How Villains Are Made - Kaz Brekker

Chapter Ten

I'm almost ashamed to show my face here after so long, but here's another chapter. It's a long one, if that's any consolation. Have fun! And learn more about Maud's family.

Kaz Brekker was good in a lot of things, but the thing that he was most famous for was for his very detailed plans; most details were not known by the public, always far too well kept in his own mind to be shared with anybody that didn't absolutely need to know.

It was no surprise that when Per Haskell left in the very next day for the countryside (some bad gambling den that been opened and he had been invited for opening night; Kaz didn't persuade him to stay in Ketterdam), his plots were put into the action, using the time that Maud was away with Judith taking care of some young boy with chicken pox for some pocket change (the only amount she seemed to accept from the poorer part of town), an illness which Maud could not get since she already had it before.

Gathering the Dregs in the closest thing to a living room that the Slat had was easy, especially when he was standing, darkening the front door and daring anyone to get out of there. People just stood there, waiting for him to say what was happening and why nobody could leave.

Jesper stood near the stairs, arms crossed. He was glad that the small group that had known that Maud had disappeared a few days before didn't seem too excited about sharing the news that she had been found in Kaz's bed the next morning, which meant that most people didn't know about how the rumour had started, and without information enough, they didn't believe it. The problem was that Inej did – and Inej was trying her hardest not to show how surprised or how annoyed it made her.

They both knew that Maud was a good girl, a good person in general, which meant that Inej really liked her, and therefore she wanted nothing but happiness to the girl, but it didn't meant that there wasn't a very small part of her that didn't get upset about Kaz finally moving on completely from her.

Jesper was trying his best to remain impartial.

"We might lose our doctor today," Kaz said suddenly when Pim started walking towards him.

Everybody froze.

"What?" Anika said. "What happened? Where is Maddie?"

"She's alright. She's with Judith right now," Jesper said. "What are you talking about, Kaz?"

"Mau – Maddie's parents are in town," he said, stumbling over the name before deciding to use the popular nickname that she had gotten. "For some of you, that might mean nothing, but Maddie is from the countryside of Kerch, which means that the culture is very different from here and, if they find out half of the things that happen here, they will take her away."

"That's absurd! That's the best medic that we had in years, Boss!" Pim said. "She diagnosed me with that eye problem before I even needed to wear glasses. I stopped shooting wrong."

"Well, most of the time," added Anika, looking at him through the corner of her eyes.

Pim rolled his eyes.

"Why would they take Maddie away?" Rotty asked.

Rotty now could finally move his arms around as much as he wanted, the time-limit for his shoulder to heal was finally through. Maud had put his shoulder in place at the very alley that he had taken it out of its socket.

"Because she's unmarried, living with several men," Kaz said.

"She already was when she got in here," Jesper reminded him.

"Yes, but it was different. The owner of the boarding house she was is a respectful widow that houses several students; the only permanent residents are girls, only sailors come and go," Nina said. "I heard about that. Maddie told me her parents went to visit her there before."