The Love of a Crow - Wesper/Crows Fanfiction/AU

26. Inej

A/N: Hi people! Hope your week's been ok. Let me just stop my rambling and get on. I hope the rest of your week goes just as great/better. Enjoy! :)

Life in the Barrel seemed to return to a dreary normality; apart from the absence of the loudest sharpshooter in all of Ketterdam, it was as if time had reversed, like Wylan really had died on the night of the Crow scrape. As much as Inej longed to visit the other Crows, it would only bring trouble; she may be good at being a ghost, but that didn't mean other ghosts weren't watching her also.

Days trickled past into weeks of sneaking, stunning and killing, as well as delivering messages to the various rich sponsors of the Crow Club that no, Dirtyhands was not dead, he was merely busy. At least that was true. Many nights Inej had slunk into his office to find him passed out over his work. Unlike Wylan, Inej couldn't do anything to stop him overworking; all she could do was wrap a blanket round his shoulders and disappear.

Days turned into excruciatingly slow weeks, and still no all-clear from Kaz. Messages from the safe house had stopped arriving one day after they had first got there, and anything could have happened since then. They could be on the other side of the world right now and Inej would have no idea.

How did Kaz deal with this? How did he manage to think of any new plans when these doubtful thoughts must constantly haunt him? More importantly, how did he pretend he knew everything? It was another mystery she had plenty of time to ponder.

Finally, right before Inej was about to explode, Kaz had news. She knew this because it was only four bells in the morning and he was actually awake, looking like he was about to conquer the world with a flick of leather.

"Took you long enough to show up," Kaz mused. Inej restrained herself from punching him; Saints he got on her nerves sometimes, one of the only people to truly get under her skin. She felt so bare around him, as if he could view right into her soul. Nobody had had that privilege since she was a child, and she wasn't about to pine it away to Kaz Brekker.

"If you're going to waste my time then please do it quicker." She snapped back.

"There's been another scrape; at the Emerald Palace."

Inej sucked in a breath; a serious gang fight right at the doors of the Emerald Palace! It was almost too good to be true. In fact, she was a little embarrassed she hadn't heard about it first.

"Who was it?"

"We can't be sure, but it started with betrayers in the gang, and all the dead were wearing a piece of snakeskin. It was Scales."

"The damage?" Inej said.

Kaz gave the grin of a wolf. "It will take weeks to repair. Pekka is furious and is busy hunting Scales all over Ketterdam. He even complained to his friends on the Merchant Council, so it looks like Van Eck will have to lie low. Rollins may have lost a lot, but it's nothing compared to Scales. He lost all of his known assets in the Dime Lions, and half his gang were killed. Some of the Dregs even said they saw Scales limping away injured, but..." he shrugged as if recounting the weather.

Inej was leaping for joy on the inside. Two of their biggest enemies had almost taken each other out, and they hadn't even needed to do anything! And with Pekka and Scales out of the picture for a while, maybe it meant-

"Wait... does that mean...?" Inej asked hesitantly.

Rolling his eyes, Kaz said; "Yes, that means you can bring Wylan and Jesper back. There's no way I'll be able to stop you."

"YES!" The door burst open and Nina bounded in, screaming as a knife swerved into the wall next to her. Oops.

"Didn't anyone in that stupid Little Palace teach you how to knock?!" Kaz snarled, ignoring Nina's still-cheery face.