⌜ chapter thirteen ⌟

"So..." Jesper smiles as he looks down at Arya. "Three days alone with Kaz. What happened?"

"You know damn well nothing happened." She says as she looks around at all of the people wandering around outside.

"Someone sounds a little bitter about that." He says, and her eyes narrow as she looks back at him.

"Do you enjoy living in your world of delusions?"

"You can't lie to me." He shakes his head. "I see the way you two look at each other."

"Your point?" She questions, and his eyes narrow the slightest bit as he studies her face.

"You really do like him, don't you?" He asks, his smile falling from his face, but it's then that she sees Kaz walking up behind him.

"Aw, come on. Another weird hat?" Arya shakes her head. "Just can't catch a break."

"You didn't have any trouble getting in?" Kaz asks, and she smirks as she shakes her head again.

"Piece of cake." She tells him. "I couldn't get us into the palace without being seen, but it was easier just getting onto the grounds. Especially with so many different people milling about."

"Good. Where's Inej?" He asks as he glances around them. "And Arken?"

"Arken's at the carriage." Jesper tells him. "And Inej is-"

"Right here." She gets their attention as she makes her way over. "We better hurry, before we're expected where we're meant to be performing."

"Come on then." Kaz then leads the way to where Jesper told him Arken is, and the five sit inside the carriage to go over the plan for today.

"This should be interesting." Arya smirks as she looks at Jesper, who's sitting directly to her right, and he chuckles as his gaze meets hers.

"Here's the plan." Kaz starts. "We'll walk the route our target will take from the ballroom to the dinner event and look for an ambush point. There is a gap in the schedule between events, so they may place her in a room here, away from the crowd, somewhere safe. This would be where they feel she's most protected and therefore, the best place to grab her. We just need to find a way in. And have someone ready with a distraction to give us cover on our way out. That's where we grab her."

"Let's get to it then." Arya says. "After seeing the outside of this place, I want to see inside."

"Hoping to find something else to steal?" Jesper smirks. "Do you have expensive taste? Like your dress? Where'd you get it anyway?"

"I don't remember." She shrugs as she looks down at the white dress she's wearing. "I stole it from some shop on the second day we were making our way here."

"That's my girl." He chuckles, and she smiles before they all climb out of the carriage and go their separate ways.

"The palace looks so much different from the rest of Ravka...and everywhere else, really." Arya says as she and Kaz walk down the hallway toward where the Sun Summoner should be being kept later.

"That surprises you?" He asks, and she shakes her head.

"No, actually." The brunette says as she glances over at him as they round a corner. "It reminds me of home. The wealthy live a lot like this, while only pretending to care that others who are...less fortunate are living in conditions that can really...suck, for lack of a better word."

"That's how people are, I suppose."

Arya looks over at him again as he ducks into a doorway and leans against the wall there. "Are you sure that you're okay?" She asks as he clutches his right leg, hunched over a bit in pain.

Kaz sees when she reaches for him, but then pulls her hand back as she remembers his aversion to touch. His eyes move to her face, and he can see the concern she has for him written there. He nods, wanting to reassure her.

"I'm alright." He tells her as he stands up straight, and then they continue down the hallway.

They reach the end, and then Kaz pulls a small paper from his pocket: a version of the blueprints that they stole. He looks up then, at the wall in front of them.

"Look." Arya mutters as she lightly runs her fingers down a seam in the wallpaper. "This is where the door's supposed to be, isn't it?" She asks as she looks back at Kaz, and he pushes on the wall, but no door gives under the pressure.

They hear footsteps coming down the hall, the way that they just came, and they both turn to look. Kaz then pushes harder on where the door is supposed to be, but it's no use.

"Kaz, we have to hide." She whispers, and he looks at her before turning and heading farther down the way that they were originally headed.

The pair disappear through a doorway, and then Kaz lightly nudges Arya behind the door. Her back flattens against the wall behind the large, white door, and Kaz stands as close as he can manage in order to hide his own body as well. They both then look through the crack between the hinges as a woman does some sort of hand movements, and the door within the wall suddenly opens.

They watch as the woman enters the room with two men following behind her. Inside the room, they see a girl — possibly a teenager — standing in front of two identical dresses. The door closes again, so they're no longer visible, and Arya turns her head to look back at Kaz.

He's standing much closer than either of them had realized, as he'd leaned forward to get a better view of the room. His bright blue eyes meet her green ones, and her breath hitches as he looks down at her; she's surprised that he doesn't immediately move away from her.

"You know, everything that I touch always seems to end up getting torn from my grasp." Arya whispers, her gaze momentarily falling to his lips. "So, in some twisted way...it's probably a good thing that I can't touch you — not really, anyway."

Kaz's jaw tightens as he looks into her eyes, and then she feels his gloved hand lightly sliding up her arm. There's a part of him that's surprised she feels that way about him, but more than anything, he's surprised that she said it to him out loud. He carefully reaches up and brushes her hair away from her face, and her eyes fall shut for a brief moment as she takes a deep breath.

"We should go." The brunette reluctantly says as she looks up at him again, and he nods.

The two head back outside and they meet up with the others inside the same carriage as before; it's one that the troupe traveled in. Jesper smiles when he sees Arya following behind Kaz.

"Aw, it's my not-so-secret admirer." She chuckles, and he holds his hand out to help her into the carriage.

"Hello, gorgeous." Jesper greets as they all settle into their seats. "I have news for all of you."

"What is it?" Kaz asks, his tone hard, not wanting to hear him flirt with Arya anymore.

"I saw our Sun Summoner." He says as he looks at him, turning more serious than he usually is, but Arya knows it can go just as quickly as it came. "She's Shu- Er, part anyway. Half, I suppose."

"You're sure it was her?"

"I'm telling you, she's part Shu." He repeats.

"When exactly did you see her?" Kaz asks.

"Just after midday."

"What's in this room?" Inej asks, pointing at a spot on the larger set of blueprints.

"Fitting room." Kaz tells her, looking at the spot where he and Arya couldn't get in, and Inej starts writing on the page. "It's where she'll go to change for dinner."

"And that's where we'll grab her?" Arken asks.

Jesper nods. "Out of the way, clean lines of sight, easily controlled space. I like it."

"Yeah, not so easily controlled." Arya shakes her head as she looks at him.

"I'd like it too, if it had a door." Kaz says, and Inej looks up at him.

"It doesn't have a door?"

"Are we almost done?" Arya mutters. "I'm feeling claustrophobic again."

Kaz glances at her as she turns and looks out the window. "It doesn't have a door that we can use." He answers Inej. "It's some sort of Grisha lock. It took a Materialnik to open it."

"Is there no way to pick the lock?" Jesper looks at Arya.

"I can pick normal locks, not magic ones." She tells him.

"I can." Arken says, and they look over at him. "I can get through the door."

"How?" Kaz questions.

"The locking mechanisms are Fabrikator-designed. Iron cogs that slide into place with a latch." He explains. "But for one of us to open it, we'll need a lodestone. With a minimum two-thousand gauss external strength. Hard to find."

"Well, it's not like we're just walking around with one of those in our pockets, now, are we?" Jesper asks, and Arken starts going through his bag.

"Of course you are." Arya grumbles.

"Well, one of us should be useful." Arken glances at her.

"I was the one who killed the volcra while you were laying on the floor of the train, screaming like a girl to your Saints." She says through gritted teeth. "But I can understand why you might choose to block that from your memory."

"Alright, settle down." Jesper puts his hand over her face, and she elbows him. He grabs her arm as he leans toward her. "Are all the girls in your world so cruel?"

"Get out of my face."

"Someone's cranky."

"Will you two stop?" Inej shakes her head when Arya shoves Jesper's face away from hers, and he looks back at Arken.

The older man holds a rock out toward him. "You don't want to keep it in your pocket for...too long. Not if you're intending on having children someday." He tells him, and Jesper leans toward the brunette on his other side to keep away from it.

"Alright." Kaz says. "Arken grabs the target."

Inej looks at him, leaning toward him as she speaks. "You want the new guy to grab the million-kruge package?" She asks.

"The new guy knows his way around Grisha locks. Our futures depend on this." He tells her. "The rest of us will be setting up a lynx flush."

"We are?" She questions, and Jesper shrugs, a smirk on his face.

"What's a lynx flush?" Arken asks.

"Oh, so you don't know everything?" Arya asks as she looks over at him. "And here I thought you at least knew more than me."

"I'm not the one who's been sharing a room with the leader." He retorts, and her jaw tightens as she glares at him.

"Lynx are pack hunters. Very smart." Inej says, trying to alleviate some of the tension by changing the subject. "They'll clear a path for the prey."

"Ah." Arken nods. "So, I'll grab the Summoner, and you clear the path?"

"That's right." Kaz leans forward and grabs the blueprints, rerolling the sheet of paper. "We do it before dinner. "You grab. Inej, you help us clear; and Jesper, make sure there's a fast way out."

Jesper smiles as he takes the rolled sheet, and Arya then moves to get out of the carriage, muttering something under her breath about freedom, fresh air, and arrogant jackasses.

» » » « « «

Arya's standing across the room from Kaz with a view of where Inej is suspended in the silks. The brunette's holding a glass in her hand as she waits for when she's supposed to continue the next part of the plan, and she takes a deep breath as she looks over at Kaz, away from Inej. When her green eyes land on him, she finds that he's already looking at her.

A small smile tugs at her lips as she keeps her eyes on his, and he doesn't look away. He doesn't understand the draw that he feels to her, and truthfully, he doesn't want to feel it. It isn't just his past traumas that make their connection difficult for him; it's her future in another world that makes it all the harder. Soon, he'll have to help her leave him... And then where does that leave him?

The brunette looks back over at Inej and sees her start to descend from the upper portion of the silks, so she then makes her way toward Kaz. He looks back at her just as she fakes a stumble and then bumps into him, spilling the clear liquid from her glass onto the guard uniform that he's wearing.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Arya says, faking an accent similar to his own, and the two of them earn the attention of a couple of Grisha standing nearby.

"It's alright, miss, really." Kaz says as she backs away from him.

"I'm sorry." She repeats before turning and walking away from him.

He steps out of the doorway, looking down at the wet spot on his chest as he turns, now facing the two Heartrenders who saw him and Arya. "Uh, it seems some of the guests are a bit clumsy when they're drunk." He says as he looks between them and the dark spot on his shirt.

"You can't wear that in here." One of them says. "Get a replacement from laundry."

"My orders are to-"

"You heard me." He cuts him off, and Kaz nods.

"Yes, sir. Sorry." He turns then, smiling as he walks away. He glances back into the doorway that he came from, and Arya waves as he passes.

After a few minutes pass, the brunette heads away from the party, going to where Kaz is supposed to meet Inej so that she can get a change of clothes. Arya smiles when she walks down the stairs, and he looks up at her.

"You know, I think that may be the first time I've ever seen you really smile." She says as she stops on the step above the one that he's on, making them closer to the same height. "I like it."

"I don't generally have much to smile about." He tells her.

"All the more reason." She shrugs. "If I had waited for someone else to give me a reason to smile as a kid, I probably never would've. Rarely, anyway. Generally, I found it the best way to spite my father."

"You don't strike me as the spiteful type."

"You haven't known me long enough."

Before he can reply, the pair hear footsteps above them, and they both turn to see Inej hurrying toward them; she's wearing a cloak similar to Arya's, and the hood's pulled up. She stops beside Arya, and Kaz hands her the bag with the clothes that she's gonna be changing into to blend in.

"Is it my size?" Inej asks.

"You have to ask?" He questions as he looks down at her.

"Do you remember what happened last time we did this?" She then slings the bag over her shoulder. "You got me a man's uniform."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Just be happy I'm eager to get out of...this." She looks down at the rainbow leotard before walking away from them.

And then Arken comes down the stairs. "See you at the meeting point." He says as he takes the bag that Kaz hands to him, then he continues down the stairs.

Kaz turns his head to watch him as he walks away, and Arya wiggles her fingers as a wave once his back is to her. "Please tell me that's the last time I ever see him." The brunette says, her voice barely audible as she looks back at Kaz.

"If you're lucky." His gaze meets hers again, and a smile spreads across her face before she turns around and heads back up the stairs. He follows closely behind.