Natasha Van Doren is a shadow summoner. She bides her time and resides in darkness, feared and esteemed by Ketterdam's civilians, a ghost . She cons Kaz Brekker into joining a heist he can't refuse and with thirty million kruge on the line, the crow...
" Love makes us do stupid things and in the end, it drives us all insane, "
- A.I
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KRUGE.
It was all Kaz could think about. It was all Kaz wanted to think about. It flushed away unnecessary emotions and kept him in line. Think about the money, he'd tell himself each night.
The dark pockets beneath his eyes grew each day until Wylen's sketched map was ingrained into his very vision. It seemed that everywhere he went, numbers and statistics chased after him - he felt like he was being hunted.
The crow club's business prospered silently, the money tallied into sketched lists by Alessia. She'd come to visit his office each night with a warm glass of milk and pen in hand. She'd walk her way through his ideas, outlining the best and adding her thoughts.
Kaz Brekker was secretly glad for her company. Nina still had a job and Inej was off gathering secrets - and hats for him. He had been paying Jesper overtime to take over his watch at the Crow Club. Until late at night, The Slat was quiet unless Matthias was grumbling away in his room. Alessia had dubbed him a polar bear - much to Kaz's amusement.
They'd stay awake through smuggled bottles of beer and kvas until their pupils were twice their usual size, and they could barely walk straight. Each morning, he'd wake up on the hardwood floor, his back aching painfully.
From all the sleepless nights, his alcohol tolerance had dipped alarmingly. He was surprised how put together Alessia looked. She was curled up in a little ball, a pen still loosely in her hand. Kaz tucked a loose strand of her behind her ear, throwing the bottles at his feet into the bin.
He couldn't remember last night past blurs of excited shrieking and scribbling. He looked down at the maps laid on the floor, brushing his hand over the scratched black letters. Kaz could hardly read any of them, but it wouldn't matter. Alessia would translate them all, scowling as she did.
He grabbed a new shirt from his dresser, washing and changing before stepping back out into his office. Alessia was still asleep on the floor, the piece of hair he had tucked behind her ear, floating against her cheek.
"Ivanov," he rasped, his throat parched. He knuckled his Adam's apple, reaching for a bottle of water. "Get your ass off my floor." Kaz laughed as she rubbed her red eyelids, tottering onto her feet. She was able to walk without her wheelchair now, even joking about buying matching canes with Kaz.
"Fuck you, Brekker," she moaned, snatching the water bottle out his hand and draining the entire thing. "That stupid alcohol is still making my brain bleed," she pressed a palm against her forehead, extinguishing the burning pressure flaring beneath her skin.
"I love it when you curse me so early in the morning, darling," he grinned, already towering over a stack of papers. He tossed them in the direction of her makeshift desk across from his. Alessia had decorated her workspace with similar trinkets to Natasha - all collections from her time in Ravka.
