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Inej waits on the rooftops for Kaz as the sun sets pink-orange over Ketterdam, kneeling on the roof tiles and running her finger idly over the blade of her knife.
She knows her knives like they are a part of her, knows that they will never draw any blood from her or cause her any pain. She knows the same thing about Kaz Brekker.
The tiles of the roof slide and clack against each other with age, with the uncomfortable fit of togetherness, as the panel in the roof is lifted and Kaz emerges from beneath, his cane hitting the roof as he uses it to help pull himself up. The sunset burnishes his black hair golden, but it cannot touch him. Even in the light he is a creature of the shadows.
Once, and only once, Inej had extended her own brown, sun-kissed hand to offer assistance. Kaz has shaken his head and waved her hand away, not quite daring to touch her, even with his gloves covering his hands. Even with all the walls that he put up between them that Inej had scaled with ease.
“Evening,” Inej murmurs, kicking one leg out from the roof in an arc. She thinks it’s reminiscent of the Suli dancers. She doesn’t know if it is, but she wants to pretend that she is a Suli dancer, if only for a lonely melancholy moment. Kaz doesn’t answer her, grunting as he gets onto the roof and inelegantly sits down on the tiles, using his cane to grab hold of the gaps between the tiles and ensnare himself on the roof. Inej’s web, she supposes, spread over all the roofs of Ketterdam, and Kaz is caught in it. He doesn’t seem to mind.
“I went to visit Nina again,” she starts, glancing nervously over towards him. “Wanted to see how she’s doing.”
“How is she doing, then?” Kaz asks. He’s still distant, still wears the mask of Dirtyhands bound so tightly onto him that it could be chained there. Inej wants to reach over and claw it off him with the fingernails she broke on so many bricks, find a wetted cloth to rub away the invisible stains on his bare hands. If he only let her touch him, then perhaps he could be someone different. Someone better. But Kaz Brekker is eternally a lone crow, with feathers black as stained ink. Water slides off him.
“Well.” Inej leans her warm, blushing cheek into her brick-roughened palm. She hopes Kaz doesn’t see her weakness, the soft place in her heart that is enjoined to Nina. “She says she misses your visits. She isn’t happy,” or, Kaz might add, when is Nina ever happy? When she pulls Inej into a hug, smelling of two-kruge perfume and everyone who has been there before Inej, who has left their scent upon Nina, and exclaims “You make me happy.”
Kaz’s laugh is dry, as it always is. “None of us are. Except you, Inej. You’re glowing,” He trails off, and Inej knows that he’s noticed her innocent, naive blush. He doesn’t seem to mind.
She lifts one shoulder upwards in something resembling a shrug. “Not for long. Night’s coming soon.”
“You know that I know about you and Nina, right?” Kaz asks, looking away from her. His eyes roam over his empire, over the Barrel and the beautiful, corrupt houses, the mansions holding gold and wonder and majesty and blood and pain dripping from the roots, over all of Ketterdam. He is king here, all-seeing, all-knowing, selling his leg to replace it with a slowly working bone death that leaves him limping, a crow-headed cane, and an eye that nothing escapes. Inej cannot love Dirtyhands.
She could never love Kaz, either, even if she might want to someday, never feel the soul-deep bond that Nina made to tie their hearts together with him. And yet she is grateful for him, and loves him as a friend. People get confused, seeing the two of them together, but for Inej there is no confusion.
“I don’t think I could have hidden it from you for long.” Bare honesty, an ungloved hand extended.
“You could have talked to me about it.”
Inej shakes her head. “No. I can’t talk to you like I want to anywhere but here.”
“Why?” Kaz is looking towards her now, frowning, and he starts to tug off his black overcoat. The wrinkles of the shirt beneath are as bare as he will ever get.
Inej sighs. She wishes she could disentangle the complex threads of Kaz-Dirtyhands-demon-Brekker, work it neatly into words like placing the threads on a loom. But all of Kaz’s threads are knotted, and she cannot touch them to disentangle the knots. He has to do that himself, but he will never want to.
“This is the only place where we’re free.” If they can be free in this city that binds them down, makes Inej run over roofs instead of through the sky. “You’re not the same person here as you are everywhere else.”
Kaz’s brow furrows with misunderstanding. Inej can’t reach over and run her fingers over his forehead to take away all the lines and give him clarity.
Perhaps one day, she will be able to touch all the threads that make up Kaz Brekker and unravel the knots one by one until Kaz finally understands what Inej has known all along. He has all the eyes in Ketterdam, but he is blind to himself when he stands in shadows. Inej, however, can work throughout the dark, work holding onto the thinnest threads. She can wear gloves, if he will not be touched by bare hands. One day, perhaps Kaz will let down his final wall—or Inej will scale it—and then she can unravel him and put him back together again.
Until then, though, they both have a job to do.