TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xiii. low blow, brekker.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KAZ'S INSTRUCTIONS WERE clear.

One: distract. Echo had the slightest suspicion that this was all part of his elaborate scheme to get revenge for Ivanovski the Sculptor because whilst Inej and Jesper were graced with the roles of espionage and deceit, she was the bait.

Sure, the Wraith could fling herself from glass rooftops and the Sharpshooter could tread between the shadows but Echo was supposed to become weak and helpless and lure the guards from the Archive doors wearing the mask of a damsel in distress. Kaz was far too smug for this to be anything but a punishment because helpless decoy? Not a Caddel talent.

Two: delay.  After wooing the guards with her tale of woe and feminine despair ( let Kaz come face to face with Genya Safin and see if he still believes in the concept of 'women in need of rescue'. ) Echo was going to stall, swoon and sob with enough rigour to let the plan run it's steady course.

There was no way of knowing exactly how long her little ruse would need to last, the number of variables in a building as big as the Kribirsk Archives was far too large to plan for every possibility and so, the Crows would have to rely on a little thing called chance. Funny, fickle little chance. They'd survived worse odds.

Three: depart. Kaz dubbed stage three "leave" but Echo was never one to break a pattern and so, as always, she took a few creative liberties of her own. After all, distract, delay, leave wasn't half as memorable.

Once Inej had secured the blueprints and Jesper had not found himself in some secret underground gambling den, Echo could unweave her web of lies and hope that the guards were too flustered to recall anything about the woman who disappeared faster than she arrived. She'd be forgettable and faceless and everything she had vowed never to be again.

Distract, delay, depart. It all sounded rather simple. But Echo should have known, nothing was ever simple with Kaz Brekker.

"Help me!" She called into the despairing night. The sky was black and the air was swarmed with a darkness that coated her bones, her dress and the inferno of her hair. It was no mask or costume, but it was enough.

"And you're sure they won't recognise your face?"

"Despite what you might think of me Kaz, I didn't spend my days walking the halls of the Kribirsk Archives."

Echo had tried to sound at least slightly confident in her own lies but truthfully, she had no way of knowing. She'd grown up in the populated masses of Os Alta, far from the other city but then, hadn't most children in Ravka? She could only hope. As if that had ever been enough.

Her scarred hands were slick with a coating of blood that left crimson whispers of her fingers along the delicate fabric of her bodice. It was Kaz's idea to pay a rather confused butcher for a day's worth of the stuff ( who else could conjure up an idea so horrific ) all in the name of realism. All in the name of drawing attention away from anything that might spark an ember of recognition in the guards.

As Inej had reported, there were two of them standing solemnly at their posts, just south of the Wraith's rooftop entrance. Their eyes were coated with the glaze of utter boredom and at Echo's frantic cries they started, as if wakened from some deep sleep by her masquerade of panic.

"Oh, thank the Saints." Her voice was contorted with a thick Ravkan accent, one she had long since washed away in the Ketterdam harbour as Echo stepped forward and stumbled, directly into the uniformed arms of the closest guard. "I was walking home and there was a man and he- oh my! You have to help me."