No Mourners, No Funerals

23.✓

Sweating Jesper woke, the sun wasn't even up... yet here he was, wide awake. Why did he have an urge to go check on the 'now' smoldering building? Was he worried? No, not yet anyway... was he drawn to the potential adrenaline behind it? Possibly. 

Jesper sat quietly up, his long legs hanging from the side of the bed as he groggily rubbed his face. He looked back and could see Wylan sleeping calmly and peacefully. The little red-tinted curls that fell just in front of his face as he slept. 

With a subtle, soft movement Jesper tucked the curls so that it was off to the side of Wylan's calm face. I don't deserve him Jesper thought with a soft weak smile before he stood up to grab a cup of coffee... knowing he wouldn't fall back asleep again. 

As he headed down to the kitchen, Jesper kept thinking about that building... there was no faulty wiring, and no trace of how the fire started was there the first time. He had a strange feeling that someone new was up to this, but before he starts overthinking things, Jesper needed to check things out for himself. 

As he finished making the cup of coffee and held it to his lips he shook his head. "No, Wylan wouldn't like it if I went to check alone." He spoke only to himself, thinking out loud... since loud is what Jesper is good at. 

Finally taking a sip, he stood at the window looking out onto the courtyard. Letting all of his thoughts tumble through his brain, trying to organize them. Wylan? Slat? Barrel? Crow Club? The Dregs? Reading? Helping? Businessman? Loneliness? am I lost? No, I'm in a relationship... do not give that up.

***

"Don't order me Dirtyhands, keep your attitude with yourself and as of your earlier question, the ship was on fire, I wasn't there, and when I reached it was almost too late. We tried controlling the fire, but the damage was done and Inej fainted because of the smoke and heat." Caden purposely left the part of him of being a Grisha, he couldn't trust him, not yet.

Kaz's eyes darkened, but he didn't argue when Inej's life was at stake, he swiveled the folders. "These.  These are the merch who buy and sell slaves, at least, those who own ships that you have recently taken down. Anyone's face seem familiar?" A few didn't have sketches, but descriptions.

***

Wylan awoke with the sun filtering through the half-closed curtains and one side of the bed empty. Jesper is up he thought and tried to will himself to do the same. His mind wandered to the fire last night, hopefully, it didn't get out of hand and why did Kaz leave so fast? 

He climbed out of bed, stretched, and rubbed his eyes, walking down the stairs to the kitchen. He wondered if Inej was awake yet, probably, she might even be out. "Wheres mine?" Wylan asked as he walked into the kitchen and saw Jesper drinking a coffee, he enveloped Jesper in a hug. "Have you seen Inej yet this morning?" He mumbled.

Jesper had almost spilled the cup he was holding, before feeling Wylan's body pressed against his own. Inej! Jesper thought that's right? Where was she? If she were here, she would've been up by now, right? 

Jesper was confused and nearly forgotten to respond to Wylan as he saw the merchling begin to look up at him. "No I haven't, now that I think about it... should we check? Or-" Jesper drawled on.

"Um maybe? I don't know if we should go into her room, she probably wants some privacy. But it wouldn't hurt to check." In truth Wylan was starting to get slightly worried, it wasn't like Inej to sleep in, or leave without saying bye. Or was it? Either way, she could still be in her room.

***

Caden took the file from his hands and carefully went through the file, reading about everyone's description but none matched until he reached the end of the file and at the bottom of the last page there was a description about a man that resembled a lot to the supposed doctor, he turned the file towards the boy and said, "This man, I think he was the one we went with."