Chapter Text
The walk through Ketterdam was long and dreary. That is to say, not particularly inviting for the first steps Inej had taken out of the Menagerie in a year. No, she thought, looking at her new employer and the rancid streets around him, this was not much to look forward to.
They had been walking through garbage and vomit for half an hour already and the street life just seemed to get worse as they kept going. Inej spotted five different groups of gang members at different times. Once she had to steer clear of a body lying in the street, either unconscious or dead, she couldn’t tell. And no matter which part of the city they walked in there were men who turned their heads and made vulgar comments at Inej in her revealing silks. Her stomach burned in disgust.
And Kaz Brekker just waded through it all like he owned it. If he felt any contempt for his shithole of a city then Inej couldn’t see any sign of it. If she could guess, she would say he was proud. Inej smiled wryly to herself. No, she was definitely not free if this was her new employer.
Inej Ghafa had heard the name Kaz Brekker many times at the Menagerie, where he was a relatively popular topic of conversation. He was young, which was appealing to the girls who spent most of their time with men old enough to be their fathers. He was also rumored to be tall, dark, and powerful despite his crippled leg and cane. Power was something the girls only saw in Tante Heleen, but apparently in Brekker, power wasn’t something that needed to be proved with harsh words and quick slaps, it was obvious in everything he did. And the girls wanted it. They wanted him. Power was something none of them had possessed in a very long time.
He didn’t visit much but when he did the walls of the Menagerie buzzed with words about dark hair and chilling voices, and no matter what, someone would make a reference to “dirty hands” and snickers would fill the room.
Inej had learned to hate him before she even met him. Then again, in those early days she had hated everything. Inej hated the sound of bells on her feet, the colour peacock blue, the texture of silk, the smell of perfume, the taste of the men who were her business, and she couldn’t help hating herself as well. The girls said the longer you stayed the easier it was, but what they meant was it was easier to forget your old self and to succumb to the lack of control over your body. It was easier to look up to Tante Heleen and easier to enjoy every stinging slap.
Inej had pitied the other girls, but she did not like them. The longer they stayed, the more they turned into smaller versions of Tante Heleen. They sneered at Inej, poked her skinny body and compared it to their own. They pinched her in the spots where she needed to gain or lose weight. Inej understood. Their bodies were the only thing the girls had left. She understood, she pitied, and she prayed for them. But she still hated them.
They were right though, the longer she stayed the more she disappeared. The hate turned into numbness. Inej spent most of her time praying to her Saints and trying to repress her bitterness when they did not answer. She did her work in the night and slept fitfully through the morning. When she found the time, she practiced the art of turning invisible so that one day she could disappear from this place. All of that kept Inej very busy, but when she did have time in her schedule to imagine a different future, she had definitely never imagined Kaz Brekker would be it.
Inej didn’t exactly know why she’d talked to him. She had just felt, instinctively, that he was looking for something and that she could help him find it. Whatever it was, she supposed he’d found it, because here she was.
Inej inhaled the damp air. It reeked like garbage, but after the choking perfume of the Menagerie she found it almost refreshing. Now that she was out of there who would she be? . All that hate she’d held within her for so long was now gone, and in its place was an uncertain mix of apprehension and buzzing impatience. It was a restless energy, and Inej felt the urge to run ahead to get where she was going faster, but she didn’t know where she was running to.
Inej kicked a pebble into the canal. She usually liked silence but it was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Are you wondering how much longer?” Kaz asked. It was unsettling how he seemed to read into exactly what she was thinking. “Not long. Though I wouldn’t get excited if I were you.”
He was smaller than she’d imagined. When the girls talked about him she’d pictured a greasy man hunched over a cane, but he was just a boy. Striking, and remarkably respectable-looking in his suit and cap, but out of place, like a school kid playing dress up as a businessman. And he wasn’t really “powerful” so much as arrogant. He was the best man Ketterdam had to offer, she supposed, because he was the most like it. Dark and twisted and proud of it.
He led her through the wandering alleys of the Barrel and into a building he introduced as the Slat. It wasn’t a pleasure house, that was for sure. Inej could tell from the smell. No one was trying to attract any clientele here. Whoever this building housed, they were all regulars.
Inej barely had time to take in the people piled together on the tables and floors before Kaz was ushering her towards a door at the back of the building. The people watched her as she went but went back to their cards and drinks when Kaz glanced at them coolly.
The lieutenant of the Dregs certainly had his army whipped into shape. Inej immediately got the impression that this Brekker was someone used to owning his world, and familiar alarm bells rang through her. The entitled ones were the worst, as she knew well.
Would it come? The shift in tone, a vise of a hand at her waist. Kaz had seemed to imply she wasn’t here for the same job as the Menagerie, but many men had said many things to her before. She would not be so naive as to put all her trust into a gang leader she didn’t know anything about, besides his loathsome reputation.
“Where are we going?”
“To see the boss. Stay sharp.”
The boss. If Kaz Brekker was just the right hand, how bad would the boss be? Heleen’s voice taunted her in her ears. Stay sharp little lynx. He’s old, disgustingly old. Now you’ll know just how kind Tante Heleen has been to you.
Inej froze, even though they’d reached the door. She felt panic close in, her throat tightening. The clients had been bad, but the boss was the worst. Tante Heleen had done more to her than any single man ever had.
Per Haskell and Kaz Brekker… Inej tried to remember everything she had ever heard about them. The only images brought to mind were of blood and bones, innocent people crying out their last breath in an alley.
Could this possibly be worse than the Menagerie? What had she done?
Inej turned to study Kaz’s face, desperately searching for any sign of hope. There was nothing. His face was blank. He was as unknowable and distant as the moon. But there was no slimy interest in his eyes, and there were no empty attempts to comfort her either. Kaz just waited with his hand on the door while Inej hesitated.
Kaz had said, “If this was a trick, I’d promise you safety or happiness. I don’t know if that exists in the Barrel, but you’ll find none of it with me.”
That was what made her take the last step across the doorway. Wherever she was going, it was as far from the gilded cage of the Menagerie as you could get. Just one more step. Away from the Menagerie. Get as far as possible.
The room Kaz took her into was not what she expected. It was warmly lit and cluttered with too many bottles to count. There were shelves on every wall crammed with books and model ships, and the center of the room was taken up by a giant oak desk where more ships were being used as paper weights. In the middle of his cyclone of a room sat Per Haskell, who looked as sturdy and immovable as the desk.
“This is Tante Heleen’s indenture, our new spi-” Kaz began but Haskell cut him off.
“Stay quiet while I look at her.”
“Of course,” said Kaz with obviously feigned innocence.
Was this some sort of rivalry inside the gang? Inej tried to take in all of the information she could. She’d learned to observe people, especially men, at the Menagerie, and she was good at it. She supposed it would make her a good spider, but it felt less like a job and more like survival right now.
Haskell looked her up and down lazily, like she was another one of the paintings on his wall. She got the sense that he didn’t even quite know what he was looking for, only that he had to appear to, in order to keep his facade of control.
Who was the real boss, Per Haskell, or Kaz Brekker? Normally, Inej would have a hard time believing one boy could be on par with a Barrel boss, but she was beginning to notice a kind of casual violence in Kaz’s posture that made her alert.
Haskell must have felt it too as he fiddled with a model ship. As he ran a finger over the sails lovingly, Inej wondered if he had once loved the sea, or dreamed of leaving this place. One tap from Kaz’s cane and the ship would fall to pieces.
Kaz caught her eye. He’d seen her watching.
“Why her?” Haskell said at last. He sounded like he would rather go back to his lager.
Why her indeed, Inej wondered.
“She’s awfully skinny for you ja?”
Kaz stared at Haskell until he looked back down to his boat then cleared his throat. “She was an acrobat, good for climbing. She’s small and silent. And she has nothing. That means she’ll be desperate to prove herself.”
It made Inej feel hopeless, the way her whole life was boiled down into a few sentences. As a practiced response she turned that anger inwards and shrunk further into herself, making Haskell widen his eyes comically.
“You’ve done it this time boy,” Haskell laughed. “This one won’t stick around long enough to pay her debt, and then I’ll have your head. Look at her, she’s practically already gone.”
Inej could feel Kaz’s eyes on her as if he wanted her to defend herself, but she couldn’t explain what she didn’t know. Whatever it took to thrive in the Barrel, Inej was sure she didn’t have it. She didn’t think she wanted to.
Whatever happened with her, she was Kaz’s problem, not Haskell’s. It felt a little like freedom, but she realized that freedom as a piece in Kaz’s puzzle might be more complicated than she had anticipated.
Brekker’s whole demeanor changed then, to one of apology and bashfulness. It felt absurd to see him play the role of a young, wide-eyed kid now. “Of course sir. If this deal doesn’t pay off, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh quit your groveling,” Haskell said, though he looked pleased.
He didn’t look up when Kaz turned away though, and Inej saw Kaz’s face had shifted into determination.
...
“What did you think of him?” asked Kaz as they left the room and went towards the stairs. Was he really already testing her?
Inej decided to be honest. “I think he’s pathetic. It looks like he hasn’t left that room in years.”
“Careful, Inej. That man has killed more people than you could count.”
It was the first time he’d said her name since the Menagerie and his voice sent a shiver through her. Inej wasn’t exactly thrilled about being on a first name basis with the bastard of the Barrel. She started up the stairs. “Is it true that you’ll be punished if I leave?”
“Per Haskell needs me more than he can admit,” said Kaz, limping heavily on the stairs. “If he killed me that would be his mistake. But I am risking a lot by bringing you here. You were a considerable investment.”
Then why me, Inej wanted to ask, but it would be pointless. Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason.
“Let me be very clear; if you skip out on your contract, it’s not me that you’ll need to worry about. Unless he sends me after you, in which case you should worry a lot more.”
Inej didn’t know whether to be scared of him or not. And that was the problem, wasn’t it. If he was the kind of bad man she knew of, he’d have already forced her against a wall by now. She could handle that kind of man; she knew what to expect. But Kaz did not seem interested in that sort of thing, and that meant he was something else entirely.
“How many people have you killed?” Inej asked.
The boy didn’t smile, but she could see it dancing in his eyes. “More people than you could imagine.”
They’d reached her room, if you could call it that. It was little more than a cot, a sink and a stool crammed into a space barely large enough to call a closet. There was a plain shirt and pants tossed on the bed like an afterthought. They looked several sizes too big.
Kaz leaned against the door frame. “Welcome to the Barrel, Inej Ghafa. Odds are, you die within a month, but if you survive…” Kaz paused, seeming to search for words for the first time. “I think you’ll fit right in,” he said at last.
As he limped out of the room, Inej looked around at her new home. It looked like a cell, but it was dry, and it was hers.
“She’s already gone,” Haskell had said, and Inej couldn’t help but agree. She was nothing but a phantom, a ghost of someone she barely remembered. But for an unknowable reason she’d been given a new chance.
Inej sighed as she stripped off her silks. In the early days she’d prayed for someone to come and save her, and her Saints had not answered. Now she was out, but only because this demon boy believed she belonged among murderers and thieves. What horrible traits did she have that she’d never seen in herself? Maybe that was why her Saints hadn’t answered.
She looked down at her new plain clothes. Her silks lay in a pile on the floor as they had so many times before. With a rush of adrenaline, Inej realized she finally had the chance to burn them.
A new chance. It may not have been freedom in the way she had dreamed about in those naive and desperate moments before sleep, but somehow, in this cell of a room in a foreign city with no foreseeable future, Inej felt better than she had in a long time. An uncertain tomorrow was better than the known horror of yesterday.