Six of Crows: Cloaked in Shadow

Chapter 26 - Kaz

With a random bonus thingy at the end because Panic! At The Disco are amazing and I got carried away.

Kaz was shaking.

The trembling from earlier had evolved into full-body tremors, each shudder threatening to shatter him. He wondered what Inej would do if he broke. If he fell apart on the floor in front of her. If he crumbled into pieces of glass too sharp to put back together.

Maybe he was already broken. It felt like it. It wouldn't hurt this much if he were whole.

He hadn't dared look at his hands. The thug with the – mallet, but don't think of it don't goddamn think – had peeled off his gloves before. They would probably be found in the morning, some street cleaner taking them for limp rodents before seeing fingers and thumbs and – fingers and thumbs you're not going to have any more but don't goddamn think – and now his hands were bared, cold.

Shaking.

Don't ask me questions, someone said, not him, couldn't be him. He was broken, fragmented, nothing but jagged shards. Please.

Please.

Would begging have changed anything? Would the Mask have spared him if he'd gotten down on his knees and pleaded? Kaz doubted it. But he'd have done anything, anything anything anything not to be standing here now in front of Inej.

Broken. Fractured. Splintered.

Were you ever whole?

"Inej," he said. Really him. Her name was a balm on his lips. He let his eyes slide shut, tried to blot out the pain – the pain the pain the pain don't goddamn think! – failed horribly. His heart tore holes in his chest with each stuttering beat. If the pain in his leg was a deep, constant buzz, then the agony in his fingers was a siren whine, a swansong, the highest notes of an opera. If broken things cried, he'd be sobbing.

Talking, background noise, foggy and indistinct. Kaz tried to say something. What, he didn't know, and it came out as a choked-off noise of pain. Someone was saying his name. He opened his eyes.

"What happened to you?" Jesper breathed, far too close, eyes huge. And no, please, no questions, but it was too late; thorns coiled round his throat, choking the truth out of him, carving invisible gashes into his flesh until he gagged and spoke.

"The Mask," he said in a rush, tried to hold it back, hissed as the thorns curled tighter. "He cornered me, drugged me with, with Thorn, and then he br – damn it, he broke my fingers."

Silence. Kaz couldn't bear to look at them. Shame slipped hot fingers under his shirt, traced his shattered fingers with a burning tongue.

Jesper spoke again. His voice was tight, controlled. "I'll fetch Nikolai's Healers. Inej, get Kaz upstairs. And – who the hell is she?"

The question was directed to everyone, but Kaz still had to answer. "Raven. Please – no questions."

"Got it," Jesper said, unusually serious. He tapped his revolvers. "Is she gonna be safe to leave here?"

Kaz growled. "Don't know. Think so. Questions, Jes."

"I can assure you," Raven answered, "even if I willed you harm, I pose no threat to any of you now."

Inej – Inej Inej Inej, please don't look at me, please don't see me like this – shoved Raven with her foot. Raven hissed, clutching her leg. "Don't worry, I'll make sure she doesn't try anything. Fetch the Healers. Wy and I will get him upstairs."

Jesper hurried out the door. Wylan swallowed hard, then straightened. "Alright, Kaz, we're going to carry you upstairs now. Is that o – I mean, tell us if that's okay."