six of crows au: kaz meets inej
The first thing that hit Kaz, when he swept aside the soft velvet drapes,was the smell. It was a sickening waft of nightingales, white blossoms and cherries that wheedled its way through his lungs and left a drunken haze in his mind, but the stench of decay from the Reaper's Barge still lingered like an unwanted visitor. What was the Barrel's remained the Barrel's, Kaz thought grimly, and The Menegrie could try its hardest to escape it, but it could not outrun its own sordid reputation.
However,Kaz had only come for business and he, of all the podges festering in Ketterdam, could not care less about what darkness lurked in the shadows of a brothel.
The balconies were a chaos of blood roses and the walls dripped with gilded tapestries and Kaz imagined, for a moment, how it would feel to see it all burn to the ground.Exhilarating, he thought darkly, the sensation of skin, already starting to crawl up in his neck, spinning his mind like a carousel. The sick knots in his stomach only worsened when he heard the rustle of bells that jingled against ankles as the girls moved. He gripped his cane tightly and breathed out shakily and gradually the memory of Jordie buried itself and in its place left an angry gash cut into his palm by the jagged edges of the crow head.
He scowled, wondering for the thousandth time, if he should've just sent Anika for the scutwork. She was new to the Dregs, docile and naive as the next mark but Kaz knew if he wanted to persuade Tante Helene to slip out the secrets whispered to her girls by men of power and lust in their nights under the sheets, he needed to be the one to make the deal.
He shouldered through the layers of curtains leading to the parlour; he could hear giggling and whispering and the sharp sensation of being watched.
" Why doesn't he ever take off those horrid gloves?" a low voice murmured.
"I bet his fingers are long and nimble, like a pianist. I'd love for him to take them off."
"Shh! Are you serious Katya?! He's called Dirtyhands for a reason!"
"Gracious! You think such a pretty face has done such horrible things?"
The myth of Dirty hands had been Kaz's own doing and it had become his puppet, his stepping stone to what he wanted. All he had to was give a thread and the city would weave itself a twisted tale to tell and by Ghezen, it would become a reckoning.
Kaz's mind shifted back to an old red door and lemon tree and his hand clenched around his cane once more.
And then I'll pay my debt
Suddenly, from the shadows he heard the barest of whispers,"I can help you," and felt fingers grip his shoulder and before his mind even caught up, he stiffened but didn't turn around. He cocked his head to the right and spared a stealing glance.
And blinked slowly; it was a small Suli girl, with skin the colour of burnt caramel, her face painted to an overwhelming extravagance and her ankles wreathed with the shiniest bells he had ever seen.
He regarded her for a silent moment, taking in her timid yet fluid stance and her quivering hands, before walking away without a further glance. His feet carried him purposely down the dim, sullen hallway but his mind had started wandering,tethered back to the mysterious girl, turning her image over in his head again and again. He heard the faint sound of feet moving upstairs, the scratches of a rat somewhere in the wall and he saw himself speak to a boy dressed in ebony, shadowing the threshold.
"What business?" the boy drawled.
"Your mistress has new information, I hear."
He grinned sharply,"And you, Kaz Brekker, I've heard, hear everything."
If that's the case, Kaz thought, then why didn't I hear a brown, Suli girl with bells at her feet.
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