Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason. Those were the words whispered on the streets of Ketterdam - but that didn't mean that he never had one.
The Shu Serpent rears her head and slithers from the shadows when a high paying job catches her prying eyes a...
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"Do you believe it?" Was the first thing Kaz has asked Zhen, who seemed transfixed on picking at the skin around her nailbeds until they bled.
They had both made their way quickly up to the office, heads wrapped up in entirely different matters.
Kaz had sat in his office chair and rested his cane against the table while Zhen pulled up the chair from the other side. The urge to put her feet up on the desk was overwhelming but she just crossed one leg over the other, staring down at her lap in deep thought.
Her mind was on their darling Inej; she knew Kaz would find a way to get them all across the Fold, and that he was probably already calculating the possibilities as they sat in even silence. She had seen the hope in the Suli girls eyes as she had heard the words sun summoner. She believed in the story more than any of them, had seemed hopeful as she clutched the stitched necklace at the base of her throat while they left the Merchant's estate.
But Zhen knew from her silence that the job was weighing heavy on her mind. She was still held by indenture to the Menagerie. If they went to Heleen and requested Inej come with them, she would know they wanted something, and would undoubtedly twist their deal to awful heights knowing that they needed their Wraith and would have to pay it. The mere notion didn't settle well with her.
Kaz had been slowly, slowly paying off her contract - and Zhen had been secretly paying in increments from her own personal funds to help.
There was a particularly nice ruby ring under the broken floorboard in her room that could prove enough of a down-payment.
Zhen pondered it, knowing Kaz wouldn't like it, and rose her eyes from the table to look at him.
Her eyes softened at the sight.
A strand of hair had pulled free from it's slicked back position and fell across his eyebrow, his eyes flickering over the many papers he had pulled out both from their safe and the drawers dotted around the room.
Zhen held onto her other hand, stopping her skin picking and battling the need to reach across to tuck the strand back into it's perfect place.
She watched him, forgetting that he had asked her a question entirely, and blinked when he stopped his reading to catch her staring. She blinked as he rose an eyebrow.
"What's going on with you?" He asked, pinning her to the spot with his dark eyes. "Ever since we got the job you've been spacing out like a lunatic. Don't tell me you're turning into a believer like Inej."
She rolled her eyes and went back to picking at her nails, feeling his heated glare on the side of her head.
"I don't know what I believe." She admitted finally.
He sat forward to rest his elbows on the desk. "I don't think I've ever seen you this distracted. What's going on with you?"
She smirked. "That's a lie. What about the time I bumped into the bakers daughter when we were little down at the library-"
