A Coin Has Two Sides || Kaz Brekker x OC

13. Control

Four months passed.

Four painful, agonizing months.

Winnie had been confronting the darkness inside of her almost daily and it left her completely drained and utterly exhausted.

Her training consisted of practicing her summoning abilities and trying to control them.

She mainly trained by herself. With silence being her friend, she found it easier to concentrate when she was alone.

Inej and Jesper frequently sat and watched over her.

Jesper didn't believe Winnie when she told him she was a shadow summoner, but after watching her argument with Kaz and seeing her eyes morph into black voids, he was proven wrong. The Zemini sharpshooter would now come and watch her in awe, taking mental notes to stop annoying the girl as much as he did.

When it came to Inej, Winnie could never tell when she came to watch her. Inej had taken notice of Winnies preference for being alone, but she was still just as curious as Jesper was, and so when she wasn't out collecting information for Kaz, she was sneaking in to watch Winnie practice.

Speaking of Kaz, he had only come to watch Winnie once about two months into her training. He wanted to see if she had improved enough to get her using her powers on jobs again.

Unfortunately, he was proven wrong.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of having your company today, Brekker? It's not common for you to show interest in what I'm up to. Surely you'd have more fun keeping Jesper in line at the Club or listening to what secrets Inej has to spill, even striking deals." Winnie asked as she entered the wide, open room Kaz had acquired for her to train in to see him sat in the corner.

"Whilst that all sounds very tempting, I thought I'd check in to analyse your progress. You've had two months. I may be unfamiliar with Grisha training, but something tells me that's enough time to at least see some minor changes at the very least."

Winnie removed her long, black coat that Jesper had lent her which left her in an outfit she deemed suitable for training. It was similar to Inej's style. The Suli girl had been the one to take her shopping after all. Her dark red leather waistcoat fitted her snuggly over a black long-sleeved mesh top. She wore a short black skirt with a slit on the right side which had two long pieces of fabric flowing out of the sides down to her ankles. To cover the scars on her legs, Winnie wore tights underneath and black combat boots. Her look was accompanied with her hair styled in a way to keep it out of her face during training.

Kaz hadn't spoken a word against her new look, which told Winnie that he approved.

"Well, I think I might be getting somewhere but prepare for disappointment", Winnie remarked as she walked into the centre of the room.

"I always do when it comes to you, Marth", she heard the devil reply, causing her to roll her eyes.

She desperately wanted to prove him wrong, but if the past two months had shown her anything, she wasn't anywhere near ready to use her abilities out of the comfort of the training room.

She took a deep breath and began summoning the shadows, moving them up the walls to cover the sky light above them, plunging them into near darkness.

She had always been able to control simple acts like that, the issues arose when she needed to use them in dangerous situations.

Kaz rocked his cane in this hand, watching the girl's every move carefully.

Suddenly, the shadows pushed forward a human-shaped piece of wood which Kaz noticed Winnie had decorated to resemble Yurian.

The girl took a deep breath and let the darkness disperse throughout her body as it stopped at her fingertips, ready for her next command.