The Shadows We Find | Kaz Brekker ¹

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢.

[ ii. the wraith's wrath ]

𓅪𓅪𓅪

THERE WERE MANY WAYS that Penney Laucier expected for Death to one day find her.

She knew it was saddening for a sixteen-year-old to have such vivid and terrifying expectations for the world, but she also thought that it was better to believe in greeting the end as an equal to the afterlife than as an inferior to the underworld. Most often when Penney thought about dying she thought that her end would come by fire or plague; perhaps, in the most unfortunate of cases, even with a beating or a shooting. Death was always looming around the corners of Ketterdam's shadowy streets. Penney knew that, and had accepted it long ago, but locked under the impression of the Wraith's steel blade on the very night that she was to begin the search for her stolen brother was not one way of demise that she had ever truly anticipated for herself.

Ambush was not an unfamiliar term to Penney. The Wraith's knife to her spine was not the first weapon to ever touch her skin, nor did she expect it to be the last. To hope for otherwise was to be foolish, and Penney was far from naïve. After all, how did she continue to jump so easily from one dangerous encounter to the next and still draw breath so freely?

Because she remained in control of herself. She was not responsible for the actions of those around her and she did not try to be. To divide her attention was to expose herself and leave herself vulnerable to an attack that could have been avoided if she had simply chosen to keep her eyes forward instead of behind. Sure, with the brandish of a knife or the glimmer of a revolver spun from its holster, she might try to anticipate the path that her attackers would choose, but there were no guarantees in how they would ultimately strike. The ways of living and dying relied on the open potential of careless wildcards, and Penney accepted each new draw to her table with a smirk on her lips and a twist of her body as it evaded the ever-sweeping scythe of the Reaper.

What had her mother once told her about the ways of reading life's cards, all those years ago? A perfect deck was more worrisome than a deck born of notches and crooks.

Penney Laucier was not a gambler of chips, no, but she was certainly a gambler of life, and so far her pool had not been stolen from her just yet. She would keep building her jackpot, her legacy and her future for as long as time permitted her, and she was nowhere near ready for the bells to chime at midnight.

"How do you know my name?" Was the first question that eventually slipped from Penney's pressed lips. She was still looking forward down the narrow hallway, for there was no reason to look behind. She could not see the knife, but she could feel it and that was all that she needed to focus on; its reaction against her skin—not the reaction of its holder as their grip tightened at the flinching callousness that was Penney's inquisitive tone.

"How do you know Arken Visser?" The Wraith was quick to bite back. She sounded as if she were speaking through a clenched jaw. The girl was angry. Furious even. But why? What had Penney done to her? Or the Conductor—better known to her as Arken Visser? Penney was relieved, she supposed, to find that this strange man did have a proper name, but she was still more confused than anything. Had the Wraith been crossed by the Conductor on her own attempt to cross the Fold and was now demanding restitution? Exacting her revenge?