TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xxiii. secret-keeping is hereditary.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WHEN SHE LOOKED BACK on her life - however short or disastrous it happened to be - Echo imagined these would be one of those moments she'd happily forget.

The Crows had boarded the skiff in silence, the wooden panels groaning under the sheer weight of dignitaries, nobles and criminals alike as they scurried across the deck like ants hurrying towards a trap.

The trap in question? It had teeth of onyx and claws of granite and sang songs of destruction and loss that almost sounded melancholic, until the cries of the monsters within wailed and it became nothing more than fear itself.

The Fold was terrifying, and Echo - fool that she was - had willingly walked into it's clutches thrice now.

She wondered how long she could tempt fate before fate ate her alive.

But now was not the time for such dismal thoughts. Not when Kaz needed her eyes and her ( one good ) ear and her tendency to memorise the schematics of the skiffs from her cosy quarters in Ketterdam. How she longed for the stench of greed and malcontent. Anything, anything but this.

At her side, Jesper grinned, a gesture that didn't quite reach his eyes. "If I'm meant to die today, and either of you three survive, make sure I have an open casket."

"No one's dying today." Kaz's response was stoic, his dark eyes unwavering as they scanned the crowds of gathered travellers, watching for gazes that lingered a little too long.

"No mourners."

Echo had never given much thought to her death, or rather, what would happen after, when she was dead and cold and possibly mangled beyond repair because if she was to die, she wouldn't go down quickly. Funerals were never a concept she dwelt on, not until she heard Kaz's mantra, and then all she saw was the empty chairs at empty tables at a funeral where no tears would be wept because no one would have bothered to attend in the first place. She embraced it with open arms. Echo wanted a legacy, she didn't care whether it was a good one.

So her response was lilted with a bittersweet laughter. "No funerals."

Shrouded in their dark clothes and false names, the four Crows slipped away under the deck.

══

"THIS IS A BAD idea."

As much as Echo hated to admit it, Jesper was right. He was right and they were dead and the silence that smothered the skiff was paralysing. They'd had plenty of bad ideas in their time, but somehow, lurking in the belly of a skiff whilst the Darkling did whatever the Darkling must, was pretty high up there.

Kaz shrugged with tight shoulders, his eyes flitting across the darkened deck. "I think it's rather practical."

Jesper's fingers dismantled his guns with an uncharacteristic nervousness, folding the mechanisms into place with a hurried precision. "What?" Bullet after bullet slotted into the chamber, puncturing the quiet. "Why?"

"I don't see how we step off this boat without you pulling those guns." Kaz cocked his head as Jesper chuckled. "So, cleaning them is a good idea."

"He doesn't mean this." Echo pointed to the pistols. "He mean this." She threw her arms wide. "The skiff, the Darkling, death." Her thick soled boots wore dirt-crusted tracks into the floor. She must have paced the length of the skiff at least a dozen times by now, her pace unrelenting and useless in the face of certain doom.