Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason. Those were the words whispered on the streets of Ketterdam - but that didn't mean that he never had one.
The Shu Serpent rears her head and slithers from the shadows when a high paying job catches her prying eyes a...
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With the plan put into place more or less, Zhen found an enraged Inej hopping down from the building beside her. The only reason she could gather that, was the fact that she had heard her.
Even for Inej, it was the slightest of shifts of gravel beneath her shoes. But Zhen picked up on it.
"Did he tell you to meet at Black Veil," she asked calmly, quietly, making the Suli girl glance over. Zhen met her eyes, wrapping her dark shawl tighter around her shoulders. "if things go wrong?"
She heaved a sigh.
She watched Inej shift her blue silk headscarf from her face as she regarded her stonily.
"I suppose he's told you why he's doing all of this?" She asked, her voice gentle, not at all reflecting the fire behind her eyes. "And keeping us in the dark?"
Zhen swallowed thickly and averted her gaze to the concrete at her feet.
Her mind was rife with shame and guilt and yet, she could not will herself to respond. She understood her friends frustrations most of all because she knew what dealing with Kaz was like on a level no others could.
She opened her mouth to respond but the words caught in her throat and she shut it again. Guilt swarmed her mind.
"Rollins is..." the words 'a man' rotted on her tongue. "someone who deserves what's coming to him."
Inej's dark eyes searched her own, expression softening a tad but only slightly. "And Kaz cannot accept that we are denying fates chance to deliver that end."
"Kaz doesn't believe in fate." She responded immediately.
"And what do you believe in?"
Zhen went quiet because truly she did not know. She glanced down back at her scuffed boots, trying to find sense in what they were doing and only knowing that they could not leave it up to chance or fate to deliver Rollins justice.
He made it personal from day one.
When he conned two children onto the streets with no money and no means to survive.
When he had no issue giving sickening places like the Willow profit to keep them going, to dip his hand into their murky waters and spoil it with his money and power.
To take innocence from a young girl, uncaring of her age just because he could and because men like him only knew how to do one thing.
Take.
She released a shaky breath and dared to lift her gaze to meet Inej's, not realising she had gone too far into her own head, only to realise that Inej had snuck away.
At the knowledge she had driven her friend away with her silence, she sighed and went to find Kaz before he told her off for being late. All the while her mind was heavy with dark thoughts.
