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Kaz peers inside Inej’s old room in The Slat.
Not there either.
He frowns, finally resorting to asking other people about the whereabouts of his partner.
“Rotty,” he says firmly, coming up behind the other man.
Rotty turns to look at him. “Yeah, boss?”
Kaz levels his eyes at him. “Have you seen Inej?” He asks clearly.
Rotty shrugs. “Has anyone ever seen Inej?” He jokes.
Kaz sighs. “Just say yes or no,” he demands.
“Nope,” Rotty lets him down only to help him back up a second later. “Ask Anika; she was talkin’ to Inej earlier.” He goes back to his task of putting weights in a pair of die.
Kaz scowls and marches off in search of Anika.
He finds her inspecting a deck of cards. He doesn’t know what she’s doing, but that’s not important right now. “Anika,” he rasps.
Anika looks up, not seeming remotely surprised to see him either. “Boss?”
“Inej. Where is she,” he demands.
“…the temple?” Anika asks as if she’s not sure why Kaz didn’t know that information yet.
He ignores her tone and her.
What the hell is Inej doing at a temple?
He’s on his way to the only temple he knows about in Ketterdam, trying to figure it out. Maybe she’s spying on someone?
But then why would she tell Anika?
And besides, has he recently told her to spy on anyone?
The answer is no, so now Kaz is quietly confused.
He gets to the temple, pausing outside of the door before deciding he’s being ridiculous and entering.
The door closes softly behind him. He almost lets it slam shut, but at the last second sticks his foot between the door and its frame.
Kaz is immediately uncomfortable. He’s rarely this on edge about a location, but here he is: on edge.
He stands in the doorway; probably entirely too menacingly, by the way some of the people leaving look at him apprehensively.
He ignores them. Not because he’s trying to be superior or something.
But because he just saw Inej, so now no one else matters.
Kaz watches as Inej kneels with her back to him in front of a statue that he thinks might be Sankta Anastasia. The statue was made to smile, but something about it strikes him as unnerving.
He does not like that statue’s smile.
He stands off to the side, no longer blocking the door. He’s standing with his cane in front of him, his feet in a strong square with his shoulders. He might be frowning, but isn’t he always?
He watches Inej pray — because that’s what she’s doing. Obviously that’s what she’s doing, coming to a temple in the first place. Just because Kaz is an anti religious heathen doesn’t mean she even remotely is as well.
He almost feels like he’s intruding on something immensely personal, actually. He almost leaves because of it.
But he wants to stay in the room with her, even this far from her.
So he keeps watching her.
Finally, after multiple people have shot him varying degrees of dirty looks, Inej stands nimbly. She turns around to see him.
Her smile drops the second her eyes latch onto his.
Kaz’s gut screeches. So she was happy, but now that he’s here, she’s no longer happy —?
But then she beams again, and that unworthy thought vanishes like it never existed.
“Kaz?” she calls to him as she makes her way over to him, as if they don’t both know who he is.
Kaz forced his frown to not get any deeper. He’s never felt this awkward before, and the vague discomfort he’d been feeling earlier has yet to subside. “Did you…have a good…prayer?” he asks gruffly.
Inej laughs her golden ray of sunshine laugh he loves so much.
Defensiveness courses through his very veins, burning brighter than even her laugh did. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say —” he begins.
Inej still has that huge grin on her face. “‘— have a good prayer’ works,” she tells him kindly.
Kaz nods slowly, trying to tamp down the fury that scorches his chest like a too big fire.
They stand there for a minute, just looking at each other, while other people come up to Sankta Anastasia’s statue. A couple of them look at him worriedly, shooting quick nervous glances over their shoulders.
Inej seems to notice as well, eyeing one of the more bold of the offenders, the one who is trying to glare Kaz away.
Kaz glares back.
Inej beckons him with her lithe fingers. “Why don’t we get the demon out of the temple,” she suggests casually, striding to the doors.
Kaz follows her out of the temple, shooting that one man a quick narrowing of his eyes before actually slamming the door behind him.
Inej raises an eyebrow at him, but says nothing about that particular display of pettiness. She just walks next to him, a little bounce in her step that Kaz isn’t sure what put it there. “Ready for our date?” she asks cheerfully, turning her beautiful face his way.
Kaz nods. “Of course. I’ve cleared my schedule for the hour to dine with The Wraith’s captain this afternoon, but only until 6 pm. I really must attend all the other appointments in my calendar as well, you know,” he eyes her.
Inej smiles, her dimples showing up to the party a little late. “We’ll need to keep an eye on that fancy little watch of yours, if we’re to adhere strictly to your schedule. Tell me: would you still keep our appointment if it hadn’t been penciled into your planner?” She opens a door to a large diner for him.
He limps primly through it. “Of course not. Even The Wraith’s captain needs to be preapproved through a rigorous deciding scale,” he says flatly as they approach a table. He pulls out one of the seats for her.
She sits graciously, assuming a haughty expression as he sits across from her. “Oh, a ‘rigorous deciding scale?’ Where do physical displays of affection fall on your rigorous deciding scale?” she asks, tasting the wine glass that’s just been set in front of her.
Kaz shrugs, ignoring his own wine so he can keep looking at her. “Depends entirely on location and intensity,” he says dismissively.
“So, will this appointment include any hand holding?” Inej asks, her voice dropping just a little so as not to be overheard by every single other patron at this restaurant.
Kaz tips his head. “Perhaps that could be negotiated,” he allows.
Inej grins and sets her wine down to lay one bare hand palm up across the middle of the table, waiting.
Kaz steels himself before laying his gloved hand against her calloused fingertips, sliding his own fingers down the length of her hand.
She entwines their fingers tightly. He strokes her hand with his thumb.
And they continue their appointment like that, even well past 6 pm, because Kaz never arranges any additional appointments to be attended to after any of them with The Wraith’s captain.
The warmth of Inej’s smile rivals that of Sankta Anastasia’s statue’s, and he doesn’t particularly care how blasphemous it would supposedly be to think such a thing.