Tseren commits a crime a day for Kaz Brekker. Even talking to him could get her a stint in jail. Her Dreg tattoo, hidden by her servant uniform, could get her sent to Hellgate, with the wrong judge.
And yet, it's worth it. She knows it is. Brekker'...
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𝗧𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡 𝗗𝗜𝗗 not like people watching her work. It was just a fact amongst the Dregs, almost as much as 'Don't piss off Dirtyhands' or 'Keep an eye out for errant bullets.' Don't be in the workroom when Brekker's Alkemi is there. The other demolition experts or craftspeople that the Dregs employed knew to leave her their shared workroom when she made her way down to the Slat. Usually it was no big deal. She worked late at night, when it was safe to sneak away.
Ever since Brekker had approached her and she'd joined his little gang, she'd perfected her means of escape. She had to remove her purple gloves and mask—the Achterbergs chosen method for denoting her as Grisha—and sneak out of the window with the broken lock. Tseren knew that Einya, the Achterberg's female Durast, was aware of this glaring weakness in the servant's quarters and the punishment that would follow if Lars or Maude were to find out about it. She left it, willing to risk it for the comfort that the easy escape provided.
As Tseren snuck out of that very window, she brought with her only the necessities: a large leather saddlebag filled to the brim with things she'd requested from the Achterbergs. Lars and Maud had no clue about basic chemistry or what went into the creams and tonics Tseren provided for them. All they knew was that they were effective. In her three years in their service, Tseren had requested thousands of kruge worth of materials. Barely half of that went into her creations as a part of the Achterbergs cabinet of Grisha. The rest went to her night job.
Her ability to request just about anything made her an invaluable resource to the Dregs, especially since it was all under the table. In truth, she wasn't a resource to the Dregs, but Kaz Brekker. None of Per Haskell's other lieutenants had the mental capacity to take full advantage of her talents. They wanted her poisons and her gasses void of scent. Kaz wanted paralysis, wanted loose-lips, wanted toxins and mixtures no other gang had. And that's what he got.
Kaz had recommended the tattoo in case she was killed brutally and they had no way of identifying her corpse. She'd gotten it done solely for the reason that it balanced out the Achterberg tattoo on the back of her neck. To her, the cup and the crow was her true tattoo. It revealed her allegiance much more honestly than the mirror hidden by her hair.
But the mirror didn't matter when she was walking through the Barrel, eyes straight ahead and eyebrows lowered.
Tseren knew she could be intimidating. It was the only way she'd survived this long. Her pure white uniform didn't even stand out in the Kerch crowds. No one knew it was the uniform of a Grisha because it wasn't the stereotypical kefta associated with the Ravkan second army. Most people walking the streets of Ketterdam wore odd clothes or disguises. It was commonplace to see characters from the Komedie Brute walking alongside the canal, heading from pub to gambling den to pub again. Her uniform never caught a single eye.
