My Dearest Inej

Chapter Thirteen: A New Bastard

A final warning to the traitors who still call themselves Dregs:

Your ungrateful, deceitful usurper of a commander can no longer shelter you from the consequences of your betrayal. You are each given one opportunity to remember who gave you this life and show the proper respect to the heir of the Haskell empire. Defectors will be disposed of like faithless filth you really are.

Signed,

Rhett Haskell and Co.

(in Jesper's handwriting in the margins next to "Haskell empire," which has been crossed out)

OH WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT

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(hastily scrawled on old, yellowing paper)

Dear Nina,

I'm sorry for the state of this letter. I don't know if I'll ever send it, honestly. It's dark where I am but for the wash of moonlight, and Wylan thinks I should sleep but I'm going mad, and I have to write something.

What was my last letter to you? Something about kissing and hotel rooms and dreams coming true? When will I learn, Nina. When will I learn how quickly it all can vanish.

I came back to Ketterdam in a hurry. I'd received a slurry of disturbing letters in my post box at Os Kervo. Something was brewing back in the Barrel. Something I couldn't leave them to fight alone. (That's something I shouldn't ignore, isn't it?)

But it was too late. It had begun before I even entered Kerch waters. Thank the Saints Jesper was there, Nina. Thank the Saints.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Bluntly put, Kaz collapsed. Middle of the day, just after lunch, not a soul touching his skin. Gods, Nina, he's only twenty-two. He was at Jesper and Wylan's. He'd come back from taking Ambroos on a walk and was literally in mid-snarky-sentence when Jesper says his eyes went all unfocused and he stumbled to his knees. They made him rest on the sofa, and Wylan went to get a medik and while he was gone, Kaz lost consciousness. Jesper's still shaken from it. Apparently, he seized, foamed at the mouth – terrifying, disgusting shit, Jesper says. The medik was able to stop it.

Nina, if he had been at The Slat when this happened...

It gets worse. Of course it would get worse. When will I learn? Wylan had had a suspicion from saints-knows-what and convinced the medic to force-feed him an antidote for a compound called checconide. Sankta Alina, what would we have done without Wylan. I don't know how he knows these things. He was completely right. Someone had been poisoning Kaz's food with tiny doses of checconide. For who knows how long. He's been tired for ages, Nina. It could have been weeks. Months, if they were particularly non-committal about it.

And to think I gave him a hard time about falling asleep on my birthday.

He's looking at a lengthy recovery, and taking him back to The Slat to recover was out of the question. Jesper and Wylan did the sensible thing – they'd started to make plans to go investigate in East Stave. But that was before the next death threat came in.

Seems like there's a new bastard in the Barrel, Nina. An actual bastard this time, spawned by Per Haskell himself, who, I don't know, found himself hard up for cash and decided he was going to be a big shot now. He goes by Rhett, and Jesper says he looks as stabbable as he sounds.

I'm going to make him beg me for death.

He used Artie Galligan when he was alone on the streets and aching from his first stab wound. He took that poor boy who had nowhere else to go and groomed his newborn grudge. He took advantage of Kaz's one weakness, his decency for other little canal rats, and used it against him. He convinced Artie to join the Dregs and start slipping checconide into Kaz's food.

They're going to write dissertations on the new ways I will discover to make this man hurt.

For now, though, we're living in the hole. That's what we're calling it anyway. Warehouse district. Abandoned textile mill. That's where I found them when I finally made it to Fifth Harbor. Kaz, Jesper, Wylan, the medik. Ambroos, too. Haskell knows Kaz isn't dead. And he knows where Wylan and Jesper live. I have to get them out of the city. I have to convince them to let me get them out of the city. I have to figure out how to get them out of the city.

Because there's also another matter to consider that I don't want to consider at all.

The checconide antidote can only do so much after such prolonged exposure. In short, Kaz is not awake. We have him with us in the warehouse, and we're trying to keep him comfortable. Keep him stable. The medik informed Jesper and Wylan – the medik's exact words were, "This is a gamble." We have medicinals and capsules, and there are all sorts of things the medic is doing to keep him cool to bring the fever down and aid his body in recovering what it can. I hate that phrase. I hate it. Recovering what it can. The medik says we won't know how full of a recovery to expect until he wakes up.

That bitch even had the nerve to say "if he wakes up."

Nina, I need you right now. I don't know what to do or where to begin. I have to get him to the Wraith, but I don't know how we can move him from this warehouse like this without being discovered. I feel like a sitting duck, just waiting beside this makeshift cot we have him on. We don't even have light – just the full moon over the harbor through the tall pane glass windows. I hate it. It makes him look like a ghost.

I'm going crazy. I can't just sit here. I have to do something. I have to get them all out. I have to eviscerate Rhett Haskell and leave him in the sun for the flies. I have to get Artie from him and get him to Leflin.

And we cannot lose Kaz. I simply refuse this. He has to wake up. He has to open his damn eyes. He has to see how fucking adorable it is that Ambroos has not left his side and pretend to be unaffected by it. Saints, the reason Kaz Brekker dies will not be his enduring generosity to Ketterdam's forgotten children. There is no good in this world at all if that happens.

Nina, I'm so scared. I should have kissed him more. I should have stayed longer. I should have said he was essential to me, too. My gods, my last letter to him was just a bunch of snooping questions about Artie in a veiled attempt to get him to open up about his brother. The last words I have of his are "And then I can finally have my bathtub back. No pressure." That's... that's nothing. That's an absurd ending. That can't be it.

I have to go back to thinking about fileting Rhett Haskell, or I'm going to lose it completely.

Nina, he's not even grinding his teeth...