TROUBLE , kaz brekker

x. let's go take down the king.

CHAPTER TEN

ECHO ALWAYS SAW THINGS better from above. Like a bird. Or an exile.

From above, it was easier to watch as the people moved - detached and distant like peering through a window pane. To step out from behind the glass meant that everything was so close and when it was close, it could hurt. Up on her pedestal, danger was just a word. It was better up here.

But since they'd docked in Ketterdam, the chaos hadn't stopped, it had been one ill-intentioned crime after another with little respite and little time to just be. Her thoughts had fallen into a regular, haunting beat. Mother, mother, mother, murder, mother, mother.

Echo, however much she prided herself on her ability to notice everything, had let the world that existed beyond the criminal fall entirely to the wayside. There was nothing but the next revenge plot, the next look over her shoulder. And so, tiny little things, like the way Wylan and Jesper fawned over the colourful disguises Kaz had stolen from the local theatre, went entirely unnoticed. Echo saw them now when she looked, she could see how the former blushed, how the latter smiled, thumbed his guns nervously and tried to keep some kind of composure as he fumbled a very large, very feathered hat. She knew Kerch crime had a way of heightening emotions but had she truly been so oblivious?

There was Inej in the corner, Nina nursing a pint of something strong-smelling but no Kaz. He'd left before the fifth bell and Echo didn't know where. He'd taken her aside a little over an hour ago and whispered the plan in his quiet, hushed tones and then left her alone with vials of Wylan's infectious new invention and a foul-smelling pile of costumes were staring to make her eyes water. It was almost like having that damned goat back.

Her hair was unkempt beneath her fingers as Echo ran a single hand across the top of her head. She needed a brush or a bath or something to quell the lingering feeling of being dirty. The stifling sensation had settled on her skin from the moment she left the messenger's house the other night and somehow, that made sense. Deep down, Echo knew she could learn to love the feeling. She could give into the unclean.

Echo closed her eyes, dropped her head and let the cool wood of the balcony press flush against her skin.

Kaz had kept details to a minimum, short and precise and just enough to leave her with a head full of questions that he'd refused to answer.

You understand what we have to do?

Of course.

Good. Then he'd lingered on the doorstep, one foot in, one out. It will be some comfort, not being alone.

Echo had shrugged. My enemies are your enemies.

Kaz could barely look her in the eye and he replied, quietly. And yours, mine, Caddel.

She'd found a place in the upper floors of their hideaway soon after he'd gone and Echo had remained there since. Tables piled high with clothes and jars and empty tankards of kvas and as the people below forgot to look up, Echo was forgotten. It was as close to peaceful as she'd gotten in days.

But Jesper remembered. He was never silent, but as he slinked up the stairs and across the freaking floorboards Echo could have sworn he was the Wraith. With her head still flat against the cool wood, she heard him before she saw him, loud and clear.

"Are you praying?" He asked.

Echo opened her eyes. "Would anyone listen?"

Jesper braced his elbows against the ledge and it groaned under his weight. "I thought you Ravkan's had a Saint just for people like us." He pursed his lips, deep in thought. "Nikolai."