Six of Crows: Cloaked in Shadow

Chapter 2 - Inej

Inej stepped off the gangway onto the cobbled stone of Fifth Harbour. Before her lay the sprawled mass of buildings that made up Ketterdam, silhouetted against the rising sun. The screeching of the crows pierced through the sleepy morning silence as they squabbled with a raven over a leftover fish.

Inej couldn't decide which was worse: that she had come back or that she was happy to see this saintsforsaken city again. She had missed it – actually missed it! – throughout her three years of hunting slavers; missed the bustle of people shoving each other out of the way to get to the best wares, missed the floating stalls on the canal, missed the familiar lopsided stoop of the Slat and the turrets and gables jutting from the slated peaks of her rooftop kingdom. When surrounded by a flat, unchanging grey sea, bored out of your mind, even the worst memories are looked back on with fondness.

She had missed something else, too.

Well. Someone.

As she breathed in the smoky stink of the docks - a smell that she had grown to think of as signifying home - Inej allowed herself to think of him. Kaz. She hadn't allowed him to cross her mind during the whole of the three years she'd been away, saving the memories of him for when she wrote to him, sending her letters using Adrik's Squaller powers. If she thought of him too early, she had known she'd probably break down in tears - or turn her ship right around and sail back to Ketterdam.

Three years, she'd remind herself each time she felt her walls weakening. I promised him I'd be back in three years. And now those years had passed and she allowed the memories to come flooding back, each one nurtured in her heart like an oyster with a grain of sand, each as precious as a pearl.

She remembered the thud of his cane on the floorboards as he climbed the stairs to his room, marking out time to his uneven gait like a conductor's baton. She remembered the rocksalt rasp of his voice and the elegance of his words; how he could change minds towards his cause and paint pictures in people's heads with just a few well-placed sentences, or bring people's defences crashing down with sharp barns and taunts, or make Inej's heart rise to her mouth with a casual compliment.

She remembered his eyes, the colour of bitter coffee when he was angry, or the deep amber of strong tea when he was with her, when he had cast aside the mask of Dirtyhands. She remembered the wild flash of his grin, sudden and jarring as a thunderclap. She remembered the promise he'd made her. "We'll be kings and queens, Inej. Kings and queens." But she had left him to ride the waves and avenge herself on the slavers that had sold her to the Menagerie, while he ruled the Barrel alone without his crow court and his Wraith queen.

She remembered the sharp cut of his face and his angular features. Chiselled and refined, he was boy of black glass edges - beautiful to look at, impossible to not get cut when you tried to hold him with you.

And finally, she let herself savour the most precious memories. The feather-light brush of his lips on her neck. The bare-handed touch of his hand in hers. The brace of his body as he held her up when she had seen her parents again. "I will have you without armour, Kaz Brekker, or I will not have you at all," she had told him. Gloves off, hands bare, heart open. He'd been trying.

Some called Kaz a nightmare, but for Inej, being with him was a daydream, and she didn't want to wake up. Kings and queens. Inej was back now, prepared to rule their crooked kingdom as his Wraith. And if he was without armour, he would be her king.

The voice of Melia, one of her crew mates, snapped her out of her daydream."Inej, do you want us to moor the ship?"

"Yeah. I'm just going to take a walk round Ketterdam, checking it out, seeing what's changed," replied Inej, trying her best to sound casual.

"And does this walk mean you can visit a certain... what was your bae called... Kaz Brekker?" Melia said, pushing a spike of blue hair from her face.

Inej felt herself blushing. "What- Melia, have you been reading my letters?"

"Of course not! I'm not so obsessed in your personal life that I'd stoop that low."

"Then how-"

"I have my ways," said Melia, tapping her nose.

"Come on, Melia!" This was all the wrong way round - usually it was someone begging her for information!

"You practically leap out of your seat every time Adrik gets your mail. Something had to be up."

"Answer the question," Inej said, dark eyes narrowed.

"It pricked my curiosity, so I tricked Adrik into telling me who was writing to you. Kaz Brekker... he is your bae, no?"

Inej ignored that last question, trusting her dark skin to hide the flush of colour that came to her cheeks.

"Come on, don't be mad at me. It's not my fault that letters sent by Squaller are so easily intercepted." She widened her blue eyes in a way that was probably supposed to be pleading, but coupled with the badly dyed streaks of blue in her blonde hair and the two guns strapped to her belt, the image looked slightly scary.

"I'm not mad, but seriously — stop reading my mail. Oh, and tell Adrik that he is in deep water when I get back. This is the last straw."

"You say that every time you get mad at him," Melia pointed out innocently.

Inej rolled her eyes. "See you around."

"Wait - I guess I'll find you in the Slat if I need you?" she said, and Inej cursed inwardly.

"I'm not going to be spending my whole time visiting Kaz. If I'm not in the Slat, try the Van Eck mansion or the Crow Club."

"But-"

Melia was speaking to thin air. Inej was already gone.