“I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”
“Jesper hasn’t shot him,” Nina said.
“Kaz isn’t using his cane,” said Inej.
“You think they can’t kill each other with their bare hands?”
“Where do you think the money went?” he repeated.
“Guns?” asked Jesper.
“Ships?” queried Inej.
“Bombs?” suggested Wylan.
“Political bribes?” offered Nina. They all looked at Matthias. “This is where you tell us how awful we are,” she whispered.
“Please, my darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won’t you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?”
“I’m alive,” he shouted, as loud as he could. But he was so small, and the boat was already drifting back to harbor.
“Who’s Jordie?”
“Someone I trusted.” He looked over his shoulder and met Jesper’s gray eyes. “Someone I didn’t want to lose.”
He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her.
“I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”
“I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”
“My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly.
“I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”
“Mister Fahey,” Kaz said quietly. “You know what they say about walking in a cow pasture?”
Jesper’s brows shot up, and Nina had to stifle a nervous laugh. What did the bastard of the Barrel know about cow pastures?
“Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget. They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for.”
“I feel sorry for you, Brekker. There is nothing sacred in your life.”
There was a long pause, and then Kaz said, “You’re wrong.”
“Because unlike Kaz, I have a conscience.”
“I have a conscience,” said Kaz. “It just knows when to keep its mouth shut.”
Jesper snorted. “If you have a conscience, it’s gagged and tied to a chair somewhere.”
There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken. The cane became a part of the myth he built.