chapter twenty-three, zowa

     "Okay, I must admit—did you really say that they should be more afraid of you than of Kaz?" Jesper was pacing from one corner to another as both Kaz and Lavender managed to come back while Inej managed to take a stroll on the roofs of Ketterdam to see the situation unravel.

     "Something like that, yeah," Lavender shrugged, back pressed against two pillows, trying not to move too much since she was horribly exhausted and the purple spots on her ribs made her take her time to sit calmly as soon as they came back.

     "The shots were absolutely badass! That—that's my sister," Jesper slightly jumped in place, walking over to her and sitting down beside her.

     A sudden voice appeared that made everyone in the room look in that direction: "What shots?"

     Lavender puckered her lips as she knew how much the Crow Club meant to Kaz and she wasn't really supposed to put four bullets in its ceiling.

     "Lavender's exit is the only thing people are talking about," Inej explained.

     "Were the shots necessary?" Kaz placed his gloved hands on the cane, giving Lavender the look.

     Averting her stare to the other direction, she hummed, "Yes, yes... I was a little bit too dramatic, but I got tackled by a guy twice my size, who punched me in the face – I needed to blow off some steam."

     "Shooting into the ceiling twice?" Kaz asked, quirking his eyebrow up.

     Oh, so he did know.

      Lavender felt like a child being scolded, "Don't give me this look," she glared at him. "What's more important: those four holes in the ceiling or me?"

     As Kaz was about to answer, she raised her hand and scoffed:

     "You know what? Don't answer that—we both know you will take some kruge from me when we get paid."

     "Collateral damage is damage after all," he smugly replied.

     "That's not very husband-like of you," she scoffed.

     Jesper snorted out a laugh and immediately shut up seeing Kaz's glare.

     "If you must know," Nina beamed from the other room, appearing in the entrance, "the only true love of Kaz Brekker is a big stack of kruge."

     "I'd say murder as well," Jesper snapped his fingers, pointing them at Nina.

     "Secrets should also make to that list," Inej twirled one of her little daggers between her fingers.

     "He knows too much," Matthias mumbled lowly behind Nina.

     Kaz looked at all of them blankly, "Do you have nothing better to do than discuss my love life?"

     Lavender chuckled, feeling far better with the atmosphere in the room, "Where does it put me?" she hypothetically asked, pushing out her palm and closing three fingers. "Fourth place?" she dramatically gasped, "You've terribly hurt me."

     Kaz rolled his eyes, stretching his gloved hand on the table, slightly leaning on it: "Fourth place is better than nothing, darling. You should be glad you even made it to that list."

     The red-haired woman's mouth slightly fell, cheeks crimson and warm even if he was speaking as a joke. Never in her life, had she thought that she'll be called 'darling' by him. Sarcasm or not, she wanted him to never stop calling her like that.

     "I thank you, my noble husband, for your kind and loving heart of stacking me into the fourth place," she put a horrible accent of wealthy merchants, a wicked smile tugging on her lips.

     "The accent is absolutely horrible," Jesper gagged. "Your vowels are terribly short."

     "Vowels?" she raised her eyebrows. "Look at you using fancy vocabulary."

     His face dropped, "Rude."

     "She could protect us all," Kuwei raised his head from the notebook where he was constantly writing it, surprising them all with his accented, but well-understandable Kerch.

     "Not again," Nina sighed, shaking her head.

     "What?" Kaz snapped his head at the Heartrender.

     Nina slightly rubbed her palms into the long skirt she has been wearing, clearly not nervous from the stare of Kaz Brekker, but from something else. "When Lav and you were gone, Kuwei had a theory," she started hesitantly.

     "What theory?" Lavender slightly moved forwards, feeling the eyes of Kuwei on her. That guy always seemed to be looking at her in a weird manner whenever he wasn't looking at his notebook.

     Kuwei dramatically closed his notebook, clasping his hands together and putting them on a table, "She's Grisha. She needs to learn."

     Lavender scrunched her nose—she didn't like to hear that she was Grisha. No benefits came from that fact, no awards. Only angry Fjerdans gathered at her door waiting to get her. "What are you saying?"

     The Shu boy winced, "You need to go to Ravka, to learn. I want to go with you."

     "Not happening," Kaz shook his head.

     "But she's a Grisha," the guy genuinely didn't understand why Kaz reacted like that.

     "I don't want to be one. I don't need to be one," the red-haired pointed out, slightly shaking her head. "Let's just forget the fact that I'm one."

     "You cannot—you have..." Kuwei looked at Nina with confused eyes, making the woman sigh.

     "Look, I'm only going to say this once only because he would stop annoying me with it," Nina sat down on a chair, looking at Lavender with a look that made the other woman lean forwards in anxiety. "Kuwei thinks your abilities might be altered because of jurda parem. A stronger Grisha. He wants to know if his—hypothesis is right and if it finally is something his father has worked on. Enhancing Grisha's powers without making them—insane."

     Lavender didn't know how to feel. She didn't even want to find out which Little Science she could control and now she was hit with the knowledge, that her abilities were altered. She knew that learning to use her abilities could help her to live longer, but she didn't want to do something that almost sent her to death. Should've sent her to death.

     "No," Lavender shook her head, standing up, trying not to hiss out of pain. "I'm—I'm not a Grisha and I'll never be. I don't want to do anything related to it because I don't want to put another target on my back."

     "You're a Heartrender. Those guards..." Kuwei started before Kaz smacked his head from behind.

     "What guards?" Lavender looked at them all.

     "When we were running for the schooner—you killed a few guards before passing out. Like a Heartrender would," Jesper tried to tell this in a soft tone, standing up and extending his hand to wrap around her shoulders.

     The woman stood there dumbfounded: "It's not possible—I'm not trained."

     "Sometimes, Grisha can do certain things when their emotions are heightened. It's possible," Nina replied.

     "You're strong. As a Grisha – even stronger," the Shu boy didn't back down. "You cough," he pointed at his own throat and lungs, not really having the right words for them just now. "You can't breathe. Because you're not using your powers."

     Deep down, Lavender knew that. It all made sense after she was declared a Grisha at the Ice Court. The horrible ache in her lungs, the worsening situation within years was because she wasn't using her powers. It was known, that Grisha who don't use their powers gradually get sicker and sicker. But she just couldn't start training—she couldn't force herself yet. Because if an ounce of power will come from her wrist, she won't be able to bear to see the faces of Fjerdans who degraded her.

     The woman winced, pushing her head into the chest of her brother, who soothingly took the job of running her back to calm her down. Jesper leaned closer, wanting that only his sister would hear his words: "You're a zowa, Vi. It's a burden, but a blessing as my ma used to say. You don't have to unravel it now—but it's a part of you."

     Lavender raised her eyes to meet the brown of her brother's and she nodded, pulling him in a short hug before facing the others.

     "He's right you know," Nina silently agreed with Kuwei.

     Before closing her eyes and gathering herself, she exhaled deeply, feeling the ache in her lungs that was always there. There were some days when it felt like she made peace with the fact that nothing could be done about her lungs, but now since she was a Grisha...

     "Maybe one day. Not now," Lavender ended the topic and everyone knew better than to force her into reliving her trauma.

      A distant set of footsteps alerted them all before two familiar figures appeared in the doorway: Rotty and Specht.

     "News?" Kaz asked.

     "Per Haskell is fumin' about your missus, boss," Rotty exclaimed with a wicked smile, "Razorgulls are whispering amongst themselves about her. Gonna put a price on her face."

     "Lovely to hear," Lavender mumbled.

      Rotty noticed her and took off his hat, slightly bowing: "Oh, I didn't see ye there! My apologies. I only mean that with the greatest compliments."

     "Anything else?" Kaz interrupted.

     "Ah!" the round man nodded. "A man appeared at the University. Claims to be Jesper's father."

     Jesper's hand actually froze on Lavender's shoulders, eyes widening as his mouth fell apart. "My dad?" he squeaked out. His hands anxiously reached for his revolvers as he moved back, his back hitting the concrete wall.

     "Oh, Saints! He's going to kill you," Lavender exclaimed in a little excited manner, not because Jesper is about to get hit by their father, but seeing Colm again.

     "Not helping!" Jesper choked out, not even noticing when Rotty and Specht disappeared.

     "Why is he reacting like this?" Wylan raised his head and Lavender almost glared at him thinking it was Kuwei, but the sweet voice of the once ginger-haired guy eased her.

     "He was supposed to get to the University of Ketterdam – look where is now. I came here to look for him because he didn't tell our father or me that he ditched university and joined a gang," the Fahey sister informed shortly.

     "Why is he here?" Jesper croaked out, covering his face.

     "To finally scold you, I believe," she smugly replied, a smile on her lips.

     "Oh this is bad—this is so—horribly horrible that I'm about to—" Jesper winced, his breathing increasing and his sister was left to push that tall idiot down to sit before he fainted in front of everyone.

     "Relax, we'll go together. We'll think of something," she placed her hands between his shoulder blades, slightly squeezing the spot with her palm until her eyes widened.

     Lavender cursed: "Oh Saints! He's going to kill you too!" Those words were meant for Kaz.

     "Care to explain?" the guy with the cane only raised one of his eyebrows.

     "We are married."

     "Forged."

     "He doesn't know that."

     Kaz seemed to grasp the concept of the situation, his jaw clenching. On the other side of the room, the spacious laughter of Nina Zenik was echoing through the walls.

     The woman was so whole-heartedly laughing that her whole body was moving back, her hands hitting her own thighs. After a few minutes, her laughter turned into a wave of wheezes because of the difficulty breathing and everyone, present in the room, watched until she will say something.

     "Please—," she gasped for air, "I thought that it couldn't get any funnier than this! Kaz Brekker, the Dirtyhands, is going to meet his father-in-law," she started laughing again, hot tears staining her rosy cheeks.

     Kaz only seemed to get tenser within every second that Nina Zenik spent laughing. "I'm not meeting him."

     "Yes, you are," Lavender disagreed.

     "Why does it matter if I meet him or not?"

     "It's one of those opportunities to show that we are actually a married couple," the woman pointed out.

     Jesper wheezed for air, "He's going to see right through you both – you two don't look in love."

     "Then you have to work on your acting skills," the woman shrugged.

     Kaz pushed his hair back in frustration: "We talked about this..."

     "You only whined that you don't act. Kaz," she took a step further, pressing her palms into the table that was separating her and Kaz from each other, "this is a perfect opportunity to actually show that this is a real deal. Especially since this would be outside Barrel."

     The man hesitantly looked at her. He didn't want to do this. He was completely sure that Colm Fahey will rip his head off his body once he will find out that his daughter is married to a man like him. A criminal. Even if the paper was fake, the feelings for her weren't and if he looks like an idiot in front of the father of Lavender, he would feel absolutely horrible.

     "I'm not doing this," Kaz shook his head barely.

     "You are."

     "I didn't sign up for any of this," he said, his voice slightly rising in panic.

     "Well, neither did I. Don't think I'm thrilled about bringing you and telling my father that this is the man I plan to die with."

     "Is there something wrong with me?" Kaz raised his eyebrows, tone dropping.

     "Do you want the list written and sent to you?" she tilted her head, receiving a glare from him. "I'll do the talking and all you have to do is not give me the look you're giving me right now," she stood to her ground.

     "And what look am I giving?" his tone was threatening.

     "A look for of infinitive love for me, obviously," she sarcastically mumbled and rolled her eyes. "It'll be fine."

     "You wanna know why we're not doing this?" Kaz shifted forwards, giving her a hard look, "Because you demanded your last name to not be put in the papers so your father could be protected. If you go there, everyone will know that the certificate was a distraction. So," he smugly looked at Jesper, "it's your job to meet your father and get him out of Ketterdam if you want to save his life."

     Kaz was right. She hasn't even thought about it. She was so overjoyed and slightly anxious about hearing that her father was here, that she forgot what they were actually doing there. They were waging a war and they had to be really careful about their appearances or everything will crumble.

     And now she had to get her father out of Ketterdam as soon as possible. Because both of his children were the most wanted criminals in this forsaken town.

author's note:

I absolutely loved Season 2 of S&B. Freddy Carter absolutely nailed the Dirtyhands we all so waited for! What are your thoughts?

Thank you for the constant support on this book! The updates are late and slow - I apologize, I'm dealing with the end of a semester in University and it's been tough! I hope you can all understand!