TROUBLE , kaz brekker

iii. the thing we're all running from.

CHAPTER THREE

ECHO DID BUY A DRESS.

In fact, Echo brought dozens of dresses, each more outrageous than the last, with tulle and ruffles and velvet and enough fabric to clothe the entire First Army with reels to spare. She paraded around the Crow Club with her soft skirts skimming the soiled floor, the filth of the Crow Club turning her pretty pink slippers to tatters.

It was worth it. The look of thinly veiled horror on Kaz Brekker's face when he saw her dressed in a purple ball gown was enough to make her place an order for half a dozen more within the hour.

He hated the blue one the most - so Echo liked the blue one best. He called their colours vulgar, more suited to the Ravkan courts than the grime of Kerch but that didn't stop the slightest of smiles threatening his perpetual scowl when she revealed the real reason behind her bravado.

Aconitum. Her father called it The Devil's Helmet. Like Echo, this particular plant was a Ravkan native, with petals stained the kind of royal purple only the Earth could paint. It was beautiful, bright, unrelenting in it's splendour - but touch it and you'd die within hours. It's colours served as a warning: leave me be. It didn't take Echo long to understand that in Ketterdam, you needed a warning like that.

So, the dresses stayed. And Kaz Brekker didn't say another word about it.

"Darling! Drinks here! Drinks all around!"

The Crow Club was bursting at the seams, which meant more wandering hands than it was possible to count. But Echo could only scowl at the throngs of people from behind the bar, tapping her scarred fingers along the dirtied glasses in a rhythmic pulse. Kaz had stationed her there - out of spite of course - after she'd gotten a little too involved in a bar side brawl and taken a sharp blow to the jaw for her efforts.

"Can you hear me? I want a drink!"

She didn't know what happened to the man who threw the punch, rumours put him anywhere from a cell in Hellgate to the bottom of the harbour. Although, knowing Kaz, the truth was worse. Still, she'd paid for her tendency to follow Trouble at its' heels by being placed so far from the gambling tables that the smell of desperation was a mere dream.

"You! Are you deaf? Drinks! Now!"

If she hadn't been so desperate for something to do, Echo would have let that greasy haired man shriek until his throat was raw, until his eyes bulged with the effort of calling to a girl who would revel in his pain. Her own head was a far more interesting place than the likes of any man who walked into the Crow Club, let alone one who was losing at a simple game of Ratcatcher. But business was business. She filled tankard after tankard with whatever watered down shit Brekker could get away with serving these days, plus a little something extra for Jesper, and made her way down to the table. At her approach, the group of men cheered. Pathetic.

"Took your time didn't you darling?"

Echo smiled. She hoped it looked as insincere as it felt. "Sorry."

Kaz was going to regret making her an errand girl. Perhaps she'd start spreading the rumour that he had seven fingers again ( hence the gloves ). It took to the streets like wildfire last time. The siren call of revenge was enough to keep her occupied, at least to keep up the charade of barmaid long enough to not upend a tankard on someone's head. When the imbeciles were served to their satisfaction, Echo slipped a smaller glass to the Sharpshooter. One look at his cards proved that he was going to need it.

"On the house." She whispered.

Jesper grinned and pressed the clear liquid to his lips. "You should be a barmaid more often."