TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xv. you'd do it for me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THEY LIKED GRISHA IN Shu Han.

Echo had said as much on the Hummingbird, but her own words had haunted her like a vengeful ghost since they'd departed the flying ship and set foot on Shu Han soil.

The red head made the catastrophic mistake of assuming that after being on the run for the better part of two years now, she would have gotten used to looking over her shoulder. But no. As it turns out, running from something is significantly worse when you don't even know what you're running from.

And if she was jumpy in Ketterdam, Echo was downright neurotic now.

In Shu Han, every passerby was a threat. Every stall clerk was a scientist imagining new and innovative ways to explore the caverns of her body and turn them inside out on an operating table. Every look was one of malcontent, every glance one of suspicion. Echo stuck to Inej like one of the Suli girl's knives and thanked whatever higher power there was out there that the Wraith had the know-with-all to not ask why her most rational friend had the vaguely reminiscent demeanor of a convict on the run.

This much worrying had to be bad for her health.

Because she had been chased for not being grisha enough. Which was emotionally painful, sure, but only likely to lead to a momentarily physically painful death. But now she was being chased for being too grisha to live. And the stakes were so much higher this time. The humour of the situation was not entirely lost on Echo Caddel.

They'd stopped, their ragtag group of thieves, soldiers, and Wylan, in the middle of Bhez Ju. There were hundreds of people, swathes of brightly coloured crowds that moved to kneel at the altar in the middle of the square. It was piled high with candles and burning incense and as Inej, Zoya and Tolya moved towards it with solemn faces, Echo remembered the Shu holiday of Sunsta Sar. It was a day of mourning for those you've lost and the antithesis of everything Echo ever tried to do. Forgetting suited her better. But, of course, it was the one thing she could never really do.

Wordlessly, their group split in two. With the more devout of them preferring to offer prayers to the departed, that left only her, Kaz, Wylan and Jesper to stand in silence and watch. The world moved around them. Tears were shed. Echo was hauntingly conscious of the way Jesper glanced back and forth between her and Wylan, as if either of them were about to explode without a moment's notice. It made her feel like she would. It made her feel crazy.

When she couldn't stand it any longer - the redhead left and she didn't spare Kaz as much as a backward glance. She hadn't done as much since their talk on The Hummingbird and she didn't plan to start now because Echo Caddel was, unfortunately for everyone around her, stubborn. She was also - above anything else - really fucking tired of pretending she was fine.

But they needed her to be fine or else everything would fall to shit - and so the redhead would grit her teeth and bare the pangs of her heart and remember she had a thousand reasons to not run for the hills. Or more like four other reasons. Jesper, Wylan, Nina and Inej wouldn't be too pleased if their small friend hopped on the earliest possible boat to the furthest possible location just because she was unhappy.

Besides, distance worked. It was easier for them both this way. He could stop putting himself through hell just to touch her, and she could stop wanting him to.

Above all, it was an amicable decision. Kind. Thoughtful. It was everything she longed to be. But now, making the decision to be those things, Echo really wished she could be content with being selfish and horrible and cruel. But she never could be that for them. Her Crows.