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

CHAPTER 20

🗡️INEJ P.O.V🗡️

Inej looked up, into the dark.

High above her floated a small, grey patch of evening sky.

Would Bhagya make it ?

Six levels to climb in the dark with her hands slippery from sweat and the fires of hell burning below, with the rope weighing her down and no net to catch her.

" Are you sure about this one love ?" asked Inej in Suli.

Bhagya hummed.

" The heart is an arrow." Inej recited. "It demands aim to land true"

"And my heart's aim is four million Kruge, getting out us of here and leaving Kerch, to go look for Ma and Baba. And we'll go. This time, my hearts aim will land true."

Bare hands were best for climbing, but the incinerator walls were far
too hot to permit that.

So Wylan and Jesper had helped her fish Kaz's gloves from the laundry bins for Bhagya.

She'd hesitated briefly.

Inej knew Kaz would tell her to just put the gloves on, to do whatever it took to get the job done.

And yet, she felt curiously guilty as she asked permission and slid the supple black leather over her hands, as if she had crept into his rooms without his permission, read his letters, lain down in his bed.

The gloves were unlined, with the slenderest slashes hidden in the fingertips.

For sleight of hand, she realised, so that he can keep contact with coins or cards or finesse the workings of a lock. Touch
without touch.

There was no time to acclimatise herself to the oversized feel of the gloves.

No doubt those were too big for her sister's petite hands.

Would she slip ?

No. No negative thoughts. Focus.

Besides, Bhagya had climbed with covered hands plenty of times when
the Ketterdam winters had turned her fingers numb.

She saw Bhagya flexed her toes in her little leather slippers, revelling in the familiar feel of them on her feet bouncing on her nubbly rubber soles, fearless and eager.

The heat was nothing, mere discomfort. The weight of seventy feet of rope coiled around her tiny frame was what worried Inej.

" Remember to numb your skin to the heat. Do you want me to-"

" Y/N, you and me both know you are not capable of doing Grisha magic right now. Because of that." Bhagya pointed at Y/N's ghastly gash. " Besides, I'm the Phantom. One of the best spiders in the Barrel. I'm my Baba's daughter. I'll make it."

Y/N smiled, pulling Bhagya into an embrace.

" Be okay. Please. And we can go out for waffles later." mumbled Y/N, letting go.

Bhagya nodded.

Before long, Inej saw her sister's frame disappear into the distance of the cloudy sky above them.