That Summer In The Country

Fifty-four:

Fifty-four:

The Fold was not a place that Inej Ghafa relished being. Her family had made an art of traveling into and out of the dark crevice of. It was a deep canyon in the center of Ravka, that split the country in between East and West Ravka. But The Fold was so dangerous it wasn't supposed to be climbed at all, and Inej had gotten fined one to many times for climbing out. But Kaz Brekker had gotten a call from Aleksander Morozova, and so Inej had taken a dune buggy out to the desert with Jesper Fahey and some climbing supplies.

"Are you sure about this?" Jesper asked. "You haven't climbed The Fold in over three years, and if you get caught---"

Inej smiled. "I won't get caught. We're doing this to save a girl. The Saints are on our side today, Jesper. I can feel it."

Jesper sighed. "You're very confident for someone so small. You shouldn't be that confident. You're about to scale one of the most dangerous canyons in all of Ravka. Have a little more fear."

"I can't have fear, Jes. That's how people die." Inej got out of the dune buggy, with her climbing things on her back.

"You've got two hours," said Jesper, "if you aren't back in two hours, I'm coming to get you."

Inej smiled. "You won't need to. I told you, Jes. The Saints are on our side. I'm going to find Genya, and everything is going to be fine."

"You're far too optimistic, Ghafa. I need you to be a little more pessimistic." Jesper took a drink of the water bottle that he had in his hand. "Be careful. If you don't come back in one piece, Kaz will kill me. You know how he is about his----"

"Investments?" Inej said with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, I was going to say friend, but that's an interesting term to use to describe yourself."

"It wasn't my term of choice. It was the term that Kaz used."

Jesper snorted. "Brekker called you an investment?"

"It's not funny," she said with pursed lips, "I was so upset with him that I almost didn't come."

"How did he convince you to?"

She smiled. "He upped his price, of course."

"Well, Kaz does have a way with words and finances."

"Or something," said Inej. She shouldered her backpack and then got out of the dune buggy. "I'll be back within the hour. I promise."

"I don't believe you," said Jesper.

"Have faith, Jes."

"I don't have faith in anything except for my ability to lose money as quickly as I get it."

Inej patted Jesper on the shoulder. "It'll all be fine, Jesper. I have enough faith for the both of us."

Inej got her equipment set up. The scaling of The Fold took thirty minutes to reach the bottom, and she managed to do it without slipping once. When she hit the ground, the canyon was filled with darkness. But off in the distance, Inej could see a faint glow coming a few miles down. Taking a deep breath, Inej shouldered her bag, and she started to walk towards the light.

The Fold wasn't supposed to be a place that people lived in. But there was a whole community that lived there. Inej's family had been amongst them. She had spent her life climbing into and out of The Fold, until her family had gotten captured by the stad watch and arrested for living in a place they didn't have a permit to live. When her family had gotten captured, Inej had gotten out of The Fold, and she had gone to Ketterdam to look for them. There, she had found no help at all, and she had ended up working for Kaz Brekker to try to get enough money to save her family from prison. Ordinary work didn't pay enough.

Kaz Brekker paid, but it also came with the caveat that Inej would frequently have to do dangerous and illegal things to get paid. It was more then she would make as being a waitress, and it was more honorable than the original work that she had gotten conned into doing when she was first at in Ketterdam. As a young girl, she had been lost, and hungry, and she'd been taken in by a woman she thought wanted to take care of her. But she learned that the woman was not kind, and that she was in fact a Madame, and Inej had been forced into working at a place called The Menagerie where she had been forced into being a whore.

Kaz Brekker had found out about her time in The Fold, and he had bought out her contract there. She worked for him now, and while the work wasn't honorable, it paid and she got to keep her clothes on. When Kaz had told her about the girl that had been kidnapped, Inej had originally told him she would do it for free, and then Kaz had run his mouth....

He had upped his price, and so Inej was there looking for a girl named Genya Safin. Inej had been a girl that had needed saving, and now she was going to be the one doing the saving. The Fold was dark, and cold, and it brought up hard memories---cold winters with her family hidden amongst their tent, hiding in between the canyon caves with her brother, her father teaching her to climb as a child so that she could get into and out of it quickly.

It hurt simply by being in the canyon again. But this was to save someone else, and so she would do it. She would go into The Fold, and she would save the girl.