Kaz's "I Love You."

"No mourners, no funerals"

"No mourners, no funerals."

The saying was familiar between the crows, they wouldn't dare say "good luck" or "be safe", you had to keep your expectations low in The Barrel. No matter how strange or how unusual the phrase was it had meaning, the meaning carried a sense of feeling amongst the crew as they left on their next dangerous heist, it wasn't a form of good luck or anything to do with hope, it was a reminder that if anything happened to them on a job; and one of all of them didn't make it out alive, there would be no funerals and no mourners to miss them...but that wasn't true.

Every job was dangerous, if you couldn't handle deadly situations you didn't belong in Ketterdam, unless you were rich, or one of the worst bastards in the barrel. You wouldn't survive. Kaz Brekker was one of the deadliest, dirtiest, and most cunning bastard of the barrel, he wasn't born in the barrel but he was made there. Same went for Inej Gafa. She wasn't born in the barrel but she was made, even though the barrel molded her being and her present self she still kept her faith, so did Jesper and Nina and Wylan, Kaz didn't have any faith in any higher powers or any hope for a better life, but he had faith in his crew; his crows. Inej had said Kaz and her were twin soldiers marching on together, they both had their innocence stripped and carved away, Inej has managed to keep apart of herself hidden deep inside away from any barbarians that wanted to take that away from her, Kaz wasn't so lucky. The only thing he has tucked away deep inside him was a fatal drive for revenge. He had been killed and reborn in the barrel with nothing left but revenge, anger, and hate. That's what powered him through every painful day, until he has rescued Inej Gafa from the Menagerie and had trained her to defend herself. That's when he noticed that there was something else powering him through each day and each job, it was something no...SOMEONE to look forward to, a incentive greater then revenge to make him get out of each heist alive.

"No mourners" is what Kaz had found himself saying when Inej slipped through his windowsill onto the roof ready to glide silently into the shadows all the way to Wylan's mansion, she would spend her day in Kaz's office feedinf the crows relaxing against the window the sun fanning her face as Kaz sat his desk focused on the paperwork INFRONT of him, he'd even doze off a little watching Inej feed the crows and talk so softly to them; even hear her laugh when the crows did something that registered as funny to her, and he would pay those bothersome birds 1 million kruge just to hear her laugh.

"No funerals" is how Inej would respond softly and slightly muffled her face mask already over her mouth her hood covering her tightly coiled hair sparing Kaz one last look before slipping away silently, Kaz briefly remembered what he had asked her.

"Don't slip away from me Wraith."

"But that is what I do best Kaz."

He didn't want to dwell on the situation that caused him to ask that question, but he definitely knew he didn't want her to slip away. He wanted her to stay, stay with him in Ketterdam so they could hunt slavers together, do jobs together, just to be together. Kaz always thought she would be the one to slip away from him, not the other way around.

END OF PART ONE: