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For as long as Wylan could remember he had always understood that the world was made up of more than most could comprehend.
It was an inkling in the corners of his mind, a distant thought that he hadn’t questioned in the slightest. Everything — everyone — was made up of countless atoms and elements. That was an axiom, a fundamental truth.
The thought that the air was filled with numerous oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide particles kept Wylan sane. The thought that everything around him had invisible particles floating, bouncing, merely existing gave him peace of mind.
When he was younger he had never been sure why. But there was just something in his head that told him to trust those thoughts. They were the only true things about the world.
As he grew, he realised what most didn’t. Rather, he realised what most couldn’t. The elements that were the building blocks of the world could be controlled and he could control them.
One day he had been bored out of his mind, wanting to do anything other than try and fail to read yet another assignment from his tutors. He would’ve opted for playing some music or maybe even drawing but his father had decided that distractions were why he couldn’t read.
So, instead of doing what his father asked of him, he instead sat on his bed and tried to think of things he could do. That was when it happened.
The revelation — if you could call it that — had been an instinctual pull. One moment he had been on his bed and the next he could see the elements that constructed the world. It was almost jarring, how easily he could read the words. Although he guessed they weren’t really words and more thoughts than anything else.
He held his hand out, palm upwards, and watched wide-eyed as he created water. It spilled out of his palm and dampened the bed, but he honestly couldn’t care when he had just created water. He was sure that shouldn’t be possible.
The weirdest part about it had to be the fact that he couldn’t help but feel thrilled. Adrenaline rushed through him, and he wondered why he felt so alive.
The feeling was fleeting and he frowned. He wanted to feel that rush, that spark that lit up inside his chest and gave him a reason to keep going. Thus, he tried to recreate what he did to form water.
Concentrating on only a few hydrogen and oxygen particles, he held the compound structure in his cupped hands and blinked. Water filled his hands in seconds and he grinned victoriously at the sight.
His bed was now thoroughly wet, but he couldn’t quite get himself to care after what he’d just done. He almost thought to show his father but shot that thought down. He wasn’t sure what he was but just the idea of telling — of showing this part of himself — to his father left a bad taste in his mouth.
So, as naïve as he was, he told his mother instead.
The secret wasn’t much of a secret for long. Not that you could successfully hide a secret in the Van Eck household.
His father found out the day of his mother’s death. Wylan had never been sure how. He had tried so hard to keep quiet and his mother swore that she would too.
But he should have known. Should have known his father would find out either way. That was how the world worked, he supposed. Or rather, that wasn’t how the world worked, but how Wylan’s life worked.
He hadn’t been allowed to his mother’s funeral because of his father’s refusal to have him in attendance. So instead of watching her body be put into the ground and laid to rest, he mourned in his room.
He distantly watched the sun dip into the horizon before his door slammed open. He startled, whipping his head towards the intruder and locking eyes with his father’s more angry, frustrated ones.
“You’re Grisha?” Was all he asked, and Wylan felt the colour leave his face in seconds. His mother had used that word for him when he’d shown her what he could do. You’re Grisha, Wylan, she had said, a loving smile on her face as she had said it. It was a huge contrast to how his father said the word. Like it was poison, like it didn’t belong, like it was anything but good.
He didn’t respond. He stared, hands clenched, at his father to see what he would do next. His father stood there and looked at him, dissatisfaction and displeasure evident in his eyes.
“Show me.”
Show me, he had said. Voice tonless, as if he was curious but polite enough not to show it. Wylan knew that tone and he knew that whatever he did next, it would lead to ridicule.
But, ignoring all the alarms in his head, he showed him. He showed his father how abnormal and different he was and felt shame simmer in his gut at his father’s disappointed frown. At his clear annoyance.
His father left him there, letting the shame and embarrassment stir inside him. It was just how he felt when he couldn’t read a passage in a book, or when his handwriting was anything but pristine.
Unbidden tears escaped and he didn’t have the energy to get rid of them, he let them fall and wet the bed sheet even more.
——
His father came the next day with a wicked smile on his face and Wylan knew that it could only spell trouble. He had been right.
On top of his tutoring (which he still did terribly in) his father decided that he had to create blast powder and whatever else Wylan could think of. It was almost odd how he encouraged Wylan to do what he had so abhorred only hours before.
Wylan didn’t question, at first, why his father needed the things he did. It had started small, creating mixtures and substances, then became something larger than what Wylan could handle.
He learned how to make poison. How to separate a mixture and make distilled water. He was given a lab of his own, and he almost thought that maybe his father was no longer the same man he used to be.
But his father still ridiculed his every action, still called him useless and worthless and spat verbal venom at him. Those were reminders, he realised later, to keep him in line.
Wylan wasn’t sure how much he could take. Aiding his father in his work by creating more ammison wasn’t honest work — and he could feel himself reaching his limit.
Once Alys was announced pregnant, did he finally snap. He couldn’t take the verbal abuse and the constant hours of working. He just wanted to be himself and using his powers had stopped being lively after the first year of non-stop work.
Music and drawing and anything that reminded of his mother felt closer to him than the magic that flowed in his blood. And maybe his father had noticed. Maybe he had finally realised that Wylan didn’t want this life — he didn’t want to work for his father forever.
Then. Then his father told him he was sending him to a school in Blendt to study music and he thought that maybe his life was turning around, maybe his father finally understood him — or at least was trying to understand him.
He wouldn’t have minded if that was where the story ended.
But then he was almost killed — by his father’s men — yet he survived anyway. And then he realised that his father really didn’t care about him; he never had.
He was getting the water out of his clothes (a simple trick he’d learned after the countless times he’d formed the compound) in a dingy alley somewhere in Ketterdam when he heard the tell-tale sign of footsteps.
Wylan stilled his movements, eyes on the front of the alley before realising that the sound was coming from behind him.
He turned his head towards the end of the alley and spotted an approaching figure coming towards him. In the dim light of the alley, it was hard to figure out who he was looking at. Although, even if he could see who it was he probably wouldn’t know either way.
Even in the dim light it was obvious that this person was crippled — or, at least, they had a limp as they walked and Wylan could deduce what that implied.
The figure stopped a few paces away from Wylan and he realised almost belatedly that the figure was assessing him. He didn’t speak up out of fear or anticipation — he honestly wasn’t sure. His emotions were all over the place (it had only been hours since he had almost been killed) and he wasn’t sure if the person in front of him was a threat or not.
Knowing Ketterdam, anything could be a threat and he wished he knew what counted as a threat and what didn’t.
“Uh. Hello,” Wylan said once the silence had stretched too long and he couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re not from around here,” was the person’s reply and Wylan furrowed his brow.
“What?”
“You reek of a rich family,” they said, tone indifferent. Then, their eyes moved to Wylan’s partially damp clothes and the puddle on the floor and a spark of something like understanding lit in their eyes. It was subtle but Wylan’s spent so much time watching people’s eyes for reactions it wasn’t hard to spot. “You’re… you were choked, yes?”
That surprised Wylan and he involuntarily traced a finger on the bruises on his neck. He frowned, “yes. I was. What’s it to you?”
It probably wasn’t wise to use such a demanding tone towards someone who definitely held more power than they were showing. Sometimes Wylan forgot that there were two sides of Ketterdam, and all his life he had only heard snippets of the other side. But now he was standing in it, and he needed to remember that no place was safe.
Instead of getting a punch to the face, the person said: “Do you have any skills?”
The way they said it made it sound like a deal, like an offer that you would need to sign a contract to. Wylan wasn’t sure if the person in front of him was the devil, or if he had hit his head while running from his father’s men.
“I can make bombs,” was what he decided to say instead of the full truth. He didn’t trust this person — this devil incarnate. Besides, he’s learned that telling people what you are, can do more harm than good.
The person smirked, a wicked and cruel thing that sent a chill down Wylan’s spine.
“Perfect,” they said, then turned around the way they’d come. “Kaz Brekker.”
Wylan had just enough time to slip out a “Wylan Hendricks” before the person — Kaz Brekker — slipped out the alley way. He blinked and wondered if he really had made a deal with the devil.
After a beat of silence, Wylan sighed and extracted the rest of the water that still dampened his clothes before deciding that it was probably best to find a place to stay.
For how long? He wasn’t sure. He’d have to ask Kaz Brekker how long a contract with the devil lasts.