❝ 𝘾𝙍𝙔 𝙈𝙀 𝘼 𝙍𝙄𝙑𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙈𝘼𝙆𝙀 𝙄𝙏 𝙁𝙇𝙊𝙊𝘿. ❞
They say that Kaz Brekker is the worst in the Barrel. Only ignorance or naivety could have someone refuting that claim.
But as for the rest of Ketterdam? Well, they also say the city is...
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DARKNESS&DECIPHER
Wanting makes you weak
Need strengthens you
–
CARMEN
Blood falls like rain from the sky and I can not see it but smell its metallic scent in the air and iron taste on my tongue. My eyes are wide and yet I can not see. Is it from tears or the darkened world itself that blinds me?
My clothes are damp with it and it feels like a thousand bricks weighing me down. I want to cry out for my mother's help, but it is her blood soaking me through.
Her head rests on my lap. I used to rest mine on hers.
A gasp left Carmen's lips as she opened her eyes, like emerging from underwater and finally breathing again. Perhaps she was drowning. Inej was wiping at her face with a handkerchief and concerned look. Her way of apology after dragging her from her flat and into this mess in the first place? Or, it could have been kindness. The train still shook violently on its wheels, lights blinking and eager to touch its track.
"I'm not throwing out the goat!" Jesper yelled, and Carmen's wide eyes dared a glance at anything other than the inside of her own mind.
They were in a train, yes, to traverse across the Fold. The dark blood that still hastily adorned her body was not her own or any of her companions, but from the volcra bleeding out overhead.
Carmen caught a breath and her bearings, throwing Inej a thankful look and the Suli girl retook her seat. It was possible the other members of the crew had not noticed her short lapse of consciousness in their acts to save the vehicle, but she highly doubted the Bastard of the Barrel got his name from being inattentive.
"Hug the goat, shut the hell up!" Arken yelled and Jesper let out a shout of indignance before doing so. Carmen thought maybe they should have gotten two goats. Not that it would've really helped her, unless the goat could visit dreams. Or dreams of dreams, faint like a distant memory.
The noise of a loud clang on the side of the car pierced the tense air, "We should've hit that twenty seconds ago," Arken exclaimed, exasperatedly.
Kaz demanded of the man, "And twenty seconds means?"
"The train stops inside the Fold and..." he caught himself, nervously glancing around the cab, then reluctantly continued, "that means we die."
A moment of silence fell on the air as the group grappled with the possibility. Jesper, holding tight the goat. Inej, looking towards the sky and gripping her knives.
Kaz's expression was as steel as ever. Carmen wondered if he would really let this be his last day, last moment alive. Death in pursuit of kruge would surely suit him. But the moment did not fit as surely as leather gloves did on his slim fingers. He would like death in a pile of kruge much better, Carmen presumed.
