𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑹 | 𝑘.𝑏.

06

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D E M O  P R O D I G Y
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"THE CROW CLUB? NO THANKS."

"Oh, come on, Wylan! Drinks're on me!"

"You know I'd prefer not to see Kaz." Wylan clutched his steaming cup of coffee close to his chest. The boy claimed he didn't usually drink coffee but the Barrel was a bad influence in every aspect. When you're only allowed a few hours rest after a late shift, and someone comes knocking at the door to your boardinghouse room, you accept the coffee they brought you and say a prayer it'll be enough that you won't fall asleep in a vat of chemical dyes.

Feta smiled wryly. This is what happens when you don't have time to make them think helping you is their idea. Feta's smile dropped. She gave herself a quick shake. Rotten, Feta. You're downright rotten. Wylan is not like the men who think they're cleverer than you.

"Are you okay?" Wylan's fair eyebrows drew together at her through the steam from his mug.

"Yeah, sorry," Feta said with a broad, convincing grin. Do not deceive Wylan just because you can. "Just got the chills. I know you've mentioned hating how damp this room is but I always forget until I'm over. I guess I'm just used to the Slat—"

"Which is also Kaz's place. So I won't be going there either." Wylan almost looked sheepish. "Sorry."

"Making this difficult for me," Feta said easily, with a playful click of her tongue.

Feta liked Wylan, she really did. She remembered Jesper bringing the boy — no taller than herself, ruddy regal curls, elegantly-lined face — into the bait shop Kaz had planted them at one evening, and Feta nearly cheering when she saw it in Wylan's pale blue eyes that he wasn't going to help Kaz. This boy from the tannery had been a wildcard anyhow, but that only made his adamant refusal more admirable: he didn't know the way of things in the Barrel, and yet his fear was not enough to make him crack at the first bit of pressure.

Of course Wylan came around the very next day — everyone did — begrudgingly offering flash bombs, though nothing more. She couldn't blame him.

Feta blew absentmindedly on her coffee. "Wylan, Wylan, Wylan. Have I told you how much we appreciate your work?" It was said blatantly, in the tone of someone who wanted something, perhaps an older sibling asking for their chores to get done. But Feta could afford the obvious: who didn't want Feta Cadner asking something of them? Relying on you enough to consider you — lucky, glorious you! — for the job?

Wylan considered her. She'd earnestly leveled with him about how much she admired his budding demolitions work awhile back. But by now Wylan knew when Feta wanted to talk about Kaz — it was written all over her smile. "No."

"Oh, come on! I haven't even said what the job is! It might've been another performance. Rotty's been humming your flute solos under his breath, you know."

"But it's not," Wylan said with a somber shake of his head, his ruddy curls shifting. "It's just another unsavory task." He held out for a minute before he sighed. Wylan had once joked to Feta that Kaz forced his hand when it came to criminal activity, of which Wylan was never actually present for. But Wylan accepted what Kaz paid him and came back week after week with each new explosive, a list of materials he would need, ideas for more complex mixes. Like it or not, this was how Wylan chose to pay his rent. "What's the job?"

"That's the best part," Feta said, her eyes sparkling. Wylan found himself believing her, leaning forwards ever so slightly. "I don't know!"

Wylan slumped back, leaning against the wall he'd shoved his paper-thin mattress up against. "What do you mean, you don't know?"