Work Text:
The sheets of the Menagerie were soft, perfumed things, designed to seduce as much as their occupants. The smell was intoxicating, or so they told Kaz. When he smelled it, all he could think of were hands dragging in his hair, pulling at his hips, dragging him down, down, down.
When he emerged from the waters, a slip of a boy reborn, he took to the streets, taking on a new name with the drive to put Pekka Rollins on the Reapers Barge, just like he had put Jordie in that mound of bodies. Just like he had put Kaz.
Touch was revolting, bringing him back to the bodies, to Jordie’s grey flesh, to drowning, but he had to eat, had to survive. And the vultures of Ketterdam knew that.
It had been years after Jordie, enough time for his fear of touch to solidify, that the masters had found him and had taken him. He was brought to Tante Heleen, given a contract with so, so much fine print that he wasn’t given time to read. They told him that it would be until he could pay off his indenture, that he would just need to follow Heleen’s orders, though he didn’t have a choice anymore. He just hoped that what he knew of the Menagerie was true, that Heleen only specialized in exotic girls.
What he hadn’t known was that Heleen was expanding her audience, so to speak, and in more ways than one. Kaz, with his burning eyes, was perfect. He just needed some training, or so she said before she called them in. Men, women, so many hands and so much more. And over all of it, Heleen, watching, correcting, punishing.
In the beginning, Kaz was drowning, always, though sometimes were worse than others. Sometimes, he couldn’t breathe and couldn’t breathe and couldn’t breathe, until eventually the dark came to claim him. Sometimes he couldn’t stop the tears, the air rife with the smell of sex and the taste of salt. Sometimes, the heated flesh felt like it was slipping off of bones and all he could see wouldn’t be the leering face above him, but a rotting corpse.
In the beginning, Heleen brought in her most violent patrons, her most thoughtful patrons, showing him the worst of both. The cut of a knife or the feel of a whip became just as hated as the warm wet of kisses down his chest and always the drowning.
And watching from the wings, Heleen. She was a cutting creature clothed in diamonds and silks, crueler than any other in the Menagerie and every mistake would be punished. Some patrons preferred his efforts to get away, preferred his tears and Heleen taught him to recognize those. Others preferred engagement, soft moans of more. Others didn’t care at all. Each of them came to take, came to claim and tarnish, and Heleen ensured that he always had more to give.
Eventually, he came to fear her more than them, knew in his soul that we would never escape her, never escape this hell, and never escape the waters. Drowning became his constant, the waters never leaving. Hatred for her warred with hatred for Pekka and he couldn’t discern who was worse anymore.
It was then, when Heleen saw something in his eyes, something changed, something he knew was broken, that Heleen taught him how to take as well. How to wring information from his clients, how to recognize their needs and fulfill them until they were pliable to his greedy mind.
And it did become a greedy thing, because knowing more led to less pain, but it also meant that he gained power back. Heleen was there to learn the secrets, but sometimes he kept some to himself. Pieces of knowledge that Heleen couldn’t touch. It was the only thing that made the water recede and he grew powerful with it. Before long, he had a laundry list of sins, knowledge of entrances to the hardest places to enter in Ketterdam, and so much more. For every hand that touched him, Kaz gained secrets and power. He just needed to escape and then he could burn them all down. Every person that took him apart, every person that hurt him, and most of all, Heleen van Houden and Pekka Rollins.
Pain was temporary, but Kaz could outlast that. Kaz could outlast them all and one day they would learn that.
When Inej was thirteen the world was a bright place, filled with the laughter of her brother and the joy of her parents. The thrill of the highwire was as familiar as her own face and trouble rarely found them in any meaningful way. But that changed when she was almost fourteen. Slavers attacked and Inej could only watch as her parents were killed and her brother taken from her to another place as well.
She was brought from the bright life in Ravka to the dark and damp of Ketterdam that day and she knew that she could only depend on herself. There was no one else left.
So she waited and waited and waited for one of them to make a mistake. And she hoarded away their names in the dark of her mind. Novya Glen. He would pay and she would ensure it.
One day, they finally arrived in Ketterdam. It was a dark day, slick with heavy rain and Inej saw her chance. She stole one of their knives, stabbed the man holding her and ran, as hard and fast as she could. Their shouts were close behind, so Inej did what she did best and climbed.
That day, Inej learned how to disappear.
Those months were difficult, as she learned to steal, learned to harden herself, learned to survive. But she did and as quickly as she could, she learned Kerch, learned how to enter places she shouldn’t, learned to steal secrets.
Once she did, she found a gang, the Dregs, and stole into Per Heskell’s office. When he was alone, she spoke up.
“I can help you.”
As Kaz learned his secrets, he also learned the workings of the city beyond the birdcage. He learned the gangs, learned their members, their workings, strengths, weaknesses, anything he could. And he learned about her. The Wraith.
She was the lieutenant of the Dregs and she, like him, hoarded secrets, knew more than she should. More than that, she sometimes came to the Menagerie and he’d catch a glimpse of her before he was taken back to the waters.
She was a Suli girl, his age, with hard eyes and long hair. Clothed in dark colors, everyone whispered that she could step out of any shadow and to always be on your guard, to keep your secrets close when you knew she was near or she’d snatch them from the air.
It hardly mattered until she started taking an interest in one of his clients, a merchant with a penchant for pain that he didn’t indulge with his wife. Kaz had a few approaches with him, depending on the day. Sometimes the man, Perkins, wanted tears, sometimes he wanted panic, other times he wanted whimpers. Sometimes, though few and far between, he wanted nothing but silence. It was one of those nights, when Kaz let his mind drift with only quick hisses to indicate his pain, that he saw her for the first time off the floor. She was lurking by the window, a silent shadow and he knew then that he could help her. He just had to learn what she was looking for.
The next few times, she wasn’t there and he pried as much information as he could from Perkins as he could until he saw her again. It was a night where Perkins wanted panic, and Kaz could only feel his hand around his throat, squeezing the life from him until Kaz was forced into primal desperation. Only once he was close to passing out was the grip released and Perkins picked up the pace. Looking up at the window, Kaz saw her again. Her gaze was trained on Perkins, something dark behind her eyes and Kaz waited until she glanced at him and then nodded. She startled back for a second glance and Kaz mouthed, “I can help you.”
Perkins' hand went back around his throat, but all he did was look at her, her inscrutable eyes, until she inclined her head slightly and vanished. Kaz felt his stomach plummet. His chance was gone and all that was left was a hand around his throat and the waters rising. It was a relief when the darkness claimed him.
The next day, Kaz wore a string of bruises about his neck like a necklace with a more pronounced rasp to his voice than normal when he was called to Heleen. He straightened his back like a man walking to the executioner, but only nodded slightly and then departed from his room.
Walking into the room, he felt his heart skip a beat as he met dark eyes. The Wraith was here.