#you bet that five is going to reconsider his stance on killing people even if they aren't commission agents sorry @ luther | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

in-tua-deep · 5 years

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Inktober day two: Guns

Prompt list by @totallyevan, here ;3c

me, realizing I have consistently forgotten to put my work on tumblr and that a bunch of drabbles have been rotting in my google docs (though admittedly only up to 4th bc my weekend was hectic af - I’ll try play catch up with the others but HERE WE GO)

His hands are sticky. Sticky and wet and slippery. He wants desperately to wipe his hands on his shirt, on a towel, on anything - but then he’d have to put down the gun that is pointed shakily at the man who has his arm wrapped around Klaus’s neck.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was just supposed to be a dumb outing with his idiot brother so that he would shut up about waffles while he was trying to work. He’d gotten Klaus to promise to not bother him in his room for an entire week if he just went with him to the hole in the wall diner that Klaus insisted was the best in the world.

Who the fuck robbed a shitty diner?

It had been three guys, and Five had noticed them from the moment they entered, seeing the glint of sunlight on gunmetal. His first immediate thought was that it was the Commission, because who else would show up in this random place at a time that just happens to be when Five is present? And he assumes that the Commission doesn’t want too much collateral damage - they waited for the tow truck driver to leave and Agnes to be in the back room before confronting him.

It’s only three guys, not the massive hit squad that invaded the concert hall. There was to be some measure of subtlety if they don’t want to draw too much attention to themselves.

But he assumes wrong.

The lead guy swing his gun up and shoots at the ceiling, making everyone panic. Five reacts automatically, grabbing Klaus and bodily shoving him down under the table. Klaus gives a cry of surprise, and pain where he smacks forehead and elbows against the table and seat, but Five doesn’t care about that right now. He just reacts.

He jumps to the lead goon, and grabs the gun to wrench up and away. The butt of the gun slams into the guy’s face, bone crunching and blood flying. Five broke his nose. The guy stumbles away. Five doesn’t have time to address that before the second guy is on him.

The rifle Five has in his hands is big and dramatic, but not exactly handy for close quarter combat. To be fair, no guns are handy for close quarter combat, which was exactly why Five generally preferred to fight that way. But it’s at least handy as a weird shaped baton which Five slams into the stomach of the second guys and makes him double over.

The first guy recovered and Five bring up the rifle again to slam it into the guy’s face for a second time, making him stumble backwards with both hands over his face with a shout. With the extra room it’s easier to bring up the gun and shoot the second guy in the leg.

The first guy gets his hands on the gun and pulls, and Five doesn’t bother to try and overpower him. The dude is big and muscular, and Five is a scrawny teen. He’s well aware of his strengths and weaknesses. He fights smarter, not harder.

The guy stumbles back, not expecting the lack of resistance. Five takes this wonderful opportunity to grab one of the little diner forks that fell to the floor in the initial panic of the men entering. In Five’s opinion it’s a handier weapon that the gun - more versatile.

Five surges forward and lashes out, burying the fork into the leader’s shoulder. It has the added bonus of the guy dropping the gun with a howl, hand going to the fork and wrenching it out. Weaponized, the guy lurches towards Five.

And Five? He jumps. He snags another fork off a nearby table and pops up behind the guy and buries a second fork in the guy’s junction between shoulder and neck and twists before stooping and scooping up the gun again.

He points it at the two and they raise their hands in surrender, but then he hears a cough behind him and remembers that there were three guys.

Five turns, and the third guy has his arm wrapped around Klaus’s neck, a handgun pointed at Five’s brother’s temple with a hand that shakes.

“D-drop the gun!” The new guy shouts, voice cracking in his nervousness, “Or I shoot this guy!”

Five’s hands are covered in blood. It would be so easy to let the rifle slip from his fingers. The leader is crouched down with his two stab wounds and blood streaming down his face from a twice broken nose, the second guy is on the floor in a puddle of blood pressing his hands against the hole that Five put in his thigh.

The third guy’s hands shake, and Five watches the pointed finger twitch against the trigger with more attention than he’s given anything else today.

They’re amateurs. They’re three goons who are complete idiots for trying to rob a tiny diner in broad daylight. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Five would have preferred professionals. He knows how the Commission operates. He knows how professionals work, what they know their best options to be, what they’re likely to do next. These guys, Five can’t predict.

Five’s fingers tighten around the gun, and he doesn’t drop it.

“What?” Five calls back, arching an eyebrow. The tried and true method of being a brat. “Why would I drop my weapon? Why don’t you?”

“I- I’ll shoot this guy! You were sitting with him!” The guy sputters, looking very uncertain. Mercifully, Klaus stays silent. Whether that’s thanks to genuine intelligence or because the guy’s arm around Klaus’s neck is making it difficult to breathe is up for debate.

“You have one hostage.” Five says, nodding to Klaus, “I have two.” He gestures with the rifle towards the two goons who flinch away. “And both of these idiots are in need of medical attention, but if you drop the gun and don’t fuck with anyone else, then I don’t care what happens to you guys and I’ll stop attacking.”

“I have more that one hostage! I have the rest of the diner! I can just start shooting!” The idiot argues, taking the gun from Klaus’s temple to wave in the air to punctuate his point. It makes Five relax at least a tiny bit.

“A hostage is a person I care about saving.” Five tells the man bluntly, “There’s only one of those in here.”

Silence follows that statement. Some civilians are looking at him in shock, but honestly Five doesn’t care about them. He can’t care about them. If he looks too closely at people, he starts remembering bodies and trying to match faces to corpses. If he looks too closely, he starts thinking about the innocents he killed and the families and the bystanders and everything else he keeps locked inside of a little box in his heart.

He cares about seven whole people in the universe, and those people are his siblings and his mother.

It’s quick after that. The guy reads Five’s sincerity in his eyes, his lack of regard for the lives of the men behind him. Five only refrained from killing them because he was pretty sure they weren’t Commission agents and he didn’t want to have to deal with another one of Luther’s ‘murder is bad’ lectures. He surrenders, dropping the gun to the floor with a clatter and running over to his fellow robbers, pressing his hands against the wounds to keep pressure on.

Five doesn’t have time to wait for the sirens he can hear approaching. He hands his gun to the nearest civilian and jumps next to his brother.

“Come on Klaus,” He says urgently, tugging his brother’s elbow to steer them towards the back door. After seeing Five fight two adult men and stab one with forks, no one stops them.

Klaus follows easily. Way too easily. They make it all the way out the door before Klaus seems to reboot and bursts out with a loud, “You care about me!”

A quick glance reveals that Klaus is making the sappiest face Five has ever seen. He has to nip this in the bud. “No. I just don’t want to have to explain to Diego about how your idiocy finally got you murdered.”

“You said you care about me!” Klaus crows loudly, making Five hiss because quite frankly he’s still covered in blood and the only reason he isn’t just chain jumping home is because that would mean abandoning Klaus. “You said I was the only person you cared about in the diner!”

“I care about Mom’s disappointed face.” Five shoots back, dragging Klaus down another alley. “Though I’m caring less and less the more you open your mouth.”

“Hold up hold up!” Klaus cries, digging in his heels and bringing them both to a stop. He gives Five a critical once over, pursing his lips at the state of his brother. He looks like, well, like he’s been in a fight to the death with two armed robbers. “We need to do something about this if we don’t want to be stopped on the way home.”

Five scowls darkly. He really should just ditch Klaus and jump home, it’s the simplest and easiest solution. But for some reason, he can’t quite bring himself to let go of Klaus’s elbow that he’d been using to drag his taller sibling around by.

He startles badly when something brushes against his face, before realizing it’s Klaus scrubbing one of the sleeves on his black jacket over the blood splatter on Five’s cheek. Klaus hushes him, scrubbing harder.

It makes Five pull away, baring his teeth as he jumps and reappears a few feet away. He gets a certain amount of satisfaction watching Klaus almost overbalance - that’s what he gets for treating Five like a child.

Klaus huffs like Five is the one being unreasonable here.

Five is really giving some serious consideration to just jumping home by himself when Klaus starts stripping in the middle of the alley. Five gives his brother a face that clearly indicates his question of what the fuck.

This face becomes even more pronounced when Klaus thrusts his jacket out in Five’s direction.

After a solid minute of Five and Klaus staring at each other, Klaus sighs deeply. “Wear the jacket. It’s big enough to cover your shirt and hands which, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your entire torso kind of looks like you just auditioned for a shitty slasher film.”

Five can’t… exactly argue with that reasoning. He scowls, and snatches the jacket away and shrugging it on. It fits okay around the shoulders - Klaus is a skinny bastard - but it’s way too long and the sleeves go well past his hands. This is what they need, yes, but it makes Five feel like a little kid playing dress up which he’s not exactly appreciative of. He can’t even hike the sleeves up because, as Klaus so gracefully pointed out, his hands are covered in blood.

He deals with this by shoving his hands in the pockets, extra sleeve length and all, and vividly picturing stabbing Klaus in the face when he coos over his smaller brother.

“I hate you so much.” Five informs his brother, “Let’s just go.”

“Aw,” Klaus clasps his hands together and presses them to his cheek, gazing at Five like he just proclaimed his love for puppies. “I love you, too.”

#inktober #tua inktober #tua #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy inktober #number five #five hagreeves #klaus hargreeves #some chaotic brother bonding #five wishes all people were professional bc at least then he could count on them not making idiot choices #you bet that five is going to reconsider his stance on killing people even if they aren't commission agents sorry @ luther #but like if he was allowed to use lethal force he would have slaughtered all three dudes in like a heartbeat #i bet you a hundred dollars that later patch shows up at their door to stare the entire family down #as she tells them eyewitnesses indicated a scrawny teenager who came in with a scrawny adult went full terminator on some robbers #all while staring five down #five has already washed all the blood off him and burned his shirt to get rid of the evidence #so he just sticks his nose in the air and denies everything #klaus was probably freaked out after the thing happened #but honestly fussing over five and teasing him does wonders for Klaus's processing #if five knew that he'd probably tolerate it a bit better #but also maybe not

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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years

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Ace of Spades

This cover art was drawn by @corpsecro !

Chapter 5- The Woman in Yellow

The dawn’s watery light woke him. He never could accomplish the art of sleeping through a morning. When the sun rose, so did Kaz. No matter when he’d managed to drift into unconsciousness the night before.

Last night, sleep had come to him finally at nearly two bells, though this had not been his fault.

The fault lay with a certain sharpshooter, who was now draped over the settee in the corner of the room—long gangly limbs splayed across the grey velvet cushions, arms spilling over the sides, filemot fingers grazing the floor.

Jesper looked at peace, listless even. He drooled onto the rolled arm of the settee, snoring quietly. Kaz didn’t think he’d ever seen Jesper that still.

So he dressed quietly, so as not to wake his friend.

Jesper had burst through the doors of Kaz’s rooms in the Slat at five past twelve bells, a veritable legless lord, spewing some nonsense about “burdens” and “boredom” and “tea sets”.

For all his slurred rambling, Kaz had quickly pieced together that whatever Jesper was upset about, it had something to do with Wylan.

Kaz, however, was completely unequipped to deal with the emotional trials of his friend. Or anyone for that matter. So he’d set aside the papers he’d been perusing, and examined Jesper with a careful look.

The man’s eyes were rimmed with red. His crimson velvet jacket was rumpled, shirt untucked, bowtie askew. He smelled like spiced rum and cigar smoke. And piss.

Kaz was not the praying type; but if there was anything to make him reconsider that shortcoming of his personality, it was that final pungent smell. He hoped with wild abandon that it was just the lingering results of going for a long walk in the Barrel at this time of night and not a consequence of Jesper’s inebriation.

“What business, Jes?” Kaz had said at last, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He was new to the occupation of friendship. He was also dreadful at it, he’d quickly found.

“I don’t have any business, Kaz,” Jesper had garbled, making his way to the sofa where he plunked himself down with an exaggerated sigh. “That’s why I’m here. I want a job.”

“You have a job,” Kaz pointed out. “You work for me at the Crow Club. With the Dregs.”

Jesper had scowled petulantly. “Not that kind of job. Nothing happens at the Club. The Dregs have been sitting pretty for weeks.”

This, Kaz had thought, was too true. He’d thought the same himself just two nights prior.

Before a certain pirate had showed up and changed all that.

But he wouldn’t let himself hope that Jesper was in want of the kind of job that Inej could give him—on their crew, which would set sail on a quest to find lost treasure in just a few days’ time.

“What kind of job would you like, then?” Kaz had asked warily.

“Just… a job. Any job.” Jesper dragged a hand over his face. “Something that will keep me busy.”

“Does the Club not keep you busy?”

“The Club is what got me into this mess.”

“What mess, Jesper?”

“Stupid Club. Stupid tables. Stupid stupid.” This was the only response Jesper had given, clearly too distraught and intoxicated to explain further.

But stupid, Kaz was not.

The tables. Jesper had been at the tables again.

Once an old haunt for his friend, gambling had quickly turned from bad habit to costly compulsion. Kaz had thought Jesper had kicked it. After the Ice Court heist, he thought his friend was straight as arrows in the only way Jesper could be.

But apparently, Kaz had been wrong.

He should be furious. He should make Jesper work overtime on door duty, or as a lookout for the Dregs. Kaz knew the restless sharpshooter would hate either task.

Better yet, he should tell Jesper to take a leave of absence for a few weeks to sort himself out. This brand of discipline would surely save the Club from any repercussions.

But Kaz knew neither punishing Jesper nor forcing him into isolation would solve matters. In fact, it was rather like placing a dirty rag over a knife wound; it would surely stop the mess from spreading, but infection might seize hold and only make everything worse.

Loathe as Kaz was to admit it, he couldn’t help but feel some sense of responsibility for Jesper’s most recent slip.

It was his Club. Kaz was the one who put Jesper on the floor thinking he could handle himself. And he hadn’t even noticed Jesper’s struggles.

He’d been too busy feeling sorry for himself, drinking whiskey from a teacup.

Guilt, he’d decided, was a strange feeling. He’d reveled in it, let it gnaw at him, for all of five seconds before turning to Jesper.

“Lucky for you,” he��d said evenly, “I may have just the thing.”

Jesper listened intently as Kaz described Inej’s plan to hunt down a treasure lost to time. The sharpshooter had immediately agreed to be part of their crew, and promptly passed out on Kaz’s sofa.

Now, dressed for the day, Kaz slipped out of his rooms at six and a quarter bells, leaving his friend to rest.

There was work to be done.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

The streets of Ketterdam blinked bleary-eyed at Kaz as he emerged from the Slat. The city was just stumbling out of its slumber.

He was already halfway up the East Stave when the sun finally peaked over the skyline, gilding the buildings of the Barrel in the only gold it had ever known.

Kaz hadn’t bothered to leave Jesper a note for three reasons.

The first was that he was sure Jesper knew of their limited time to sort out any loose-ended affairs. He’d know Kaz would likely be preparing for their imminent departure, so taking the time to write a note had seemed, to Kaz, the worst kind of redundancy.

The second reason was that Kaz would likely be back in the Slat before Jesper opened even one tired eye. He was quite confident in his friend’s ability to sleep through a shootout on the gabled roofs of their street if he put his mind to it.

The final reason was that Kaz simply forgot.

Notes were a thing people wrote when they cared about each other. To let each other know they were well, or where they’d gone off to so early in the morning.

Kaz cared for so few people, the thought had hardly crossed his mind until he was deep into the maze of streets.

Clack, step. Clack, step.

The sound of his cane clacking against cobblestone was a bolstering one. It was a sound of ordering thoughts, a steady second heartbeat by which he walked.

Clack, step. Clack, step.

He’d written Inej notes, Kaz thought errantly. Though they were more letters than notes. Inej and Kaz had indeed exchanged a string of letters during her time away.

Every time a small purple envelope made its way to his desk, Kaz had felt about ready to either jump from his own skin or vomit all over the floor. Neither were pleasant sensations, but he endured them all the same.

They were both, however, very much like the feelings he’d had when she’d showed up unannounced in his bathroom two nights ago.

They’d decided on five things during their very serious business meeting:

They needed an Inside Man. Someone who was knowledgeable about secret societies—particularly The Founders and their lost Iron Debt—who could help fill in the gaps of their own knowledge.

They needed someone who could create a distraction on a moment’s notice.

They needed someone who could disguise themselves as an expert inventor.

They needed verifiable leads on where to find the treasure, or a map of some kind if there was such a thing.

They needed a place for their crew to meet in secret to plan and review their schemes over the next few days without risk of being overheard.

Kaz had just the place for the last item on the list.

It was a small secret of Ketterdam, tucked away in the abandoned shipyard off Fifth Harbor. He’d found it some months ago when he’d been in desperate need of refuge, a quiet place he could come and hear his own thoughts without being sought out by every other person who passed him by.

He was headed there now, to make sure it was still as abandoned as when he’d last used it three weeks ago—and that the Tidemakers were still keeping up their end of the deal he’d made with them to keep the place dry.

Clack, step. Clack, step.

He was cutting through a deserted alleyway about a five-minute walk from his destination when he heard the snick of a knife.

Kaz stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh, I’d strongly advise against that,” he said, in the menacing kind of quiet that usually sent pickpockets running.

Indeed, a scuffle of boots sounded from behind him.

But then, to Kaz’s utter surprise, an unyielding blade pressed at his back. A strong hand gripped his upper arm.

“I don’t need your advice,” a low lilting female voice said in his ear. “I have you at knifepoint.”

Kaz would’ve rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so impressed with the woman’s confidence. Or perhaps it was sheer audacity.

He was Bastard of the Barrel, after all.

In one swift motion, he whirled out of the woman’s grasp, facing her with pistol in hand.

“Yes, and I have you at gunpoint,” he said. “Shall we call it a draw, or start placing bets on which one of us will make it out alive?”

Kaz met the woman’s eyes, which were just as sharp as the dagger she held.

She was surprisingly short, but it became apparent to Kaz at once that height was the only lacking thing about her.

A commotion of untamed curls rioted from her head like black flames licking the sky. The blade still wielded steadily before her, she held a warrior’s stance as firmly and demanding as her gaze.

“I’m not trying to kill you,” she said in a voice like honed steel.

Kaz examined her closer.

There was colour in her cattail cheeks, and she filled out the yellow tailored tunic she wore. Two rings, turned toward the inside of her hands so as not to attract unwanted attention, glinted on her fingers. One, a silver octopus curling its tentacles around her knuckle; the other, an emerald-encrusted spade.

“No,” he said, finally. “I suppose you’re not. And it won’t be money either, I reckon.”

The woman blinked, the first breach of her bravado. “H-how could you know that?”

“Intuition.” Kaz shrugged. “Experience. I know what hungry and desperate looks like. You’re definitely not that. Not for food, at least. But I wonder… What made you track me down? Accosting Barrel Bosses in dark alleyways is very risky business, you know.”

“Don’t patronize me,” the woman snarled. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Oh, fantastic,” he said. “So you’ll tell me what it is you want from me, I’ll most likely tell you no, and we can both be on our merry ways unscathed.”

A breeze ruffled the woman’s hair, as she said quietly, “You haven’t even heard what it is I want.”

“You’re not trying to kill me, you’re not looking for money or a job,” Kaz said. “Which means you’re looking for something. Or someone. You thought you’d come to me because I am Kaz Brekker, Bastard of the Barrel. I know and see all in this town. But let me tell you this: the only reason I know and see all is that I either gather the information myself or hire people to do it for me.

“Well kept secrets are invaluable to my job, and I do not trade them for something so temporary as money. Nor do I hand them over willingly to people who threaten me with a blade. So go ahead and ask. Unless you have something equally as valuable to offer in return, I know what my answer will be.”

For a moment, the woman said nothing. She stared and stared at Kaz, head cocked slightly to the side, assessing her options.

He had to admit, the weight of her stare made him feel the closest to squirming he’d ever been—apart from every time Inej even glanced his way, of course.

It was unnerving. The woman looked at him like she could see right through him. Like she could read him and had determined that he was nothing.

“You think this some kind of a whim,” she said, at last, grip tightening around the hilt of her blade. “You think me in over my head. That I am too ambitious, too naive to realize what a risk cornering you would be. You underestimate me, Mr. Brekker.”

Kaz considered her once more. Considered that he was holding a long-range weapon against her, a weapon which could kill her before she moved even one step—and she, with only a switchblade to defend herself, was unflinching.

“That may very well be,” he muttered, holstering his gun and removing his pocket watch from the lining of his coat. “Alright, then. I’m willing to hear you for three minutes and not a second more. So prove me wrong.”

The woman nodded once. Squaring her shoulders, she began, “I will tell you, Mr. Brekker, that I am nothing if not thorough. And I have done my homework on you. People like me, you see. I know you’re not all too familiar with that notion, but let me explain it to you. People like me because they trust me. Something about my face, I think. And because people trust me, when I am nice to them, they tell me things. No one thinks twice when a girl starts asking questions. Because what harm could possibly come from a girl?”

Kaz smirked. “In my experience, a fair amount.”

“You’d be the first of many to think so.”

“That’s because I’m not stupid, as most people are.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “You have two minutes.”

“In the weeks since I first started studying you,” the woman continued, “I have learned many things. Including that you and Inej Ghafa plan to leave Ketterdam from 5th Harbor onboard The Wraith at noon in three day’s time in search of the Iron Debt.”

Kaz stilled.

They’d barely told anyone of their plans. Inej had yet to even tell her crew. How had this woman become privy to such closely held information? Worse still, how had this woman been tracking him for what she claimed to be weeks without his knowledge?

Kaz didn’t like it one bit.

“Is that so?” he asked, keeping a careful mask of calm.

“Yes,” she said. “I have also learned that you’ve not had very much success in the way of leads. I feel I can help you with that.”

“Well,” Kaz said, loosing a chuckle, “I’ll hand it to you. Your knowledge regarding our plans is closer to accurate than most would be able to dig up. Right treasure. Right day. Right time. But your location is off.”

The woman shrugged as if being wrong about one part did not bother her in the slightest.

Or perhaps as if she might believe her tip more than she believed him.

Kaz regarded her warily. “What leads do you have to barter?”

“Oh, I have many leads, Mr. Brekker,” she crooned. “I’ll give you the first one as collateral. The rest will come later. To ensure you keep your end of the bargain.”

No one works for free, Kaz. He frowned as he remembered Inej’s words from the other night. “Your asking price?”

“I seek voyage across the seas,” the woman said. “And vengeance on someone who is very hard to find.”

The corners of Kaz’s mouth tilted into the start of a grin. “I feel we’ll be able to help you with at least one, if not both of those things.” Then, he paused. “It begs the question, however—how am I to trust the accuracy of your leads?”

“You don’t trust me, Mr. Brekker?”

“You held me at knifepoint by way of greeting,” he reminded her. “I’m fairly certain that’s not usually conducive to gaining another’s trust.”

“No?” The woman cocked her head suggestively. “I’d rather begun to think you trust knife-wielding women most of all.”

He gritted his teeth, shoving hard against the thought that this stranger knew anything of his personal life, his long and tangled history with Inej.

Kaz suddenly wished he had not been so quick to holster his gun.

But the woman merely gave him a sympathetic look, her mouth pressing into a closed-lipped smile.

“You can trust my leads, Mr. Brekker,” she barreled on, “For two reasons. The first being that you have things I want. If my insight leads you astray, you would be free from your end of the deal.”

“Meaning,” Kaz said, examining his nails. “You’d be walking the plank.”

“Walk the plank,” she said, “Tie me up and dump me over the side. Feed me to the Kelpies, for all I care.”

Kaz bit back a smile.

If anything, the woman was proving to be the most self-assured person he’d ever met. For Kaz knew he would not hesitate to leave her in The Wraith’s wake with nothing but a dingy and her dagger.

Somehow, he knew she was probably aware of this sentiment.

“And the second reason?” he asked.

“My leads are never wrong.”

“How can you be so sure?”

The grin the woman gave him then was barbed and wicked. “I can smell lies on men as if they are a perfume.”

He furrowed his brows.

“For instance,” she said, waving a hand toward him, “Not a moment ago, you lied to me. You said I got the location of your departure wrong, but I am never wrong Mr. Brekker. You were planning to leave from 5th Harbor. Whether your bluff was to throw me off or a real consideration for a change of plans is unbeknownst to me. But I do know that you were not telling the truth.”

“You’re a Grisha,” he breathed after a moment.

But even as he said it, Kaz himself could not think of any known Grisha order that could do what she had just described.

As if sensing his confusion, the woman shook her head.

“Related,” she said, “But not Grisha. Mine is a magic more ancient than the Small Science.”

More ancient than the Grishas? Kaz had never heard of such a thing.

Either way, if what this woman was saying was true, she could be useful in more ways than one on their crew. And Ghezen knew they needed more hands on deck.

“The Crow Club,” Kaz said. “Do you know where it is?”

She nodded.

“Be at the back door at half ten bells tonight,” he instructed her. “You may have one weapon of your choice on your person for your own self-defence. Tell no one. Bring no one. We will know if you do. From there, my associate and I will escort you to a second location. Our crew’s meeting spot. You’ll give us your collateral there. If it is accurate, we will offer you voyage to wherever it is you desire to go. Information you seek will be given to you steadily with every accurate lead you give us in turn.”

The woman stuck out her hand between them. “You have yourself a deal, Mr. Brekker.” She grinned.

Kaz gripped her hand with his leather-clad one. “Call me Kaz.”

“Alright, then.” Turning on her heel, the woman said without looking back, “See you at half ten bells, Kaz.”

He nodded. She was halfway down the deserted alley when Kaz called after her, “Who are you?”

The woman paused and turned her head slightly, the profile of her face half-obscured by a riotous black plume of curls.

“I am The Lilia,” she said over her shoulder. And with that, she slid into the slanted shadows of early morning.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

AN: The plot thickens. Thanks so much for reading! Hope you all enjoyed a little OC action. We’ve really only skimmed the surface of The Lilia in this chapter, and I’m so excited for you all to get to know her.

If you enjoyed this, make sure to reblog and/or comment on this post! I work so hard on each and every chapter to make it a pleasurable fic reading experience for you all, and your reblogs and comments absolutely contribute to my motivation to keep writing (likes are appreciated, too, but hold less weight in the cauldron of external validation from which I draw my writerly energies).

If you want to be kept updated on future chapters, shoot me a message/ask and I’ll add you to the tag list! 🖤💫

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