai, it would have taken him out. but the demon shoots into the sky on smoke-black wings, hovering just out of his range, and nikolai watches kaz's movements, hoping that he'll pull out a revolver, hoping for a bullet right between his eyes.
no such luck. he blinks and he's descending. blinks again and his claws have found purchase in kaz's shoulder, lifting him off the ship, a hot rush of blood soaking into his dark coat. another ruined item of his clothing, a distant thought as his cane clatters onto the deck. another distant thought — he's going to kill him. he's going to kill kaz brekker, after he promised to shelter him, after he vowed that he would not fail him again. another broken promise, another failure to add to his towering list of sins. the water glitters darkly below them as they soar high above the sea, the scent of saltwater mixing with blood, the scent of pain and fear, and for a moment he doesn't know if it's from kaz or if it's his own.
his wings abruptly dissipate, black bleeding out of his eyes as they return to hazel, the veins that fracture his skin scattering. nikolai comes back to consciousness with a gasp, a fiery pain igniting in his side. his ribs. broken. kaz. kaz.
he's upside down. they're falling. they're both falling, the hand reaching for kaz bloody as he fists his shirt, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind at once. they're falling. he's felt this before, the terrifying force of utter weightlessness. how far are they from the shore, from his ship? too far. he's still chained and the pain at his side is staggering. can he swim? kaz has gouges in his shoulder. they're falling into the sea, into cold, dark waters. the water. kaz. nikolai's grip tightens, panic moving through him. he forces his eyes to kaz's, to blue, to his fair-weather sky. ]
Stay with me. [ an order. a plea. the wind whips around them, the water rushing up to meet them. seconds, now. how can he make sure he doesn't lose kaz to the deep? you put him here. fix this. he shudders, trying to steel himself. he can't breathe. he can barely move. he forces his voice to carry, forces conviction into his eyes. ] We're alive. Both of us. Stay with me.
[ they plunge into the sea, and suddenly everything is quiet. air rushes from his lungs before he can stop it, pain blurring his vision. move. he can't. his shackles feel like anchors. he's sinking. the darkness is all around. there's a voice in his head, his own voice. let go. can he? can he just stop? the pain is too great, his guilt is too heavy. let go. it sounds like relief, the safe place to land that he's been searching for. no, that's not right. kaz. too faint, too distant. the other voice is easier, his eyes closing around one thought. let go. let go. let go. ]
is writing a novel back too perceptive i'm emotional
[ nothing changes. kaz endeavors to recalibrate their relationship with minimal accommodations. no sympathy for the hurt nikolai surely feels at being excluded from the museum job, vital as it is to their wider canvassing efforts. it occurs after dark, a place where nikolai can’t follow, either because he lacks the strength or the demon grows stronger every day. regardless, kaz and tamar case the museum. his injured hand smarts while he learns the locks, but it functions the same as it has for years. a tool, weathered but no less effective. so what if it has other uses? the best tools do.
perhaps that’s why he affixes nikolai’s shackles with bare hands, a gesture more meaningful than any false kindness on his tongue. practice, he tells himself. you can best this. hope rekindled by a series of actions that left him retching, shaking, hovering in an unreal space, but somehow upright and laughing at the end of it. he prefers the glimmers of genuine interest from nikolai (the way his gaze lingers, the distance he opens and closes between them based on keen observation), to the performance he gives each morning. kaz allows them to go uncritiqued and unapplauded, given how much the image of control matters to nikolai (wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?). at least he seems to have slept for the first time in days.
after he locks nikolai away that second night, he doubles back to retrieve materials from his cabin — a piece of the puzzle slipped into place on his walk into town. they’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. like thieves, merchants, politicians, kings. not like fanatics. the idea has him giddy, mind whirring to place it within their broader understanding of the mark. can’t stop the plans unspooling, so he gathers the required maps and records from his cabin aboard the volkvolny (surreptitiously moved from the captain’s quarters earlier in the day). he wants — needs to tell nikolai. when morning comes. a rush of warmth, at the thought of sharing this. hope, bouncing back. possibilities tentative and frightening between them, but not as destructive as their present reality.
naturally, that’s when everything turns to ash. a clash of grisha steel against razor-edged teeth, and he stumbles back, dropping the bag of supplies. his free hand finds the flash bang in his pocket, but he doesn’t use it. if he loses sight of nikolai, he may never find him again. mistake after mistake. the hesitation that kills. his cry of pain distorts as if in a dream.
first, kaz thinks i’m going to break that fabrikator’s arm. then, with startling clarity, he’s going to tear my arm clean off. divine retribution for the prophecy he spoke into existence. if you had torn off my hand, i’d have dragged myself here in the morning with just the one left. then, he’s falling. somehow, even with the world a blur (overwhelming in its flashing grey and roaring winds), nikolai remains stark. stay with me. he refocuses through his lashes, gaze slicing from nikolai to the black water, lit with a thousand sparkling eyes. we’re alive. not for long. heart careening against his ribs, he takes one last breath before the water knocks the wind from his lungs all over again.
thrust over the bleak, jutting ledge of the reaper’s barge. i can do this. i’ve already done it. flung into the canal by bigger boys, too small to reach the lip of the street until jordie fished him out. jordie always fishes him out. not this time, little brother, you can’t keep cheating death. he goes boneless with all the anxiety crashing down on him, released from its rattling vault. it was never gone, simply contained.
the water seeps into his skin. pressure builds against his chest. jordie’s fist in shirt, pulling him up, up, up, no, dragging him under until he shakes his dead hand free and surges above the rippling waves with a gasp. ]
Jordie! [ he tries to think of his brother, alive, but it’s nikolai who crowds his mind’s eye — nikolai’s hands on him in the lamplight, scorched and careful, fisted in his shirt — kaz has to tell him that he figured it out, that he — fuck.
kaz chokes a breath and dives back down, squinting through the burn of salt. nikolai’s shackles glint in the piercing moonlight, a few kicks away. it’s no use. you won’t make it. he has to try. his left shoulder burns so fiercely, he wonders if he can move it all, but he does, of course he does, red droplets dissipating around him. struggling one arm out of his coat and then the other, he forces himself to swim. nothing to cling to until suddenly, there is: he hooks his bad arm around nikolai’s middle (lean, not distended; soft, not hard and cold) and drags him above the waterline. he’ll need his good side for what comes next.
black spots colour his vision. why do the saints always want to drown him? is it because he deserves it? a shipwreck of a man, barely keeping them afloat, unable to check nikolai’s pulse. his arms and legs seem stiff and corpselike, chained in place. you killed him. it takes precious seconds for his head to catch up to his heart, beating in double-time. breathe, brekker comes the voice that sounds more like nikolai than jordie. the shackles. ]
Nikolai — I can’t — [ he knows these shackles, bloody well helped design them, could magic them from nikolai’s wrists to his own if they were in the safety of his quarters. now, he struggles to pick them one-handed. only after his shaky hands drop two picks into the depths does he unlock one fetter.
the hardest to reach now, before you faint. diving once more into the underworld, his arm sliding down nikolai’s waist to avoid losing him to the waves. why waste your breath? they’re both death-touched, fighting the current to stay alive when they should have died, drowned, rotted already. if you die, he dies. kaz dives again and frees a single ankle before he jolts up, sputtering in the air. his feet feel heavy, weighed down by his boots.
he can’t go back under. can’t focus to free nikolai’s other hand. keeps kicking, because that’s what saved him last time. a wet cough rattles out of his chest, and he tightens his grip on nikolai. ]
Don’t leave me. [ his rasp made tremulous and hoarse. the obverse of his previous realization is equally true. if he dies, you die. he can’t make it to shore alone again. ]
[ fields of ice seamlessly transition to cascading snowscapes, obscuring wolves and their prey. as the temperature plunges in the chilly afternoon, kaz wonders who he should blame for his predicament.
himself, definitely, for allowing nikolai to scale his armoured walls. zoya nazyalensky also bears responsibility — for giving him an impossible, undeniable task. and nikolai, for carrying hope inside his smile, his hands, and then violently blowing it out. lying skiv. mostly, he thinks, the blame sits squarely on sankt feliks. for having the audacity to be worshipped, gored, and parcelled out to fanatics. between the provenance of the relic (traced in the auction and museum records) and the surge of support for saints across the north, he knows this is where they’ll find it.
in the days following the severance of his bond with nikolai, he had been more sour-faced than usual, glowering through their first stop to retrieve nikolai’s sleeping draught. the rituals remained, monuments to their former closeness. shackles in gloved hands, the second layer of protection against the demon; scorched hands on bandages, covered wounds that heal too slow even for his liking. talk only of the job, of the next steps. if nikolai tries to push for more, he’ll be rebuffed. no one nurtures a grudge like kaz brekker.
until they stop in ketterdam for reinforcements and supplies, he’s a man of stone. anika and rotty meet them at the docks, all that kaz tasked them with acquiring already bagged over their shoulders. anika tells him this is the worst you’ve ever looked, boss, as she boards the volkvolny, and he barks a laugh, the first since nikolai wounded him three days ago. worse than the day you joined me? this is what he’d missed, though he won’t say it. you didn’t have a sunburn that day, a stripe of red singed across his pale cheeks. watch yourself and yes, boss overlap. the camaraderie that comes with a crew of your own. he had forgotten that it existed in a world beyond nikolai, his grisha and privateers. that night, she gives him a package, from jesper and the little merchling, a token to support their work. it had been a good reminder that he isn’t as alone as he thinks, sometimes. that he might go back to the slat, pockets laden with treasure, and never long for letters sealed with lantsov blue.
(but he dreams of them, of nikolai’s blackened fingers, the warm reverb of his laugh, a longer night on the beach before everything shattered)
still, it prompts a measure of thawing, when they reach fjerda. he refrains from threatening bodily harm every time nikolai drifts too close — and he gets to skim the top of the surface tension, too, upon spying a dime lion in djerholm harbour. a tip of his head and his dregs break off from the group that night to turn on their ill-fated tail. kaz takes his tongue before they dump him in the icy waters, just in case he survives the drink. we’ve been followed is what he shares the next morning with the team. the break-ins at the auction house and the museum could have tipped them off just as easily as a member of the crew, though he searches them all for signs of treachery.
now, kaz moves purposefully as they wind the snowy mountain trail. a squaller and a tidemaker lead their formation, gently clearing the path and ensuring safe travel. he's all whiteness behind them, from his boots to his hooded coat and goggles, red nose alone peaking out, still difficult to pinpoint him or any of the other white specks moving against the sea of sameness. an invisible ascent. better that whatever resides here can’t see them coming. kaz knows now how to survive in this terrain: has carved a path across the tundra, days walk from shore with only matthias helvar to guide him. a dead man from a dead world. he once again wonders what became of nina zenik and resolves to prod both nikolai and the fjerdan crown, when they have their audience on the return journey.
he seeks a simple outcome, no red on white — and a priceless, ancient artifact that may be in the heart of this mountain, guarded by zealots, saints, demons, or djel himself. hah. he holds his hand flat above his eyes, blocking out the sunlight, as he scans the landscape ahead. his expression appears neutral, if calmer than most would feel this deep in the elbjen mountains, although his grip stays tight on his cane, reinforced at the bottom with an anti-slipping agent designed by wylan. the pack on his back contains other supplies: a first-aid kit, flares of a rather explosive nature, baleen should a water route be required, climbing gear for a pinch. snowflakes swirl around, the beginnings of a storm.
he leans close, then, head bent into nikolai’s space to view the map in his hands and overlay the compass in his own, covered arms brushing. something a schoolboy would notice, he chides. they didn’t pour over books and maps for days not to use their combined cleverness to solve this riddle.
the squaller up ahead senses danger first. a swell of wind. kaz and nikolai see it second, in the snow sliding under their feet before they exchange a look with more feeling than kaz has allowed since they broke apart. a woman shouts. his head swivels. ]
Anika! [ but she’s already diving left to push the healer aside from a widening hole in the snow and disappearing beneath the ground. she's faster than the devil, that’s why he brought her here, but not to this end. wait, a hole? tamar launches herself into the same gap, chasing the last threads of her long hair, and kaz lunges after them both. nikolai seizes his arm before he falls into an opening at their feet. he slides his cane into a band outside his pack to keep from losing it. too much stimuli. a rush of snow rains down on their right in the opposite direction. how? the squaller and the tidemaker shield who they can in an admirable joint effort, but it sends snow and ice bursting from the sides and blocks anyone from joining their group. this isn’t natural. the ground was solid, when they scouted.
could be enemy action, a trap, grisha — he swerves to the side, pulling nikolai with him before they tumble into another sinkhole, and pain tears through his shoulder. keep it together, brekker. kaz has nikolai, a death-grip on his arm, but the ice — disintegrates? melts? — disappears out from under them, so kaz yanks him close to break the fall, keenly aware of his recently broken ribs.
when he next blinks, he’s on his back, ice flat beneath him and shimmering above him. a cave too smooth to be anything but grisha-work. his pack and cane have skidded mere feet away in the underground network of passages that they’d been looking for at considerably higher altitudes (a miscalculation), but he doesn’t look for them. too preoccupied with the throbbing in his shoulder; the peculiar sensation of a warm weight on his chest, something held in his arms; and his head pounding. he brings a gloved hand to his temple and sees red on white when he lowers it into his field of vision. why is he always bleeding? another blink. blackout for an unknown amount of time. the weight has been removed from his chest. he winks ice crystals from his lashes and smokes a breath. ]
[ appearances are important to nikolai, and so out of the tumult roiling in him, he weaves the image of the man he wants everyone to see. their fearless captain. the reckless adventurer. no one is any wiser when they return to the volkvolny, which is precisely how he and brekker intended it. he spars with tamar on the deck as usual, tells fabricated stories to his crew over dinner, even stands on the railing with a glass of brandy and recites a highly discourteous tribute to djel and the sacred ash trees right before they enter fjerdan waters. he laughs like he means it. kaz does not partake in any of his outlandish ruckus. nikolai is not expecting him to, but frequently finds his eyes wandering across his ship for a glimpse of gloomy black anyway.
a different story is told in the privacy of his quarters. nikolai keeps his spirits high, keeps a casual smile within reach, but for days the tension does not dissipate. he's careful each time he changes the dressings on kaz's shoulder, only letting his concern show when his back is turned. the wound seems to stubbornly fight progress, and nikolai offers kaz a selection of tonics for pain relief from their well-stocked inventory. he doesn't complain at the reappearance of his shackles — both heavier and stronger this time — though it's more difficult to hide his unease at the sleeping draught. it takes him under within a matter of seconds, just as harrowing as before. he doesn't tell kaz that it only lasts for just under three hours, a realization that comes when he wakes in the middle of the night like a dead man clawing out of his grave, skin slick with a cold sweat, nausea pushing at his throat. the first night, he puts himself back under. after that, he simply remains awake.
he's relieved for their detour in ketterdam, relieved that kaz can pull members of the dregs to join him. he's kept himself apart, only speaking about details of the job, and nikolai feels guilty every time he sees him move like a reaper across his ship, most times alone. you asked for that. he wants to keep watching, his chest tight at a glimpse of a rare — not smile, exactly, but something pleased that flickers across kaz's face, but his voyeurism is cut short by the need to expel his guts across the side of the ship into the harbor. kaz does not see him, but one of his dregs does. the tonic works; he has not turned since the disastrous night at sea, the demon keeping itself quietly coiled within him, but the side effects are running him ragged.
the icy fjerdan winds offer some relief for the constant pulse in his head, cutting through the pain and helping him think more clearly. a sense of unease rests heavily at his shoulders as they trek across the snow, and he's turning to tell kaz as much when anika disappears below ground. he barks out tamar's name when she goes after her, then has to forcibly haul kaz back before he loses him too — but then the ground disintegrates beneath their feet and they're falling, falling, and he can't move fast enough to stop kaz from twisting to take the brunt of their landing. ]
Brekker. [ the wind has been knocked out of him, but kaz has taken a blow to the head, red blood standing out starkly against the gleaming white around them. he dislodges himself from his arms — how is he managing to hold on? — and carefully cradles the side of his head, holding him still to take stock of the wound. he strips both of their goggles off to get a better look at kaz's eyes, his chest twinging like it always does when he loses himself in the sky. they're just how he remembers, thinking he wouldn't get a chance to see them this close again. ] Brekker. Look at me. Why did you — just look at me.
[ without thinking, he slips his gloves off to graze his fingertips gently down his temple, carefully thumbing snow from his cheek. kaz's lids flutter, his breath pooling out of him in a cloud. ] It's okay. You're all right. Open your eyes and look at me, Brekker. Let me see you.
the truth had reverberated through her like a drum: lyra's true identity, lyra's fate. the fact that she will never be safe as long as the magisterium endures. and the equally large blow: that there is no question of where marisa coulter's loyalties lie. she had been the church's most devoted, ruthless agent, and now
she thinks of dr. mary malone, asking about her work, her papers; and now
she thinks of lyra, lyra, her daughter, and she imagines her dead, or alive and causing
both are unthinkable.
she meets kaz brekker in the crow club. her dress is flattering but modest, a jewel-bright blue that matches her pumps. she would have to be stupid, surely, to wander around the barrel dressed like this, and without any obvious weapons. and yet: she's here, seated at a table alone, tapping her perfect nails expectantly. before her is a glass of something quite strong, going by the smell. she's drunk maybe half of it, a little smudge of lipstick on the rim. ]
[ in ketterdam, the gangsters — not merchers — wear colour. rich tones, like what marisa coulter wears now, though not in the same, refined manner. there’s a similarity in the gesture; that’s all. hiding in plain sight or not hiding at all. no fear of attention, to be sure.
kaz joins her table in his usual layers of blacks, apart from his coat and hat, left in his office. angles his chair out, extending his bad leg, like he might leave at any moment. his gaze flits from her to a boisterous table nearby and back.
he folds his gloved hands over the glinting topper of his cane, head tilting to one side. ]
I heard a rumour… [ rasp measured and even, brows faintly arched. ] that you’ve asked after me.
[ and since she’s here, he can only assume she received a clear answer regarding his whereabouts and proclivities. ]
[ they regroup at the ship that night, all of them somewhat worse for wear, where nikolai announces that they'll case the tunnels in smaller groups in the morning — and pointedly ignores the murderous glare kaz gives him when he leaves him off the list. when the meeting breaks he sends a healer to tend to kaz in the privacy of his room while nikolai shuts himself in his own chambers and heaves up the little he could force himself to eat at dinner. he'd very confidently claimed to kaz that he wasn't sick but merely adjusting to his vile death potion — technically not a lie. maybe a bit of a lie. he only knows that it's not natural to slow one's heartbeat to a near catatonic state each night and that there are bound to be unpleasant side effects. he swears his pulse hasn't felt normal since he started taking it — it's either enormously fast or slow as molasses, neither of which feel enjoyable.
it's slow now. maybe he's just tired. after bathing, he stares at his bed in distracted contemplation as the seconds turn into minutes, trying to muster even an ounce of enthusiasm at the thought of sleep. maybe he could if sleep wasn't a completely elusive concept to him these days — or maybe if brekker was presently in his bed. he turns to his shelf and selects a heavy bottle of brandy, crossing the room as he guzzles down a generous swallow, then another. tries to convince himself to stay in his room, because kaz will eventually show up to shackle and dose him. drowning sounds more appealing.
after snagging two crystal glasses, he strides down to kaz's room and catches the healer leaving with a scowl. unsurprising — kaz is remarkably resistant to grisha healers. he's remarkably resistant to a lot of things, and surprisingly open to others, the most interesting puzzle nikolai has set his hands to in quite some time. he enters without knocking. ]
Don't be rude to my crew, Brekker. I've thrown men off this ship for less. [ you've already thrown him off this ship. he sets the bottle down with a too-heavy thud, feeling suddenly off balance. the waves. a glance at kaz, looking steady. not the waves, then. just him. his chest rises around a somewhat labored breath. ] If you've been plotting a speech to make known your displeasure for dropping you from tomorrow's activities, don't waste your breath. You won't change my mind, and none of my crew will take you, anyway. I'm not going, either. And yes, it is quite marvelous to be the captain of this ship. It makes me very important and everyone just listens to me.
[ he pours both glasses and brings one to kaz, held by the rim in his gloved hand. his eyes are sharp despite his fatigue, unwilling to entertain the idea of being banished to his quarters for another night alone. ]
Do you want to know the very best thing about not being a king anymore? I have regained the ability to get very drunk. I'll do it alone if I must, but it would please me if you embarked on this journey with me. [ he paces the room slowly, picking up kaz's hat and moving to the mirror to settle it on his head. ] So much black. What do you have against colors? Tell me, Brekker — [ he turns, catching his eye as he takes a drink, the hat sitting atop his tousled hair. ] What attracts you to someone? I know there had to have been people before me. You're not blind and I know you're not innocent, either.
[ standing beside his dresser, kaz has only just fished a clean shirt out of the drawers when nikolai barges in — unexpected, not entirely unwelcome. well, his sour face assures nikolai that he remains annoyed about being kept behind (and near furious that nikolai is right to do so). his head aches dully after submitting it to the healer’s attention. worse, he thought he’d have more time to clear his thoughts, to turn over everything that happened in the cave, before he faced nikolai tonight.
the way nikolai falters straightens his spine (is he hurt from the fall? has he been drinking?). kaz quickly pulls the shirt over his head, so that he’s dressed for whatever happens next and blows out an annoyed huff of air, unwilling to dignify nikolai’s lecture with a response. still, he accepts the drink in his still-gloved hands, something wary in his eyes, which track nikolai flitting about his room. it feels strange to have him here, in his singularly isolated space on the ship — kept frightfully tidy and empty, apart from his personal effects. letters relating to his business in ketterdam are filed in the small desk with spare munitions.
gangsters wear colour, merchers wear black. he ignores how easily he could pass these little truths to nikolai, instead devoting his thoughts to the puzzle of why nikolai would seek his company at all. the second question heightens the arch of his brows, and he pivots to a new concern. why do you want to know? ]
Oh, when they demand I entertain them, for a start. [ mild yet cutting, as is his way. ] If you want to play captain in this room, you can drink alone — and leave my hat out of it. [ jesper bought him that one, after its predecessor was shot full of holes in a standoff. that’s the only reason the band is navy, not black, and shimmers faintly in the lamplight. the way that nikolai delights in amusing himself reminds him of jesper (and nina), too. that must be why he has a high tolerance for it. years of practice. ] If you want to deal me in, for every question that I answer, you owe me a truth of your own.
[ those are his terms. he lifts his glass, mouth hidden by the rim, buying time to craft an answer when it isn't something he's ever considered in simple terms. being attracted to someone has always been a problem, for him, in need of surgical excision. even so, imogen’s crooked smile comes to mind as quickly as nikolai’s grin and inej’s laugh. confidence, competence, bravery, the warmth he lacks himself — he crosses to perch on the edge of his bed, extending his legs and hooking the bad over the good at the ankle. ]
I’ve seen all types in the Barrel, [ his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t know whether to smile or frown, so he settles for neither. ] and been looked at, I suppose. [ not blind, no. ] But if anyone notices me in that way, [ a snap of his fingers. ] I snuff the spark. [ in imogen, jesper’s fledgling crush, menagerie girls that he can’t say whether heleen would have killed for trying to seduce him or for not trying hard enough. expression blank, he gives a lopsided shrug, relying on his good shoulder. ] It’d kill them even faster than it would kill me, to let it burn. [ he had nearly killed inej with a single look, and she’s the strongest person he’s ever known. ] However many you think there have been, halve the number. They need to be clever enough to sneak up on me, if I’m to pay them any attention. After that — [ he cants his head to the side, eyes sharpening on nikolai. ] Stubbornness helps.
[ otherwise, it’s not a set thing, if someone manages to overcome the first hurdle — inej and imogen had both been dangerous, but imogen is more like nikolai on the surface, smiling and talking about nothing. crueller though, which he liked about as much as the fact that nikolai and inej aren’t, not in the way true canal rats learn to be. kaz knocks back a generous swig before he dares ask his question. ]
What attracts you to me?
[ none who came before (or who might come after) concern him. he has nikolai now, for however long this lasts, and he wants to know why. ]
[ hiding in plain sight is its own form of safety. ketterdam's cobbled streets are infested with conmen and rats alike: all of them scavenging for the scraps they need to survive, all of them scurrying back to their nests with their treasures in tow. alina starkov is no exception — designed for this, perhaps, when she had been born a mouse. unseen, overlooked, ideal for hiding in the nooks and crannies ana kuya would sweep her from. and what better hole could a mouse find, if not the barrel?
here, she isn't the only pretender that's crawled out of the walls. there's a sankta alina at nearly every corner, alive or presumed dead; vendors boast sales of her finger bones to bring good fortune and women promise the desecration of saints in their brothels, gangs claim to have her blessing of protection and merchants trick coin from believers with their illusions. no one expects the authentic prize in a city where currency is hailed as a king, and trickery acts as keys to the kingdom.
and she is just that — a prize. a score. the whispers churn through ketterdam's rain-slicked alleyways until they're a storm battering down every door, tense with the promise of royal riches for the safe return of ravka's sun summoner. the influence of sturmhond, alina thinks, and all of the crowns he wears: prince, privateer, liar. another man in power she hadn't dared to trust when she'd stolen away from his ship, the sea whip's scales glinting iridescent in the sunlight.
her audience's gaze never lingers on it for long, too awed by the spectacle she provides. it's little more than a dedicated prop, as far as the opera house is concerned, and she is nothing more than a performer fiercely protective of the secrets of her craft — ever dutifully devoted to her role. the fake, the fraud, she has always been — capable of the illusion of salvation, but never the promise of it. the projection of the hope they've created in their minds. it's familiar, in a way that has her mind slicing back to old wounds. all those wistful eyes. all of the costuming to turn her unrecognizable, drowning in someone else's dreamt-up version of alina starkov.
she can't shed it quickly enough. her heels click on creaking, polished wood in her rush to her dressing room, leaving behind a swinging velvet curtain and the roar of voices beyond it. the room is a gaudy eyesore, bedecked in marbled whites and glinting golds, in what the lantsovs would surely see as a mockery of their palace. it sparkles in the backdrop of her vanity's mirror as she sets herself in front of it, frowning at what she finds in its glass surface.
a swath of a black shadow, haunting the far corner. she swallows around a heartbeat rooted in her throat, tumbling down into the hollow of her chest once her vision sharpens on the stark differences. the wicked scythe of cheekbones, a rasp of leather crinkling at his fingertips. an uninvited spirit, but not the ghost she fears summoning. dirtyhands, a far cry from darkling. alina's fingers loosen a gilded hairpin from a tumbling river of dark hair, regardless, testing its knife-edged point. not the subtlest stab at self-preservation, but unapologetically bold, if he's come to threaten her. he would hardly be the first.
like the orphanage, respect from ketterdamn's monsters can only be earned through fearlessness. ]
There isn't enough holy water in Ketterdam to save any of us, if you're looking for a baptism.
[ a dry quip, belonging to a voice uncharacteristically gentle in the barrel. softness wrapped in steel, learning to forge herself; too brittle, and the world will shatter you. too brittle, and men like the darkling take it upon themselves to bend you to a shape that suits their vision. she watches from the corner of her eyes, heavy-lidded with crystalline glitter and a question that sparks just the same. kaz brekker has never struck her as a believer, much less a man that would waste his kruge on a private audience with a nobody performer and part-time prophet.
she shuffles dainty fingers through painted cards stacked at the end of her vanity table, all the same, the light of her haloed crown aglow in the burnished lantern light. ]
Unless you came just to complain about my DeKappel forgery. I charge an extra fee for nagging, you know.
[ her one and only brush with the crows. whatever jesper has done with her commissioned product — well, that isn't her business. she's since learned you don't get far in ketterdam if you stick your nose where it doesn't belong. it's gotten her far enough that no one has ever dared to question why orphaned alya looks like a living forgery of sankta alina's portraits, at the very least, and it'll get her far enough to ravka's shores once she can safely stow away. ]
[ kaz brekker’s relentless search for a saint has yielded only pale imitations. after assessing a fabrikator old enough to be his grandmother (who claimed general kirigan stole her youth) and a heartrender with the right build, dyed hair, and a passable accent (who slowed his pulse just to accentuate her offer of a healing kiss, for the right price), he had begun to wonder if this scheme was too outlandish, even for him. as if his list of requirements — including a journey across the shadow fold, a con to dupe an entire country, a girl capable of sainthood, and an impossible escape — wasn't enough of a tip in that direction. for a collection of jewels from ravka's treasury, valued at twenty million kruge, it seems a straightforward thing, if only one has a plan.
the wraith wants no part in it beyond sharing whispers, sacrilegious as his scheme aspires to be, which unbalances kaz more than he’ll admit. jesper has been game enough to bed one false saint and vet countless others, at least. ultimately, the promising lookalikes comprise a tidemaker who cracked within an hour of his shark-eyed scrutiny and the heartrender, who hadn’t appreciated his blatant disinterest in her services. you’ll have to apologise if we pick her, and i’ll have to be there to support you, of course had been jesper’s lilting conclusion. in truth, neither girl is good enough. he needs a one-of-a-kind fake. the opera’s con-artist is their last hope. surely she can act, if nothing else.
steeled for disappointment, kaz slips backstage at the ketterdam opera house through a hidden entrance, curiously omitted from the historic house’s floorplan after its restoration five years prior by an architect known to gamble at the crow club. silent as a spectre, he partakes in a moment’s observation. from the back, the cascade of alya's nightshade hair looks more saintly than her gleaming crown.
when she rounds on him, his breath catches in his throat. after weeks spent memorising the smudgy lines of the crown’s wanted poster and acquiring multiple accounts of sankta alina’s presentation at the winter fête, kaz could paint the sun summoner on the backs of his eyelids. the best thieves are artists of a kind, aren’t they? imaginative, daring, adroit, dexterous. as he watches her shuffle the deck, his hand flexes atop his cane.
he allows his boots to scrape once against the tiled floor of her dressing room, gaudier than her fellow singing birds’ tapestried cages. lifting his cane — an act which might frighten common lions and gulls — he knocks up the brim of his hat with the glinting topper to reveal his angular face. the lamplight swings across it like a rising flame as he bows just so, head aloft. his blue eyes, stark against the macabre white of his skin and layered blacks of his attire, flit from her fair features to the jewelled pin in her hand, sharpening the arch of his brows. all the right details, arranged impeccably, tied off with boldness. she could do. ]
I took my sacrament in the river of the dead long ago, [ in a drawling ravkan accent. ] moi sankta. [ as if he’s an ageless, lifeless thing. according to the rumours that run along every canal, distorted as sound over water, he is. demon, monster, bastard. anything but a boy. his (perhaps surprisingly) light tread carries him along the wall, gaze mapping the valuables decorating the space. a gloved finger runs along a shining frame and comes away brushed gold. cheap. the work of the set department, no doubt, not the hand that forged a dekappel oil. ]
If I knew anything of a DeKappel forgery, I’d notify the gallant stadwatch. Long may they shield us from harm. [ a withering glance over his shoulder, seeking her face. with all the unfeeling neutrality typical of his rock-salt rasp, he adds. ] Fakes dilute the market — and our fine city’s unshakable voorhent. [ integrity, essential to its continued industry and prosperity. only a faint spark of life in his blues tells of a joke. ]
But if you’ve found your artist’s wages wanting — [ he pauses, turning to face her fully, a blight against the gold-white wall. first, his focus drops to her wrists, checking for a tattoo that signifies the claim of another gang. then, his mouth hooks higher on one side. ] — we may yet have holy business to discuss.
[ since he worships at the church of barter, as all respectable merchants do. once the offer has been slid across the space between them, his eyes never leave her. a healer and a pretender had fear shaking their every movement by this point. his reputation precedes him, after all. and to work with a crow is to make an enemy of every other gang in ketterdam, including pekka rollins' fearsome lions, who've taken a liking to snapping up grisha. since the sun summoner's return, demand has been high for deserters and potential assets both. a vile, volatile market. better to break the damn thing than be snared in its swinging scales. ]
[ even if he doesn't sleep, even if he all he does is keep kaz in the circle of his arms and soothe him back to his dreams each time his eyes flutter open like a fragile pair of butterfly wings — he expects nothing less of the bastard of the barrel than to be a frightfully fitful sleeper — at least he gets his wish. one night together. and then he doesn't see him for weeks.
returning home comes with little fanfare. zoya is furiously upset, even more so when his nimble fingers slip the old iron key around her neck again. nikolai laughs it off and consoles her with stories of nina's happiness and peculiar royal lover, then insists to be held in the dungeons until they sort out the issue of the heart. zoya has his windows and doors barred and locks him in his chambers instead.
he finds himself penning letters in his head but putting none to paper, knowing kaz would have arrived in ravka shortly after him. no visitors, he'd told tamar, tolya, genya, zoya. not even kaz brekker. when he wakes one afternoon and finds his bedroom in complete disarray, his bedding shredded, feathers strewn across the floor, a chair in pieces and one leg of his heavy wooden desk splintered, he knows he made the right decision. tolya helps him clean up and the servants are none the wiser, quite used to nikolai's odd behavior when it comes to his privacy and highly forgiving when he flashes his charming smile and spares a moment to flirt away the gossip he doesn't want and replace it with gossip he doesn't mind.
he shrugs it off when tolya reports that kaz has sailed back to ketterdam, but he tries again that night to write a letter, hoping it will ease the perplexing ache in his chest. what can he say? his bed feels empty and so do his arms. he misses their late nights together, watching the candlelight dance across the angles of kaz's sharp face. the ground feels too steady beneath his feet these days, the gently rocking waves too faraway. the silence is far too loud, wholly different from the comfortable quiet they used to share. the crumpled paper and quill ends up tossed aside, the ink spilled across his gleaming new desk, and tamar doesn't ask about his disposition when she chains him in for the night and doses him with some new concoction of genya's meant to ease his previous symptoms.
zoya makes the trip to the thorn wood with the heart, tamar by her side, along with a small army of sun summoners. nikolai chafes against not being there, but somehow he feels it the moment the darkling is released. it's the moment he mauls tolya in his chambers and rends apart the iron bars at his windows, escaping into the night. it's worse than fjerda, because it's ravka. word travels of a monster in the skies. word travels that it's none other than the former demon king turning on his own citizens, pillaging towns on the outskirts of os alta that same night. it takes a day and a half for flyers to reach zoya in the snowy mountains, and longer still for the dragon queen to pick up nikolai's trail. by then she isn't the only one hunting him.
peril in ravka is nothing out of the ordinary, the troubled country constantly making tired headlines in papers around the world, but the storm in os alta is all that's talked about for days. beloved former king nikolai lantsov murders ravkan citizens in the streets of os alta, and then a week later — assassination attempt on former lantsov king narrowly fails thanks to intervention by the ravkan crown.
amidst all of this, a letter crosses kaz brekker's desk, sealed with the newly minted nazyalensky crest and hand-delivered by a fresh-faced member of zoya's court. the letter is an invitation to the palace for a job of the highest security, and the courier places a parcel containing an amber gemstone a remarkably similar shade to nikolai's eyes in his hand, murmuring that a ship is departing for os alta in an hour and queen nazyalensky needs him to be on it.
it's closer to three hours later when they depart, but the courier is too shaken by kaz's dead-eyed stares to comment on the time.
kaz is ushered immediately to see zoya upon his arrival, who looks exhausted and still frightfully powerful, standing before him in glittering scales of armor. she wastes no time, clearing the room so that they might talk freely, and then begins to explain. ]
Nikolai has lost his wits. [ she expels a breath, crosses her arms, and starts over. ] He has the demon in check. Mostly. Those aren't the wits he's lost. He was captured by a group of Ravkan hunters who intended to make a spectacle of his murder. Payback for — the things the monster did. They held him in captivity for a week, bled him out slowly, and Nikolai, fool that he is, did nothing. Had conversations with them. Said he would take the punishments that he deserved. They were going to kill him, and he was going to let them if Tamar and I hadn't found them in time. And then he intentionally distracted us so that they got away. So when I say that he's lost his wits, I mean that he's let go of every bit of self-preservation in that fast-talking brain of his while his would-be killers run free without consequence for laying hands on a man who's done nothing but give his entire life to a country that's offered him no thanks or comfort for his sacrifices. And that's where you come in.
Hunt them. Find them. Kill them. Make an example of them. Not a hint of the crown can be involved, and neither can your name. But Ravka needs to know that this won't go unpunished, and if I need to fabricate the fact that this entire country hasn't turned on Nikolai, then I will. Tell me what you need for this job, who you need to bring, and name your price by morning. And if you breathe a word of this conversation outside of this room, I will pop your lungs like a pair of overripe melons on a hot summer day. There's a room ready for you where you can set your things down.
[ instead of leaving him to a servant, she walks him down the hall to show him to his suite herself, sunny chambers with bright walls and gauzy curtains wafting in the afternoon breeze, kaz appearing like a blot of spilled ink against all the white. she squints and — without asking — leads him down to nikolai's chambers next, where tolya opens the door for them and nikolai's comically mournful voice immediately carries through the large rooms. ]
Genya, what can you do about this scar? [ he's dressed only in trousers, his ribs and left shoulder wrapped in bandages, but it's his face he's examining closely in a full-length mirror, long fingers ghosting down neat stitches that travel down his temple all the way to his jaw. genya shakes her head, packing up her leather case of vials and tinctures. ]
In a few days, Nikolai, I told you. Be patient. It's almost healed and then I will make it disappear, and you will be handsome again — and twice as annoying.
Are you saying I'm not handsome now?
[ zoya clears her throat. ] Get decent. You have a guest.
[ nikolai turns at the sound of her voice, his breath catching when he finds kaz standing beside her. he's dreaming. he has to be. there's no way kaz brekker is in ravka right now, much less in his chambers, much less beside zoya — why is he beside zoya? his heart tries to grow three sizes in his chest while his brain takes off with a hundred thoughts — kaz is in ravka, kaz is here, kaz can be in his arms again, zoya is scheming, zoya is doing the thing he told her not to, zoya is dragging kaz into a mess of his own making. he's happy and he's angry at once, his mouth pulling into a brief smile while his breath tumbles out of him tightly. ]
Thank you, Genya. [ his words are clipped, and he's staring at zoya. ] A moment alone with Mister Brekker?
I'll take these. [ zoya strides in and snatches up his revolvers from the table. ] Who let you even have them?
I've had them forever, Zoya.
You don't need them, Nikolai.
[ the heavy doors slam shut, the locks sliding into place. nikolai is suddenly aware of every little detail that he never planned for kaz to ever see — his bandaged wounds, the evidence of his face sliced wide open, his chambers set up like a prison with iron bars at the windows and heavy chains at his bed. his desk is covered with books, scrawls, and sketches — normal — and half-finished letters to kaz — not normal. he runs a bare hand through his tousled hair and looks around halfheartedly for a shirt. ]
Did she bring you here for a job? [ it's not what he wants to say to kaz after so much time apart. weeks. months. the time has bled into a blur, days of pretending, nights full of terrors, guilt so heavy he thinks it might crush him. so much has happened, so much has changed. there's so much he's decided that he hasn't said to anyone yet. ] Don't take it. Tell the Ravkan crown to fuck off, Brekker, and take the first ship back to Ketterdam. She shouldn't have brought you here.
[ in the absence of connection, kaz brekker does what he has since he that night in the harbour, what he does best — the work. traitor unmasked, prize won, and zoya thoroughly ruffled by his antics. it’s a success by some metric, if rather hollow to find himself back at the start, position unchanged by the journey. his nights in ketterdam are no less late, but they’re quieter without nikolai whirring around the room beside him or chattering about nothing at all.
as is his way, kaz doesn’t write. didn’t leave much unsaid in their last conversation, anyhow, asking for more than nikolai was willing to give (always asking for more than anyone can give, it seems). he half-expects nikolai to send something, since he generally has in the time they’ve been apart. the disappointment crests and fades when letters never come. nikolai is either too preoccupied with his demon or rebuffing kaz’s invitation as assuredly as his visit to ravka. things forged in the dark wither in the light of day. he’s always known that. this is only a reminder.
the whispers — then headlines — coming out of ravka are, admittedly, unsettling. anika slams a kerch paper, detailing the foiled assassination attempt, on his desk and asks if he’s heard anything about their crew. they’re not our crew is his crisp reply, even as his eyes rake over the scant details of the story. he knows she means to ask if nikolai and tamar both have survived this incident, but he has no answer for her and won’t swallow his pride enough to seek one. zenik writes asking after all he knows of ravka’s troubles, and he pens a curt, truthful response. if nikolai has shut out his closest friends, there’s no reason for kaz to be any different, precarious as his position was in that circle.
the saints have a cruel sense of humour, leaving nikolai disgraced and kaz brekker honoured for his heroism. now, the trouble with royals is in the association. you retrieve an ancient knickknack for one and suddenly everyone has something they want stolen — or something precious to protect. he skims a barrage of letters from the council, zemeni ministers, and even the shu royal family. at the sight of a familiar hued seal, his heart stutters. upon closer inspection, the dragon emblem gives it away as zoya’s hand, and he nearly bins it on sight. curiosity tempts him to read the contents first, though he forms a rejection as he processes it, demanding more information. then, kaz decides that if zoya’s desperate enough to write urgently, he’s intrigued enough to hear her offer. in his own time, naturally. his ship charts a course for ravka but it holds enough supplies to keep sailing and answer his other summons, if he so chooses.
a regrettable thing, really, that he’s been called to provide a service outwith his purview. he tells zoya as much on the way to his room. i’m a thief, not a ravkan dog. they have soldiers of their own for butcher’s work. saints, he could introduce her to reputable mercenaries if she really wants this done cleanly. inej would council him to reject this likely underpaid proposition. anika does, in fact, whisper her objections to him before she splits off to her quarters. his personal interest in routing out those who might have taken nikolai from this world, however willingly he’d follow them, is all that keeps him from spurning this foolishness outright.
still, zoya manages to surprise him by not showing him the war room and instead escorting him directly to nikolai lantsov, the very person he’d naively wished to avoid on this errand. the sound of his voice twists something in his heart, and he shoots nazyalensky a warning glance.
at odds with kaz’s crisp suit, the room is in a state. nikolai is in a state, which only serves to heighten that painful, burrowing sensation in his chest. greedily, kaz snatches the updated details of his person, marked by those zoya would have him kill but blessedly alive. kaz had hoped that even if he saw nikolai, the want inside him would lie dormant, but of course it doesn’t. impossible for the starving to be satisfied with scraps. ]
[ eyes cold and deep as the sea, ] Would that be worse than if I came here for you? [ holding up a hand to stop any response. a withering look suggests he hasn’t. nikolai does not want you here; he has never wanted you here. reminders as icily sharp as the fjerdan air. unfortunately, his spiteful instincts find the job all the more tempting, now that he’s been advised against it. with concerted effort, he tears his gaze from nikolai’s scarred face and limps toward the windows. ]
You’ll be relieved to hear I only go where I choose, as ever. [ brought him here, please. even the fearsome zoya finds him altogether difficult to manage. he tosses his cane and catches it in the middle of the staff, rapping it lightly against the bars. presumably, these are of a new make than whatever nikolai burst through the last time. fascinating. ] And that I’m out of your price range, besides. [ he turns back toward nikolai, loosening his grip so the cane slides through his braceletted fingers until they hit the topper. ] Perhaps if the dragon queen gave me access to your books, I could steer you in a more profitable direction. [ tipping his free hand this way and that, a gesture of approximation. ] For a fair percentage. [ he knocks up the brim of his hat with two fingers, allowing the light to illuminate his faintly quirked mouth. ] As it stands, Queen Ehri has expressed interest in buying out the competition for my services.
[ kaz folds both hands over the raven’s head of his cane. ]
I’ll hear any counteroffers, but she has the largest treasury — [ one he considered robbing, after shu han opened its gates to him. ] — and she’s far sweeter on me than Nazyalensky. [ mildly, ] Did you find her to be reliable when you were courting?
[ if they’re not talking about nikolai’s tragic appearance, the demon, the assassination, or the job (as per nazyalensky’s polite request), they may as well discuss something of use to him. perhaps he’s curious whether nikolai would mind him swapping allegiances and risking his life for another crown, too, since his devotion to queen and country seems to have finally reached its limit, somewhere between his self-destructive tendencies and whatever drives his consistent attempts to send kaz away. best not to theorise about the latter, so he resists the urge for the time being. ]
[ he changes overnight. when kaz comes to see to him in the morning, nikolai's chambers are already empty, a lone guard standing by to direct him to the dining hall where the triumvirate sits around a lavish breakfast spread. nikolai is the very picture of a gleaming royal in military dress, all shiny buttons and perfectly polished boots, gesturing animatedly with a roll in hand as he relays the tail end of an outlandish joke while kaz walks in. his eyes gravitate toward him, an ink stain of sharp lines and edges, drinking in his appearance for barely a second before his gaze seems to pass right through him, sliding away as his attention returns to genya, his mouth moving while his brain barely registers a word.
their tether has broken. that much he knows for sure. whatever pull he feels now — and he certainly feels it — is simply muscle memory, an ache of a loss, a longing for something that isn't there. other emotions cloud his senses when he looks at kaz now. a lightning-hot, jagged line of anger. anger that he would test him like this. that he would throw an ultimatum down at his feet. but mostly that he would back him into a corner, that he would clock his weakness and use it against him. your competitors would at least pay me to douse her with the blood of the last lantsov king. he has no idea if brekker would really do it. months ago, hidden away on their vast corner of the sea, he would've been confident in the answer. now, he suspects there might be two demons at the table.
he hasn't slept a wink, and the evidence is in the shadows beneath his eyes that genya hasn't yet tailored away, but nothing else is out of place as he lounges in his chair, an easy smile on his lips, plunking sugar into his coffee. kaz is allowed a moment to settle before zoya presents him with the plan nikolai had convinced her of before dawn. kaz and his crew will be paid to find the families of nikolai's victims so that the crown can make amends. nikolai has requested to speak with each of them personally in a controlled environment, to be as open and honest as possible about the reality of what took place. and he'd promised her to put the entire notion of death behind him. he refuses to make eye contact with anyone as she relays this to kaz, instead propping his feet onto an empty chair and juggling a set of oranges while he challenges tamar to hit one with a knife in mid-air. genya chastises them to take their games elsewhere, which he gladly does, and as he leaves the room with the twins at his side, he hears her thank kaz for returning nikolai back to them.
he is not permitted to accompany kaz on the job, but zoya does allow him to travel outside of the palace with tamar and tolya after he puts on a show of several days of good behavior. it all comes second-nature to him, falling back into the familiar role of the dutiful nikolai lantsov, confident and unbothered, burying his guilt and grief in places no one else can see. no one but brekker, when he catches him staring like a damned reaper across the gleaming palace halls, making him feel suddenly transparent, a hollow piece of fool's gold. sometimes his eyes will flicker black for precious seconds at a time, and he'll come shuddering back to the present to find that steady blue sky watching him shrewdly, as if he knows his entire life is just one flimsy lie, a pretense, a projection of what he needs to be for everyone else. then nikolai's anger will come rushing back all over again, and he'll turn a corner so he doesn't have to look at kaz brekker's fucking face and wonder whether he wants to kiss him or hit him more.
nights are the worst. everything he's running from catches up to him then, his paltry sleep plagued with terrors, his nerves fraying more and more when he thinks about what he can possibly say to his victims, his heart aching with loneliness. he tells himself again and again that he can't die, not yet, but it doesn't make him want for it any less. he wants it as much as he wants kaz in his bed, for a return to what they used to have. he drinks until he can't see straight, then pulls out the little box left untouched since the moment kaz threw at it him that night they last spoke. he spends half an hour drunkenly trying to make sense of the puzzle, then throws a robe on and leaves his chambers, walking carefully down the darkened hallway toward kaz's suite, waving at the guard to open the doors for him. the perks of being nikolai lantsov.
he doesn't bother announcing himself, slipping inside, half-expecting a knife to his throat as he slides heavily onto the bed, smelling of sweet brandy, brow furrowed, unfocused eyes trained on the box in hand. ]
It's people. My weakness has always been people. That's how you control me. [ his voice is quietly rough from his earlier attempts at sleep. ] My parents figured that out when I was a child. They brought on a whipping boy to be tutored beside me. When I misbehaved, he'd be punished. It was an extremely effective method to set me on the straight and narrow, at least until I got better at breaking the rules without being caught. When you threatened Zoya's throne you knew you could get me to agree to whatever terms you wanted. When did you figure out it was that easy to get me to heel?
[ he feels less anger now. maybe the brandy is dulling his senses. his bare, clumsy fingers fidget with the box, clicking pieces into place. ] I wouldn't use your condition against you, but I suppose I did throw you into the sea once.
[ his trick works, magicking nikolai back to a version of himself overnight. gilded smile on display, uniform polished. both catch his eyes like the harsh glare of the sun, an intolerable brightness. thank you for bringing him back to us reverberates through the too-large halls of the palace. it’s an unholy reanimation. a steep price paid to achieve the prestige: their connection shattered, nikolai’s true self subsumed, and — worst of all — kaz brekker doing glorified public relations for half the price of his actual job. he should have taken the kir-taban deal the moment it crossed his desk.
these days, he rarely sleeps well, but he still sleeps. only human, despite the rumours (and jesper convincing rotty that he retires to a coffin each night).
as the door to his room creaks open, kaz lifts his head, bare fingers sliding over the handle of a knife beneath his pillow before a sliver of moonlight illuminates nikolai’s face. his chest strains, breath caught beneath cracked ribs, trying to contain the staccato thudding of his heart. it shouldn’t be doing that. it hasn’t been, for the most part, since they last spoke. easy to behold the man wearing nikolai’s skin and keep his affection for the genuine article locked away. he pushes himself upright in a rush to look closer, hair falling into his face, worsening the disarray from his fitful rest. swallowing, he manages to clear his features at the expense of an uneven part.
immediately, he knows that the real nikolai visits him tonight. weary, handsome — dulled by brandy or tonic. brandy, he concludes, its sweetness wafting off nikolai where he makes himself comfortable on the bed. with a jolt, kaz clocks the puzzle box, still unopened, in his fumbling hands. distracted as he is by the sight of it and nikolai both, he processes the story from nikolai’s childhood on a delay. once he dampens the flare of anger at the thought of the elder lantsovs, his answer comes after a noticeable pause. ]
Everyone has their levers, and most count people among them. [ voice slow and thick with sleep, ] Even barrel bosses have lovers on the geldstraat and children secreted away. [ except him, obviously, a demon alone among humans. he thinks of pekka rollins’ boy, and the look on inej’s face when she thought kaz had killed him. nikolai won’t forgive you for this. is that why he’d hesitated, despite having this dagger in hand when he entered his miserable room? proof of yet another weakness flourishing under nikolai’s golden warmth. ] When you came to Ketterdam asking me to steal titanium for you, I knew. [ that zoya was a lever, albeit a difficult one to pull, given her fierceness. long before his first injury in nikolai’s presence, prior to anything unspooling between them. ] You’ll recall you threatened the Wraith at the time.
[ a noncommittal shrug. they’re bastards and monsters, both when they need to be and sometimes even when they don’t. his eyes flicker from nikolai’s hands to his face, blinking away his surprise at that last comment. ]
No, you wouldn’t. [ in a tone that suggests the opposite, the line of his mouth taut. ] You weren’t using it — [ avoiding the term condition, with how it connotes sickness, even if that’s how he thinks of his aversion privately. ] — each time you tried to scare me off in your room. [ grazing his knee and wondering aloud whether he could withstand another’s touch, pushing him quick and mocking his inability to hold nikolai through this. it worked, he doesn’t say, warping their physical connection into unpleasantness, the memory of nausea then and the threat of his proximity now intertwined. his focus drops to nikolai’s clever fingers on the box. ] And you’re not invoking it now, by coming here in the night without warning. [ when kaz sits exposed, without his suit of armour to protect him. gloveless, shirtless, covers pooling at his waist. he scoffs, averting his gaze to smooth the irritation (or worse, the hurt) from his expression. a click of his tongue. ] How gallant.
[ if that isn’t using his condition against him, he’s loathe to see what qualifies. revealing it publicly, perhaps, to allies and enemies alike. defanging the great and terrible kaz brekker with a whispered weakness. he wouldn’t do that, if only because of what kaz would do in return.
true to his accusations, his self-consciousness doubles with nowhere to hide it. can’t flick lint off your suit or adjust your sleeves while sat in your damn underwear. instead, he crosses his arms over his chest. the box audibly clicks as its pieces are shifted into the correct place. inevitable, then, that nikolai will crack it in his presence. the way he wanted him to, the way he’d rather he bloody didn’t now. it seems ridiculous to have bothered with a present at all — even with the kaleidoscope nikolai gifted him resting on its velvet sleeve on his desk, otherwise home only to his businesses' papers and books. it was foolish to have brought anything for a prince, who has everything he wants but absolution and needn’t trouble himself with what he doesn’t, like you.
still, his eyes stray back to nikolai. he leans over to the side table to retrieve his bone light from the drawer, scattering the shadows between them and illuminating his deathlike paleness with its green glow. better that he can see nikolai clearly and anticipate his movements. watch his hands, he thinks, blues stuck to his profile, waiting for the moment the box clicks open. ]
[ kaz, of course, leaves him behind. he's gone before they can have a proper conversation in the daylight, the meeting moved up and done without his knowledge, the ship having already set sail for ketterdam. nikolai always knew that one day he'd enter the hellishly sunlit guest suite and find it abruptly empty, devoid of all personal effects, as untouched as before brekker had ever set foot in the palace, but it takes him by surprise all the same. foolishly, he turns over the pillows, opens the drawers, even runs his fingers behind the heavy paintings hanging from the walls, unsure of what he's looking for but hoping that he would've left something behind. a note. a puzzle. some clue for him to follow. even a sign telling him not to follow would have been better than the emptiness of knowing that kaz left without a word, without so much as a goodbye.
but he supposes whatever happened by the lake was goodbye. when nikolai had gone underwater, maybe that was to a place that kaz couldn't follow. hadn't offered him a hand. hadn't told him this could be their midnight swim, that nikolai would keep him safe and show him there was nothing to be afraid of. he grew up in that lake. always wanted to take kaz swimming in it. he should have. maybe he would still be here if he had.
presently, he has to set all his kaz-related regrets aside to deal with his other regrets. this door has been swinging shut for some time now, and perhaps this is the moment it closes for good. zoya tracks him down, taking one look at him and inquiring about brekker, and she's equal parts angry and relieved that he's gone — only angry that he left on his own terms as opposed to hers. nikolai begins the arduous task of putting it all out of his head. he has to look forward now. there's work to be done, wrongs to be made right, a heavy weight that he has to shoulder. kaz doesn't need him. at least that much is true.
once more, the weeks drag on. nikolai makes his pilgrimage with tamar and tolya at his side. he starts letters that he never finishes, never mails, but he does begin sending other things to kaz in the post, emblazoned with the lantsov seal — sketches instead of words, minimal scrawl in the margins. pieces of lazlayon. he sends the floor plan first with hardly any description, allowing kaz to puzzle out what it is on his own. then more detailed drawings of different parts of the laboratory, the different sections for the different grisha orders. the massive lake. the submarines, inside and out. some of the drawings are technical and some are picaresque, the fog helped along by squallers, the massive grounds of lush grass, the luxe mansion in count kirigan's name that disguises it all. all his secrets, sent in pieces to the crow club. he even sketches the underground tunnels that lead to the stables of the grand palace. all places he should have taken kaz to and didn't. places he knows he'll never get to see.
he imagines kaz casting his letters aside, throwing them in the fire without even opening them. wonders how angry he is, how hurt he is, and he knows he should send something more than just his drawings. he should send a proper letter with proper words. if kaz writes back, he doesn't know. he spends weeks away from the palace, and whether he has any mail from ketterdam is not a detail zoya is going to include in her own correspondence to him, sent regularly by royal couriers on horseback. nikolai doesn't ask.
he has enough on his mind anyway, spending his days with grieving families, some of them gleaning comfort from his presence, some of them looking as though they wish to grind his bones into the dirt. it's not so different from the tours he took as king, spending time connecting with the common folk, laboring side by side with them, eating in their homes, only this time he spends late hours learning the names of the dead, listening to their stories, and telling his own. his gloves come off for the first time with his people. the story they circulated years ago was that he was captured and tortured by the darkling during the civil war. now he finally fills in the details. he tells it over and over again, in every home, to every family. he leaves each night drained and still finds that sleep eludes him. he eventually caves and doses himself with genya's tonic after he nearly falls off his horse riding from one town to the next in an attempt to get some fresh air outside of the stuffy coach.
finally, the deed is done. nikolai has run out of faces in his memory. has run out of sketches to send to ketterdam. the calls for his head have stopped at least, in part thanks to his work over the long weeks, and in part thanks to kaz brekker. it stings to even think about him now that he's returned to the palace, its halls as empty to him as always, and he's quick to grow restless, the demon stirring for release after being caged for so long. with a more stable hold on it now, he goes deep into the woods and allows it the barest bit of freedom to hunt and feed to sate the growing edge of bloodlust. when it slips him back control, nikolai wrenches awake beside the ruined corpse of a small deer, blood soaking his clothes. it's all over — in his mouth, down his chin, trailing down his chest. he heaves and nothing comes up, but the demon's appetite has been slaked, curled comfortably inside of him.
zoya drags him inside when she sees him trailing the grounds covered with blood, ready to throw him in chains until he explains that it's not what it seems. she looks like she wants to take his head off herself, and he understands why. this is the last thing they need after everything he's done to repair what's been broken. one look at him and rumors will fly once more. she locks him in his chambers once more — temporary, she says — though this time he doesn't mind as much. he chains himself to his bed and promptly falls into a fitful sleep, alternating between nightmares and waking to think he'll find kaz's sapphire gaze staring back at him, but his bed remains empty, his room cold and lonely. he stares at the ring instead, stares at the blue sky once the sun rises. doesn't leave his room. doesn't want to.
after a week, he feels the demon stirring again. he knows he can control it, knows the best way to keep it tamed is to keep it fed with animal blood instead of human, so he leaves the grounds and goes to the woods again, allows it a measure of freedom. wakes again covered in blood, another corpse neatly deposited beside him, this time a boar. but this time zoya has followed him, approaching him silently, shaking out a heavy coat that she drapes over his shoulders. he shivers as she kneels beside him, her blue eyes glittering in the dark. different from his.
zoya speaks first. ] Do you have to do this?
[ not if i was dead. ] It's not a good idea to starve a monster, Zoya. This is how we keep it under control. We have something of an understanding, you see.
[ but he can already tell that she doesn't. or maybe she does see and she just doesn't like what she's looking at. he can hardly blame her. he's become a liability, a public relations disaster far worse than all the years spent speculating about his dubious parentage. but they've weathered worse storms than this. his hope is all he has, and right now, it's all in her.
and perhaps that's why it feels like something inside of him is trying to rend itself in two when she says, ] You can't stay here. [ it's the last thing he expects to hear, not because it doesn't make perfect sense, not because he doesn't deserve to hear those words, but because it's zoya. they're not supposed to come from zoya. from anyone else. just not her.
but she is a queen now, and to protect her kingdom, she has to do what needs to be done. it's a trait he respects. doesn't make it hurt any less. she doesn't shame him with pity, but she places her gloved hand over his bloodied fingers and explains what must happen. it's not exile. it's simply an absence, a way for him to minimize the possibility of disaster. nikolai lantsov is floundering, haunted by demons and unable to rest. maybe donning another face for a time will help. sturmhond could go anywhere, be anyone, work any job on the queen's orders. nikolai pretends to listen to it all with grace, but it feels like a banishment. like a punishment. maybe this is what kaz felt, the night he sent him away. maybe this was coming all along.
it's a command from his queen, and he has no choice but to follow.
of course she sends him to ketterdam, complete with a letter addressed to kaz fucking brekker. as if he's on the ravkan payroll now. it's sealed with a thick wad of blue wax impressed with the nazyalensky crest, but that doesn't stop nikolai from opening it and reading it himself. it is absolutely absurd from start to finish, a letter from zoya asking kaz brekker to watch out for him, because the night before leaving os alta, he paid a visit to lazlayon and accidentally set fire to his private workroom. by the time he left, half the mansion was in flames and count kirigan was running around the front gates with one of his ridiculous robes flapping behind him.
nikolai had watched the tidemakers put out the fire and assured count kirigan that there had been little of value left in the laboratory since the war ended and their focus had shifted away from military weapons anyway. in the letter, zoya blatantly accuses him of destroying his lab intentionally. says that nikolai has not been himself and to please keep an eye on him and — worst of all, she's enclosed a fat check to the crow club as if kaz can be paid to be his personal babysitter. he has half a mind to burn it. but the letter and the check both make it safely to the crow club, neatly resealed, and he makes it into kaz's office after picking the lock to the door instead of knocking — but only after causing a (generally positive) ruckus on the floor of the club downstairs, in true sturmhond fashion. ]
The Dragon Queen has a letter for you. [ he ignores the way his heart skips over several beats upon pushing the door wide open, half expecting either a gun or kaz's cane to his face. ] Has anyone ever suggested you invest in some skylights in here?
[ understandably, neither zoya nor nikolai are inclined to keep him informed after his magician’s exit. with no more relics to steal and, hopefully, no more demons to tend. the ill-paying ravkan work ends with the same suddenness that it began.
until the drawings arrive, that is. intricate things, made lovely by cleverness and a lingering affection for the hand that drew them. intention unclear. a threat seems unlikely, though he considers it all the same. a rebuke for having left before his promised tour is more probable. that theory splinters under the weight of their constancy and detail, however. the laboratory, the submarines, the grisha. kaz fails to understand them beyond their literal interpretation, just like he failed to understand nikolai. ‘course he keeps them all, anyway, secure beneath the false bottom of the drawer by his bed and topped with the half-written letter stolen from nikolai’s room. in return, kaz sends three pieces of correspondence back to nikolai with the crow and cup seal: the floorplan of a museum that he recently relieved of another painting, the schematics for a new lock it took him a thrilling amount of time to crack, and a design that wylan can’t quite perfect with a letter in jesper’s hand explaining the trouble. kaz is only mentioned in the postscript. PS — It’s very rude to read your friends’ correspondence, Kaz. Tip-toeing to peak over their tall, handsome shoulders is especially dastardly. This is why we give Inej all the tawdry material.
daylight dwindles in ketterdam, though you wouldn’t know it in the crow club, as moody and windowless as ever. not much better outside, in fairness, with grey clouds overhead and snow flurries melting into the salt canals. not long after sturmhond sets foot in the harbour, word zips through the dregs’ contacts until the electric shock of his arrival singes kaz himself. oh. he knew a ravkan ship was headed to kerch yesterday, but he’d refused the possibility of a visitation from this particular ghost. best not to ensnare himself in hope, after all. if the whispers are to be believed, nikolai's people have heard his story’s most gruesome chapters and chosen to accept it. no need for kaz brekker to involve himself.
the crowd downstairs sounds rowdier than it ought for this hour. his dregs will mind the floor, if there’s unwelcome trouble. and if it’s welcome? the snick of the lock draws his focus, and he meets nikolai’s eyes the moment he flings open the door. still as a statue apart from the slow arch of his brows, kaz sits at his desk, pen in hand. dressed far too smartly to be retired for the evening. beneath both his dinner jacket and overcoat, draped across his shoulders for warmth, his shirt and bow-tie bisect him with a burst of white. either because of that or the warm candlelight on his desk, he looks a shade less pale than usual. his hair remains slicked back tight enough to suggest he’s yet to attend the party, not recovering after it.
the dekappel landscape rises behind him. a farm in the shadow of a hill on one side, thick trees on the other. orange sky above it all, like a warning. another artwork has joined it since, a seascape at sunrise, hanging on the exterior wall where a window might be in any other building. no seat for nikolai to take on the other side of his desk, so as not to invite people to stay any longer than necessary — but there is a comfortable looking armchair in the back corner, books stacked atop its cushion, that jesper alone dares to clear without regard for his belongings. as with all of kaz’s residences, temporary or otherwise, he keeps the room tidy (files organised in deep drawers under lock and key). more understated than the gaudy make of the rest of the crow club because it’s for him, not the patrons.
his heart judders in his chest, and his shoulders lift in the barest tell of tension before he smooths them out. a nighttime apparition, no, it’s too early for that. it’s never sturmhond he sees besides, just nikolai. fuck. ]
If you don’t know what time it is, you can’t tell how much time has passed. [ his mouth moves without thought to steer it, voice abrading his throat. ] Perhaps you haven’t been here long at all. You’ve time for another round, a bigger bet, a chance to risk more to win back what you’ve lost already.
[ he waves a bare hand, inviting nikolai inside for the sake of pretending this was planned. a crow emblazoned cuff link catches the light as he does. he’s dressed as himself, not in a disguise.
if nikolai comes closer, he’ll find kaz’s desk to be minimalist, not devoid of personal affects. books on business theory and the new age of engineering are well-read, if not dog-eared, the neat scratching of the day’s accounts ongoing beneath his hand, a personalised deck of cards that must be suli handiwork on one side and a pair of sleek, black dress gloves resting in a clean fold on the other. in the back corner, a fat wire bird overlooks the whole of his affairs. ]
[ curiosity lifts his tone, ] Are you her delivery boy, Sturmhond? [ unless nikolai wanted to come — to see you? please. ]
[ as far as safehouses go, at least it runs close to the geldstraat. he tells himself that if he does break free, he'd rather the merchers be the first to go than the poor bastards trying to make a living in the underbelly of the barrel. more importantly, after spending longer than planned picking the damned schuyler lock, he discovers the house has a hidden cellar.
leaving the main level undisturbed, he pays a visit to little ravka and seeks out a fabrikator to forge chains of the same type that david made for him all that time ago. as sturmhond — sporting the fox's smile and still wearing his bloodied shirt — his requests are easily met. hunting a sea monster that takes the form of a drowning man. he dines in a tavern while he waits, nursing his headache with terrible ravkan swill, and buys a set of weeks old newspapers to pass the time. the horse auctions in caryeva are booming this season. the duke in grevyakin is expanding his cotton farming business into the surrounding settlements. os alta's gates will soon be open for the winter festival, sketches of zoya splashed across the front page in complicated gowns that she would never wear. an opinion piece dedicated to the fall of nikolai lantsov takes up a corner of a page, which he's in the middle of reading when a group of giggling travelers come over to beg him for stories about his adventures at sea.
it's late afternoon when the chains are done. he is no fabrikator but has spent enough time in their workrooms to fasten them securely to the stone walls himself. the demon grows more and more agitated, moving restlessly inside of him, its hunger growing at a pace that's increasingly difficult to ignore. he tests the chains anyway, giving the monster the barest measure of freedom and swiftly yanking back control when the fetters begin to cut into his wrists. but they hold fast. that's all that matters.
he thinks of penning a message to kaz and dropping it off at the white rose for milena, but in the end decides against it. he doesn't want him to come looking for him, though he knows at least after a few days of silence, he likely will. he purchases what he hopes is a complicated lock for the cellar. the rest of the safehouse he leaves untouched, as if he was never there at all. he tries to reset the schuyler lock to make it seem as though he never picked it in the first place, but is unsure if he's entirely unsuccessful, and makes a show of going back to his ship instead, making sure kaz's dregs see him. while he waits for nightfall, he repairs the kaleidoscope, fitting a new mirror inside, carefully hammering out the dent, and engraving a pattern of curving sea waves onto the slender tube to cover any trace of past damage.
it's dusk when he locks himself in the cellar with a stockpile of nourishment and brandy, iron fetters clicking around his freshly bandaged wrists and throat. the monster is starving, but he doesn't allow it a final hunt. his will is strong enough to get him through this. it has to be. it's the reason the darkling didn't choose imprisonment or torture to punish him with, fates too easy for him to endure. he thinks of his last words to zoya. it's not wise to starve a monster. but starve it he will, until it heels under his command once more. until one of them gives. it won't be him.
the chains hold. for days, the only sound he hears is the monster in his own head. no footsteps above, no rattle of the lock at the cellar door at the top of the narrow, dusty staircase. he spends more time as monster than man, howling in the dark, his claws leaving slashes in the walls and the packed earthen floor. doesn't relent when the monster leaves him battered and bruised from trying to break through the walls, just spits the blood from his mouth and washes down the pain with brandy.
he doesn't know if it makes it better or worse to think of kaz, to remember the sensation of falling asleep with him in his arms, more peaceful than he could have imagined. ruined now, thinking of the monster tearing into his flesh. trying to put it out of his mind proves unsuccessful, staring down at his bloodied hands, the ring safely tucked away in his coat. he wishes he could catch a glimpse of the sky now, dreams of it between moments of lucidity, but he finds himself in the same dark place every time his eyes open, no cracks of light, nothing to hold onto but his dwindling hope as he grapples with the monster. ]
[ for days, kaz brekker disappears. it just happens that he turns even more ghostly than usual sometimes, his shadowy presence felt but not seen until the weekend. coincidently, councilwoman van verent also goes missing after being plagued by rather nasty rumours. the canal rats say she’s been trafficking indentures to ketterdam, so it’s likely she had unsavoury associates.
she hasn’t been seen since, but in a grand reappearance, kaz attends a merchant council soirée in honour of lady van verent’s replacement. and in the company of a handsome grisha, at that. another curiosity, after the would-be singularity of the pirate. some say they glimpsed claws through his dress gloves, and that the grisha had something devilish about him, too. the next day, he deals into an exclusive poker game as the guest of a woman known for being a merciless card shark, and they both leave with heavy pockets after whispering the entire night. the latter is significantly more enjoyable than the former (unsurprising, when he’s had enough of bloody ravkans, likes winning stacks of kruge, and gets to watch his date — if she can be called that — dagger her neighbor’s cheating hand to the table).
these competing sparks swallow the specialness of his appearance with sturmhond, which means no one will seek him out and turn themselves into a hearty lunch. dirtyhands can be a rake, if he must, as long as he seems judicious (dangerous) in his choices and remains untouchable in the ways that matter. the gossips diminish and embellish as suits their aims. jesper seems altogether delighted by the development — kaz brekker, you cad — and makes a point to harangue him over his dance card, when he delivers nikolai’s alternate plans to the van eck manor. should have sent a courier, he thinks for the umpteenth time. never does. it’s a good excuse to stretch his legs and keep an eye on the nice side of town; that’s all. and isn’t as if he has other house calls to make. nikolai fails to muster the desire to write or seek him out. expected, really, when he’s never done it before. probably never will. there’s a limit to their entanglement. kaz resolves to hold to that, however much nikolai has hurt himself this time. he chokes down the ache at having him here but out of reach. not because they fought, as in ravka, but because that’s nikolai’s choice. he’d rather lose alone than win with kaz at his side. fine.
every morning since nikolai left, kaz reads the reports from zenik and nazyalensky’s spies on, well, nikolai — and any suspicious deaths (which could, of course, implicate nikolai). the day he left, kaz decided everyone would be better served by the two queens watching him, rather than the dregs. grisha are equipped to deal with the monster and anyone trained by zenik is unlikely to be caught, besides. it’s almost charming that nikolai feints leaving the city, when kaz has the refugees’ travel dates in his ledger, courtesy of his newfound partnership with the dragon queen. if working alone got you anywhere, he’d have done it himself.
eventually, he runs out of excuses to put off dealing with it, particularly as he has two queens hounding him for first-hand information on their mutual — friend’s wellbeing. when one of nina’s brusque, terrifying fjerdans tells him she heard the strangest sounds at the safehouse, their tether pulls taut. kaz doesn’t trust nikolai to seek out help, even if that would release him from this life.
cane in one hand and a hefty lock hanging off the other, he sweeps into the cellar. the crow’s head glints in the sliver of light slicing into the darkness from behind. only the barest flicker of curiosity passes over his features, half-shadowed by his hat. even a cursory glance shows nikolai is in a state, the smell of blood thick in the air. ]
You’ve redecorated. Does it remind you of home? [ with the curtains drawn in his royal prison, nikolai looked much the same. kaz lobs the lock low, sending it skidding to nikolai’s feet. something for him to throw at his head, no doubt, for daring to come to his aid. battening down his desire to close the distance between them (to be soft, where he should be hard, always), he stops out of reach. ] Wouldn’t buy from Velementov next time. He seeks out complex orders so he can nick whatever they protect. I’d be impressed if I hadn’t thought of it first. And executed it better. [ he knocks up the brim of his hat with his cane, gaze slanting on nikolai. ] You look terrible, so I take it everything’s going to plan.
[ he wakes alone in a bed in the safe house, the curtains cracked open to filter in the yellow rays of the afternoon sunlight. no chains. kaz must be feeling generous, or more likely has dimitri stationed outside the door, prepared to drop his heartbeat should the need arise. it won't. he feels like himself again, or at least the version of himself he's still growing accustomed to. it's tempting to consider pulling the covers over his head and remaining in bed until nightfall, but he forces himself to rise despite how his sore body creaks in protest. pushes himself through the notions of the day. a bath to scrub away the blood and reveal the map of his bruises. fresh clothes to cover them all up. a quick examination in the mirror tells him he's in dire need of a tailor — he can't exactly go traipsing around looking like the former king of ravka, although this does lend him the exciting opportunity to invest in a fancy hat.
dimitri nearly jumps out of his skin when nikolai bursts from the bedroom demanding sustenance. he immediately sends him away to fetch him a hat. something that flatters the coat, maybe gold trim to match the gold buttons, oh, and a peacock feather is an absolute must — nothing drab like that sad thing brekker wears on his head. he shuffles around the kitchen while he waits and finds coffee and fresh bread, but not what he's really looking for. kaz is not here. of course he isn't. he must have business to attend to, as always. he's not disappointed. he's not. he's — relieved, really, that he doesn't have to look him in the eye just yet after what just transpired.
the hat is the gaudiest thing he's ever seen and more than satisfactory. bless dimitri and his os altan roots. he pulls the wide brim low over his eyes and digs into his deep pockets for a heavy coin, tossing it at dimitri on his way out while giving him a quick wink and a flash of a smile. tell your boss he can find me by the sea. failure is not a reason to brood. he's already compiling lists in his head of things he needs to do — ways to keep himself preoccupied — and a visit to the white rose is first on the schedule.
milena rearranges his features back to sturmhond's appearance while nikolai keeps up a steady stream of chatter and tries not to think about genya. he politely refrains from asking about kaz's whereabouts. if he wanted you to know, he would have told you. or left a note. no, the whole of ketterdam would sooner go up in flames before kaz bekker ever penned him a note. he's desperately worried about his leg. it's unlikely that he's taking the proper rest required for such an injury.
nikolai spends the rest of the day viewing properties along the geldcanal. if he has use of the safe house for the moments when his uninvited guest is feeling peckish, then he sees no reason as to why he can't enjoy the comforts that ketterdam has to offer for his place of work. it's no gilded bog, but he won't be building military submersibles anyway. for once he'd like to try his hand at making things simply for the sake of making them — things not made for conquering or war. he chooses a place right along the water with a view of the sunset, and the following day purchases a sailboat. the property is set up as a haphazard mix of experimental lab and lounge, with his work spilling over into every room. sunlight streams in from wide windows — when the sun manages to break free from ketterdam’s persistent clouds — books and papers stack themselves into precarious piles, and he spends more nights asleep at his enormous drafting desk than in the brand new bed recently delivered and currently covered in rumpled linen sheets the color of sea glass.
kaz undoubtedly knows of his new residence, and yet doesn’t come by. nikolai’s frustration dissolves to worry, until he finally leaves a note at the crow club signed in sturmhond’s looping scrawl. allow me to make good on an old promise to you. meet me at the geldcanal an hour before sunset. ]
[ it’s harder to leave nikolai this time than the last (and the last wasn’t easy). crumpled in his arms, fingers curled over his glove, unspeakably vulnerable. kaz keeps watch at his bedside for an hour before he forces himself to stand, the memory of his night in novyi zem quickening his steps. thinks about penning a note, but — he can’t, leaving dimitri without instruction. he gave nikolai what he needed, what no one else can, and that’s enough. besides, nikolai hasn’t wanted for his help since kaz abandoned him in ravka, and his crows keep him informed of sturmhond’s whereabouts. strange that nikolai should stay in ketterdam at all, really, if he’s confident in his control, though the exact nature of his banishment from ravka remains unknown. perhaps zoya won’t abide monstrosity of any degree. shrewd of her, if so.
kaz devotes himself to business, non-stop in his dealings as the conflict he and inej’s initiated against the elite escalates. better to think of that than nikolai, no doubt mussing his formerly pristine abode. old tactics help him achieve distance and project strength even as he tires. someone draws too close, he throws a punch. if they touch him, he breaks a wrist, an arm, a jaw.
the offer of a promise halts this familiar rhythm. there’s but one that fits in this crevice, and it’s — not something he should indulge, if he wants to stand apart again. no reply comes because kaz convinces himself he’s ignoring it until the light dims in the city. hat low and cane in hand, he could be going anywhere through ketterdam’s myriad side streets. in fact, when he notices a tail two minutes out of the club, he ends up taking one in the opposite direction of the geldcanal. the air sticks close in the thick of the slanting buildings, his coat draped over his shoulders instead of snug against his arms. as soon as he clears the straat, however, the crisp harbour breeze threatens to carry his hat down the nearest canal. the geldcanal, as it so happens. his leg twinges with every step, a pain that’s both as constant as it’s always been and worse than he’s ever known. there’s nothing for it. zenik is away from the palace for another week, dismantling drüskelle alcoves. it would be unwise to leave nikolai unattended in ketterdam, too, after his last brilliant plan.
at sturmhound’s place, kaz picks the lock with precision and eases open the door. habit makes him linger by the frame, scanning the empty sitting room — well, empty but for the clutter of nikolai’s mind made physical. after a long moment, he steps forward and removes his hat, hanging it on a coat hook and tidying his hair in the hall mirror. he smoothes the suture above his brow that milena begrudgingly placed yesterday. you should let me fix the old bruises before you make new ones tutted at close range, her sigh warm on his face. should have told her off for that and touching him both, but he’d been too exhausted to protest. that night, kaz had medicated to sleep through the pain in his leg, sacrificing cogency in the night to achieve alertness in the day. consequently, the shadows gilding his cheekbones seem only slightly more macabre than usual.
his eyes land on the ugliest hat he’s ever seen, and his reflection quirks a smile at him that he swiftly flattens. you’re not staying for long. not for the promise, which ought to be broken. just to see how nikolai’s faring after collapsing in his arms and mumbling nonsense. another pause. he removes his coat and catches himself straightening his tie in the mirror, suddenly warm all over.
enough. kaz limps into the main room, cataloguing every piece of evidence to support nikolai’s presence and wellness. the adjoining kitchen has a dirtied coffee cup in the sink. can’t help but wonder if the stuff holds a candle to burga’s morning deliveries to the captain’s quarters. nikolai must hear him before he sees him, the thud of his cane steady on the wood floor. it stops when kaz does, tilted into the doorframe of nikolai’s bedroom/office (a natural counterpart to his sitting room/office and kitchen/office). it hasn't been long, but there are traces of nikolai everywhere. kaz supposes he’s the sort of person who creates an impression, like a footprint in the sand, wherever he goes — and whenever he leaves.
over a quarter of an hour late, he raps a gloved hand on the frame. ]
I recommend a deadbolt. [ so people like him can’t sneak inside. he’s trying very hard not to think of it as a welcome for him. the equivalent of a key hidden under the mat. with a tip of his head and arch of his brows, ] I’m impressed you can afford this. [ being exiled from a kingdom with war debts and all. he leans over the threshold, as if he can't enter without an invitation. ] There aren’t bodies or submarines in the basement, I trust.
[ kaz, by some bit of mercy, falls asleep. for a long while nikolai doesn't dare move, his soiled gloves nestled gently in kaz's hair, fingers tracing the barest of movements down the line of his temple to his cheek. an immeasurable number of sleepless nights and the constant pain in his leg are no doubt hitting him all at once, because he sleeps more deeply than nikolai has ever seen — not that he's had the privilege of accompanying kaz in sleep enough times to be an expert, but he knows that kaz brekker doesn't let his guard down and he certainly doesn't consider the open waters prime napping grounds.
he's careful not to wake him as he guides the boat gently to shore and extinguishes the lamp, nestling kaz against his chest as he carries him, heaped in furs, down the pathway to his house. nikolai has grown used to the strength of genya's teas and the grisha remedies she frequently forces down his throat, but he wagers kaz will sleep at least a few hours more if he's lucky — perhaps not until daybreak, but for what might reasonably constitute a decent night's sleep, for people like them. his bed dips comfortably beneath their shared weight, settling kaz into his rumpled mess of fine linens and adjusting the feathered pillows beneath his head. another pillow for his leg, his palm running gently over his bandages to ensure they're still dry. then nikolai draws back, gazing down at the empty space beside him and allowing himself a moment to wish that he could be the one to occupy it.
but he turns on his heel with an ache in his chest, the scent of blood already strong in the room. it grates on him to admit that kaz is right, that they'll have to feed the beast before they set sail again. he wants nothing more than to go back out into the night and slake the demon's hunger, but he won't, unwilling to let go of his foolish, stubborn pride. he strides across the room for a fresh pair of gloves, but the moonlight catches the red stains as he stands by the window, soaked thoroughly into the fine leather, hopelessly sullied. something sharp fills his senses — kaz's blood, hot and inviting, the scent unique to everything else the demon has spilled. kaz's pulse thuds through him, slow and steady this time but no less strong, and when nikolai blinks next he's braced over his desk, two of his own fingers in his mouth to glean the taste of blood from the leather of his gloves.
he pulls his hand away so fast that he sends an inkwell spilling across the open pages of a thick engineering text, barely catching the pot before it can clatter to the floor. hastily stripping his gloves off, he throws them atop the ruined book, roughly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. it does little to clear the taste from his tongue. with dread creeping through his heart, he turns to survey kaz's hopefully sleeping form, noting that the moon has changed position in the sky, silver light now draped over kaz's pale skin as if in the absence of nikolai's touch.
cursing the saints, he snatches a clean pair of gloves with shaking hands and retreats from the bedroom. he could try and catch an hour or two of sleep here on the sofa but he doesn't dare, instead sitting at his drafting desk and staring down sightlessly at his disassembled crows while his mind races elsewhere. he gets up almost immediately to fetch a drink from the kitchen cabinets, taking a harsh swig of whiskey straight from the bottle as he returns to the desk, reaching for paper and a pen as he begins to draft a letter to nina zenik to ask for passage to fjerda. the bottle dwindles as he writes, the pen scratching against the paper, his eyes gritty and his head pounding. or is it kaz's heartbeat again? there's an awful raking against his chest, the scars across his hands pulsing once. then he's sinking into the endless dark, the ground pulled from beneath his feet.
he's up again, prowling silently back to the bed, hands bare, and the moon has shifted once more, this time illuminating eyes black as pitch as nikolai slides down beside him and places a hand on kaz's throat, fingers finding his pulse. down to the waters he goes, a sense memory as easy as breathing, an agonizing but surefire way to rattle him awake. ]
[ the dream goes on for a long time. it’s been going on for years, maybe, picking up where it left off whenever he sinks into a sleep strong enough to hold him under. endless water reflects a starless sky. peaceful, the way drowning and death can be. lulled by the tide’s rhythm and floating the way nikolai instructed, it’s not so bad.
suddenly, the air changes. the sea changes. a chill shivers through him. his stomach lurches, a ship pitching over a great wave, and kaz wakes with a start. an alarmed sound catches in his throat as black eyes glitter like broken glass, kaleidoscopic in his blurred vision. his stare slices down the person beside him. a dream. his throat constricts. golden hair falls in nikolai’s face, moonlight gilding his browbone, eyes black as an eclipse. a nightmare.
as if to counter his pulse taking flight under nikolai’s bare grip, his bandaged hand encircles his wrist. the other slides beneath the pillow still cradling his skull in search of the dagger kept in his bed. only succeeds in brushing another pillow, beaded with an intricate pattern that he doesn’t recognise. breathe, jordie reminds him. he isn’t drowning, after all, just thrown into the canal. kaz fights to contain the panic stirring low in his gut. for the first time since the ice court, he has no tricks up his sleeve. swathed in nikolai’s fine clothes and blankets, there’s no armour to protect him, no back-up in place or plan to spare. all stunning proof of his foolishness. his leg pangs painfully enough that either genya’s tea has worn off or the wound recognises its creator. even so, kaz remains still. that's how you're meant to face an animal. ]
And here I was, [ voice rough with sleep and taut with nerves. ] planning our next date.
[ you know this nikolai, too. perhaps better than nikolai himself, since he’s unafraid to meet its eyes. his thumb drags over the veins in nikolai’s wrist, wondering whether blood or shadow might spill if he jammed his nail into the skin. no sense in starting a fight he’ll surely lose, of course. despite the rising waterline, nikolai’s pulse persists, proof of life. it doesn’t want you dead, he reminds himself at the same moment the nikolai of his memory warns, it wants to be the one to break you. perhaps it’s convenient that he’s already rather broken, after the events of the day. ]
[ gaze sharp on nikolai’s uncanny other, ] Have you been awake long? [ a neutral opener, since all he has to defend himself is his clever tongue (and that particular weapon is double-edged). nikolai and the demon have been wrenching control from one another more frequently than in the past, when either one might steer their person for an extended period. but is their newfound fluidity in play because nikolai has grown stronger — or is it the demon gaining ground? regardless, the interruptions (whether nikolai’s concern and the demon’s own bloodthirsty impulses) have prevented kaz from engaging in any illuminating conversations until now. that the demon is here, not out feeding, signals something. a lever, albeit one he may regret pulling. ]
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Decently sized security measures, one lock, cut of the prize?
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And I know you wouldn't ask me to.
[ so make an offer ]
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[ a beat. ]
One million kruge.
And the lives of the crew that found her.
[ “““found”””
retrieving a pretender was one thing — the genuine article breaks the market. far too valuable to be anything but dangerous. obviously that’s why he hadn’t protested her payment. definitely the only reason. ]
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this sounded much better in my head, pls do not perceive me, etc
he's not sure how much faith he has in this current plan, but he nonetheless takes comfort in the fact that there is a plan at all, as flimsy as it may be. he used to think that if anyone could pull off a miracle, it would be him. now he thinks it just might be kaz brekker instead.
the chains, at least, allow him to get some sleep — restless, plagued by nightmares and interrupted by his unwelcome guest, but the poor quality of his rest is less important when he's gone days without. kaz is the one to lock him in, a bizarre feeling when it's been zoya for so long. at least they both share a poison tongue. nikolai is both unhappy and grateful to be left alone, and finds the more pleasant side of his dreams involves blue eyes and careful hands, quiet whispers and stifled words, the closeness that they shared, those stolen moments of intimacy. he likes the build of kaz's body — lean, strong, made for his hands. he likes the sounds that he can pull from it. he's eager to hear them again, but realistic about how much he can push for. kaz allowed him an enormous amount at once, and nikolai imagines there must be a period of recovery, or possibly regret.
everything about kaz is fascinating, a handsome puzzle to be put together or taken apart. people have always been puzzles to him, locked boxes he's eager to fit the right keys into, and to ponder away at kaz brekker keeps his mind from sinking too far into the darkness. it gives him something real and present to hold onto, a promise that kaz will appear in the morning to unshackle him and won't point out that nikolai's smiles are on the edge of too bright lately, his laugh just a little too quick to be genuine.
on his second night confined to his ship, he escapes. the shackles don't break — the demon simply tears them from the wall, weakened from the previous night of struggle. nikolai grapples for control, fails to fully grasp it. at least there is no one on the ship. if he can steer the demon away from the coast, surely he can avoid disaster.
he flies to the deck, lands with a rattle of chains — and then spies movement. panic seizes him, and he loses his tenuous bit of control. kaz brekker is on the deck, maybe going to his cabin, maybe prowling the ship in sleeplessness or deep thought, maybe defying his orders just for the hell of it. nikolai has never wanted so badly to hit someone in his life. he has never wanted to hurt someone less.
he can't say any of those things when the tongue in his mouth is foreign, teeth glinting at the promise of fresh blood. his blond hair frames the dark pits of his eyes, his claws digging into the wooden floors in an attempt not to move. not again, he pleads to himself, to the saints, to anyone that might be listening. no one, of course. this time, he'll split his throat open. this time he'll do something he won't recover from.
his movement is restricted when he launches himself at kaz, chains keeping his wrists and ankles barely a foot apart, and perhaps it's his saving grace. kaz swings his cane before he can snap his jaws at him, landing a blow with precision that shatters one of his ribs. if nikolai was nikolai, it would have taken him out. but the demon shoots into the sky on smoke-black wings, hovering just out of his range, and nikolai watches kaz's movements, hoping that he'll pull out a revolver, hoping for a bullet right between his eyes.
no such luck. he blinks and he's descending. blinks again and his claws have found purchase in kaz's shoulder, lifting him off the ship, a hot rush of blood soaking into his dark coat. another ruined item of his clothing, a distant thought as his cane clatters onto the deck. another distant thought — he's going to kill him. he's going to kill kaz brekker, after he promised to shelter him, after he vowed that he would not fail him again. another broken promise, another failure to add to his towering list of sins. the water glitters darkly below them as they soar high above the sea, the scent of saltwater mixing with blood, the scent of pain and fear, and for a moment he doesn't know if it's from kaz or if it's his own.
his wings abruptly dissipate, black bleeding out of his eyes as they return to hazel, the veins that fracture his skin scattering. nikolai comes back to consciousness with a gasp, a fiery pain igniting in his side. his ribs. broken. kaz. kaz.
he's upside down. they're falling. they're both falling, the hand reaching for kaz bloody as he fists his shirt, a thousand thoughts crowding his mind at once. they're falling. he's felt this before, the terrifying force of utter weightlessness. how far are they from the shore, from his ship? too far. he's still chained and the pain at his side is staggering. can he swim? kaz has gouges in his shoulder. they're falling into the sea, into cold, dark waters. the water. kaz. nikolai's grip tightens, panic moving through him. he forces his eyes to kaz's, to blue, to his fair-weather sky. ]
Stay with me. [ an order. a plea. the wind whips around them, the water rushing up to meet them. seconds, now. how can he make sure he doesn't lose kaz to the deep? you put him here. fix this. he shudders, trying to steel himself. he can't breathe. he can barely move. he forces his voice to carry, forces conviction into his eyes. ] We're alive. Both of us. Stay with me.
[ they plunge into the sea, and suddenly everything is quiet. air rushes from his lungs before he can stop it, pain blurring his vision. move. he can't. his shackles feel like anchors. he's sinking. the darkness is all around. there's a voice in his head, his own voice. let go. can he? can he just stop? the pain is too great, his guilt is too heavy. let go. it sounds like relief, the safe place to land that he's been searching for. no, that's not right. kaz. too faint, too distant. the other voice is easier, his eyes closing around one thought. let go. let go. let go. ]
is writing a novel back too perceptive i'm emotional
perhaps that’s why he affixes nikolai’s shackles with bare hands, a gesture more meaningful than any false kindness on his tongue. practice, he tells himself. you can best this. hope rekindled by a series of actions that left him retching, shaking, hovering in an unreal space, but somehow upright and laughing at the end of it. he prefers the glimmers of genuine interest from nikolai (the way his gaze lingers, the distance he opens and closes between them based on keen observation), to the performance he gives each morning. kaz allows them to go uncritiqued and unapplauded, given how much the image of control matters to nikolai (wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?). at least he seems to have slept for the first time in days.
after he locks nikolai away that second night, he doubles back to retrieve materials from his cabin — a piece of the puzzle slipped into place on his walk into town. they’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. like thieves, merchants, politicians, kings. not like fanatics. the idea has him giddy, mind whirring to place it within their broader understanding of the mark. can’t stop the plans unspooling, so he gathers the required maps and records from his cabin aboard the volkvolny (surreptitiously moved from the captain’s quarters earlier in the day). he wants — needs to tell nikolai. when morning comes. a rush of warmth, at the thought of sharing this. hope, bouncing back. possibilities tentative and frightening between them, but not as destructive as their present reality.
naturally, that’s when everything turns to ash. a clash of grisha steel against razor-edged teeth, and he stumbles back, dropping the bag of supplies. his free hand finds the flash bang in his pocket, but he doesn’t use it. if he loses sight of nikolai, he may never find him again. mistake after mistake. the hesitation that kills. his cry of pain distorts as if in a dream.
first, kaz thinks i’m going to break that fabrikator’s arm. then, with startling clarity, he’s going to tear my arm clean off. divine retribution for the prophecy he spoke into existence. if you had torn off my hand, i’d have dragged myself here in the morning with just the one left. then, he’s falling. somehow, even with the world a blur (overwhelming in its flashing grey and roaring winds), nikolai remains stark. stay with me. he refocuses through his lashes, gaze slicing from nikolai to the black water, lit with a thousand sparkling eyes. we’re alive. not for long. heart careening against his ribs, he takes one last breath before the water knocks the wind from his lungs all over again.
thrust over the bleak, jutting ledge of the reaper’s barge. i can do this. i’ve already done it. flung into the canal by bigger boys, too small to reach the lip of the street until jordie fished him out. jordie always fishes him out. not this time, little brother, you can’t keep cheating death. he goes boneless with all the anxiety crashing down on him, released from its rattling vault. it was never gone, simply contained.
the water seeps into his skin. pressure builds against his chest. jordie’s fist in shirt, pulling him up, up, up, no, dragging him under until he shakes his dead hand free and surges above the rippling waves with a gasp. ]
Jordie! [ he tries to think of his brother, alive, but it’s nikolai who crowds his mind’s eye — nikolai’s hands on him in the lamplight, scorched and careful, fisted in his shirt — kaz has to tell him that he figured it out, that he — fuck.
kaz chokes a breath and dives back down, squinting through the burn of salt. nikolai’s shackles glint in the piercing moonlight, a few kicks away. it’s no use. you won’t make it. he has to try. his left shoulder burns so fiercely, he wonders if he can move it all, but he does, of course he does, red droplets dissipating around him. struggling one arm out of his coat and then the other, he forces himself to swim. nothing to cling to until suddenly, there is: he hooks his bad arm around nikolai’s middle (lean, not distended; soft, not hard and cold) and drags him above the waterline. he’ll need his good side for what comes next.
black spots colour his vision. why do the saints always want to drown him? is it because he deserves it? a shipwreck of a man, barely keeping them afloat, unable to check nikolai’s pulse. his arms and legs seem stiff and corpselike, chained in place. you killed him. it takes precious seconds for his head to catch up to his heart, beating in double-time. breathe, brekker comes the voice that sounds more like nikolai than jordie. the shackles. ]
Nikolai — I can’t — [ he knows these shackles, bloody well helped design them, could magic them from nikolai’s wrists to his own if they were in the safety of his quarters. now, he struggles to pick them one-handed. only after his shaky hands drop two picks into the depths does he unlock one fetter.
the hardest to reach now, before you faint. diving once more into the underworld, his arm sliding down nikolai’s waist to avoid losing him to the waves. why waste your breath? they’re both death-touched, fighting the current to stay alive when they should have died, drowned, rotted already. if you die, he dies. kaz dives again and frees a single ankle before he jolts up, sputtering in the air. his feet feel heavy, weighed down by his boots.
he can’t go back under. can’t focus to free nikolai’s other hand. keeps kicking, because that’s what saved him last time. a wet cough rattles out of his chest, and he tightens his grip on nikolai. ]
Don’t leave me. [ his rasp made tremulous and hoarse. the obverse of his previous realization is equally true. if he dies, you die. he can’t make it to shore alone again. ]
casual buckets of angst
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HOW FERAL IS TOO FERAL
for kaz there is no such thing
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kaz brekker's no good very bad week
himself, definitely, for allowing nikolai to scale his armoured walls. zoya nazyalensky also bears responsibility — for giving him an impossible, undeniable task. and nikolai, for carrying hope inside his smile, his hands, and then violently blowing it out. lying skiv. mostly, he thinks, the blame sits squarely on sankt feliks. for having the audacity to be worshipped, gored, and parcelled out to fanatics. between the provenance of the relic (traced in the auction and museum records) and the surge of support for saints across the north, he knows this is where they’ll find it.
in the days following the severance of his bond with nikolai, he had been more sour-faced than usual, glowering through their first stop to retrieve nikolai’s sleeping draught. the rituals remained, monuments to their former closeness. shackles in gloved hands, the second layer of protection against the demon; scorched hands on bandages, covered wounds that heal too slow even for his liking. talk only of the job, of the next steps. if nikolai tries to push for more, he’ll be rebuffed. no one nurtures a grudge like kaz brekker.
until they stop in ketterdam for reinforcements and supplies, he’s a man of stone. anika and rotty meet them at the docks, all that kaz tasked them with acquiring already bagged over their shoulders. anika tells him this is the worst you’ve ever looked, boss, as she boards the volkvolny, and he barks a laugh, the first since nikolai wounded him three days ago. worse than the day you joined me? this is what he’d missed, though he won’t say it. you didn’t have a sunburn that day, a stripe of red singed across his pale cheeks. watch yourself and yes, boss overlap. the camaraderie that comes with a crew of your own. he had forgotten that it existed in a world beyond nikolai, his grisha and privateers. that night, she gives him a package, from jesper and the little merchling, a token to support their work. it had been a good reminder that he isn’t as alone as he thinks, sometimes. that he might go back to the slat, pockets laden with treasure, and never long for letters sealed with lantsov blue.
(but he dreams of them, of nikolai’s blackened fingers, the warm reverb of his laugh, a longer night on the beach before everything shattered)
still, it prompts a measure of thawing, when they reach fjerda. he refrains from threatening bodily harm every time nikolai drifts too close — and he gets to skim the top of the surface tension, too, upon spying a dime lion in djerholm harbour. a tip of his head and his dregs break off from the group that night to turn on their ill-fated tail. kaz takes his tongue before they dump him in the icy waters, just in case he survives the drink. we’ve been followed is what he shares the next morning with the team. the break-ins at the auction house and the museum could have tipped them off just as easily as a member of the crew, though he searches them all for signs of treachery.
now, kaz moves purposefully as they wind the snowy mountain trail. a squaller and a tidemaker lead their formation, gently clearing the path and ensuring safe travel. he's all whiteness behind them, from his boots to his hooded coat and goggles, red nose alone peaking out, still difficult to pinpoint him or any of the other white specks moving against the sea of sameness. an invisible ascent. better that whatever resides here can’t see them coming. kaz knows now how to survive in this terrain: has carved a path across the tundra, days walk from shore with only matthias helvar to guide him. a dead man from a dead world. he once again wonders what became of nina zenik and resolves to prod both nikolai and the fjerdan crown, when they have their audience on the return journey.
he seeks a simple outcome, no red on white — and a priceless, ancient artifact that may be in the heart of this mountain, guarded by zealots, saints, demons, or djel himself. hah. he holds his hand flat above his eyes, blocking out the sunlight, as he scans the landscape ahead. his expression appears neutral, if calmer than most would feel this deep in the elbjen mountains, although his grip stays tight on his cane, reinforced at the bottom with an anti-slipping agent designed by wylan. the pack on his back contains other supplies: a first-aid kit, flares of a rather explosive nature, baleen should a water route be required, climbing gear for a pinch. snowflakes swirl around, the beginnings of a storm.
he leans close, then, head bent into nikolai’s space to view the map in his hands and overlay the compass in his own, covered arms brushing. something a schoolboy would notice, he chides. they didn’t pour over books and maps for days not to use their combined cleverness to solve this riddle.
the squaller up ahead senses danger first. a swell of wind. kaz and nikolai see it second, in the snow sliding under their feet before they exchange a look with more feeling than kaz has allowed since they broke apart. a woman shouts. his head swivels. ]
Anika! [ but she’s already diving left to push the healer aside from a widening hole in the snow and disappearing beneath the ground. she's faster than the devil, that’s why he brought her here, but not to this end. wait, a hole? tamar launches herself into the same gap, chasing the last threads of her long hair, and kaz lunges after them both. nikolai seizes his arm before he falls into an opening at their feet. he slides his cane into a band outside his pack to keep from losing it. too much stimuli. a rush of snow rains down on their right in the opposite direction. how? the squaller and the tidemaker shield who they can in an admirable joint effort, but it sends snow and ice bursting from the sides and blocks anyone from joining their group. this isn’t natural. the ground was solid, when they scouted.
could be enemy action, a trap, grisha — he swerves to the side, pulling nikolai with him before they tumble into another sinkhole, and pain tears through his shoulder. keep it together, brekker. kaz has nikolai, a death-grip on his arm, but the ice — disintegrates? melts? — disappears out from under them, so kaz yanks him close to break the fall, keenly aware of his recently broken ribs.
when he next blinks, he’s on his back, ice flat beneath him and shimmering above him. a cave too smooth to be anything but grisha-work. his pack and cane have skidded mere feet away in the underground network of passages that they’d been looking for at considerably higher altitudes (a miscalculation), but he doesn’t look for them. too preoccupied with the throbbing in his shoulder; the peculiar sensation of a warm weight on his chest, something held in his arms; and his head pounding. he brings a gloved hand to his temple and sees red on white when he lowers it into his field of vision. why is he always bleeding? another blink. blackout for an unknown amount of time. the weight has been removed from his chest. he winks ice crystals from his lashes and smokes a breath. ]
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a different story is told in the privacy of his quarters. nikolai keeps his spirits high, keeps a casual smile within reach, but for days the tension does not dissipate. he's careful each time he changes the dressings on kaz's shoulder, only letting his concern show when his back is turned. the wound seems to stubbornly fight progress, and nikolai offers kaz a selection of tonics for pain relief from their well-stocked inventory. he doesn't complain at the reappearance of his shackles — both heavier and stronger this time — though it's more difficult to hide his unease at the sleeping draught. it takes him under within a matter of seconds, just as harrowing as before. he doesn't tell kaz that it only lasts for just under three hours, a realization that comes when he wakes in the middle of the night like a dead man clawing out of his grave, skin slick with a cold sweat, nausea pushing at his throat. the first night, he puts himself back under. after that, he simply remains awake.
he's relieved for their detour in ketterdam, relieved that kaz can pull members of the dregs to join him. he's kept himself apart, only speaking about details of the job, and nikolai feels guilty every time he sees him move like a reaper across his ship, most times alone. you asked for that. he wants to keep watching, his chest tight at a glimpse of a rare — not smile, exactly, but something pleased that flickers across kaz's face, but his voyeurism is cut short by the need to expel his guts across the side of the ship into the harbor. kaz does not see him, but one of his dregs does. the tonic works; he has not turned since the disastrous night at sea, the demon keeping itself quietly coiled within him, but the side effects are running him ragged.
the icy fjerdan winds offer some relief for the constant pulse in his head, cutting through the pain and helping him think more clearly. a sense of unease rests heavily at his shoulders as they trek across the snow, and he's turning to tell kaz as much when anika disappears below ground. he barks out tamar's name when she goes after her, then has to forcibly haul kaz back before he loses him too — but then the ground disintegrates beneath their feet and they're falling, falling, and he can't move fast enough to stop kaz from twisting to take the brunt of their landing. ]
Brekker. [ the wind has been knocked out of him, but kaz has taken a blow to the head, red blood standing out starkly against the gleaming white around them. he dislodges himself from his arms — how is he managing to hold on? — and carefully cradles the side of his head, holding him still to take stock of the wound. he strips both of their goggles off to get a better look at kaz's eyes, his chest twinging like it always does when he loses himself in the sky. they're just how he remembers, thinking he wouldn't get a chance to see them this close again. ] Brekker. Look at me. Why did you — just look at me.
[ without thinking, he slips his gloves off to graze his fingertips gently down his temple, carefully thumbing snow from his cheek. kaz's lids flutter, his breath pooling out of him in a cloud. ] It's okay. You're all right. Open your eyes and look at me, Brekker. Let me see you.
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canon mashup canon mashup
the truth had reverberated through her like a drum: lyra's true identity, lyra's fate. the fact that she will never be safe as long as the magisterium endures. and the equally large blow: that there is no question of where marisa coulter's loyalties lie. she had been the church's most devoted, ruthless agent, and now
she thinks of dr. mary malone, asking about her work, her papers; and now
she thinks of lyra, lyra, her daughter, and she imagines her dead, or alive and causing
both are unthinkable.
she meets kaz brekker in the crow club. her dress is flattering but modest, a jewel-bright blue that matches her pumps. she would have to be stupid, surely, to wander around the barrel dressed like this, and without any obvious weapons. and yet: she's here, seated at a table alone, tapping her perfect nails expectantly. before her is a glass of something quite strong, going by the smell. she's drunk maybe half of it, a little smudge of lipstick on the rim. ]
smashes champagne
kaz joins her table in his usual layers of blacks, apart from his coat and hat, left in his office. angles his chair out, extending his bad leg, like he might leave at any moment. his gaze flits from her to a boisterous table nearby and back.
he folds his gloved hands over the glinting topper of his cane, head tilting to one side. ]
I heard a rumour… [ rasp measured and even, brows faintly arched. ] that you’ve asked after me.
[ and since she’s here, he can only assume she received a clear answer regarding his whereabouts and proclivities. ]
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prince perfect here 2 annoy kaz brekker to an early grave
it's slow now. maybe he's just tired. after bathing, he stares at his bed in distracted contemplation as the seconds turn into minutes, trying to muster even an ounce of enthusiasm at the thought of sleep. maybe he could if sleep wasn't a completely elusive concept to him these days — or maybe if brekker was presently in his bed. he turns to his shelf and selects a heavy bottle of brandy, crossing the room as he guzzles down a generous swallow, then another. tries to convince himself to stay in his room, because kaz will eventually show up to shackle and dose him. drowning sounds more appealing.
after snagging two crystal glasses, he strides down to kaz's room and catches the healer leaving with a scowl. unsurprising — kaz is remarkably resistant to grisha healers. he's remarkably resistant to a lot of things, and surprisingly open to others, the most interesting puzzle nikolai has set his hands to in quite some time. he enters without knocking. ]
Don't be rude to my crew, Brekker. I've thrown men off this ship for less. [ you've already thrown him off this ship. he sets the bottle down with a too-heavy thud, feeling suddenly off balance. the waves. a glance at kaz, looking steady. not the waves, then. just him. his chest rises around a somewhat labored breath. ] If you've been plotting a speech to make known your displeasure for dropping you from tomorrow's activities, don't waste your breath. You won't change my mind, and none of my crew will take you, anyway. I'm not going, either. And yes, it is quite marvelous to be the captain of this ship. It makes me very important and everyone just listens to me.
[ he pours both glasses and brings one to kaz, held by the rim in his gloved hand. his eyes are sharp despite his fatigue, unwilling to entertain the idea of being banished to his quarters for another night alone. ]
Do you want to know the very best thing about not being a king anymore? I have regained the ability to get very drunk. I'll do it alone if I must, but it would please me if you embarked on this journey with me. [ he paces the room slowly, picking up kaz's hat and moving to the mirror to settle it on his head. ] So much black. What do you have against colors? Tell me, Brekker — [ he turns, catching his eye as he takes a drink, the hat sitting atop his tousled hair. ] What attracts you to someone? I know there had to have been people before me. You're not blind and I know you're not innocent, either.
[ not with those hands. ]
he is losing YEARS of his life every day
the way nikolai falters straightens his spine (is he hurt from the fall? has he been drinking?). kaz quickly pulls the shirt over his head, so that he’s dressed for whatever happens next and blows out an annoyed huff of air, unwilling to dignify nikolai’s lecture with a response. still, he accepts the drink in his still-gloved hands, something wary in his eyes, which track nikolai flitting about his room. it feels strange to have him here, in his singularly isolated space on the ship — kept frightfully tidy and empty, apart from his personal effects. letters relating to his business in ketterdam are filed in the small desk with spare munitions.
gangsters wear colour, merchers wear black. he ignores how easily he could pass these little truths to nikolai, instead devoting his thoughts to the puzzle of why nikolai would seek his company at all. the second question heightens the arch of his brows, and he pivots to a new concern. why do you want to know? ]
Oh, when they demand I entertain them, for a start. [ mild yet cutting, as is his way. ] If you want to play captain in this room, you can drink alone — and leave my hat out of it. [ jesper bought him that one, after its predecessor was shot full of holes in a standoff. that’s the only reason the band is navy, not black, and shimmers faintly in the lamplight. the way that nikolai delights in amusing himself reminds him of jesper (and nina), too. that must be why he has a high tolerance for it. years of practice. ] If you want to deal me in, for every question that I answer, you owe me a truth of your own.
[ those are his terms. he lifts his glass, mouth hidden by the rim, buying time to craft an answer when it isn't something he's ever considered in simple terms. being attracted to someone has always been a problem, for him, in need of surgical excision. even so, imogen’s crooked smile comes to mind as quickly as nikolai’s grin and inej’s laugh. confidence, competence, bravery, the warmth he lacks himself — he crosses to perch on the edge of his bed, extending his legs and hooking the bad over the good at the ankle. ]
I’ve seen all types in the Barrel, [ his mouth twitches, like he doesn’t know whether to smile or frown, so he settles for neither. ] and been looked at, I suppose. [ not blind, no. ] But if anyone notices me in that way, [ a snap of his fingers. ] I snuff the spark. [ in imogen, jesper’s fledgling crush, menagerie girls that he can’t say whether heleen would have killed for trying to seduce him or for not trying hard enough. expression blank, he gives a lopsided shrug, relying on his good shoulder. ] It’d kill them even faster than it would kill me, to let it burn. [ he had nearly killed inej with a single look, and she’s the strongest person he’s ever known. ] However many you think there have been, halve the number. They need to be clever enough to sneak up on me, if I’m to pay them any attention. After that — [ he cants his head to the side, eyes sharpening on nikolai. ] Stubbornness helps.
[ otherwise, it’s not a set thing, if someone manages to overcome the first hurdle — inej and imogen had both been dangerous, but imogen is more like nikolai on the surface, smiling and talking about nothing. crueller though, which he liked about as much as the fact that nikolai and inej aren’t, not in the way true canal rats learn to be. kaz knocks back a generous swig before he dares ask his question. ]
What attracts you to me?
[ none who came before (or who might come after) concern him. he has nikolai now, for however long this lasts, and he wants to know why. ]
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i am here for this au while i pretend to know what i'm doing, pls forgive me for my novel
here, she isn't the only pretender that's crawled out of the walls. there's a sankta alina at nearly every corner, alive or presumed dead; vendors boast sales of her finger bones to bring good fortune and women promise the desecration of saints in their brothels, gangs claim to have her blessing of protection and merchants trick coin from believers with their illusions. no one expects the authentic prize in a city where currency is hailed as a king, and trickery acts as keys to the kingdom.
and she is just that — a prize. a score. the whispers churn through ketterdam's rain-slicked alleyways until they're a storm battering down every door, tense with the promise of royal riches for the safe return of ravka's sun summoner. the influence of sturmhond, alina thinks, and all of the crowns he wears: prince, privateer, liar. another man in power she hadn't dared to trust when she'd stolen away from his ship, the sea whip's scales glinting iridescent in the sunlight.
her audience's gaze never lingers on it for long, too awed by the spectacle she provides. it's little more than a dedicated prop, as far as the opera house is concerned, and she is nothing more than a performer fiercely protective of the secrets of her craft — ever dutifully devoted to her role. the fake, the fraud, she has always been — capable of the illusion of salvation, but never the promise of it. the projection of the hope they've created in their minds. it's familiar, in a way that has her mind slicing back to old wounds. all those wistful eyes. all of the costuming to turn her unrecognizable, drowning in someone else's dreamt-up version of alina starkov.
she can't shed it quickly enough. her heels click on creaking, polished wood in her rush to her dressing room, leaving behind a swinging velvet curtain and the roar of voices beyond it. the room is a gaudy eyesore, bedecked in marbled whites and glinting golds, in what the lantsovs would surely see as a mockery of their palace. it sparkles in the backdrop of her vanity's mirror as she sets herself in front of it, frowning at what she finds in its glass surface.
a swath of a black shadow, haunting the far corner. she swallows around a heartbeat rooted in her throat, tumbling down into the hollow of her chest once her vision sharpens on the stark differences. the wicked scythe of cheekbones, a rasp of leather crinkling at his fingertips. an uninvited spirit, but not the ghost she fears summoning. dirtyhands, a far cry from darkling. alina's fingers loosen a gilded hairpin from a tumbling river of dark hair, regardless, testing its knife-edged point. not the subtlest stab at self-preservation, but unapologetically bold, if he's come to threaten her. he would hardly be the first.
like the orphanage, respect from ketterdamn's monsters can only be earned through fearlessness. ]
There isn't enough holy water in Ketterdam to save any of us, if you're looking for a baptism.
[ a dry quip, belonging to a voice uncharacteristically gentle in the barrel. softness wrapped in steel, learning to forge herself; too brittle, and the world will shatter you. too brittle, and men like the darkling take it upon themselves to bend you to a shape that suits their vision. she watches from the corner of her eyes, heavy-lidded with crystalline glitter and a question that sparks just the same. kaz brekker has never struck her as a believer, much less a man that would waste his kruge on a private audience with a nobody performer and part-time prophet.
she shuffles dainty fingers through painted cards stacked at the end of her vanity table, all the same, the light of her haloed crown aglow in the burnished lantern light. ]
Unless you came just to complain about my DeKappel forgery. I charge an extra fee for nagging, you know.
[ her one and only brush with the crows. whatever jesper has done with her commissioned product — well, that isn't her business. she's since learned you don't get far in ketterdam if you stick your nose where it doesn't belong. it's gotten her far enough that no one has ever dared to question why orphaned alya looks like a living forgery of sankta alina's portraits, at the very least, and it'll get her far enough to ravka's shores once she can safely stow away. ]
an act wrapped in a fake inside a forgery
the wraith wants no part in it beyond sharing whispers, sacrilegious as his scheme aspires to be, which unbalances kaz more than he’ll admit. jesper has been game enough to bed one false saint and vet countless others, at least. ultimately, the promising lookalikes comprise a tidemaker who cracked within an hour of his shark-eyed scrutiny and the heartrender, who hadn’t appreciated his blatant disinterest in her services. you’ll have to apologise if we pick her, and i’ll have to be there to support you, of course had been jesper’s lilting conclusion. in truth, neither girl is good enough. he needs a one-of-a-kind fake. the opera’s con-artist is their last hope. surely she can act, if nothing else.
steeled for disappointment, kaz slips backstage at the ketterdam opera house through a hidden entrance, curiously omitted from the historic house’s floorplan after its restoration five years prior by an architect known to gamble at the crow club. silent as a spectre, he partakes in a moment’s observation. from the back, the cascade of alya's nightshade hair looks more saintly than her gleaming crown.
when she rounds on him, his breath catches in his throat. after weeks spent memorising the smudgy lines of the crown’s wanted poster and acquiring multiple accounts of sankta alina’s presentation at the winter fête, kaz could paint the sun summoner on the backs of his eyelids. the best thieves are artists of a kind, aren’t they? imaginative, daring, adroit, dexterous. as he watches her shuffle the deck, his hand flexes atop his cane.
he allows his boots to scrape once against the tiled floor of her dressing room, gaudier than her fellow singing birds’ tapestried cages. lifting his cane — an act which might frighten common lions and gulls — he knocks up the brim of his hat with the glinting topper to reveal his angular face. the lamplight swings across it like a rising flame as he bows just so, head aloft. his blue eyes, stark against the macabre white of his skin and layered blacks of his attire, flit from her fair features to the jewelled pin in her hand, sharpening the arch of his brows. all the right details, arranged impeccably, tied off with boldness. she could do. ]
I took my sacrament in the river of the dead long ago, [ in a drawling ravkan accent. ] moi sankta. [ as if he’s an ageless, lifeless thing. according to the rumours that run along every canal, distorted as sound over water, he is. demon, monster, bastard. anything but a boy. his (perhaps surprisingly) light tread carries him along the wall, gaze mapping the valuables decorating the space. a gloved finger runs along a shining frame and comes away brushed gold. cheap. the work of the set department, no doubt, not the hand that forged a dekappel oil. ]
If I knew anything of a DeKappel forgery, I’d notify the gallant stadwatch. Long may they shield us from harm. [ a withering glance over his shoulder, seeking her face. with all the unfeeling neutrality typical of his rock-salt rasp, he adds. ] Fakes dilute the market — and our fine city’s unshakable voorhent. [ integrity, essential to its continued industry and prosperity. only a faint spark of life in his blues tells of a joke. ]
But if you’ve found your artist’s wages wanting — [ he pauses, turning to face her fully, a blight against the gold-white wall. first, his focus drops to her wrists, checking for a tattoo that signifies the claim of another gang. then, his mouth hooks higher on one side. ] — we may yet have holy business to discuss.
[ since he worships at the church of barter, as all respectable merchants do. once the offer has been slid across the space between them, his eyes never leave her. a healer and a pretender had fear shaking their every movement by this point. his reputation precedes him, after all. and to work with a crow is to make an enemy of every other gang in ketterdam, including pekka rollins' fearsome lions, who've taken a liking to snapping up grisha. since the sun summoner's return, demand has been high for deserters and potential assets both. a vile, volatile market. better to break the damn thing than be snared in its swinging scales. ]
the matroyshka doll of cons 😌
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surprise bet you thought you saw the last of me LIKE HALF A YEAR LATER...
i am not here etc
returning home comes with little fanfare. zoya is furiously upset, even more so when his nimble fingers slip the old iron key around her neck again. nikolai laughs it off and consoles her with stories of nina's happiness and peculiar royal lover, then insists to be held in the dungeons until they sort out the issue of the heart. zoya has his windows and doors barred and locks him in his chambers instead.
he finds himself penning letters in his head but putting none to paper, knowing kaz would have arrived in ravka shortly after him. no visitors, he'd told tamar, tolya, genya, zoya. not even kaz brekker. when he wakes one afternoon and finds his bedroom in complete disarray, his bedding shredded, feathers strewn across the floor, a chair in pieces and one leg of his heavy wooden desk splintered, he knows he made the right decision. tolya helps him clean up and the servants are none the wiser, quite used to nikolai's odd behavior when it comes to his privacy and highly forgiving when he flashes his charming smile and spares a moment to flirt away the gossip he doesn't want and replace it with gossip he doesn't mind.
he shrugs it off when tolya reports that kaz has sailed back to ketterdam, but he tries again that night to write a letter, hoping it will ease the perplexing ache in his chest. what can he say? his bed feels empty and so do his arms. he misses their late nights together, watching the candlelight dance across the angles of kaz's sharp face. the ground feels too steady beneath his feet these days, the gently rocking waves too faraway. the silence is far too loud, wholly different from the comfortable quiet they used to share. the crumpled paper and quill ends up tossed aside, the ink spilled across his gleaming new desk, and tamar doesn't ask about his disposition when she chains him in for the night and doses him with some new concoction of genya's meant to ease his previous symptoms.
zoya makes the trip to the thorn wood with the heart, tamar by her side, along with a small army of sun summoners. nikolai chafes against not being there, but somehow he feels it the moment the darkling is released. it's the moment he mauls tolya in his chambers and rends apart the iron bars at his windows, escaping into the night. it's worse than fjerda, because it's ravka. word travels of a monster in the skies. word travels that it's none other than the former demon king turning on his own citizens, pillaging towns on the outskirts of os alta that same night. it takes a day and a half for flyers to reach zoya in the snowy mountains, and longer still for the dragon queen to pick up nikolai's trail. by then she isn't the only one hunting him.
peril in ravka is nothing out of the ordinary, the troubled country constantly making tired headlines in papers around the world, but the storm in os alta is all that's talked about for days. beloved former king nikolai lantsov murders ravkan citizens in the streets of os alta, and then a week later — assassination attempt on former lantsov king narrowly fails thanks to intervention by the ravkan crown.
amidst all of this, a letter crosses kaz brekker's desk, sealed with the newly minted nazyalensky crest and hand-delivered by a fresh-faced member of zoya's court. the letter is an invitation to the palace for a job of the highest security, and the courier places a parcel containing an amber gemstone a remarkably similar shade to nikolai's eyes in his hand, murmuring that a ship is departing for os alta in an hour and queen nazyalensky needs him to be on it.
it's closer to three hours later when they depart, but the courier is too shaken by kaz's dead-eyed stares to comment on the time.
kaz is ushered immediately to see zoya upon his arrival, who looks exhausted and still frightfully powerful, standing before him in glittering scales of armor. she wastes no time, clearing the room so that they might talk freely, and then begins to explain. ]
Nikolai has lost his wits. [ she expels a breath, crosses her arms, and starts over. ] He has the demon in check. Mostly. Those aren't the wits he's lost. He was captured by a group of Ravkan hunters who intended to make a spectacle of his murder. Payback for — the things the monster did. They held him in captivity for a week, bled him out slowly, and Nikolai, fool that he is, did nothing. Had conversations with them. Said he would take the punishments that he deserved. They were going to kill him, and he was going to let them if Tamar and I hadn't found them in time. And then he intentionally distracted us so that they got away. So when I say that he's lost his wits, I mean that he's let go of every bit of self-preservation in that fast-talking brain of his while his would-be killers run free without consequence for laying hands on a man who's done nothing but give his entire life to a country that's offered him no thanks or comfort for his sacrifices. And that's where you come in.
Hunt them. Find them. Kill them. Make an example of them. Not a hint of the crown can be involved, and neither can your name. But Ravka needs to know that this won't go unpunished, and if I need to fabricate the fact that this entire country hasn't turned on Nikolai, then I will. Tell me what you need for this job, who you need to bring, and name your price by morning. And if you breathe a word of this conversation outside of this room, I will pop your lungs like a pair of overripe melons on a hot summer day. There's a room ready for you where you can set your things down.
[ instead of leaving him to a servant, she walks him down the hall to show him to his suite herself, sunny chambers with bright walls and gauzy curtains wafting in the afternoon breeze, kaz appearing like a blot of spilled ink against all the white. she squints and — without asking — leads him down to nikolai's chambers next, where tolya opens the door for them and nikolai's comically mournful voice immediately carries through the large rooms. ]
Genya, what can you do about this scar? [ he's dressed only in trousers, his ribs and left shoulder wrapped in bandages, but it's his face he's examining closely in a full-length mirror, long fingers ghosting down neat stitches that travel down his temple all the way to his jaw. genya shakes her head, packing up her leather case of vials and tinctures. ]
In a few days, Nikolai, I told you. Be patient. It's almost healed and then I will make it disappear, and you will be handsome again — and twice as annoying.
Are you saying I'm not handsome now?
[ zoya clears her throat. ] Get decent. You have a guest.
[ nikolai turns at the sound of her voice, his breath catching when he finds kaz standing beside her. he's dreaming. he has to be. there's no way kaz brekker is in ravka right now, much less in his chambers, much less beside zoya — why is he beside zoya? his heart tries to grow three sizes in his chest while his brain takes off with a hundred thoughts — kaz is in ravka, kaz is here, kaz can be in his arms again, zoya is scheming, zoya is doing the thing he told her not to, zoya is dragging kaz into a mess of his own making. he's happy and he's angry at once, his mouth pulling into a brief smile while his breath tumbles out of him tightly. ]
Thank you, Genya. [ his words are clipped, and he's staring at zoya. ] A moment alone with Mister Brekker?
I'll take these. [ zoya strides in and snatches up his revolvers from the table. ] Who let you even have them?
I've had them forever, Zoya.
You don't need them, Nikolai.
[ the heavy doors slam shut, the locks sliding into place. nikolai is suddenly aware of every little detail that he never planned for kaz to ever see — his bandaged wounds, the evidence of his face sliced wide open, his chambers set up like a prison with iron bars at the windows and heavy chains at his bed. his desk is covered with books, scrawls, and sketches — normal — and half-finished letters to kaz — not normal. he runs a bare hand through his tousled hair and looks around halfheartedly for a shirt. ]
Did she bring you here for a job? [ it's not what he wants to say to kaz after so much time apart. weeks. months. the time has bled into a blur, days of pretending, nights full of terrors, guilt so heavy he thinks it might crush him. so much has happened, so much has changed. there's so much he's decided that he hasn't said to anyone yet. ] Don't take it. Tell the Ravkan crown to fuck off, Brekker, and take the first ship back to Ketterdam. She shouldn't have brought you here.
neither am i
as is his way, kaz doesn’t write. didn’t leave much unsaid in their last conversation, anyhow, asking for more than nikolai was willing to give (always asking for more than anyone can give, it seems). he half-expects nikolai to send something, since he generally has in the time they’ve been apart. the disappointment crests and fades when letters never come. nikolai is either too preoccupied with his demon or rebuffing kaz’s invitation as assuredly as his visit to ravka. things forged in the dark wither in the light of day. he’s always known that. this is only a reminder.
the whispers — then headlines — coming out of ravka are, admittedly, unsettling. anika slams a kerch paper, detailing the foiled assassination attempt, on his desk and asks if he’s heard anything about their crew. they’re not our crew is his crisp reply, even as his eyes rake over the scant details of the story. he knows she means to ask if nikolai and tamar both have survived this incident, but he has no answer for her and won’t swallow his pride enough to seek one. zenik writes asking after all he knows of ravka’s troubles, and he pens a curt, truthful response. if nikolai has shut out his closest friends, there’s no reason for kaz to be any different, precarious as his position was in that circle.
the saints have a cruel sense of humour, leaving nikolai disgraced and kaz brekker honoured for his heroism. now, the trouble with royals is in the association. you retrieve an ancient knickknack for one and suddenly everyone has something they want stolen — or something precious to protect. he skims a barrage of letters from the council, zemeni ministers, and even the shu royal family. at the sight of a familiar hued seal, his heart stutters. upon closer inspection, the dragon emblem gives it away as zoya’s hand, and he nearly bins it on sight. curiosity tempts him to read the contents first, though he forms a rejection as he processes it, demanding more information. then, kaz decides that if zoya’s desperate enough to write urgently, he’s intrigued enough to hear her offer. in his own time, naturally. his ship charts a course for ravka but it holds enough supplies to keep sailing and answer his other summons, if he so chooses.
a regrettable thing, really, that he’s been called to provide a service outwith his purview. he tells zoya as much on the way to his room. i’m a thief, not a ravkan dog. they have soldiers of their own for butcher’s work. saints, he could introduce her to reputable mercenaries if she really wants this done cleanly. inej would council him to reject this likely underpaid proposition. anika does, in fact, whisper her objections to him before she splits off to her quarters. his personal interest in routing out those who might have taken nikolai from this world, however willingly he’d follow them, is all that keeps him from spurning this foolishness outright.
still, zoya manages to surprise him by not showing him the war room and instead escorting him directly to nikolai lantsov, the very person he’d naively wished to avoid on this errand. the sound of his voice twists something in his heart, and he shoots nazyalensky a warning glance.
at odds with kaz’s crisp suit, the room is in a state. nikolai is in a state, which only serves to heighten that painful, burrowing sensation in his chest. greedily, kaz snatches the updated details of his person, marked by those zoya would have him kill but blessedly alive. kaz had hoped that even if he saw nikolai, the want inside him would lie dormant, but of course it doesn’t. impossible for the starving to be satisfied with scraps. ]
[ eyes cold and deep as the sea, ] Would that be worse than if I came here for you? [ holding up a hand to stop any response. a withering look suggests he hasn’t. nikolai does not want you here; he has never wanted you here. reminders as icily sharp as the fjerdan air. unfortunately, his spiteful instincts find the job all the more tempting, now that he’s been advised against it. with concerted effort, he tears his gaze from nikolai’s scarred face and limps toward the windows. ]
You’ll be relieved to hear I only go where I choose, as ever. [ brought him here, please. even the fearsome zoya finds him altogether difficult to manage. he tosses his cane and catches it in the middle of the staff, rapping it lightly against the bars. presumably, these are of a new make than whatever nikolai burst through the last time. fascinating. ] And that I’m out of your price range, besides. [ he turns back toward nikolai, loosening his grip so the cane slides through his braceletted fingers until they hit the topper. ] Perhaps if the dragon queen gave me access to your books, I could steer you in a more profitable direction. [ tipping his free hand this way and that, a gesture of approximation. ] For a fair percentage. [ he knocks up the brim of his hat with two fingers, allowing the light to illuminate his faintly quirked mouth. ] As it stands, Queen Ehri has expressed interest in buying out the competition for my services.
[ kaz folds both hands over the raven’s head of his cane. ]
I’ll hear any counteroffers, but she has the largest treasury — [ one he considered robbing, after shu han opened its gates to him. ] — and she’s far sweeter on me than Nazyalensky. [ mildly, ] Did you find her to be reliable when you were courting?
[ if they’re not talking about nikolai’s tragic appearance, the demon, the assassination, or the job (as per nazyalensky’s polite request), they may as well discuss something of use to him. perhaps he’s curious whether nikolai would mind him swapping allegiances and risking his life for another crown, too, since his devotion to queen and country seems to have finally reached its limit, somewhere between his self-destructive tendencies and whatever drives his consistent attempts to send kaz away. best not to theorise about the latter, so he resists the urge for the time being. ]
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le angst
their tether has broken. that much he knows for sure. whatever pull he feels now — and he certainly feels it — is simply muscle memory, an ache of a loss, a longing for something that isn't there. other emotions cloud his senses when he looks at kaz now. a lightning-hot, jagged line of anger. anger that he would test him like this. that he would throw an ultimatum down at his feet. but mostly that he would back him into a corner, that he would clock his weakness and use it against him. your competitors would at least pay me to douse her with the blood of the last lantsov king. he has no idea if brekker would really do it. months ago, hidden away on their vast corner of the sea, he would've been confident in the answer. now, he suspects there might be two demons at the table.
he hasn't slept a wink, and the evidence is in the shadows beneath his eyes that genya hasn't yet tailored away, but nothing else is out of place as he lounges in his chair, an easy smile on his lips, plunking sugar into his coffee. kaz is allowed a moment to settle before zoya presents him with the plan nikolai had convinced her of before dawn. kaz and his crew will be paid to find the families of nikolai's victims so that the crown can make amends. nikolai has requested to speak with each of them personally in a controlled environment, to be as open and honest as possible about the reality of what took place. and he'd promised her to put the entire notion of death behind him. he refuses to make eye contact with anyone as she relays this to kaz, instead propping his feet onto an empty chair and juggling a set of oranges while he challenges tamar to hit one with a knife in mid-air. genya chastises them to take their games elsewhere, which he gladly does, and as he leaves the room with the twins at his side, he hears her thank kaz for returning nikolai back to them.
he is not permitted to accompany kaz on the job, but zoya does allow him to travel outside of the palace with tamar and tolya after he puts on a show of several days of good behavior. it all comes second-nature to him, falling back into the familiar role of the dutiful nikolai lantsov, confident and unbothered, burying his guilt and grief in places no one else can see. no one but brekker, when he catches him staring like a damned reaper across the gleaming palace halls, making him feel suddenly transparent, a hollow piece of fool's gold. sometimes his eyes will flicker black for precious seconds at a time, and he'll come shuddering back to the present to find that steady blue sky watching him shrewdly, as if he knows his entire life is just one flimsy lie, a pretense, a projection of what he needs to be for everyone else. then nikolai's anger will come rushing back all over again, and he'll turn a corner so he doesn't have to look at kaz brekker's fucking face and wonder whether he wants to kiss him or hit him more.
nights are the worst. everything he's running from catches up to him then, his paltry sleep plagued with terrors, his nerves fraying more and more when he thinks about what he can possibly say to his victims, his heart aching with loneliness. he tells himself again and again that he can't die, not yet, but it doesn't make him want for it any less. he wants it as much as he wants kaz in his bed, for a return to what they used to have. he drinks until he can't see straight, then pulls out the little box left untouched since the moment kaz threw at it him that night they last spoke. he spends half an hour drunkenly trying to make sense of the puzzle, then throws a robe on and leaves his chambers, walking carefully down the darkened hallway toward kaz's suite, waving at the guard to open the doors for him. the perks of being nikolai lantsov.
he doesn't bother announcing himself, slipping inside, half-expecting a knife to his throat as he slides heavily onto the bed, smelling of sweet brandy, brow furrowed, unfocused eyes trained on the box in hand. ]
It's people. My weakness has always been people. That's how you control me. [ his voice is quietly rough from his earlier attempts at sleep. ] My parents figured that out when I was a child. They brought on a whipping boy to be tutored beside me. When I misbehaved, he'd be punished. It was an extremely effective method to set me on the straight and narrow, at least until I got better at breaking the rules without being caught. When you threatened Zoya's throne you knew you could get me to agree to whatever terms you wanted. When did you figure out it was that easy to get me to heel?
[ he feels less anger now. maybe the brandy is dulling his senses. his bare, clumsy fingers fidget with the box, clicking pieces into place. ] I wouldn't use your condition against you, but I suppose I did throw you into the sea once.
sexy french depression dot mp3
these days, he rarely sleeps well, but he still sleeps. only human, despite the rumours (and jesper convincing rotty that he retires to a coffin each night).
as the door to his room creaks open, kaz lifts his head, bare fingers sliding over the handle of a knife beneath his pillow before a sliver of moonlight illuminates nikolai’s face. his chest strains, breath caught beneath cracked ribs, trying to contain the staccato thudding of his heart. it shouldn’t be doing that. it hasn’t been, for the most part, since they last spoke. easy to behold the man wearing nikolai’s skin and keep his affection for the genuine article locked away. he pushes himself upright in a rush to look closer, hair falling into his face, worsening the disarray from his fitful rest. swallowing, he manages to clear his features at the expense of an uneven part.
immediately, he knows that the real nikolai visits him tonight. weary, handsome — dulled by brandy or tonic. brandy, he concludes, its sweetness wafting off nikolai where he makes himself comfortable on the bed. with a jolt, kaz clocks the puzzle box, still unopened, in his fumbling hands. distracted as he is by the sight of it and nikolai both, he processes the story from nikolai’s childhood on a delay. once he dampens the flare of anger at the thought of the elder lantsovs, his answer comes after a noticeable pause. ]
Everyone has their levers, and most count people among them. [ voice slow and thick with sleep, ] Even barrel bosses have lovers on the geldstraat and children secreted away. [ except him, obviously, a demon alone among humans. he thinks of pekka rollins’ boy, and the look on inej’s face when she thought kaz had killed him. nikolai won’t forgive you for this. is that why he’d hesitated, despite having this dagger in hand when he entered his miserable room? proof of yet another weakness flourishing under nikolai’s golden warmth. ] When you came to Ketterdam asking me to steal titanium for you, I knew. [ that zoya was a lever, albeit a difficult one to pull, given her fierceness. long before his first injury in nikolai’s presence, prior to anything unspooling between them. ] You’ll recall you threatened the Wraith at the time.
[ a noncommittal shrug. they’re bastards and monsters, both when they need to be and sometimes even when they don’t. his eyes flicker from nikolai’s hands to his face, blinking away his surprise at that last comment. ]
No, you wouldn’t. [ in a tone that suggests the opposite, the line of his mouth taut. ] You weren’t using it — [ avoiding the term condition, with how it connotes sickness, even if that’s how he thinks of his aversion privately. ] — each time you tried to scare me off in your room. [ grazing his knee and wondering aloud whether he could withstand another’s touch, pushing him quick and mocking his inability to hold nikolai through this. it worked, he doesn’t say, warping their physical connection into unpleasantness, the memory of nausea then and the threat of his proximity now intertwined. his focus drops to nikolai’s clever fingers on the box. ] And you’re not invoking it now, by coming here in the night without warning. [ when kaz sits exposed, without his suit of armour to protect him. gloveless, shirtless, covers pooling at his waist. he scoffs, averting his gaze to smooth the irritation (or worse, the hurt) from his expression. a click of his tongue. ] How gallant.
[ if that isn’t using his condition against him, he’s loathe to see what qualifies. revealing it publicly, perhaps, to allies and enemies alike. defanging the great and terrible kaz brekker with a whispered weakness. he wouldn’t do that, if only because of what kaz would do in return.
true to his accusations, his self-consciousness doubles with nowhere to hide it. can’t flick lint off your suit or adjust your sleeves while sat in your damn underwear. instead, he crosses his arms over his chest. the box audibly clicks as its pieces are shifted into the correct place. inevitable, then, that nikolai will crack it in his presence. the way he wanted him to, the way he’d rather he bloody didn’t now. it seems ridiculous to have bothered with a present at all — even with the kaleidoscope nikolai gifted him resting on its velvet sleeve on his desk, otherwise home only to his businesses' papers and books. it was foolish to have brought anything for a prince, who has everything he wants but absolution and needn’t trouble himself with what he doesn’t, like you.
still, his eyes stray back to nikolai. he leans over to the side table to retrieve his bone light from the drawer, scattering the shadows between them and illuminating his deathlike paleness with its green glow. better that he can see nikolai clearly and anticipate his movements. watch his hands, he thinks, blues stuck to his profile, waiting for the moment the box clicks open. ]
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some rambling nonsense 4 u
but he supposes whatever happened by the lake was goodbye. when nikolai had gone underwater, maybe that was to a place that kaz couldn't follow. hadn't offered him a hand. hadn't told him this could be their midnight swim, that nikolai would keep him safe and show him there was nothing to be afraid of. he grew up in that lake. always wanted to take kaz swimming in it. he should have. maybe he would still be here if he had.
presently, he has to set all his kaz-related regrets aside to deal with his other regrets. this door has been swinging shut for some time now, and perhaps this is the moment it closes for good. zoya tracks him down, taking one look at him and inquiring about brekker, and she's equal parts angry and relieved that he's gone — only angry that he left on his own terms as opposed to hers. nikolai begins the arduous task of putting it all out of his head. he has to look forward now. there's work to be done, wrongs to be made right, a heavy weight that he has to shoulder. kaz doesn't need him. at least that much is true.
once more, the weeks drag on. nikolai makes his pilgrimage with tamar and tolya at his side. he starts letters that he never finishes, never mails, but he does begin sending other things to kaz in the post, emblazoned with the lantsov seal — sketches instead of words, minimal scrawl in the margins. pieces of lazlayon. he sends the floor plan first with hardly any description, allowing kaz to puzzle out what it is on his own. then more detailed drawings of different parts of the laboratory, the different sections for the different grisha orders. the massive lake. the submarines, inside and out. some of the drawings are technical and some are picaresque, the fog helped along by squallers, the massive grounds of lush grass, the luxe mansion in count kirigan's name that disguises it all. all his secrets, sent in pieces to the crow club. he even sketches the underground tunnels that lead to the stables of the grand palace. all places he should have taken kaz to and didn't. places he knows he'll never get to see.
he imagines kaz casting his letters aside, throwing them in the fire without even opening them. wonders how angry he is, how hurt he is, and he knows he should send something more than just his drawings. he should send a proper letter with proper words. if kaz writes back, he doesn't know. he spends weeks away from the palace, and whether he has any mail from ketterdam is not a detail zoya is going to include in her own correspondence to him, sent regularly by royal couriers on horseback. nikolai doesn't ask.
he has enough on his mind anyway, spending his days with grieving families, some of them gleaning comfort from his presence, some of them looking as though they wish to grind his bones into the dirt. it's not so different from the tours he took as king, spending time connecting with the common folk, laboring side by side with them, eating in their homes, only this time he spends late hours learning the names of the dead, listening to their stories, and telling his own. his gloves come off for the first time with his people. the story they circulated years ago was that he was captured and tortured by the darkling during the civil war. now he finally fills in the details. he tells it over and over again, in every home, to every family. he leaves each night drained and still finds that sleep eludes him. he eventually caves and doses himself with genya's tonic after he nearly falls off his horse riding from one town to the next in an attempt to get some fresh air outside of the stuffy coach.
finally, the deed is done. nikolai has run out of faces in his memory. has run out of sketches to send to ketterdam. the calls for his head have stopped at least, in part thanks to his work over the long weeks, and in part thanks to kaz brekker. it stings to even think about him now that he's returned to the palace, its halls as empty to him as always, and he's quick to grow restless, the demon stirring for release after being caged for so long. with a more stable hold on it now, he goes deep into the woods and allows it the barest bit of freedom to hunt and feed to sate the growing edge of bloodlust. when it slips him back control, nikolai wrenches awake beside the ruined corpse of a small deer, blood soaking his clothes. it's all over — in his mouth, down his chin, trailing down his chest. he heaves and nothing comes up, but the demon's appetite has been slaked, curled comfortably inside of him.
zoya drags him inside when she sees him trailing the grounds covered with blood, ready to throw him in chains until he explains that it's not what it seems. she looks like she wants to take his head off herself, and he understands why. this is the last thing they need after everything he's done to repair what's been broken. one look at him and rumors will fly once more. she locks him in his chambers once more — temporary, she says — though this time he doesn't mind as much. he chains himself to his bed and promptly falls into a fitful sleep, alternating between nightmares and waking to think he'll find kaz's sapphire gaze staring back at him, but his bed remains empty, his room cold and lonely. he stares at the ring instead, stares at the blue sky once the sun rises. doesn't leave his room. doesn't want to.
after a week, he feels the demon stirring again. he knows he can control it, knows the best way to keep it tamed is to keep it fed with animal blood instead of human, so he leaves the grounds and goes to the woods again, allows it a measure of freedom. wakes again covered in blood, another corpse neatly deposited beside him, this time a boar. but this time zoya has followed him, approaching him silently, shaking out a heavy coat that she drapes over his shoulders. he shivers as she kneels beside him, her blue eyes glittering in the dark. different from his.
zoya speaks first. ] Do you have to do this?
[ not if i was dead. ] It's not a good idea to starve a monster, Zoya. This is how we keep it under control. We have something of an understanding, you see.
[ but he can already tell that she doesn't. or maybe she does see and she just doesn't like what she's looking at. he can hardly blame her. he's become a liability, a public relations disaster far worse than all the years spent speculating about his dubious parentage. but they've weathered worse storms than this. his hope is all he has, and right now, it's all in her.
and perhaps that's why it feels like something inside of him is trying to rend itself in two when she says, ] You can't stay here. [ it's the last thing he expects to hear, not because it doesn't make perfect sense, not because he doesn't deserve to hear those words, but because it's zoya. they're not supposed to come from zoya. from anyone else. just not her.
but she is a queen now, and to protect her kingdom, she has to do what needs to be done. it's a trait he respects. doesn't make it hurt any less. she doesn't shame him with pity, but she places her gloved hand over his bloodied fingers and explains what must happen. it's not exile. it's simply an absence, a way for him to minimize the possibility of disaster. nikolai lantsov is floundering, haunted by demons and unable to rest. maybe donning another face for a time will help. sturmhond could go anywhere, be anyone, work any job on the queen's orders. nikolai pretends to listen to it all with grace, but it feels like a banishment. like a punishment. maybe this is what kaz felt, the night he sent him away. maybe this was coming all along.
it's a command from his queen, and he has no choice but to follow.
of course she sends him to ketterdam, complete with a letter addressed to kaz fucking brekker. as if he's on the ravkan payroll now. it's sealed with a thick wad of blue wax impressed with the nazyalensky crest, but that doesn't stop nikolai from opening it and reading it himself. it is absolutely absurd from start to finish, a letter from zoya asking kaz brekker to watch out for him, because the night before leaving os alta, he paid a visit to lazlayon and accidentally set fire to his private workroom. by the time he left, half the mansion was in flames and count kirigan was running around the front gates with one of his ridiculous robes flapping behind him.
nikolai had watched the tidemakers put out the fire and assured count kirigan that there had been little of value left in the laboratory since the war ended and their focus had shifted away from military weapons anyway. in the letter, zoya blatantly accuses him of destroying his lab intentionally. says that nikolai has not been himself and to please keep an eye on him and — worst of all, she's enclosed a fat check to the crow club as if kaz can be paid to be his personal babysitter. he has half a mind to burn it. but the letter and the check both make it safely to the crow club, neatly resealed, and he makes it into kaz's office after picking the lock to the door instead of knocking — but only after causing a (generally positive) ruckus on the floor of the club downstairs, in true sturmhond fashion. ]
The Dragon Queen has a letter for you. [ he ignores the way his heart skips over several beats upon pushing the door wide open, half expecting either a gun or kaz's cane to his face. ] Has anyone ever suggested you invest in some skylights in here?
chef's kiss
until the drawings arrive, that is. intricate things, made lovely by cleverness and a lingering affection for the hand that drew them. intention unclear. a threat seems unlikely, though he considers it all the same. a rebuke for having left before his promised tour is more probable. that theory splinters under the weight of their constancy and detail, however. the laboratory, the submarines, the grisha. kaz fails to understand them beyond their literal interpretation, just like he failed to understand nikolai. ‘course he keeps them all, anyway, secure beneath the false bottom of the drawer by his bed and topped with the half-written letter stolen from nikolai’s room. in return, kaz sends three pieces of correspondence back to nikolai with the crow and cup seal: the floorplan of a museum that he recently relieved of another painting, the schematics for a new lock it took him a thrilling amount of time to crack, and a design that wylan can’t quite perfect with a letter in jesper’s hand explaining the trouble. kaz is only mentioned in the postscript. PS — It’s very rude to read your friends’ correspondence, Kaz. Tip-toeing to peak over their tall, handsome shoulders is especially dastardly. This is why we give Inej all the tawdry material.
daylight dwindles in ketterdam, though you wouldn’t know it in the crow club, as moody and windowless as ever. not much better outside, in fairness, with grey clouds overhead and snow flurries melting into the salt canals. not long after sturmhond sets foot in the harbour, word zips through the dregs’ contacts until the electric shock of his arrival singes kaz himself. oh. he knew a ravkan ship was headed to kerch yesterday, but he’d refused the possibility of a visitation from this particular ghost. best not to ensnare himself in hope, after all. if the whispers are to be believed, nikolai's people have heard his story’s most gruesome chapters and chosen to accept it. no need for kaz brekker to involve himself.
the crowd downstairs sounds rowdier than it ought for this hour. his dregs will mind the floor, if there’s unwelcome trouble. and if it’s welcome? the snick of the lock draws his focus, and he meets nikolai’s eyes the moment he flings open the door. still as a statue apart from the slow arch of his brows, kaz sits at his desk, pen in hand. dressed far too smartly to be retired for the evening. beneath both his dinner jacket and overcoat, draped across his shoulders for warmth, his shirt and bow-tie bisect him with a burst of white. either because of that or the warm candlelight on his desk, he looks a shade less pale than usual. his hair remains slicked back tight enough to suggest he’s yet to attend the party, not recovering after it.
the dekappel landscape rises behind him. a farm in the shadow of a hill on one side, thick trees on the other. orange sky above it all, like a warning. another artwork has joined it since, a seascape at sunrise, hanging on the exterior wall where a window might be in any other building. no seat for nikolai to take on the other side of his desk, so as not to invite people to stay any longer than necessary — but there is a comfortable looking armchair in the back corner, books stacked atop its cushion, that jesper alone dares to clear without regard for his belongings. as with all of kaz’s residences, temporary or otherwise, he keeps the room tidy (files organised in deep drawers under lock and key). more understated than the gaudy make of the rest of the crow club because it’s for him, not the patrons.
his heart judders in his chest, and his shoulders lift in the barest tell of tension before he smooths them out. a nighttime apparition, no, it’s too early for that. it’s never sturmhond he sees besides, just nikolai. fuck. ]
If you don’t know what time it is, you can’t tell how much time has passed. [ his mouth moves without thought to steer it, voice abrading his throat. ] Perhaps you haven’t been here long at all. You’ve time for another round, a bigger bet, a chance to risk more to win back what you’ve lost already.
[ he waves a bare hand, inviting nikolai inside for the sake of pretending this was planned. a crow emblazoned cuff link catches the light as he does. he’s dressed as himself, not in a disguise.
if nikolai comes closer, he’ll find kaz’s desk to be minimalist, not devoid of personal affects. books on business theory and the new age of engineering are well-read, if not dog-eared, the neat scratching of the day’s accounts ongoing beneath his hand, a personalised deck of cards that must be suli handiwork on one side and a pair of sleek, black dress gloves resting in a clean fold on the other. in the back corner, a fat wire bird overlooks the whole of his affairs. ]
[ curiosity lifts his tone, ] Are you her delivery boy, Sturmhond? [ unless nikolai wanted to come — to see you? please. ]
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don't make fun of his very good not terrible plan
leaving the main level undisturbed, he pays a visit to little ravka and seeks out a fabrikator to forge chains of the same type that david made for him all that time ago. as sturmhond — sporting the fox's smile and still wearing his bloodied shirt — his requests are easily met. hunting a sea monster that takes the form of a drowning man. he dines in a tavern while he waits, nursing his headache with terrible ravkan swill, and buys a set of weeks old newspapers to pass the time. the horse auctions in caryeva are booming this season. the duke in grevyakin is expanding his cotton farming business into the surrounding settlements. os alta's gates will soon be open for the winter festival, sketches of zoya splashed across the front page in complicated gowns that she would never wear. an opinion piece dedicated to the fall of nikolai lantsov takes up a corner of a page, which he's in the middle of reading when a group of giggling travelers come over to beg him for stories about his adventures at sea.
it's late afternoon when the chains are done. he is no fabrikator but has spent enough time in their workrooms to fasten them securely to the stone walls himself. the demon grows more and more agitated, moving restlessly inside of him, its hunger growing at a pace that's increasingly difficult to ignore. he tests the chains anyway, giving the monster the barest measure of freedom and swiftly yanking back control when the fetters begin to cut into his wrists. but they hold fast. that's all that matters.
he thinks of penning a message to kaz and dropping it off at the white rose for milena, but in the end decides against it. he doesn't want him to come looking for him, though he knows at least after a few days of silence, he likely will. he purchases what he hopes is a complicated lock for the cellar. the rest of the safehouse he leaves untouched, as if he was never there at all. he tries to reset the schuyler lock to make it seem as though he never picked it in the first place, but is unsure if he's entirely unsuccessful, and makes a show of going back to his ship instead, making sure kaz's dregs see him. while he waits for nightfall, he repairs the kaleidoscope, fitting a new mirror inside, carefully hammering out the dent, and engraving a pattern of curving sea waves onto the slender tube to cover any trace of past damage.
it's dusk when he locks himself in the cellar with a stockpile of nourishment and brandy, iron fetters clicking around his freshly bandaged wrists and throat. the monster is starving, but he doesn't allow it a final hunt. his will is strong enough to get him through this. it has to be. it's the reason the darkling didn't choose imprisonment or torture to punish him with, fates too easy for him to endure. he thinks of his last words to zoya. it's not wise to starve a monster. but starve it he will, until it heels under his command once more. until one of them gives. it won't be him.
the chains hold. for days, the only sound he hears is the monster in his own head. no footsteps above, no rattle of the lock at the cellar door at the top of the narrow, dusty staircase. he spends more time as monster than man, howling in the dark, his claws leaving slashes in the walls and the packed earthen floor. doesn't relent when the monster leaves him battered and bruised from trying to break through the walls, just spits the blood from his mouth and washes down the pain with brandy.
he doesn't know if it makes it better or worse to think of kaz, to remember the sensation of falling asleep with him in his arms, more peaceful than he could have imagined. ruined now, thinking of the monster tearing into his flesh. trying to put it out of his mind proves unsuccessful, staring down at his bloodied hands, the ring safely tucked away in his coat. he wishes he could catch a glimpse of the sky now, dreams of it between moments of lucidity, but he finds himself in the same dark place every time his eyes open, no cracks of light, nothing to hold onto but his dwindling hope as he grapples with the monster. ]
no ❤️
she hasn’t been seen since, but in a grand reappearance, kaz attends a merchant council soirée in honour of lady van verent’s replacement. and in the company of a handsome grisha, at that. another curiosity, after the would-be singularity of the pirate. some say they glimpsed claws through his dress gloves, and that the grisha had something devilish about him, too. the next day, he deals into an exclusive poker game as the guest of a woman known for being a merciless card shark, and they both leave with heavy pockets after whispering the entire night. the latter is significantly more enjoyable than the former (unsurprising, when he’s had enough of bloody ravkans, likes winning stacks of kruge, and gets to watch his date — if she can be called that — dagger her neighbor’s cheating hand to the table).
these competing sparks swallow the specialness of his appearance with sturmhond, which means no one will seek him out and turn themselves into a hearty lunch. dirtyhands can be a rake, if he must, as long as he seems judicious (dangerous) in his choices and remains untouchable in the ways that matter. the gossips diminish and embellish as suits their aims. jesper seems altogether delighted by the development — kaz brekker, you cad — and makes a point to harangue him over his dance card, when he delivers nikolai’s alternate plans to the van eck manor. should have sent a courier, he thinks for the umpteenth time. never does. it’s a good excuse to stretch his legs and keep an eye on the nice side of town; that’s all. and isn’t as if he has other house calls to make. nikolai fails to muster the desire to write or seek him out. expected, really, when he’s never done it before. probably never will. there’s a limit to their entanglement. kaz resolves to hold to that, however much nikolai has hurt himself this time. he chokes down the ache at having him here but out of reach. not because they fought, as in ravka, but because that’s nikolai’s choice. he’d rather lose alone than win with kaz at his side. fine.
every morning since nikolai left, kaz reads the reports from zenik and nazyalensky’s spies on, well, nikolai — and any suspicious deaths (which could, of course, implicate nikolai). the day he left, kaz decided everyone would be better served by the two queens watching him, rather than the dregs. grisha are equipped to deal with the monster and anyone trained by zenik is unlikely to be caught, besides. it’s almost charming that nikolai feints leaving the city, when kaz has the refugees’ travel dates in his ledger, courtesy of his newfound partnership with the dragon queen. if working alone got you anywhere, he’d have done it himself.
eventually, he runs out of excuses to put off dealing with it, particularly as he has two queens hounding him for first-hand information on their mutual — friend’s wellbeing. when one of nina’s brusque, terrifying fjerdans tells him she heard the strangest sounds at the safehouse, their tether pulls taut. kaz doesn’t trust nikolai to seek out help, even if that would release him from this life.
cane in one hand and a hefty lock hanging off the other, he sweeps into the cellar. the crow’s head glints in the sliver of light slicing into the darkness from behind. only the barest flicker of curiosity passes over his features, half-shadowed by his hat. even a cursory glance shows nikolai is in a state, the smell of blood thick in the air. ]
You’ve redecorated. Does it remind you of home? [ with the curtains drawn in his royal prison, nikolai looked much the same. kaz lobs the lock low, sending it skidding to nikolai’s feet. something for him to throw at his head, no doubt, for daring to come to his aid. battening down his desire to close the distance between them (to be soft, where he should be hard, always), he stops out of reach. ] Wouldn’t buy from Velementov next time. He seeks out complex orders so he can nick whatever they protect. I’d be impressed if I hadn’t thought of it first. And executed it better. [ he knocks up the brim of his hat with his cane, gaze slanting on nikolai. ] You look terrible, so I take it everything’s going to plan.
[ being that the plan appears to be terrible. ]
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potential uwu or nightmare hours buffering
dimitri nearly jumps out of his skin when nikolai bursts from the bedroom demanding sustenance. he immediately sends him away to fetch him a hat. something that flatters the coat, maybe gold trim to match the gold buttons, oh, and a peacock feather is an absolute must — nothing drab like that sad thing brekker wears on his head. he shuffles around the kitchen while he waits and finds coffee and fresh bread, but not what he's really looking for. kaz is not here. of course he isn't. he must have business to attend to, as always. he's not disappointed. he's not. he's — relieved, really, that he doesn't have to look him in the eye just yet after what just transpired.
the hat is the gaudiest thing he's ever seen and more than satisfactory. bless dimitri and his os altan roots. he pulls the wide brim low over his eyes and digs into his deep pockets for a heavy coin, tossing it at dimitri on his way out while giving him a quick wink and a flash of a smile. tell your boss he can find me by the sea. failure is not a reason to brood. he's already compiling lists in his head of things he needs to do — ways to keep himself preoccupied — and a visit to the white rose is first on the schedule.
milena rearranges his features back to sturmhond's appearance while nikolai keeps up a steady stream of chatter and tries not to think about genya. he politely refrains from asking about kaz's whereabouts. if he wanted you to know, he would have told you. or left a note. no, the whole of ketterdam would sooner go up in flames before kaz bekker ever penned him a note. he's desperately worried about his leg. it's unlikely that he's taking the proper rest required for such an injury.
nikolai spends the rest of the day viewing properties along the geldcanal. if he has use of the safe house for the moments when his uninvited guest is feeling peckish, then he sees no reason as to why he can't enjoy the comforts that ketterdam has to offer for his place of work. it's no gilded bog, but he won't be building military submersibles anyway. for once he'd like to try his hand at making things simply for the sake of making them — things not made for conquering or war. he chooses a place right along the water with a view of the sunset, and the following day purchases a sailboat. the property is set up as a haphazard mix of experimental lab and lounge, with his work spilling over into every room. sunlight streams in from wide windows — when the sun manages to break free from ketterdam’s persistent clouds — books and papers stack themselves into precarious piles, and he spends more nights asleep at his enormous drafting desk than in the brand new bed recently delivered and currently covered in rumpled linen sheets the color of sea glass.
kaz undoubtedly knows of his new residence, and yet doesn’t come by. nikolai’s frustration dissolves to worry, until he finally leaves a note at the crow club signed in sturmhond’s looping scrawl. allow me to make good on an old promise to you. meet me at the geldcanal an hour before sunset. ]
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kaz devotes himself to business, non-stop in his dealings as the conflict he and inej’s initiated against the elite escalates. better to think of that than nikolai, no doubt mussing his formerly pristine abode. old tactics help him achieve distance and project strength even as he tires. someone draws too close, he throws a punch. if they touch him, he breaks a wrist, an arm, a jaw.
the offer of a promise halts this familiar rhythm. there’s but one that fits in this crevice, and it’s — not something he should indulge, if he wants to stand apart again. no reply comes because kaz convinces himself he’s ignoring it until the light dims in the city. hat low and cane in hand, he could be going anywhere through ketterdam’s myriad side streets. in fact, when he notices a tail two minutes out of the club, he ends up taking one in the opposite direction of the geldcanal. the air sticks close in the thick of the slanting buildings, his coat draped over his shoulders instead of snug against his arms. as soon as he clears the straat, however, the crisp harbour breeze threatens to carry his hat down the nearest canal. the geldcanal, as it so happens. his leg twinges with every step, a pain that’s both as constant as it’s always been and worse than he’s ever known. there’s nothing for it. zenik is away from the palace for another week, dismantling drüskelle alcoves. it would be unwise to leave nikolai unattended in ketterdam, too, after his last brilliant plan.
at sturmhound’s place, kaz picks the lock with precision and eases open the door. habit makes him linger by the frame, scanning the empty sitting room — well, empty but for the clutter of nikolai’s mind made physical. after a long moment, he steps forward and removes his hat, hanging it on a coat hook and tidying his hair in the hall mirror. he smoothes the suture above his brow that milena begrudgingly placed yesterday. you should let me fix the old bruises before you make new ones tutted at close range, her sigh warm on his face. should have told her off for that and touching him both, but he’d been too exhausted to protest. that night, kaz had medicated to sleep through the pain in his leg, sacrificing cogency in the night to achieve alertness in the day. consequently, the shadows gilding his cheekbones seem only slightly more macabre than usual.
his eyes land on the ugliest hat he’s ever seen, and his reflection quirks a smile at him that he swiftly flattens. you’re not staying for long. not for the promise, which ought to be broken. just to see how nikolai’s faring after collapsing in his arms and mumbling nonsense. another pause. he removes his coat and catches himself straightening his tie in the mirror, suddenly warm all over.
enough. kaz limps into the main room, cataloguing every piece of evidence to support nikolai’s presence and wellness. the adjoining kitchen has a dirtied coffee cup in the sink. can’t help but wonder if the stuff holds a candle to burga’s morning deliveries to the captain’s quarters. nikolai must hear him before he sees him, the thud of his cane steady on the wood floor. it stops when kaz does, tilted into the doorframe of nikolai’s bedroom/office (a natural counterpart to his sitting room/office and kitchen/office). it hasn't been long, but there are traces of nikolai everywhere. kaz supposes he’s the sort of person who creates an impression, like a footprint in the sand, wherever he goes — and whenever he leaves.
over a quarter of an hour late, he raps a gloved hand on the frame. ]
I recommend a deadbolt. [ so people like him can’t sneak inside. he’s trying very hard not to think of it as a welcome for him. the equivalent of a key hidden under the mat. with a tip of his head and arch of his brows, ] I’m impressed you can afford this. [ being exiled from a kingdom with war debts and all. he leans over the threshold, as if he can't enter without an invitation. ] There aren’t bodies or submarines in the basement, I trust.
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the date…i do not see it
closes my eyes to it
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some very normal and wholesome domesticity
he's careful not to wake him as he guides the boat gently to shore and extinguishes the lamp, nestling kaz against his chest as he carries him, heaped in furs, down the pathway to his house. nikolai has grown used to the strength of genya's teas and the grisha remedies she frequently forces down his throat, but he wagers kaz will sleep at least a few hours more if he's lucky — perhaps not until daybreak, but for what might reasonably constitute a decent night's sleep, for people like them. his bed dips comfortably beneath their shared weight, settling kaz into his rumpled mess of fine linens and adjusting the feathered pillows beneath his head. another pillow for his leg, his palm running gently over his bandages to ensure they're still dry. then nikolai draws back, gazing down at the empty space beside him and allowing himself a moment to wish that he could be the one to occupy it.
but he turns on his heel with an ache in his chest, the scent of blood already strong in the room. it grates on him to admit that kaz is right, that they'll have to feed the beast before they set sail again. he wants nothing more than to go back out into the night and slake the demon's hunger, but he won't, unwilling to let go of his foolish, stubborn pride. he strides across the room for a fresh pair of gloves, but the moonlight catches the red stains as he stands by the window, soaked thoroughly into the fine leather, hopelessly sullied. something sharp fills his senses — kaz's blood, hot and inviting, the scent unique to everything else the demon has spilled. kaz's pulse thuds through him, slow and steady this time but no less strong, and when nikolai blinks next he's braced over his desk, two of his own fingers in his mouth to glean the taste of blood from the leather of his gloves.
he pulls his hand away so fast that he sends an inkwell spilling across the open pages of a thick engineering text, barely catching the pot before it can clatter to the floor. hastily stripping his gloves off, he throws them atop the ruined book, roughly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. it does little to clear the taste from his tongue. with dread creeping through his heart, he turns to survey kaz's hopefully sleeping form, noting that the moon has changed position in the sky, silver light now draped over kaz's pale skin as if in the absence of nikolai's touch.
cursing the saints, he snatches a clean pair of gloves with shaking hands and retreats from the bedroom. he could try and catch an hour or two of sleep here on the sofa but he doesn't dare, instead sitting at his drafting desk and staring down sightlessly at his disassembled crows while his mind races elsewhere. he gets up almost immediately to fetch a drink from the kitchen cabinets, taking a harsh swig of whiskey straight from the bottle as he returns to the desk, reaching for paper and a pen as he begins to draft a letter to nina zenik to ask for passage to fjerda. the bottle dwindles as he writes, the pen scratching against the paper, his eyes gritty and his head pounding. or is it kaz's heartbeat again? there's an awful raking against his chest, the scars across his hands pulsing once. then he's sinking into the endless dark, the ground pulled from beneath his feet.
he's up again, prowling silently back to the bed, hands bare, and the moon has shifted once more, this time illuminating eyes black as pitch as nikolai slides down beside him and places a hand on kaz's throat, fingers finding his pulse. down to the waters he goes, a sense memory as easy as breathing, an agonizing but surefire way to rattle him awake. ]
breakfast in bed
suddenly, the air changes. the sea changes. a chill shivers through him. his stomach lurches, a ship pitching over a great wave, and kaz wakes with a start. an alarmed sound catches in his throat as black eyes glitter like broken glass, kaleidoscopic in his blurred vision. his stare slices down the person beside him. a dream. his throat constricts. golden hair falls in nikolai’s face, moonlight gilding his browbone, eyes black as an eclipse. a nightmare.
as if to counter his pulse taking flight under nikolai’s bare grip, his bandaged hand encircles his wrist. the other slides beneath the pillow still cradling his skull in search of the dagger kept in his bed. only succeeds in brushing another pillow, beaded with an intricate pattern that he doesn’t recognise. breathe, jordie reminds him. he isn’t drowning, after all, just thrown into the canal. kaz fights to contain the panic stirring low in his gut. for the first time since the ice court, he has no tricks up his sleeve. swathed in nikolai’s fine clothes and blankets, there’s no armour to protect him, no back-up in place or plan to spare. all stunning proof of his foolishness. his leg pangs painfully enough that either genya’s tea has worn off or the wound recognises its creator. even so, kaz remains still. that's how you're meant to face an animal. ]
And here I was, [ voice rough with sleep and taut with nerves. ] planning our next date.
[ you know this nikolai, too. perhaps better than nikolai himself, since he’s unafraid to meet its eyes. his thumb drags over the veins in nikolai’s wrist, wondering whether blood or shadow might spill if he jammed his nail into the skin. no sense in starting a fight he’ll surely lose, of course. despite the rising waterline, nikolai’s pulse persists, proof of life. it doesn’t want you dead, he reminds himself at the same moment the nikolai of his memory warns, it wants to be the one to break you. perhaps it’s convenient that he’s already rather broken, after the events of the day. ]
[ gaze sharp on nikolai’s uncanny other, ] Have you been awake long? [ a neutral opener, since all he has to defend himself is his clever tongue (and that particular weapon is double-edged). nikolai and the demon have been wrenching control from one another more frequently than in the past, when either one might steer their person for an extended period. but is their newfound fluidity in play because nikolai has grown stronger — or is it the demon gaining ground? regardless, the interruptions (whether nikolai’s concern and the demon’s own bloodthirsty impulses) have prevented kaz from engaging in any illuminating conversations until now. that the demon is here, not out feeding, signals something. a lever, albeit one he may regret pulling. ]
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