THESE BROKEN VOWS (Kazbrekker x Fem!reader) [ book version]

CHAPTER 5

-KAZ P.O.V🧤-

Music floated out of parlours where the doors had been flung open, and
men and women lounged on couches in little more than scraps of silk and
gaudy baubles.

Acrobats dangled from cords over the canal, lithe bodies garbed in nothing but glitter, while street performers played their fiddles, hoping to garner a coin or two from passersby.

Hawkers shouted at the sleek private gondels of rich merchers in the canal and the larger browboats that brought tourists and sailors inland from the Lid.

A lot of tourists never entered the brothels of West Stave.

They just came to watch the crowd, which was a sight in itself.

Many people chose to visit this part of the Barrel in disguise – in veils or masks or capes with nothing but the glint of their eyes visible.

They bought their costumes in one of the speciality shops off the main canals, and sometimes disappeared from their companions for a day or a week, or however long their funds held out.

They dressed as Mister Crimson or the Lost Bride, or wore the grotesque, goggle-eyed mask of the Madman – all characters from the Komedie Brute. And then there were the Jackals, a group of
rowdy men and boys who cavorted through the Barrel in the red lacquered
masks of Suli ‘fortune-tellers’.

Kaz remembered when Y/N had first seen the jackal masks in a shop window.

She hadn’t been able to contain her contempt. “Real Suli fortunetellers are rare. They’re holy men and women. These masks that are handed around like party favours are sacred symbols.”

“I’ve seen Suli tellers ply their trade in caravans and pleasure ships, Y/N. They didn’t seem so very holy.”

“They are pretenders. Making themselves clowns for you and your ilk.”

“My ilk?” Kaz had laughed.

She’d waved her hand in disgust.

“Shevrati,” she’d said. “Know-nothings. They’re laughing at you behind those masks.”

“ The Ghafas have been teaching you Suli ? And Not at me, Y/N. I’d never lay down good coin to be told my future by anyone – fraud or holy man.”

“Fate has plans for us all, Kaz.”

“Was it fate that brought your family to the trap laid by Fjerdans ? Was it fate that they killed your family and almost sold you to the house of exotics ? Was it fate that bought you to the canals of Ketterdam, orphaned, starving ? Or was it just very bad luck?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she’d said coldly.
In moments like that, he thought she might hate him.

Kaz wove his way through the crowd, a shadow in a riot of colour.

Each of the major pleasure houses had a speciality, some more obvious than
others.

He passed the Blue Iris, the Bandycat, bearded men glowering from the windows of the Forge.

The Obscura, the Willow Switch, the dewy-eyed blondes at the House of Snow.

And of course the Menagerie, also known as the House of Exotics, where Inej and Bhagya had been forced to don fake Suli silks.