When she spoke next, Inej’s voice was soft, almost pleading, “You could leave. Leave Ketterdam. Start a new life somewhere. A better life.”
He shook his head and turned his attention back to the specks of light outside his window, stretching as far as the eye could see. “I have given my sweat, my tears and my blood to this city. It’s my home. I’m not leaving it behind.”
“It’s a sewer and a dump, governed by corrupt merchants and filled to the brim with murderers, liars and thieves,” Inej said, her anger rising. “It doesn’t deserve you, and it’s certainly not worth your life.”
Kaz gave her a sad smile, and she felt her heart crack at the sight. “I’m a murderer, a liar and a thief, Inej. I am exactly what this place deserves.”
“You’re more than that.”
She had spoken so low and Kaz was quiet for so long, she wasn’t sure if he had heard her. He was standing very still, his eyes staring at her without seeing her, his jaw set. But then he took three firm strides across the room and crouched down next to her, black irises peering up at her with an intensity that threw her completely off balance. For a moment, Inej thought he might kiss her again, and she felt her heart hammering in her chest as a bolt of desire shot through her. But he didn’t. Instead, with a gentleness she had rarely seen in him before, he took her hand between his own and kept it there, the tips of his fingers lingering over the pulsepoint at her wrist, grounding him to reality. Inej didn’t dare breathe, afraid that even the smallest movement might set him off.
He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I am not a good man, Inej,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw like steel on stone.
“I think you want to be,” said Inej.
“I never did a good thing in my life.”
You saved me, Inej thought, again and again. “You got me out of the Menagerie, freed me from Tante Heleen.”
Kaz snorted, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Only to bind you to Haskell,” he retorted.
“You taught me how to fight.”
“So I could use it for my own gain.”
“You rescued me from Van Eck.”
“It was a matter of pride.”
Inej tilted her head to the side, watching him closely. Kaz liked to think of himself as utterly without conscience, ruthless to the core, and he had always mocked Inej for trying to wring bits of decency from him. But she had seen it—the heart that beat under all these thick layers of armour, broken but yearning. She could see it right now, tiny glimpses through the cracks.
Inej thought about all the times he had been kind to her. “You bought my contract from Haskell,” she said. “You got me a ship, you found my parents… Was it pride as well that made you do all these things?”
“Vanity,” he corrected. “I wanted you to adore me.”
“And when you let me go?” she asked, her eyes boring into his.
Kaz had given her The Wraith, he had helped her find her crew, and, when it had been time for her to leave Ketterdam, he had asked her to come back, but he had never asked her to stay. He wanted her to have her dream, however far away from him it would lead her.
Inej saw his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed.
“I never let you go, Inej,” he murmured, his voice the rasp of stone on stone.
***
Read the full story on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29640225
