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Those Rietveld boys are nothing but trouble.
True, people say it and they’re not entirely without sympathy. After all, what else could’ve happened to them after Ketterdam spat them back out and they returned to Lij chastened and exhausted?
Jordie tried, Ghezen bless his heart. Took what little money Jonas left them and tried to make it big as a mercher, only to get ruthlessly swindled after not even a month in the city. Thank Ghezen that they managed to get out before Ketterdam was overrun with plague, before the city shut down entirely. Jordie was morose after their return, and his younger brother Kazimir, always a quiet boy, was now even quieter still.
Still, people would’ve offered to help. Taken in Kaz, offered an apprenticeship to Jordie. True, the boys would’ve had to be separated–Ghezen blesses the charitable, but two extra mouths to feed? There are limits–but Martin the butcher offered. Mr. and Mrs. Halleck from two farms over would’ve been happy to take Kaz. He was small, but wiry, and the wiry ones always worked the hardest around the farm.
But when Mr. Halleck came to offer, Kaz refused to even entertain the suggestion. He just started shouting invective at the top of his voice in near incomprehensible Ketterdam slang. And his older brother didn’t even take him to task! Really, what could one do? Ghezen knows you couldn’t make someone accept help, if they’re too stubborn to accept it. There was talk of fetching the magistrate, but summer was coming on and the wheat needed to brought in, so everyone had more pressing matters on their minds. The Rietveld boys kept to their rented rooms and themselves.
What no one could’ve expected was for those two boys to run away with the circus, of all things.
*
It’s those two boys that Devi notices, at the edge of the crowd during the summer evening show.
One tall, the other short, both with the uncared-for look of the recently orphaned. So clearly brothers that Devi’s heart couldn’t help but go out to them.
But she can’t help them. Suli are only tolerated in these small towns. They’re only here for entertainment; certainly no decent Kerch citizen goes looking for Suli—not for anything good. And no sensible Suli would hold a casual conversation with them either. Both Ravka and Kerch have enough stories of amoral Suli stealing children, to turn them into thieves and beggars. The sheer irony of these tales would be enough to make anyone choke. But Devi’s eyes go back to the two boys almost against her will. The smaller boy is watching the magicians, his dark eyes following every movement of Ozkar’s long, clever fingers as he pulled coins and scarves and gold rings out of seemingly mid air.
Is there no one to look after them? she wonders.
*
It’s Izidor’s fault, really, but he can’t bring himself to regret it. He’s far too soft-hearted, as his wife Sonja would be the first to tell him.
It was the elder brother who approached him, painfully thin and his face far too full of hollows for one so young, who came to him after the last show of the evening and asked for a job. A job! A Kerchman asking a Suli for a job! Never in the course of his near fifty years of life did Izidor think such a thing would happen. But the Saints, they do like their jokes.
“Please, sir–uh, mister, uh,” the young man flounders as he tries to settle on the proper term of respect. “My brother and I–we’re hard workers, and all we really ask is a place to rest our heads. I can read, and so can my brother, and we’re not too bad with figures—”
“Suli can read too,” says Izidor coolly. “And do arithmetic. In at least three languages.”
The young man flushes painfully, but he says humbly, “They want to separate us, Kaz and me–that’s my little brother. Our parents are gone, and we have no other family. We’ll work for nothing, only–” he swallows hard. “Don’t part us. Please.”
It’s really the please what does it. There is nothing the Suli understand better than family.
Izidor sighs deeply, and tilts his head back to the star-strewn sky as he asks the Saints for their wisdom. Sankta Margaretha murmurs a response in the rustle of the night breeze through the summer grass.
“Two months,” says Izidor. “Two months, and we will have work for both you and your brother. And if at the end of two months, you find this is not the place for you, we will take you both to the nearest city and leave you at it’s gates, with the wages you’ve earned. Does that seem fair?”
The young man’s face lights up in a huge, relieved smile; suddenly he looks his age. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I promise you, you won’t regret it.”
“We shall see,” says Izidor, who is already wondering how he is going to explain this to the rest of the caravanserai. “And it’s not sir, young man. That’s for Ravkans or Kerchmen. You call any Suli ‘sir’ and they’ll think you’re mocking them.”
“Oh,” says the young man, his brow furrowed. “What should we call you then?”
Izidor regards him. He’s Kerch, and an outsider, so the general kinship names don’t apply. He’s going to be working for them, so he’s not exactly in a position of authority.
“Say ‘elder,’” says Izidor. “That will do for now.”
*
The caravanserai agrees that the Rietveld boys aren’t any trouble, for all that they’re Kerch. Jordie will do just about any task you give him, with little to no complaint. His younger brother Kaz works just as hard, but also seems to somehow find the time to watch the conjurers and tumblers. It’s Ozkar who starts to teach him the basics of sleight of hand.
What no one could’ve expected was how quickly Kaz picks it up. Usually so quiet, he starts following Ozkar around, wanting to know how this trick worked, and this one, and this one…
Ozkar didn’t mind, really. The middle child of a large family of conjurers, he’s used to be overlooked. Just one more quick-fingered Leví. So of course he’s not a little flattered at being actively sought out. And the kid is funny, actually, in a quieter way than his more talkative brother. Just turned eleven and he’s developed a dry, deadpan sense of humor that would leave the elders in stitches, if he ever opened his mouth around them. Ozkar tries to encourage this.
“You’ve got to engage with the audience,” he tells Kaz, more than once. “Chat with them, patter a bit. Compliment the men, flatter the ladies.”
Kaz frowns. “I’m too small. Most of them don’t even notice me.”
“So make them notice you,” says Ozkar. “Tell you what. The next time we do a show, you’ll be my audience plant. Step out of the crowd and help me with Cards to Heaven.”
Kaz brightens at that, though his cautious expression doesn’t fade away completely. He’s wary around crowds, quick to duck out of sight if a sheriff or bailiff comes by, or attach himself at a distance to some family with more than four kids. Just far enough that the distracted parents won’t notice him, but close enough that a quick glance might have an onlooker thinking he was just one more kid attending the fair with his family. Ozkar wonders where he learned this level of street smarts. Certainly not from Jordie, pleasant though he is.
Kaz proves to be an excellent audience plant. He doesn’t wear Suli garments yet, though enough of the aunties have patched and darned what he brought so he looks somewhat respectable. He knows exactly where to stand or hold his hands, and how to shuffle the deck precisely so Ozkar gets the card every time—or give the wrong one so Ozkar can string the trick out even further. In fact, several of Ozkar’s uncles are starting to take an interest—clearly their little Kerch tagalong has a talent, and Suli believe talents should be cultivated. Even if he is Kerch. So they teach him the bigger tricks, the more complicated illusions, and little Kaz learns them all with the same focused expression on his face. By the time he’s been with them a month, he’s already mastered some of the more complicated sleight of hand tricks, ones his eleven year old hands can manage.
So the Rietveld boys stay with the caravanserai. Jordie’s easy manners and faster tongue smooths the way when faced with suspicious law enforcement, and Kaz’s quick hands and faster mind are put to good use. He learns the basic accounting from Jasmir, who does the books, and displays a near frightening capacity for calculating the entire sum of the day’s takings in his head, right down to the last coin. It becomes a little game they play; people shouting out figures and Kaz adding them up in his head. Not in front of the customers—but it’s passed the time over many a long and weary road.
So the years pass by and soon the caravanserai forgets that the Rietveld boys were ever outsiders, or even that they’re Kerch. They are just another part of the caravanserai, and soon the boys call all the elders “Uncle” or “Auntie” or “elder brother, elder sister,” depending on the age. Life seems to have found a groove for them all.
Until the Ghafa troupe comes down into the valley.
*
Maradi Ghafa’s daughter Inej is the shining jewel in the crown of their troupe. Their best wirewalker, acrobat, and now a knife thrower; a girl with an eye like a diamond and a laugh like summer. Oh, Maradi knows her daughter has her faults, just like any other young girl. She’s strong-minded and maybe a bit willful, but what teenager isn’t? Her Inej is among the sweetest girls who walk the road, and Maradi and Dev love her more than meat loves salt.
She thought nothing, at the time, of joining Izidor’s caravanserai for the summer. In the long plains of Ravka, Suli tribes could meet with little to no trouble, put on a show for the local farmers, practice their skills and trade their craft. She’d heard rumors of course–what tribe hadn’t?–that Izidor had taken in and adopted two orphaned Kerch boys. The height of foolishness, some of the elders were claimed to have said, shaking their heads all the while. But Izidor’s clan had so escaped any lasting consequences. And the eldest boy, Jordie Rietveld, greeted them when they arrived, he spoke Suli like a native with such good manners. Surely, Maradi lulled herself into thinking, that no harm could come from just those two boys.
Then she saw the younger Rietveld boy watch her Inej dance on the wire, and it all went up in smoke.
Oh, he’s polite too, the younger brother—what did they call him? Kaz? Keeps his thoughts and hands to himself and treats the elders with deference. He’s seventeen, only a year older than her Inej. But something about the way his eyes track the crowd and the cool, efficient way he handles rowdy patrons make him seem much older.
Maradi doesn’t miss the way he watches Inej do her routine on the wire, his eyes as wide as the moon, a blush rising in his cheeks. Like she was magic, like she was a miracle. Of course, the whole audience looks like that when Inej performs. Usually it only fills Maradi with satisfaction, to know her daughter’s talent is being duly appreciated. But in a Kerch boy…it forebodes nothing good. Maradi doesn’t know what to think. Adopted or not, he’s not Suli. And terrible things happen when Suli mix with those who are not their own. But still, it’s only for one summer…what could happen over one summer?
*
Dev Ghafa is no fool, though certainly most of his clan thinks that Maradi is the one who runs the Ghafa household. Dev is content to let them think so, to cheerfully sprout proverbs until his brothers and uncles in the tribe groan and throw things at him. He bears it all with a good will.
Although certainly no proverb in his wide arsenal could’ve prepared him for…this.
This being the quiet young Kerch man, still a boy really, who comes to every single one of Inej’s performances, and stays until the very end. He doesn’t join the young men who jostle around after the show is done, tossing flowers or coins into the ring. He just slips away quietly, never making his presence known.
Dev doesn’t think much of the boy’s courting skills, but after all, he is Kerch. The Kerch don’t understand anything about romance, not unless it can be sold and paid for. He’s tempted to offer some advice, but the young man can disappear in the crowd as fast as a pickpocket. Dev isn’t sure Inej has noticed him yet. He wonders what she will do when he does.
It isn’t until Sankta Lizabeta’s Day, also known as the summer solstice, that Dev sees Inej and the young Rietveld boy interact for the first time.
It’s after the show, of course, and the evening sun is painting the skies like a master work. Dev is remembering other midsummers, and thinking fondly of how he and Maradi enjoyed them, before marriage and parenthood. He’s wondering if there might be time to slip away this evening and rediscover those joys, when he hears a commotion from the far end of the tent. Immediately on his guard, he goes to investigate.
A young man made bold with drink is standing near the rear of the tent, with Amita, youngest of the tumblers, and who is halfway hiding behind Inej. Dev feels his heart leap into his throat, seeing his young, fearless daughter face down a drunken lout with half a head of height and at least thirty pounds on her. The old terror that haunts every Suli’s road.
“She’s not interested,” Inej snaps, pushing Amita behind her more firmly. “Go home and sleep it off.”
“I’ll settle for you, lovely,” the young man offers, his stance weaving back and forth. “I love an pretty little Suli fox. Come on,” the young man coaxes, “I’ll even pay extra.”
Inej’s lip curls into a snarl, one alarmingly similar to her mother’s, as Amita lets out a frightened little breath. Dev tenses himself to move.
“I think the lady made her feelings clear,” a voice cut across them and the tableau froze, including Dev in the shadows.
The young Rietveld boy slides out of the shadows like the Jack-A-Napes, that character Dev remembers from that weird canon of plays the Kerch prefer—the Komedie Brute. A trickster sort of character, if he recalls correctly. In one hand he loosely swings one of the levers they use to push the wagons out of the mud when the weather gets bad.
The young Rietveld boy barely spares the drunken man glance. “Are you alright, Miss Ghafa? Miss Jacobi?”
Amita is too frightened to nod or shake her head, but Inej cuts her eyes at him. “No, Mr. Rietveld, we are not alright.” She echoes his use of the formal address pointedly.
“Of course,” says the Rietveld boy, polite as a lord. He turns back to the lout, that long length of wood swinging back and forth lazily in his hand. “You paid for the show and for the food and whatever you’re currently pickling yourself with. Nowhere did it say any of the performers were a part of that.”
The drunken boy sneers and tries to lurch past him. “Out of my way, skiv.”
The Rietveld boy moves so swiftly Dev can hardly track it. With one clean swipe, he sends the lever toward his knees, taking the drunk down. Inej snatches up Amita and shoves her into the nearest wagon, and then snatches up her own weapon: a pair of stage throwing knives. Dev nearly chokes on his tongue in alarm; he knew it was a mistake to let his brother teach Inej to throw knives.
Her aim is good, of course it is, the Rietveld boy smoothly hooks one arm around the drunk’s neck and yanks him back as the knife misses his nose by an inch. Inej readies her second knife, but the Rietveld boy catches her eye and shakes his head almost infinitesimally. Inej gives him a look of her own but stays still.
The Rietveld boy yanks his arm back across the drunk’s throat harder, just hard enough to make him wheeze. “The next time she decides to throw a knife at you, I won’t pull you out of the way,” he says, downright conversationally. “No great loss.”
The drunk scrabbles feebly at the arm clamped across his throat, but the Rietveld boy pays no mind as he hauls him away.
The whole interaction lasted barely ten minutes, and Dev lets out his breath in a long, soundless sigh. It was bad, but it could’ve easily been so much worse. He can see Inej going to check on Amita, saying soothing words when the Rietveld boy reappears, now without his length of wood.
“What did you do to him?” demands Inej, turning to face him with her arms crossed across her chest.
“Dumped him in the nearest wagon and told them to take him home to sleep it off,” says Rietveld. “Maybe he was conscious, maybe not. I didn’t check.” The gleam in his eye tells Dev that the boy did check, maybe even made him that way himself. But his voice loses none of it’s courtesy as he addresses Inej. “Is Amita alright?”
“She’s fine,” says Inej, glancing over her shoulder. “A little shaken—but she’ll be alright. The man–do you think he’ll come back?”
“If he does, he won’t bring a constabulary,” says Rietveld calmly. “I overheard him and his cronies talk while they were getting drunk. Apparently his parents didn’t exactly give him permission to be here.”
Inej sniffs, heavy with disapproval and the Rietveld boy shrugs his shoulders. “Either way, if he does say anything, it’ll be my word against his.”
Since Suli can’t testify in a court , is the unspoken part of the rest of the sentence, and Dev can see Inej blow out her breath with grim acknowledgement. “Thank you, for stepping in,” she says, very seriously. “I know it could’ve been bad.”
“Think nothing of it. If that’s all, Miss Ghafa,” says Rietveld, with a polite nod. He turns as if to go when Inej says unexpectedly, “You know, when I imagined meeting you after one of my shows, this was not one of the ways I was picturing.”
Rietveld pauses in mid step, now half turning to look at Inej over his shoulder. “...Oh?”
“Yes,” Inej says, one hand cocked on her hip now. “I was picturing something a little less exciting.”
“I am only too happy to be of service,” says Rietveld, and Inej’s laugh is like red silk ribbon in the dark.
Dev thinks that maybe the young Rietveld boy might know something about courting after all.
*
Jordie hates playing father.
It’s just not that he’s terrible at it, it’s that Kaz doesn’t take him at all seriously, and Jordie can’t even blame him. It hadn’t been Jordie who had gotten them out of Ketterdam, and it’s not Jordie who runs the books, keeps the tabs or coolly kicks out drunks who try to take things too far.
He’s sure Miss Inej is a lovely girl, in fact, he knows it. He’s seen her with Kaz, her laugh lighting up the road like a firework and Kaz’s slow, easy grin every time he’s the cause of it. The way they sit together during meal times, or when Kaz drops by to watch her practice her routine with her family. Or when Kaz performs magic tricks for her, and the little ones when it’s their turn to provide childcare, how thirstily he drinks up Inej’s laughter and applause when the kids shout Again! at some new trick.
But enough’s enough. It’s gone on too far, this flirtation between Kaz and Inej Ghafa. Apparently this has been going for the whole damn summer and both whole damn caravanserais knows about them, and somehow no one saw fit to apprise Jordie of the situation.
If it were any one else, Jordie thinks. Any other girl.
It’s not that he’s ungrateful—it’s not that he disapproves—it’s just—
“It can’t work between you,” he tries to explain to Kaz, late one night in the wagon that Izidor gave them, after their first year with the caravanserai. “Suli don’t hardly ever marry outsiders Kaz, and even if they do, what will happen to your children?”
Kaz narrows his eyes at Jordie, his jaw set in a far too familiar stubborn clench. “The children of Suli are Suli, regardless of who their other parent is.”
“Don’t quote legalities at me,” says Jordie. “Kazzie, be reasonable. I’m sure you like her—”
“I love her,” says Kaz, so baldly Jordie blinks. His cool-eyed, rational little brother stares back him, seemingly shocked by his own words. “I love her,” Kaz repeats himself, more definitely now. “I’ve loved her since the moment I’ve laid eyes on her.”
Oh hell. Jordie drags a hand down his face. “I’m sure you think you do Kaz, but—”
“There’s no but,” his little brother says implacably. “I’ve been saving all my wages. When the summer’s over, I’m going to go to Elder Ghafa and ask for Inej’s bride price.”
The wind is knocked clean out of Jordie. “You’re not even eighteen, Kaz, they won’t let you.”
“I’ll still offer,” says Kaz, as if it’s an already fixed deal. “So they’ll know I’m serious.”
Silence settles between them, thick as day old porridge. When Jordie finally speaks, his voice is halting.
“I’ve been saving money too, Kaz. Maybe I’m not as clever at numbers as you, but I’ve got enough now to get a little piece of property, with a house and some land. Just a small one–enough for two to live on.”
“I know,” says Kaz. “I do our books too.”
“Okay,” says Jordie, groping for words. “Okay. Then you know—Kaz, this wasn’t supposed to be permanent, right? This just supposed to be long enough for us to get back on our feet, and now—”
“And then we didn’t leave after the two months Izidor gave us,” says Kaz, with a terrible inevitability Jordie can feel like an avalanche gaining speed. “We didn’t leave after two months, three months, five months, a year. We stayed because you were too scared you were going to muck it up again, just like you did when we were in Ketterdam—”
“That’s enough, ” Jordie tries to say, but Kaz just keeps talking right over him.
“And then we went home and you kept saying, ‘the important thing is that we stick together,’ and when I said we should ask the Suli for work, you agreed because we were desperate, ” Kaz continues, his voice rising now. “And they gave us that! Our own home tried to separate us, and they welcomed us in! And now you want to leave, because this place is good enough to give us money and a place to stay, but not good enough for me to make a life in—”
“Don’t you want your own home?” Jordie cries. “Our own house, with our own land, like we used to have?”
Kaz stares at Jordie, his dark eyes wide in disbelief. Jordie is reminded with painful clarity of the same look in Kaz’s eyes when he was nine years old, desperate to be saved. “ This is home,” Kaz says, his voice shaking. “It was home because you were here, and now it’s home because Inej is here. Why would I—why would I want to leave? ”
Jordie can all too clearly see the home he once envisioned with his little brother vanish over the horizon, into the dark waters of the harbor.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” is all he can muster the words to say, and then goes out to sleep with the horses. Suddenly he cannot bear to be in the same space as Kaz.
*
Inej doesn’t like it when Kaz is upset.
Kaz rarely shows that he is upset, always coolly controlled around others, but Inej has learned his tells by now. What that tic in his jaw means, when he lowers his eyelids and looks out from under them, the knowing in his eyes hidden by long lashes. Inej is crazy about that look; she’ll do whatever she can to coax it out of him. But when he’s upset or unsettled, his eyes will go remote, even as he goes about his day, tending to each and every one of his duties. Nothing ever escapes Kaz’s attention. There have been more than one long, hot, sticky nights when Inej jolts herself awake from a dream when she had Kaz’s full, undivided attention completely on her.
But she can’t get distracted now. It’s a rest day for the performers, too hot for a noon show, but that means there’ll be one tonight, in the cool of the evening. Inej takes advantage of the sleepy camp and, avoiding the far too watchful eyes of her parents and aunts, slips away to seek out Kaz.
She finds him by the willow tree next to the river, where most of the older ones got to escape the heat. He’s by himself now, stretched out between the tree, the light dappling his long form.
Just looking at him laid out like that makes Inej’s stomach clench. Why couldn’t he have hunched shoulders and a squint, like other mercher boys she’s seen? No, Kaz had to go and be tall , broad shouldered and long legged, with wide palms and long, clever fingers. Inej’s cousins have giggled about his hands. He’s wearing his customary plain white shirt and well-worn cotton trousers. He’s kicked off his boots and taken off his stockings, so even his feet are bare. Inej realizes with a pang that even the sight of his bare feet are precious to her, never a good sign.
He always hears her approach, no matter how quietly she walks. He doesn’t move as she sits down besides him, sitting like a proper acrobat, back straight, legs in a neat fold. In fact, if it wasn’t for the almost invisible twitch to his mouth, one might think he doesn’t notice her arrival at all.
“It’s too hot for tumbling practice,” is all he says, his words slow and lazy with the heat. He speaks Suli like a native, all silk smooth consonants and singing vowels. Inej makes him practice Kerch with her, not just because she wants to improve on the language, but because he speaks it in such a delicious drawl, every word drawn out like honey dripping down a comb. She’d lick every one out of his mouth if she could.
“Too bad,” she says instead, keeping her composure. “Your turns could be a little sharper.”
“Have mercy on me,” Kaz drawls, “for not having a spring for a spine.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Inej says piously and Kaz pulls his arm away from his eyes to peer at her.
“Surely you didn’t come all the way out here to harangue me about practice.”
Inej smiles down at him, all innocent radiance. “No.” Then she pounces.
Kissing Kaz is delightful. He’s gotten much better at it since the first time she kissed him, since she practically had to beat him over the head for him to get the hint. But he takes cues beautifully, as she’s seen for herself. He knows now exactly how she likes to be touched, or held, where to use his teeth and when tighten his hold on her to drive her insane. And Inej has learned to where he likes to be kissed, or bitten, and what makes him gasp and writhe.
They haven’t actually lain with each other yet. Mostly because circumstances have prevented it. Inej had called it that once and Kaz had squinted at her like he was trying to parse out a new column of numbers. What does that mean, lain with?
You know perfectly well what I mean, Inej had said, blushing at the time. When he continued to stare at her, nonplussed, she scowled at him. Sex, Kaz. I am talking about sex.
I know perfectly well what sex is, Kaz had said. I just wasn’t aware I was in a medieval play about it. Inej had given him hell for that, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Now, though, kissing and touching over clothes, and once, one memorable evening when she managed to slip away without anyone noticing, Kaz had cupped her breast under her blouse and looked at her like she was the second coming of the Saints. Inej knows it all, and the thought of more makes her dizzy and lightheaded, like she’s starving. Inej has known hunger on the lean roads, but never one like that this, like she could have more and more and still never be satisfied.
She’s lying down besides Kaz, as they catch their breath. Inej can feel the sweat cool and dry on her body, as Kaz says besides her, “I suppose you want me to tell you what is troubling me now.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Inej agrees. “Since you’re feeling so agreeable.”
Kaz rolls on his side so he can look at her more fully. “You don’t fool me, Miss Ghafa.”
“Oh?” Inej says, trying for her most innocent look.
“Yes, that right there,” Kaz says drily. He reaches out, lazily winds a lock of her hair around his finger, rubs his thumb against the strands. “Did you use the gardenia oil?”
“Jasmine,” says Inej. She knows it’s his favorite. “Out with it, Kaz.”
Defeated, Kaz sighs, laying his head down on his other arm, even as he continues to play with her hair. “I talked to Jordie last night.”
The mention of Kaz’s older brother chases away some Inej’s languor. She’s seen him around, of course she has. He’s never been anything but polite to her, but Inej has seen how anxiety shades his features whenever she talks to Kaz. It’s the same look her parents get. “What passed between you?”
Kaz is silent for a long moment, his fingers tangling in Inej’s hair. “He’s been saving up. I knew that, of course, but I didn’t know what for. He wants to buy a farm, and some land, when he can. And settle down there, apparently.”
Inej becomes very still, now acutely aware of the soft lap of water at the roots of the willow tree, heat crackling in the grass beyond. The way Kaz looks, the way the light from the dappled leaves loves him. “When?”
“As soon as he has enough, I guess,” says Kaz expressionlessly. “He wants me to come with him.”
There it is, the fear that’s been stalking Inej’s mind since the moment she and Kaz have begun this thing between them. She had never feared going away; it was always being left.
Kaz’s hand leaves her hair and cups her cheek, turning her face towards him. His face as grave as she’s ever seen it. “I told him that the caravanserai is home,” he tells her quietly. “That you are home. That I mean to offer for you, once the season is done. That’s where the difference between us comes in.”
Inej feels her heart jolt, in equal parts joy and fear, not because she knew that Kaz wants to offer for her. “I don’t want to cause discord between you and your brother.”
“You haven’t,” Kaz says, perhaps far too swiftly. He catches Inej’s look and amends himself, “This…was a long time coming. It’s nothing you could’ve done.”
Except fall in love with you, Inej thinks, but does not say. She lies down besides him, her hair pooling between them. “What will you do?” she says instead.
Kaz continues to gently stroke her cheekbone. “I’m going to talk to him. Again. And then, when the summer is over, I’m going to talk to your parents.”
“They’re expecting it,” Inej admits. “Mama gets a pained look on her face, and she keeps suggesting other boys.” Before Kaz’s scowl can become thunderous, she adds hastily, “Papa is on your side. He hasn’t forgotten the way you stepped in with that drunk at the beginning of summer. Mama might need more convincing, but even if they don’t fully agree, I don’t think they’ll disown me.” At least, she’s fairly certain that they won’t. She’s heard stories of other Suli parents reciting prayers for the dead over their children if they married outsiders, and has to fight down a shiver at the thought.
Kaz’s arms wrap around her, closing the space between them. He rolls onto his back, lifting her onto his chest so she’s lying full length on top of him. His arms are so strong and sure, his shoulders a wall, and Inej could build her home right here.
“Even if they did,” Kaz tells her softly, no louder than the water murmuring beyond them, “If they did, I would never leave you. I would stay by your side.”
Inej feels the burn of tears in her eyes, at the enormity of the offer. His heart laid out at her feet. “Even if they tried to take me away?”
“I would come for you,” Kaz says. He reaches up, places his hands on the side of Inej’s face, his thumbs pressing down on her cheekbones like he might leave fingerprints there. Inej wants to trace the characters of her name on every line of his body, wrap him up in her hair and arms and legs and never let him go. “I would find you on whatever road you were on..”
Inej recognizes the echo of wedding oaths in his words. She dips her head and their lips meet, so deep and sweet she could drown in it. Kaz reaches down and grabs her waist, so she can fit her body against his more firmly. They’re spiraling down, a bird of prey in a dive, and Inej wants the rush like she’s never wanted anything more in her life. More than the wire, more than hunger.
*
Kaz goes to find Jordie after Inej’s last show of the evening.
It’s rare that they go longer than a day without speaking to each other. It feels wrong, to be so at odds with his older brother. Kaz remembers the painful grind of days after they had escaped Ketterdam, clinging to each other, afraid to let go in case the other vanished. But then they had come to Izidor’s caravanserai and Kaz could lose himself in the crowds, the tricks, making numbers and coins bend to his will. He feels like he missed an obvious misstep if Jordie had been planning to settle down somewhere on a plot of land all along.
He finds his brother tending to the horses, murmuring to each of them fondly as he curries them for the night. Kaz suddenly remembers their father’s mare Gretchen, and how Jordie had pressed his face to her neck when the time had come for her to be sold. He’d loved that old horse, learned how to ride on her. Kaz knows how to ride too, but not with Jordie’s innate skill in the saddle.
Jordie glances up when he hears Kaz’s approach, but says nothing. Kaz says nothing right back, just picks up a curry brush and starts tending to Dousha, the mare that pulls Izidor’s wagon. The brothers work side by side in silence for awhile, as the night settles down around them.
Finally, it is Jordie who speaks first. “You’ll want Mam’s ring.”
Kaz’s smooth strokes over the horse’s side pause. “You still have it?”
Jordie nods. “I sewed a special pocket in my shirt for it, before we left. Don’t know I managed to keep a hold of it, even after.”
Kaz’s skin prickles, despite the warmth of the evening. “I thought—I thought you sold it. That’s how you paid for our rooms.”
Jordie shakes his head. “I did chores for the landlord. Not that it mattered, once the plague started and we had to leave.”
Leave. Such an innocuous sounding word for what actually happened. When their landlord came home glassy-eyed and coughing, and the city started closing down, when Jordie got sick and Kaz had to—
“Kaz,” says Jordie gently, dragging Kaz out of his memories. “Kazzie, I haven’t forgotten. How it was you who got us out of Ketterdam. How you were the one who got us out on the last ship. I still don’t understand how, because you were barely ten—”
“Had to drag you down the street,” Kaz mutters. “You could barely walk.”
“Yeah, I know.” They’re quiet together again, the animals nickering in their sleep.
“I always thought,” Jordie says with difficulty, “that I failed you. I was the one who took us to Ketterdam, I was the one who fell for that Hartzoon’s trick. I was the one—”
“Jordie, no, ” Kaz tries to stop him, but Jordie won’t be placated.
“I was the one who lost all our money,” Jordie says. There, said out loud, the one thing they did not discuss between them. “It was my fault we almost starved, died on some street corner. You kept me out of the bodyman’s boat Kaz, and I never forgot it.”
Kaz stares at Dousha’s sides as they rise and fall with the mare’s breathing. He thought Jordie forgot, or he’d been too sick to remember. Kaz dragging his fevered body down the sidewalk, when the landlord got sick, an almost ten year old dragging a fourteen year old. To this day, Kaz isn’t sure how he managed it either. But he had.
“I thought I needed to make up for it,” Jordie tells him without taking his eyes off the horses. “I failed you to keep you safe, the one thing I needed to do and I couldn’t even do that. And when you suggested coming to Izidor for work, I thought, here’s my chance. I can earn enough, keep him safe, and we’ll get a little place again. That was supposed to be me making up for it.”
Jordie looks at Kaz, in that moment he looks both like the fourteen year old who brought them to Ketterdam and painfully like their father. Or at least, what Kaz thinks he remembers what their father looked like.
“But that’s not what you want,” Jordie says quietly. “Is it?”
It feels like a betrayal, like dropping a weight, a burden lifted from Kaz’s shoulders that he didn’t know he was carrying. But Jordie is here, Jordie is asking—
“I want Inej,” Kaz says, breathing the words out like they’re a spell that could come true, if he just says the right words. “I want Inej and I want to see everything the whole world has to offer. I want to travel with her and come up with new tricks and go with the caravanserai as far as it can go, and then, I want to go a little further. I don’t—I don’t want the farm, Jordie,” Kaz confesses, the words ripped out of him like roots. “I haven’t wanted it since we left Lij.”
“I know Kazzie,” Jordie whispers. “I know. It’s okay, Kaz.”
It isn’t okay. His older brother is slipping away, his bulwark and anchor, and Kaz feels terrifyingly adrift. A part of him wants to take it back. Say never mind, I’ll stay with you, we’ll find a piece of land and grow potatoes but the words don’t come. They choke him.
“Little brother,” Jordie says, as gently as Kaz’s ever heard him, “Baby brother. If you want Inej, if she makes you happy, then stay with her. Make a family with her. All I ask—” Jordie’s voice breaks a little, but he carries on. “All I ask—is that your children know their uncle Jordie. Okay? Come and see me, every winter, when the road’s too rough to travel and you need a place to stay. Come see me in the summer and help me pick apples. Promise me that, Kazimir? Promise me.”
Kaz can’t see the horses anymore through the hot blur in his eyes. “I promise Jordie. I promise,” but the rest of his words are swallowed up by the strength of his brother’s embrace.
*
It’s the scandal of the season when Kaz Rietveld comes to the Ghafa wagon, dressed in his best suit, Kerch in cut but in the finest Suli silks, embroidered with country poppies and marigolds, and asks for the hand of their daughter Inej. He does it all correctly, having with him only the best of the muslins, fine enough to pull through a ring, for Maradi and fresh pots of ink and reams of paper for Dev. For Inej, he did not bring her flowers, or jewelry, or precious silks or spices like a proper courtship. No, to Inej, Kaz Rietveld offered a knife, a blade patterned all the way down with roses. Perfectly weighted for throwing, and just right for Inej’s hand. Inej had looked at him with her heart shining in her eyes and Maradi Ghafa had looked resigned.
They are to be once Jordie has found where he wants to settle his farm, after Inej’s eighteenth birthday and Kaz’s nineteenth. Jordie will keep a room and barn for his brother’s wagon, and his wife’s family. Kaz and Jordie spoke to the hostler and his family, and there is talk of breeding Suli horses with Jordie. If Kaz wept in Inej’s arms in private after, at being parted from his brother, no one ever knew it.
He has such grand plans, that Rietveld boy. Fluent in Suli and Kerch, learning Ravkan and now Shu, he makes plan with Inej to travel further than any caravan has gone before. Even crossing the True Sea, making a name for themselves in Ketterdam. Nothing but the highest of hopes.
Everyone can see it, looking at them. Masters of partner work, so everyone says. He catches every knife she throws and she pulls him higher with every wire she climbs. One day there will be a wagon with Rietveld painted on the side, amid orange Kerch poppies and crimson Suli roses and golden suns. There will be a farm with horses and an orchard, and that wagon will stop there every winter and leave in the spring. And every Sankta Lizabeta’s day, that farm will host the grandest Suli show ever seen in that part of the country. A woman in vivid blue silks will dance on the wire high above the astonished farmers’ heads and her husband below will watch her and smile.