I needed more of these two.


"Unless it's part of some grand plan, you are not turning yourself in to the stadwatch," Inej said, stepping between Kaz and Jesper and their escalating fight.

"Everyone out," Inej ordered, her voice soft but final as she glanced back at the others. This was not for everyone's ears, but Kaz needed to hear it if this idiocy was to end. Their friends filed out of the clocktower, though Kuwei, who didn't know better, Jesper, who couldn't help himself, and Nina, who didn't care, all looked back curiously. Inej wasn't worried about them trying to overhear. They knew whatever was about to be said was between the two of them.

When she heard the door latch she simply said, "It was the smell of the burning sugar." Then, unwilling to meet his eyes for this part, she lowered her gaze. "She was better in a fight," Inej admitted to the buttons of his shirt, moving forward until Kaz was backed against the wall, "so I would have been hurt regardless, but this," she gestured to her bandaged body as she looked him dead in the eye, "was not because of some failure in the plan, Kaz. I got distracted because of something you could never have planned for because even I didn't know it would trigger a memory. She caught me off guard in every way I know not to be."

They were standing close enough now to feel each other's body heat, but she kept herself apart from him. It was all he was willing to give, and, honestly, all she was comfortable taking while that memory was so fresh in her mind.

"You could have died tonight." And I never saw it coming, they both knew was the unspoken end of that sentence.

"We all could have died, every night of our lives. But you made sure there was a net, Kaz. Even if I didn't want it, even if it didn't make sense with just one person to hold it, you made sure I had a net tonight." She leaned a little to his side and rested her uninjured shoulder on the wall next to him, needing something to lean on, knowing it couldn't be him. She still wanted the comfort of his warmth, and to breathe him in a little longer. Kaz's warmth, Kaz's scent. The small bits of himself he could give her that she would burn into her memory forever.

Then she sighed and turned, leaning her back against the wall next to him, an inch in between their arms, and closed her eyes. She didn't need sight to know his eyes had followed her, that he'd inclined his head to assess her and the truth of her words.

"I take what you said as a promise, Kaz. If we die in this city, we will go out together; knives out, guns drawn. So unless heading to the gallows is followed by some big escape, I suggest you start working on a new plan." Then she pushed off the wall and was out the door without a second glance.

After a few moments taken to process this and breathe in the last of her lingering scent, Kaz Brekker's scheming face went unseen.