Drowning (Kaz Brekker)

xix - No Mourners, No Funerals

MATTHIAS WAS DEAD. Kaz wasn't sure what to do with himself.

He and Asra and Jesper and Wylan had arrived at the Van Eck mansion about an hour ago, Alys and her maid with them. The two ladies had vanished off together, Jesper and Wylan doing the same. Asra had excused herself into the nearest bathroom and emerged about twenty minutes later, torn up towels visible through her shirt as she'd wrapped them around her like bandages. She'd insisted she was fine before Kaz even had time to ask. She did that too much.

The Van Eck served a dinner finer than anything Kaz had ever had in his life. He didn't like the thought as it crossed his mind. Alys took the meal to her room and the rest of them sat on the steps leading to the back garden, watching the sun set over the Geldcanal. None of them ate much. None of them spoke. They just waited, watching the strangely empty canal, listening to the haunting quiet of a city gone still. It was like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting for the bottle boat to pull up in front of them.

The sun set. Jesper vanished to pace and explore. Asra drummed her fingers on her knee as she sat beside Kaz on the steps, eyes damn near unblinking as she watched the water. They hadn't spoken a word in hours now. The silence they both wore so well was an old comfort, a kind of shield as Kaz let his knee fall to the side and rest against hers. Asra's fingers stilled, her eyes never leaving the water. Kaz waited, watching her shamelessly, and then Asra leaned her knee back into against in turn. She continued to drum her fingers. Kaz let the soft, rhythmic sound ground him as they sat and waited a while longer.

An hour after the world went dark, the bottle boat pulled up, docking at the Van Ecks' elegant boathouse.

"They made it!" Wylan whooped. They all got to their feet and headed over. Jesper carried a lantern and champagne Asra said she wanted them to enjoy when she couldn't. She was grinning as she walked beside Kaz.

Inej and Rotty were helping Kuwei off the boat. He hadn't done up his shirt, and his chest was still smeared with pig's blood, but he was alive. Colm Fahey looked utterly haunted as he wrapped his son in a hug. Nina did not rise from where she lay beside Matthias, her head on his unmoving chest, his skin almost grey against hers, his eyes closed.

Dead. Matthias was dead.

The world went still for a long moment.

"How?" Kaz asked, barely recognising the rasp of his own voice. The word came out too quiet.

"We still don't know." Inej said. Her face was wet, yet new tears gathered in her eyes. Asra wrapped her in a hug. Kaz watched Inej's slender hands fist the back of her shirt.

Wylan retrieved a blanket from the house, and Jesper and Rotty used it to help lift Matthias' body out the boat. The process was clusmy and inelegant and everything the Fjerdan would've scowled at.

Kaz wondered his Matthias' voice would haunt him like Jordie's did.

Matthias was lain to rest temporarily in the boathouse. Nina never left his side, silent and still as the dead she commanded as she sat beside the body and held its hand.

He'd known death most his life, felt her cold kiss on his own skin, held her bloated victims in his own childish hands. Why did it feel so wrong to call Matthias' body just that; a body? Matthias was... Matthias was dead.

Inej draped a shawl over Nina's shoulders, then knelt beside her and nestled her head against her shoulder. Asra crouched on Nina's other side, silent and still as death herself as she just looked and looked at the corpse, her hand resting lightly on Matthias' bloodied stomach. He'd been shot there. But none of them knew who had done it.