Coming to his room to find Inej there in the window waiting is a comfort he hasn't speak about having missed. Especially since those moments had changed before coming to this place. It had been their time, something he could look forward to even as he made the long trek up the stairs at the end of the day.
Now as he opens the door, he's acutely aware of a sensation that is both familiar and pleasantly jarring at the same time.
He knows that many thought him as mystical as his Spider, both seeming to possess gifts that are far beyond the scope of the average person. It never occurred to them that it came from danger and threats and the need to always be one step ahead of everyone else if they wanted to survive.
Standing there, barely across the threshold, he's aware of a change of light in the room where her form changes the shadows. He knows the scent of her, the very energy she possesses. A singular step to the side, the tap of his cane as he moves and then the door clicks shut, followed by the solid sound of the lock engaged.
Any who say him might not think his expression warm but Inej may know differently at the slightest twitch of his lips, and the definite emotion in those words.
That smile never leaves her face, only widens and somehow becomes even more reminiscent of sunlight than ever. His presence really does fill the room, and his words fill her up and wrap around her. It's something in the air she can feel shift as soon as he's there.
It's comforting. She missed this.
"Swindle any crooks for fun today?" she lets that smile turn more sly into a smirk.
Seeing her in the subtle light of the room is like gazing upon the sun. Especially because of that smile which is so brilliant he hasn't a thought in the world for a moment. Then he can't help but nearly smile as he steps closer and drops a few items on a table.
A golden bangle. A small fold of money in a clip. A singular cufflink.
"I regret not getting the pair," he laments as if he's truly bothered. "Not how I would like to be handling business but it pays for what we need."
It might be resorting back to his roots but that's why he had forever kept nimble in such things.
"Jesper could make you one to match," she points out, mostly amused at the, admittedly, paltry collection. She knows he won't just take her and Jesper's earnings, he has to contribute somewhere, and he isn't going to go sell bread in a bakeryโ it just isn't his style. Inej thinks he's going to have to find something more lucrative soon, though.
She rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "Nothing new since we got back from our little involuntary cruise," she says. The intercepted document she'd been able to skim before delivering it to Fallon Marsh had been golden, but she isn't sure what to do with any of it. "Have you thought any more about the contract I told you about with Marsh and Reiner, in light of the mediation tour the factions went on?" She rolls her eyes a little at it.
"Honestly," she scoffs, "it reminds me so much of the Peace Summit they put together months back. It's all a sham, of course, a bit of sparkle to make people feel better, but it's not like anything is really changing..." Same as Ravka, in a lot of ways. Eternally broken by a system that refuses to truly change.
It feels like he's ten again and running the barrel alone. Except he isn't alone. He just isn't able to give them the life that he has in the past and that alone is beginning to truly grate on him.
He knows he needs to embrace the magic of this world and start to learn what he can, if only that he won't find the place he once had without it. Not here.
He snorts at that, slowly removing layers. The cane set aside. His gloves carefully peeled away from his fingers. His coat laid neatly over the back of a chair. All the while his gaze is on her as he does.
"It does strike me as show and nothing more. Especially in light of the information you have. What happened at the Peace Summit? Much the same as this?" He pauses before adding. "What prompted that summit? Another attack like this?"
Still perched in the window, she watches him step further into the room. Layers disappearing as he goes. It's silly, but Inej almost feels like she should avert her eyes whenever he slips the gloves off, it's still such a novelty yet.
She doesn't miss the way his eyes stay on her, either. It's that same scrutiny he always has in his eyes when they're alone together- it isn't anything lewd, simply that he is trying to commit every inch of her to memory. She hated it early on, but it's come to fit between them like an old glove now, well-worn and comfortable. She hasn't forgotten the way his eyes had lingered on her in the spa, either; her cheeks flush lightly at the thought, and she turns her face toward the view of the city below to give herself time to push it away and answer his question.
"It was around The Dimming... Thorne had plans to essentially pump the Singularity with raw energy in the form of small baubles they called caskets," she explains, turning to face him again. "Solvunn and Free Cities both had their missions to stop as many as they could. The best I understand, Reiner was going to use the energy in the caskets they got for new tech or something?" She shakes her head a little, "I wasn't in Cadens, then. And all I know about what Solvunn did with theirs is they're stored somewhere only the Council knows, hidden away to avoid risking angering the old gods."
She sighs softly, "So, the Peace Summit was a big sham of a show of peace between the factions. I still don't think I understand why Thorne bombed Libertas... but it made that summit look like the farce it was."
For many it might be meaningless, just a man removing his outerwear while in his room. For Kaz though it always feels like so much more when she's there. It's an offering, a show of respect, and more than that, a show of his feelings for her. He finds himself thinking often about their talks, about his moments with her and Jesper and how much he's willing to adjust to and experience for their sake. He hasn't determined all of it yet, but he has found ways he wants to try and show them how much they mean to him.
Pausing long enough to remove his suit jacket as well, leaving him in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat that was much more military in style that he preferred - but it was black even if a bit threadbare in spots - as he came to stand beside her.
"I'm beginning to feel like a lot of this is staged though I'm not sure by who. All of these works against and between one another, the means and methods they do things. Everything has this feeling of a... of something like we've pulled off in the past but more heavy handed than I've ever been on my worst theatrical day."
He knows the profit to be found in showy and obvious but some of this feels like someone mocking the rest with their overtness.
Kaz sighs, giving a shake of his head. Even as he does so he carefully, slowly, brings his hand up and brushes his knuckles along the the curve of her knee. His hand bared against the material, obviously intentionally testing out such gestures even if they're truly meant.
"Like Libertas. What if the only reasons for the bombing was to distract us from what their true mornings and desires are. So they encourage these battles and these supposed peace talks so we're all watching the pretty show and not the pickpocket moving amongst the crowd."
Inej knows the importance of the action; this is never an easy thing to be thrown away for nothing, it's always a very specific choice he's making, a removal of armor, one could say.
Her attention drawn back to him, all she can think is: He's so close. and her whole body sings with that thought. She holds her breath when she feels the touch to her knee, her eyes dropping to watch the careful brush of fingers against her leg. She blinks, purposefully, and draws her eyes back up to his face at the sound of his voice again.
"A wallet-watch situation?" a smirk slides carefully across her lips. Bringing their attention to an immediate disaster could be giving the faction leaders time to implement something much worse. "I fear forced conscription for the Summoned by Reiner, here, more than anything else," she isn't sure how the Prime Minster might make it happen, but she does not doubt she could. Marlo Reiner has plenty of political and military pull, both.
Thorne was bad news, in every imaginable way, but Cadens is where they've been pulled and even with the threat the kingdom poses, the ones that could strike right where they're living are more immediately relevant.
It feels simple but even he knows that sometimes simple is the best. More than that, it feels right. The stories he's hearing of this place before, when he hadn't been here and even before the others had. There's things going on that feel familiar in ways that he knows all too intimately.
"Something like that," he says with a nod. Having Inej to talk these things out with much as he did back home is a comfort he knows he shouldn't need but he knows he does. Certainly he could talk them out with others, but they work so well together.
Even if he's acutely aware of her there, so close, the beauty of her perched there and knowing its so much more than sultry looks.
"Which really brings about a lot of questions and too much ground to cover. Which I think they count on as well. Though if I had to put money on something," he says with a quirk of his brow. "I would first look at somewhere that keeps everyone it brings in corraled into a singular location. Singularity aside in this case. That so much is cut off from them is suspicious in and of itself."
"All we have to do is wait... people always show their hand if you give them enough time, right?" she smiles softly. "But enough work. Have you eaten anything today?" She knows how he is, and more than once, he might have gone without eating at all if not for her reminder to him.
"With enough rope, someone will hang themselves. Just depends on how long we have to wait for their hand to be shown. Most will eventually get arrogant enough to think they're invincible and then we'll have answers."
That questions makes him smile. "Perhaps? I think? Have you?"
"Well," she hums softly, "they don't know who they're dealing with. You are a better player of long games than they could ever dare to expect." Which is, honestly, just the truth as she sees it. She watched him harbor that grudge against Rollins for literal years. She knows it well.
Stupid boy and his stupid smile doing stupid things to her stupid heart. It's rude of him, really. But she can't help the matching one that spreads across her features all the same. "No dinner yet," she admits, tilting her head a little to one side. She could cook something, or they could go downstairs to the tavern.
He snorts at that but it's very nearly a chuckle in all honesty. She isn't wrong, and he is prepared to do what they have to.
"The truth? I am finding I don't entirely hate it here. Not with the chances there are." Not just for himself either. Inej can be whoever she wants here, and Jesper is open about being Grisha as well. "Which means I'll play their game to get me where I want to be because I'm not letting them win."
Not that he ever let anyone else win either.
"Well then. I suppose we'll have to eat because we'll each insist the other should," he teases in his own way. "What would you like?"
"That does sound very like you," she admits with a very serious nod, a smile on her face the whole while. Saints, she could get used to this. Him. Like this.
She tilts her head a little to one side. "Guess you're right," she hums a soft, curious note. "I'm not sure... do you want to just go downstairs, raid whatever Mag's offering on menu tonight?"
He feels personally like an entirely different person. Different because of them knowing the truth, of his relationship with them both, and even that he's gotten to the point physically where he has with them both. There's been so many changes in what feels like such a short time.
That he nods at though. "I like that." He offers his hand to her. "Shall we?"
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no subject
Now as he opens the door, he's acutely aware of a sensation that is both familiar and pleasantly jarring at the same time.
He knows that many thought him as mystical as his Spider, both seeming to possess gifts that are far beyond the scope of the average person. It never occurred to them that it came from danger and threats and the need to always be one step ahead of everyone else if they wanted to survive.
Standing there, barely across the threshold, he's aware of a change of light in the room where her form changes the shadows. He knows the scent of her, the very energy she possesses. A singular step to the side, the tap of his cane as he moves and then the door clicks shut, followed by the solid sound of the lock engaged.
Any who say him might not think his expression warm but Inej may know differently at the slightest twitch of his lips, and the definite emotion in those words.
"Hello, Wraith."
no subject
It's comforting.
She missed this.
"Swindle any crooks for fun today?" she lets that smile turn more sly into a smirk.
no subject
A golden bangle. A small fold of money in a clip. A singular cufflink.
"I regret not getting the pair," he laments as if he's truly bothered. "Not how I would like to be handling business but it pays for what we need."
It might be resorting back to his roots but that's why he had forever kept nimble in such things.
"And you? What have you done to keep busy?"
no subject
She rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "Nothing new since we got back from our little involuntary cruise," she says. The intercepted document she'd been able to skim before delivering it to Fallon Marsh had been golden, but she isn't sure what to do with any of it. "Have you thought any more about the contract I told you about with Marsh and Reiner, in light of the mediation tour the factions went on?" She rolls her eyes a little at it.
"Honestly," she scoffs, "it reminds me so much of the Peace Summit they put together months back. It's all a sham, of course, a bit of sparkle to make people feel better, but it's not like anything is really changing..." Same as Ravka, in a lot of ways. Eternally broken by a system that refuses to truly change.
no subject
He knows he needs to embrace the magic of this world and start to learn what he can, if only that he won't find the place he once had without it. Not here.
He snorts at that, slowly removing layers. The cane set aside. His gloves carefully peeled away from his fingers. His coat laid neatly over the back of a chair. All the while his gaze is on her as he does.
"It does strike me as show and nothing more. Especially in light of the information you have. What happened at the Peace Summit? Much the same as this?" He pauses before adding. "What prompted that summit? Another attack like this?"
no subject
She doesn't miss the way his eyes stay on her, either. It's that same scrutiny he always has in his eyes when they're alone together- it isn't anything lewd, simply that he is trying to commit every inch of her to memory. She hated it early on, but it's come to fit between them like an old glove now, well-worn and comfortable. She hasn't forgotten the way his eyes had lingered on her in the spa, either; her cheeks flush lightly at the thought, and she turns her face toward the view of the city below to give herself time to push it away and answer his question.
"It was around The Dimming... Thorne had plans to essentially pump the Singularity with raw energy in the form of small baubles they called caskets," she explains, turning to face him again. "Solvunn and Free Cities both had their missions to stop as many as they could. The best I understand, Reiner was going to use the energy in the caskets they got for new tech or something?" She shakes her head a little, "I wasn't in Cadens, then. And all I know about what Solvunn did with theirs is they're stored somewhere only the Council knows, hidden away to avoid risking angering the old gods."
She sighs softly, "So, the Peace Summit was a big sham of a show of peace between the factions. I still don't think I understand why Thorne bombed Libertas... but it made that summit look like the farce it was."
no subject
Pausing long enough to remove his suit jacket as well, leaving him in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat that was much more military in style that he preferred - but it was black even if a bit threadbare in spots - as he came to stand beside her.
"I'm beginning to feel like a lot of this is staged though I'm not sure by who. All of these works against and between one another, the means and methods they do things. Everything has this feeling of a... of something like we've pulled off in the past but more heavy handed than I've ever been on my worst theatrical day."
He knows the profit to be found in showy and obvious but some of this feels like someone mocking the rest with their overtness.
Kaz sighs, giving a shake of his head. Even as he does so he carefully, slowly, brings his hand up and brushes his knuckles along the the curve of her knee. His hand bared against the material, obviously intentionally testing out such gestures even if they're truly meant.
"Like Libertas. What if the only reasons for the bombing was to distract us from what their true mornings and desires are. So they encourage these battles and these supposed peace talks so we're all watching the pretty show and not the pickpocket moving amongst the crowd."
no subject
Her attention drawn back to him, all she can think is: He's so close. and her whole body sings with that thought. She holds her breath when she feels the touch to her knee, her eyes dropping to watch the careful brush of fingers against her leg. She blinks, purposefully, and draws her eyes back up to his face at the sound of his voice again.
"A wallet-watch situation?" a smirk slides carefully across her lips. Bringing their attention to an immediate disaster could be giving the faction leaders time to implement something much worse. "I fear forced conscription for the Summoned by Reiner, here, more than anything else," she isn't sure how the Prime Minster might make it happen, but she does not doubt she could. Marlo Reiner has plenty of political and military pull, both.
Thorne was bad news, in every imaginable way, but Cadens is where they've been pulled and even with the threat the kingdom poses, the ones that could strike right where they're living are more immediately relevant.
no subject
"Something like that," he says with a nod. Having Inej to talk these things out with much as he did back home is a comfort he knows he shouldn't need but he knows he does. Certainly he could talk them out with others, but they work so well together.
Even if he's acutely aware of her there, so close, the beauty of her perched there and knowing its so much more than sultry looks.
"Which really brings about a lot of questions and too much ground to cover. Which I think they count on as well. Though if I had to put money on something," he says with a quirk of his brow. "I would first look at somewhere that keeps everyone it brings in corraled into a singular location. Singularity aside in this case. That so much is cut off from them is suspicious in and of itself."
i just found this buried in my inbox ๐ญ
Backtagging is never a worry
That questions makes him smile. "Perhaps? I think? Have you?"
Because that's a mature answer, isn't it?
๐
Stupid boy and his stupid smile doing stupid things to her stupid heart. It's rude of him, really. But she can't help the matching one that spreads across her features all the same. "No dinner yet," she admits, tilting her head a little to one side. She could cook something, or they could go downstairs to the tavern.
no subject
"The truth? I am finding I don't entirely hate it here. Not with the chances there are." Not just for himself either. Inej can be whoever she wants here, and Jesper is open about being Grisha as well. "Which means I'll play their game to get me where I want to be because I'm not letting them win."
Not that he ever let anyone else win either.
"Well then. I suppose we'll have to eat because we'll each insist the other should," he teases in his own way. "What would you like?"
no subject
She tilts her head a little to one side. "Guess you're right," she hums a soft, curious note. "I'm not sure... do you want to just go downstairs, raid whatever Mag's offering on menu tonight?"
no subject
He feels personally like an entirely different person. Different because of them knowing the truth, of his relationship with them both, and even that he's gotten to the point physically where he has with them both. There's been so many changes in what feels like such a short time.
That he nods at though. "I like that." He offers his hand to her. "Shall we?"