𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃 // 𝐊𝐚𝐳 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐤𝐤𝐞𝐫

𝐗𝐕𝐈.

CHAPTER 16

There's No Rest For The Wicked

     Kaz dropped the fork dripping with the drüskelle's blood, his gaze shifting from him to Brynn. He held out his hand to her and Brynn let him help her up. When she got to her feet, she shook her head, stepping away from him.

"I'm sorry, Kaz. I didn't get anything out of him."

"Nina's got it. Come on, we have to get to her."

Brynn wrapped her arms around herself. "You should have let him kill me."

Kaz stared at her. "You don't deserve that."

"Deserve? Kaz, I deserve a shallow grave, buried underneath the bodies of people I've murdered. I deserve a slow and painful death, the more violent, the better."

Shaking his head, Kaz stepped closer to her. She expected him to tell her to get over herself, to get moving. But instead he murmured, "If we're talking about what we deserve, Brynn, I should be long dead. No one ever gets what we deserve, which is why we're here right now."

Brynn stared up at him, fire in her eyes. "You don't understand—"

"I understand plenty," he interrupted. "Come on, we've wasted enough time."

Turning to the open window that he had used to get in, Kaz wiped his bloody glove on his drüskelle uniform. Brynn swallowed her anger and followed him. Her bare feet padded silently on the carpeted floor, Kaz's boots barely making any sound at all.

He climbed out the window and onto the roof above. Brynn took one last glance at Remus and the bloody fork next to the pool of blood under his head before climbing out after him.

Kaz offered his hand to her again. Brynn took it and he hauled her up to the roof. The moon was full high above their heads, showering the palace in silvery moonlight. Brynn's gown shimmered in the light. She realized Kaz had been staring at her when he let out a small sigh. When she met his gaze, he looked away.

"Come on, we have to find Nina and Matthias."

Brynn took a deep breath. "Always one fight to the next."

Kaz glanced back at her. "There's no rest for the wicked, Brynn."

~~~

Kaz led Brynn to the center of the White Island, towards the Sacred Ash. She was barefoot the entire way until they reached the center of the White Island, her blonde hair getting in the way as much as it possibly could. They hid behind an ice sculpture to wait for Nina and Matthias with Yul-Bayur.

She looked away while Kaz focused on regurgitating the packets of Wylan's root bombs, a pouch of chloropellets, and an extra set of lockpicks. While he did so, Brynn busied herself with checking the treasury perimeter, the roof, and the entry. Eventually, however, there was nothing for them to do but wait and worry about all the things that could go wrong.

"Do you want to leave Ketterdam?"

Kaz's sudden question caught Brynn off-guard. "What?"

"You could go to Novyi Zem if you wanted and you wouldn't be hunted," he said. "You talk about Ketterdam as if it's the last place you want to be."

"That's not true."

"Then what is?"

Brynn stared at him, then exhaled. "I don't know anymore. Ketterdam has never felt like home, but I don't know if anywhere ever will. I want to go wherever Sasha goes."

"Stay." Kaz glanced around them, then continued. "Stay with the Dregs, in Ketterdam. Stay with me."

It was hard to believe that the boy who'd just stabbed a drüskelle with a fork was begging her to stay. With him. He'd never voiced his feelings or even talked about himself much. This was even more mind-boggling than how Sasha survived.

Brynn wasn't given a chance to respond when the alarm bells of Black Protocol rang out, loud and booming. Drüskelle ran around, shouting and lights flooding the courtyard. Brynn ducked to stay out of sight, but kept a look-out for Nina and Matthias.

Finally, the two came running out of the treasury with a boy Brynn assumed was Yul-Bayur. Then the explosion hit. It knocked the three off their feet, and Brynn could feel the heat all the way from the other side of the courtyard.

She turned to Kaz, but he was gone. Brynn cursed in her mind. First he was finally opening up a little bit to her, then he was nowhere to be seen, only Wylan's root bombs left in his wake. She grabbed it quickly, wondering what Kaz was planning. When she turned back to Nina and Matthias, they were surrounded by drüskelle. A figure in a dark cloak stalked through the ranks of the drüskelle and Brynn noticed that this drüskelle was the only one with gloves on.

As she watched him, the hood fell back only momentarily for Brynn to meet Kaz's eyes. His gaze turned from hers to the large ash tree in the center of the courtyard. Brynn nodded to him. Now she knew what he had planned.

Brynn, still crouched, hurried from behind the ice sculpture to the next. From ice sculpture to ice sculpture she sprinted, getting closer and closer to the sacred ash tree, staying concealed by the shadows. At last, Brynn reached the large tree, hidden behind its large trunk.

Wylan had never explained how his bombs had worked to Brynn, she'd only seen the damage it did on the tree in the road from when they snuck into the prison wagon. Cautiously, she set the salt concentrate bomb down on the ground next to the tree, pouring out the substance onto the roots. Brynn quickly stepped back as the salt concentrate sizzled, then omitted a sharp pop pop pop sound.

The tree was too big to be felled by salt concentrate, so Brynn reached forward to help tip it over. Her hands pushed against the trunk of the tree as the roots curled up and withered.

Kaz and Brynn locked eyes again. "Don't pop the baleen before you hit bottom," he called. Then he grabbed the boy and launched them into the hole beneath the tree, and into the roaring of the waters inside.

Brynn's last thoughts before she toppled in after him were, Hopefully this won't be the fourth time I almost die on this job.

a/n— Triple update! Sorry for not updating this past week, I couldn't upload anything because I wasn't on very good wifi on vacation, but hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think and what I can do better at!