Chapter Text
Inej had only been back in Ketterdam for five hours, but she’d heard the words almost immediately - and their echo all over the city. Spoken in hushed voices in the dark, from one barrel rat to another: ‘Did you hear? Dirtyhands finally presented…an ankopje, apparently.’
Inej Ghafa knew better than anyone that even a rumour repeated a thousand times didn’t necessarily make it true. Still, there was often a sliver of truth in such things, and she listened a little more carefully to the whispers she heard.
‘The other barrel bosses will be out for him, if it’s true…’
‘Aye, it’ll make easy pickings of the Crow Club.’
It wasn’t impossible that Kaz had presented. Plenty of people did in their mid-twenties, a few years later than most. And contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t that easy to tell, even for another koper or ankopje. Their scents only rose during a cycle, and the only physical marks were the slightly raised skin of the wrists and the back of the neck: easy enough places to hide on a man who wore gloves and a collared shirt at all times.
‘A koper will bite him quick enough if it’s true, then they’ll control the Dregs.’
If Kaz really was an ankopje, it could cause him endless trouble in Ketterdam.
Keeping his position in the Dregs, and his reputation in the Barrel, would be no easy feat if any koper worth their salt could force him to his knees with just a word when he was close enough to being scarce.
No. Inej was sure Kaz was an opmerker, an unmarked. Free from the urges and hierarchy that plagued other men.
That plagued her.
Inej allowed herself only a heartbeat to imagine Kaz Brekker as an ankopje, pliant and biddable beneath her hands, before she shook away the tempting thought, resolutely ignoring the dampness it caused between her legs.
It was after midnight, and he’d be expecting her.
He was waiting for her, of course.
Inej knew he had someone report every time the Wraith docked in Ketterdam, and he could always be found in his top-floor room at the Slat the day — or night — she arrived. She climbed quickly to the roof of the Slat, and found the window already open. She slipped inside, landing on silent feet. Kaz sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair, already watching her enter as he took a sip of whiskey from a stubby glass.
‘Kaz,’ she said, walking to his desk and perching on the edge. No matter how long she’d been at sea, they fell back into their old, easy routine, Dirtyhands and the Wraith, as easily as if she’d just been off doing a job for him. Kaz raised his glass to her in a mock salute.
‘Any secrets to share this evening, Wraith?’ he asked lightly. He knew exactly what she’d been doing in those hours between her ship’s docking and now.
Inej threw him a quick look, searching for any sign on his face that he knew about the rumours being spread like wildfire throughout the city below. He looked at ease — or at least as much as Kaz ever looked at ease — although his eyes had a faraway quality to them, like he was mulling something over in the back of his mind. His dark hair was brushed back as usual, and he was down to his shirtsleeves, rolled to his elbow, black gloves firmly in place. She frowned slightly at his hands, then looked back up to his eyes.
‘The usual. Vandoorne’s taken a new mistress but doesn’t seem to realise she’s the Razor Gulls’ girl. And I saw the Silverfish watering down whiskey and wine at the Reynold Den. They could be in more trouble with paying off that old Black Tips loan than you thought.’
Kaz nodded thoughtfully as she spoke. He loosened his tie, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. Inej looked hurriedly away from the flash of pale, vulnerable skin at his throat. She couldn’t help her feelings for him, the attraction that had never faded, but she could push them away, deep down, where they couldn’t bother her so much.
Inej and Kaz had decided, on her first shore leave after the Van Eck affair, that they should wait before they made any attempt at a relationship. They knew one — or both of them — could present in a few years. What if they were both koper, and had their heads turned from each other by ankopjes? Or if one of them presented, and the other didn’t, and they were left inevitably heartbroken?
Better to wait, they’d decided.
It had seemed like they’d made the right choice, when Inej had presented as a koper, shortly after turning twenty, and Kaz had remained exactly the same as he always had.
And maybe, if Inej had ever met an ankopje who had tempted her in the past five years, it would have been the right choice. But instead, every rush, she sent her crew on shore leave and had Sprecht lock her in her cabin with food and water, riding out the heat and the pain alone and miserable, plagued by incessant thoughts of pale, clever fingers and dark, dangerous eyes.
‘Nothing else to report?’ Kaz asked, interrupting her reverie. His voice was still light beneath the gravel, but his shoulders were tense beneath his shirt. He flexed his gloved hands as he spoke.
Inej frowned at the movement, looking again at Kaz’s long, lockpick’s fingers, encased in black leather. Kaz had new spiders now that Inej wasn’t always in Ketterdam. He must have heard the rumours about himself by now.
Waiting for her to reply, Kaz reached up with his gloved hand to scratch idly at the skin above the collar of his shirt.
He never kept his gloves on around Inej. Not any more.
He hadn’t for years.
Hot realisation flooded through her.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ she whispered.
Kaz looked up sharply, his coffee-black eyes narrowed. ‘Is what true, Wraith?’ he asked, his voice dangerous now.
Inej wasn’t deterred. She hadn’t been scared of Kaz for a long time. Instead she pushed herself off the desk, and reached slowly for his gloved hand. Kaz froze in place, but didn’t stop her, letting her take his hand, hold him by the forearm. She gently tugged the glove loose. Kaz let out a heavy breath as she turned his arm over.
There was a familiar, raised lump of skin on the inside of his wrist. ‘Saints, Kaz,’ Inej breathed. She instinctively lifted her thumb to trace over the gland, but realised what she was about to do and stopped herself just in time. That would have been the touch of a lover, far more intimate even than if she’d run her thumb over his lips. She lifted her head. There was a hint of a frown on Kaz’s face, and his pupils were blown wide, black and open, as he stared at her.
‘Ankopje?’ she asked, her voice low.
Kaz blinked and looked away. He shifted his bad leg, his jaw tightening. It was all the admission Inej needed. She was torn between her horror for him, and where this put him, and the rolling wave of desire that rocked through her body.
‘It’s fine,’ Kaz said shortly, yanking his arm back. ‘No-one else knows, and I have no plans to act upon any biological urges I might have.’ He said the word urges with a snarl, as if the word alone had insulted him.
‘Kaz,’ Inej said, her heart in her mouth. She felt like she’d just fallen from the highest tightrope, with no safety net below to break her dizzying fall. ‘That’s not something you can plan…’
Kaz pushed himself to his feet, turning his back to her and stalking across his room, his limp more pronounced than usual. ‘Leave it, Inej,’ he growled.
She ignored him, ghosting up behind him instead. He kept facing away from her, but she saw the way his shoulders tensed: he knew she was there, just like always. ‘When?’ she asked, her voice quiet.
Kaz sighed and bowed his head. For a moment she imagined she could scent him from the gland on the back of his neck, the one she knew was hidden just below his collar. Imagined she could smell woodsmoke, and aged oak barrels, and just a sliver of sweetness: cherries, candied in sugar syrup.
She wanted to pin him down and lick him until he cried.
Kaz stiffened, as if reading her thoughts, and Inej took a hasty step backwards. He turned to face her once more. ‘A week after you left, last time.’
She’d been at sea for ten months. The longest trip away from Ketterdam yet. She’d suffered through two rushes of her own in that time, desperate and aching, alone in her locked cabin on her empty ship. If Kaz had been through the same, and only now were the rumours rising to the surface…
Maybe he can plan his way around this, she thought begrudgingly. It’s not as if he’d written to call for her, or even just to let her know…
Inej tried to hide how much that fact hurt.
She opened her mouth to reply: what with, she wasn’t sure. She trusted the right words would come, something bland and reassuring.
But before she could speak, a horrifying thought rushed through her. Another reason why he might not have told her straight away. Kaz, gloves off, armour off, with another koper.
‘Has someone — did you find a…—’
Inej’s stumbling, clumsy words were broken by Kaz’s interruption. ‘There isn’t anyone else,’ he said, with a voice as harsh as granite.
Inej let out a shaking breath, nodding furiously. ‘Right, of course. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked—’
‘Inej.’ Kaz interrupted her again, and for a brief moment Inej fancied she saw his ungloved hand twitch, as if he wanted to lift it towards her. He clenched his fingers into a fist at his side, instead. ‘It’s okay. Really.’
He stared at her with his bitter-coffee eyes so intently Inej felt like he was trying to read her mind. Just as she was about to squirm uncomfortably under his regard, Kaz blinked and looked away, out towards the city beyond the window.
‘Why don’t you head to see Jes and Wylan?’ Kaz said, and his voice was almost gentle, now. ‘They invited me over to dinner tonight, when they heard you were back in Ketterdam.’
‘And you’ll come?’ Inej asked, hating herself for the note of hope she could hear in the question. He rarely did turn up, when invited in the past.
But tonight, with this revelation, maybe something had changed.
‘I’ll be there,’ Kaz promised.
He hadn’t expected it to be quite so different, with Inej.
In the ten months since presenting, Kaz had imagined their next meeting in a hundred different ways, each one ending with them fighting or fucking or anything in between.
But in all his wildest imaginings, they’d been themselves, from before.
He hadn’t expected the very presence of Inej, and the mouth-watering scent of her that he’d never noticed before, would grab him by the heart and the balls, rendering his mind as sluggish and slow as the greenest rat in the Barrel.
He had also never intended to agree to go to Jesper and Wylan’s for dinner. But Inej had looked up at him with those limpid, hopeful brown eyes, and now Kaz found himself walking along the streets near the Church of Barter as the bells tolled seven. He was wearing his best suit, and had taken extra time to get his hair to look as good as he could.
As he crossed the road towards the Geldstraat, he passed a pretty little garden with geraniums growing in it. The soft scent of them, blossoming in the heavy Ketterdam night air, tugged painfully at Kaz, reminding him of Inej. He stooped awkwardly and picked a small bouquet of the flowers, gripping them in his hand as he continued on his way.
When he reached the gates of the Van Eck mansion, lifting his hand to ring the bell, he caught sight of the geraniums in his fist and scowled, suddenly feeling foolish. He’d promised himself that nothing would change when he realised he’d presented as an ankopje, and yet here he was, clutching stolen flowers like a lovesick pup, using the gate like he was a gentleman. With a snarl Kaz threw the flowers to the ground, trampling them under his shoe, and turned to slink into the shadows.
Inej may have convinced him to come along tonight with a simple look, but he was still Kaz Brekker, still Dirtyhands. He climbed his way to the second floor, picked the lock on the window, and entered the house silently. He made his way down the stairs and into the comfortable drawing room. Inej saw him first, already looking up at him with a soft smile, as if she knew he was there before he’d even opened the door. Her eyes were warm, her smile sweet and inviting. Kaz’s mind went blank for a heartbeat, as he imagined swooping down towards her, kissing the perfect curve of her lips. When he came back to himself, Wylan and Jesper were looking up at him in surprise. Jesper recovered first, leaping to his feet and striding over to Kaz.
‘Boss, you made it!’ he cried in delight, ushering Kaz into the room like a farmer shooing a chicken.
‘Jesper,’ Kaz greeted him, letting his eyes sweep over Wylan and Marya before resting back on Inej. ‘Wylan, Marya. Thank you for having me this evening.’ They murmured polite replies, Wylan’s eyes wide with shock, presumably at Kaz’s uncharacteristic politeness. The only free seat was next to Inej, and Kaz slid into it easily, breathing deeply as he sat down, letting Inej’s tempting scent wash over him. ‘Inej,’ he said, his eyes flicking over hers.
Her nostrils flared as she breathed in, and her smile turned, briefly, from one of sweetness to one of sin. ‘Kaz,’ she replied, in what he could only describe as a purr. ‘Glad you could make it.’
Dinner soon followed, and they were lost to good food and fine wine and old friends gossiping over the table. Even Kaz started to feel relaxed, although he had no intention of telling anyone what Inej had found out the moment she’d returned to Ketterdam. The fewer people who knew, the less likely the chance of someone using his presentation against him.
He hadn’t counted on Inej’s presence continuing to affect him so much, however. Every time she lifted her water glass to her lips or brushed back a strand of hair or stretched her delectable body, Kaz was overcome by the scent of jasmine and patchouli and the crisp, cool smell of a silent, starlit night. It built up within him, until he was hard as a rock beneath the table, his napkin crumpled in his fist, his mind foggy and distant. Dessert was served, bowls of preserved peaches in syrup set down in front of each of them. Kaz wanted to pluck the wedges of fruit from his bowl and hand feed them to Inej, one sticky piece at a time. And then, when she was full and sated, her lips slick with syrup, Kaz wanted to lean in and kiss the sweetness from her mouth.
He didn’t realise he was staring, didn’t realise he was fixated on Inej, didn’t realise that this level of obsession over a koper sitting close enough to kiss him would apparently make his ankopje glands release an overwhelming cloud of scent into the air.
When it happened, Inej’s eyes snapped to his, the warm brown of her irises almost completely eclipsed by the black of her dilated pupils. She stared at him like a predator, as still as a hunting cat watching her prey. Kaz felt himself sway towards her, overcome with the urge to collapse to his knees and grovel at her feet.
‘What the fuck?’ Jesper’s alarmed voice ran out, loud and clear, breaking their strange connection. Inej gasped and pulled back, and Kaz looked around in confusion, feeling heat creep up his cheeks. Jesper was staring at him with wide silver eyes from across the table, his nostrils flared. ‘Kaz… have you presented?’ Jesper said this last part with a loud whisper, as if to keep anyone outside the room from hearing.
‘Shut the fuck up, Jesper,’ Kaz hissed, still feeling a little disorientated and vulnerable from whatever had just happened between him and Inej. The preserved peaches sat untouched in his dessert bowl. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Kaz…’ Jesper looked as horrified as Inej had when she first found out. ‘I can smell you from here. You’re an ankopje?’
Kaz clenched his hands into tight fists, using the resulting pain in his joints to ground him. He looked up again, saw Jesper’s unchanged expression. Wylan was frozen in his seat, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Marya, a happy, dazed smile on her mouth, hummed as she looked up at the painting on the other wall of the drawing room. ‘I told you, it’s fine,’ Kaz hissed. ‘I’ve managed this long, haven’t I?’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Wylan finally found his voice, sounding so hurt that even Kaz felt a glimmer of guilt, deep down inside.
‘And how long?’ Jesper added, reaching out to grasp Wylan’s hand in his.
Kaz looked away again, furious at himself. Why did he even come here tonight? Was all of this, his body’s betrayal of his mind, really worth it? Worth the extra hours he’d gained in Inej’s presence, to be able to breathe in the scent of her, gaze at her when she wasn’t looking?
Yes, a traitorous voice in his mind whispered.
As Kaz scowled and looked at the table, Inej sighed and sat a little straighter. ‘Ten months ago,’ she said, ignoring Kaz when he narrowed his eyes in betrayal at her.
‘Ten months?!’ Jesper’s voice rose to an incredulous pitch, and Kaz could take no more. He pushed his chair back from the table, staggering to his feet. ‘Kaz, what are you—’
‘Thank you for inviting me,’ Kaz snapped, cutting Jesper off. ‘But it’s getting late, and I have work to do.’ He snatched up his cane and coat and jammed his hat on his head. He could feel the eyes of all of them on him as he stalked away, but none of them tried to call him back.
Not even Inej.