The sun was shining brightly even though it was still quite cold. You had been with the Captain and the Wolfszahn for almost three months already, and after having made a trip to Ravka, and then Novyi Zem, you were back in Kerch. Well, technically an island outside of the capital city Ketterdam. The small island named Newfoort was where the Wolfszahn had docked. It was scarcely populated, and had no real harbour so that you had been forced to take small rowing boats to get to shore. You had asked why you had not stirred into the harbour, as you usually did, and the Captain had explained to you, that there was a deadly illness in Ketterdam, so he would not risk his crew catching it. Instead he had decided on this small island.

You wondered why you had to go to shore at all, but the other crew members seemed desperate for solid ground underneath their feet. You could not relate. You liked the swaying of the ship below your feet.

Now you wandered down a sandy beach, which was completely deserted. In the distance a big piece of wood or something akin seemed to have been washed ashore, seagulls gathering around it. You skipped along the edge of the waves, pulling your woollen jacket a little tighter to keep out the cold. Again and again your eyes skipped over sea and to the city of Ketterdam which you could see in the distance.

Somehow, the thought of being so close to the city tormented by death sparked a strange feeling in your chest, as if Ketterdam would one day play an important role in your life.

Skipping and humming you continued your way along the beach, until the strange log you had spotted in the distance had gotten quite close. Except it was no log, no wood, no torn out tree. You stopped your skipping, and stared at the thing for a while. It looked like a boy. Slowly, carefully, you made you way closer. Seagulls were stepping around on the back of the poor kid, picking occasionally, waves leapt at the feet. The clothes were ripped and torn in places; seaweed had tangled in his dark hair. Was he dead? Had he drowned?

Your heart beat hard in your chest, and you quickly picked up a twig that had been washed ashore before stepping within reach of the boy, causing the seagulls to fly away. He lay on his side, facing away from you. Carefully you poked him. No reaction. You poked him harder. Again no reaction. Maybe he had been victim to the terrible illness that had taken hold of Ketterdam, fallen into the sea, drowned and been washed up here?

Careful, still not quite sure if he was alive, you stepped around him so you could get a glance of his face. His hair was was almost black, green algae sticking to it. He seemed several years older than you. Maybe twelve or thirteen. It was hard to tell. But he had a beautiful face, even though it seemed like it was swollen and covered in wounds caused by firepox. As if a thousand bees had stung him. And the seagulls had picked a few additional wounds into the bloated flesh. You felt your chest constrict at the thought that he was probably dead. Slowly you lifted your boot, and pushed against his shoulder, causing him to roll to his back.

Suddenly he coughed. You jumped away from him. He coughed again, clearly too weak to even lift a hand, and the desire to help him washed over you. No longer considering that he might be sick, you fell to your knees next to him.

"You're alive," you told him, as if it was confirmation for both you and him. "Can you sit?"

The boy just groaned, not even opening his eyes.

"Okay, I... What's your name?"

The boy took a moment to answer, but then he opened his mouth.

"Jo-" another cough interrupted him, but he tried again. "Jo-"

This time his voice gave out, and his head, which he had lifted in the attempt to speak, fell back into the sand.

"Jojo?"

The boy groaned weakly.

"Okay, listen Jojo. I really don't know how to help you, but I know someone who can. I'll be back in a few minutes. Don't move."

As if he could, you thought, before pushing yourself to stand, and as quickly as you could, you ran all the way back to the pub, where the rest of your crew had gathered for a hot meal.

Of course the healer you had aboard was less than happy to be pulled away from the pie he had just ordered, and he was even less thrilled when he found out you had found a victim of the firepox at the beach. But much to all of your surprise he came to the conclusion that Jojo, while he had had the plague, seemed to be no danger anymore. He was still incredibly weak, much of it probably due to the time he had spent drifting around in the sea, but he was not infectious anymore. The healer suggested bringing Jojo to the pub, and leaving him there, but you pleaded with him, and later even the Captain, to take Jojo in. At first they were completely against it. Right now he was of no use to the crew, but eventually, after agreeing to be the one to look after him until he had recovered, and to be the one who had to teach him everything about the ship, they reluctantly agreed.

You had left Newfoort the next day, Jojo in a cabin right next to the tiny one you stayed in. For weeks you fed him soups and stews because he could barely swallow anything. He had trouble talking, too, but after lots of hot tea, and many weeks of rest, he was able to slowly hold short conversations again.

Over time you learnt that Jojo had had a younger brother, just a half a year older than yourself, who had probably died of the firepox. Jojo had no recollection of how he had ended up in the sea. He said one evening he had fallen asleep next to his sick brother, and the next he had woken up at the beach. He cried that evening, cried because of the misfortune he had brought upon his brother and himself, and cried because his brother, his baby brother, the only thing in the world he had had left, had died. All because of Jojo's greed. He never shared the whole story with you, just that because he had been tricked, the two boys had lost everything they had had, which had ended in both of them being too poor to afford a medik when they had fallen ill.

You sat with Jojo for a long time that night, patting his back, and hugging him, hoping the comfort of your presence would ease the guilt and pain in his heart, but knowing that was probably impossible. Jojo eventually had fallen asleep, curled into your side, his tears wetting the fabric of your shirt.

After that, Jojo and you had been inseparable. You taught him all you knew about the ship and its workings. You showed him how to tie knots, how to climb ropes and masts, and soon the Captain thanked you for convincing him to bring Jojo into the crew. Jojo was just as agile as you, but stronger. He was still smaller than most of the members of the crew, allowing him to climb into almost all the tight spaces you crawled into too, and he was eager to prove his worth by helping with any task the others entrusted to him. After a while a new member, a Grisha squaller, joined the crew, and you gave up your little cabin for him, and moved into Jojo's.

Whenever strangers boarded the ship you and Jojo immediately started asking them questions, learning snippets of foreign languages and sometimes even a few fighting techniques which you trained by yourselves every evening. Then the deck was dark except for a small lantern lighting up the dark. Most men were under deck by that time, so you had enough space to run around, and practice.

Jojo and you always shared a bed, sinc you were now sleeping in his cabin, and there was not enough space for two beds. So at night, when the cold settled in, Jojo wrapped you into a warm blanket, slipped into bed beside you, and made up stories of powerful Grisha saints, dragons and gigantic birds. Back when your family had still been alive, you had often wished for an older brother. Jojo was exactly how you had always wanted your brother to be. He made you laugh and eventually fall asleep, thinking life would always be this peaceful.

But it is not, you bitterly thought to yourself. You had left the Wolfszahn, following a tucking in your chest that had drawn you to Ketterdam. But as soon as these robbers had first started speaking to you, the tucking in your chest had stopped and never returned. You had no direction anymore, no path to follow. And without the guidance of that tucking in your chest, you had followed Kaz Brekker into the Crow Club.

The work he wanted you to do was easy enough. Climb up on roofs and window stills, and listen in on any and every conversation that he might profit from. Which merchant was planning to sell what? Who had just bought a pricy piece of jewellery that the Dregs could steal? Who was planning on betraying who?

You did not feel comfortable doing the job, but you did it anyway. At first because you had been scared of Brekker. But now, six months later, you felt like it was because you had found a place where you belonged. Perhaps not as perfectly as you had belonged into the crew on the Wolfszahn, but then again you were older now, and doubted an eight year old girl had ever really been part of that crew. You had probably been their distraction on sea. They had watched you climb around, and tell magic stories about talking shoes to whoever would listen. But you had not been part of the crew. Not really. Now you were part of the Dregs. It had taken you less than two months to make the final decision to tattoo the crow drinking from the cup onto your lower arm. You still vividly remembered the relief that had flooded through your system once the tattoo artist had finished. You finally belonged somewhere again.

Since you had started working for him, Kaz had made it his personal challenge to teach you how to fight. Even with his limp he was quick and incredibly strong, and the first few weeks you had had absolutely no chance at standing your ground against him. But you were a quick learner. Soon you had memorised important techniques, how to duck a blow without losing your balance, how to soundlessly sneak up on someone, how to disarm men twice your size.

When Kaz thought there was nothing more he could teach you in the department of hand to hand combat, he had you train with other members of the Dregs. All of them were a lot older than either Kaz or you; and much broader, too. Kaz was, even though he was not even sixteen yet, rather tall, but just as skinny as you had assumed at your first meeting. These man were packed with muscles, and still you sometimes felt as if they did either not put their full force into the exercises they did with you, or simply were not as strong as Kaz. Perhaps he was lanky and thin, but the young man was incredibly strong. Once he had harshly grabbed your wrist during training, and you had thought he would break it, but he had let go before he had really hurt you.

As you sat on top of a roof, looking out over a crowded street of West Stave in the middle of the night, you replayed the scene in your head. You had noticed pretty early on, that training with Kaz was entirely different from what training with Jojo had been. Not only did Kaz seem to know much better what he was doing, but Jojo and you had often stood in deadlock for minutes, his hand closed around your upper arm, ready to dislocate it, your hands hooked under his knee, ready to throw him off balance, trying to figure out how to free yourselves. Kaz hardly ever touched you. Even when he had grabbed your wrist, he had been wearing black leather gloves.

Over the months, you had heard many stories of why he wore these gloves. Some people said he had claws for fingers, others claimed his hands were black like coal, as a punishment for all the crimes he had committed, others again were convinced he bathed his hands in the blood of the people he had killed, and wore the gloves so the blood would not wash off. Honestly, you thought all these stories were stupid, and were convinced there was a far easier explanation to the gloves. And indeed, just a few nights ago, while you had been going over your assignments for the night with him, the topic of the gloves had come up.

"It's getting colder now, we need to get you proper equipment," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I'm thinking a fur felt coat, warm enough for even the coldest nights, a warmer pair of boots, and some Fabricator made gloves, so your fingers won't freeze off."

You nodded thoughtfully.

"Can we try to get them to make the boots thinner though," you wondered, "I mean... the ones I currently got are okay, but I hardly feel anything through them." You noticed the way Kaz had raised his eyebrow at you. "They're good, they're really good, I mean," you quickly defended, hoping to not sound ungrateful. Kaz had given them to you as soon as your wrist had healed after that fall you had taken in the alleyway where he had saved you. It was just one more thing you had to pay off now. "It's just... I need to feel the material I'm climbing up, need to feel the tiniest dents and bumps in the walls to keep my footing."

Kaz nodded, as if he understood exactly what you were talking about. But you doubted he had ever scaled a thin rope of ivy the way you did every night.

"Then we'll have both the shoes and the gloves be made by a Fabricator. Should be simple enough."

He brushed his gloved thumb over the beak of the crow head atop of his cane.

"Are your gloves Fabricator made?" The question had slipped over your lips before you had contemplated his possible reactions.

But much to your surprise he did not lash out at you.

"No," he answered indifferently. "They're just regular leather gloves." He was still studying the crow head. "Well, not regular, I've had some adjustments made for my purposes specifically."

Lock picking, you thought.

"But they're not Fabricator made. You're wondering why I'm wearing them, right?"

You nodded quietly, watching Kaz closely. He leant a little closer to the crow head, and rubbed the leather of his glove over a spot on the back of the metal bird's head as if to polish it.

"I don't like feeling people's skin. Freaks me out. But I'm expected to do handshaking and fighting, so I wear the gloves. It's still awful enough this way."

You stared at him, slightly shocked. He had never given away any indication for a weakness, and now he openly confessed to you that the touch of skin against skin freaked him out? You immediately remembered Jojo, and the way he had always lifted you into the air to twirl you around, or how he had hugged you before falling asleep each night. Somehow Kaz often reminded you of Jojo, even though they were so elementary different from each other.

"Are you going to use this knowledge against me now?"

You got torn out of your thoughts, and found Kaz had lifted his head to look at you.

"Why would I?"

He smiled. For the first time since you had met him almost six months ago, Kaz Brekker truly smiled at you.

You blinked as an unusual movement in the street below caught your attention, and you stiffened, readying yourself to start moving, until you recognized the person to be Jesper. Jesper had joined the Dregs just two weeks ago, after Kaz had saved him from a beating in the same dark alleyway in which he had found you. He seemed to have a talent for these things. You liked Jesper. The Zemini boy was kind, and loved joking around. In the beginning you had feared Kaz would be upset by Jesper's seemingly never serious attitude, but soon enough you had recognised something that almost resembled amusement in Kaz's gaze.

You watched Jesper walk down the street before he disappeared in a small alley. Your eyes wandered over the thinning crowd below. It was winter, so the sun would take its sweet time to rise today, but it was almost morning, even though it was still dark, so you decided it was time to go back to the Slat, and report back to Kaz, even though there was not much you had to tell.

As almost every time you entered Kaz's office after knocking and being called in, he sat at his desk, brooding over maps and notes, his cane leaning against the edge of the table.

When he spotted you in the doorway, his shoulders relaxed visiably.

"Come in, close the door," he invited you.

"There's really not a lot to tell, and I'm cold and tired," you confessed, hesitating to follow his order.

"I need a second pair of eyes on something," he told you.

It was not the first time he asked for your help on finding escape routes and the kind. In your first week of working for him, he had taken you in front of the Crow Club, and asked you to find all four possible ways to climb up to the roof. You had found six. And ever since then he asked for your help when it came to planning his heists.

While you sighed quietly and closed the door behind you, he grabbed his cane, and used the beak of the crow head to pull a comfortable looking chair close next to his own.

"Sit down," he offered, pointing at the chair.

Confused you followed his order. Usually you sat on the wooden chair on the other side of the desk, not next to Kaz. The chair beneath you was soft, softer than any chair you ever remembered having sat on, but instead of focusing on feeling the luxurious material beneath you, you eyed the blue print before you.

"What are we looking for," you asked, trying to supress a yawn. Now that you had escaped the cold winter air, your eyes were burning, and you felt just how truly tired you were.

"We're going in here," Kaz pointed at a door on the map. "And I want us to leave through here-" he flipped another blue print over the one you were looking at, and showed you the window he was talking about. "But if we need to change the plan, we need more ways to get out."

You bit your lip, and nodded. Kaz had never taken you along to one of his heists, but often enough trusted you helping to plan them. It made you nervous, knowing your friends' freedom and even lives depended partly on how good of an escape route you were able to spot. You leant a little closer over the map, so you could make out the fine lines better, making sure to keep a safe distance from Kaz, knowing he preferred his personal space to not be invaded.

While you were studying the map, he stood up, and fetched a kettle of tea that had been keeping warm by the cracking fire in the fireplace behind you. He also grabbed two cups, and when he sat down, he poured a cup for each of you, but you hardly noticed, far too concentrated on the map you were analysing.

"I've thought we could go through here, and down there," Kaz leant over to you, and painted an invisible line on the paper with his gloved finger, showing you the route he wanted to take. "But then we have the problem of ending up in this dead end."

Your eyes flickered up to his face. He had lent in close, really close, the strands of his hair almost brushing your forehead. Why was your heart beating so hard all of a sudden? It made you feel lightheaded and dizzy. You did not like it. Or maybe you did?