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had Wylan not brought her something to eat. The dry crackers were not delicious in any way and they barely qualified as a valuable meal, but she was in no position to complain.

She sat on a wooden benc, shivering from the cold and munching on one saltine after another. The marine smell of the air on those high seas was soothing, the far-flung mewling of seagulls, the rushed conversations between crew members, Helvar's non-stop vomiting and the splashes of tides against the sides of the schooner were the only disruptions of the otherwisely quiescent moment. Lianna subconsciously brought one of her hands up to her ribs. Ketterdam had long since faded in the distance – they were moving quickly, but she knew she would have to push them again sooner than later.

Next to Lianna stood Jesper. She had already learned it was common for the boy to be in constant movement, but in that moment he limited himself to tapping his fingers against the railing. His pupils were still dilated, hair dishevelled, and Lianna could only imagine she looked the same. He had been so composed during the gunfight it was strange to see him nervous after everything had been handled. Although, she, too, was worried about Inej's well-being. They were all equally involved, but the Suli girl was somewhat a key to their victory. And Kaz's behavior when he held the bleeding Wraith in his arms was an indication of exactly that.

When Brekker finally emerged from belowdecks, however, he did not look as shaken anymore.

"What the hell just happened?" Jesper asked him, jumping forward.

"We were ambushed," Wylan said from his perch on the forecastle deck.

"Thanks for bringing that to our attention," Lianna murmured.

"Private tutors from the university, and that's what this kid comes up with? 'We were ambushed'?" Jesper said.

"Stop calling me kid. We're practically the same age."

"I know we were ambushed. That doesn't explain how they knew we would be there. Maybe Big Bolliger wasn't the only Black Tip spy in the Dregs."

"Geels doesn't have the brains or the resources to bite back this fast or this hard alone," Kaz said.

"You sure? Because it felt like a pretty big bite."

"So what if it wasn't that specific enemy of yours?" Lianna snapped, turning to look Kaz in the eye. "It might have been a different one. Big deal. Doesn't change the fact these people were out to get us killed, and just because we're out of Ketterdam doesn't mean we're out of their reach."

"We dealt with them once, we will do it again," Jesper assured.

"Ever the optimist," she murmured.

"One of us has to be," Jesper said. "And it's clearly not going to be you."

"Let's find out how it really is, shall we?" Kaz said.

"What does he mean?" Lianna perked up when she saw Kaz limping away.

"Oomen," Jesper said. Upon no reaction from Lianna, he mused: "Did you miss the giant tied up in the corner of the deck?" He leaned next to Lianna, touched her shoulder with his hand and pointed towards the other side of the ship. There, a man was sat down. Blindfolded, gagged and immobilized.

"I guess I did," she muttered, frowning.

Jesper nudged her side and stood up. "I'm messing with you. But you should probably get some sleep."

It only took a minute unitll Matthias and Jesper dragged Oomen over to the rail. The gag had been removed, and he was shouting something cockily, even as his hands remained tied. Lianna had to move from her occupied spot to make space for the interrogation. She was observing from a distance. She had a feeling the situation would escalate quickly. And in an ugly way.

"Stand him up," said Kaz. With one huge hand, Helvar hauled Oomen to his feet. Oomen grinned, his thatch of coarse white hair flat against his wide forehead. "Why don't you tell me what brought so many Black Tips out in force tonight?"

Oomen hesitated, looking around the decks. His gaze rested on Lianna, "Who's the sweet young lady?"

"I wouldn't mess with her if I were you," Jesper retorted before Lianna could. "Just answer the question, yeah?"

"We owed you."

"A public brawl with guns out and thirty men packing? I don't think so," Kaz said.

Oomen snickered. "Geels doesn't like being bested."

"I could fit Geels' brains in the toe of my boot, and Big Bolliger was his only source inside the Dregs."

"Maybe he—"

Kaz interrupted him. "I want you to think real careful now, Oomen. Geels probably thinks you're dead, so there are no rules of barter here. I can do what I want with you."

Lianna flinched. Oomen didn't; instead, he spat in Brekker's face. Kaz took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and carefully wiped his face clean.

"Hold him," he told Jesper and the Fjerdan. Kaz flicked his coat sleeve, and an oyster shucking knife appeared in his hand – a tidy, little blade.

"Wait!–" Lianna exclaimed, extending her arms, not even sure of what she was trying to accomplish. But by the time the word left her mouth, Kaz had already made a neat slash across Oomen's eye – from brow to cheekbone – and before Oomen could draw breath to cry out, he made a second cut in the opposite direction, a nearly perfect X.

Lianna froze, only to shrink again once Oomen started to scream. Her fingers curled into a fist and she took a step back. Her eyes closed for a few seconds at the boy's deafening, agonizing shouts. Kaz, unfazed, wiped the knife clean, returned it to his sleeve, and drove his gloved fingers into Oomen's eye socket. He shrieked and twitched as Kaz yanked out his eyeball, its base trailing a bloody root. Blood gushed over his face, his clothes, Jesper and Matthias' hands holding him down.

Wylan was retching somewhere in the back, but Lianna felt like she heard those sounds coming from a different room. Kaz tossed the eyeball overboard and jammed his spit-soaked handkerchief into the socket where Oomen's eye had been.

"Listen to me," he hissed, his face inches from Oomen's. "You have two choices. You tell me what I want to know, and we drop you at our next port with your pockets full of enough coin to get you sewn up and buy you passage back to Kerch, with the help of our Squaller here." Kaz nodded towards Lianna, despite definitely noticing how she had reacted to his actions. And he inarguably noticed the way Lianna flinched at the word Squaller, too. "Or I take the other eye, and I repeat this conversation with a blind man."

"It was just a job," babbled Oomen. "Geels got five thousand kruge to bring the Black Tips out in force. We pulled in some Razorgulls, too."

"Then why not more men? Why not double your odds?"

"You were supposed to be on the boat when it blew! We were just supposed to take care of the stragglers."

Was that why Kaz had insisted on staying off the boat until Inej would have had arrived? Or had they avoided being killed purely because of some twisted kind of luck?

"Who hired you?" Kaz growled. Oomen wavered, sucking on his lip, snot running from his nose. "Don't make me ask again, Oomen. Whoever it was can't protect you now."

"Please," Oomen begged, and Lianna felt her stomach twist. "He'll kill me."

"And I'll make you wish for death, so you have to weigh those options."

"Pekka Rollins," Oomen sobbed. "It was Pekka Rollins!"

"Saints," groaned Jesper. "We are so screwed."

"What?" Lianna asked in a quiet voice, and they all, except Kaz, turned to look at her, as if they had forgotten she was there. She coughed before speaking up again. "Who is Rollins?"

"He doesn't like us," said Jesper. "And let's just say, if Rollins doesn't like somebody, they're not destined to live a long, happy life."

"Is Rollins leading the crew himself?" Kaz asked Oomen.

"What crew?" Oomen furrowed his brows, confusion all over his face.

"To Fjerda."

"I don't know about no crew. We were just supposed to stop you from getting out of the harbour."

"I see," Kaz said, but his tone did not convey understanding.

"I need a medik. Can you take me to a medik now?"

Lianna shook her head. "Nina is taking care of Inej–"

"Of course," said Kaz, waving his gloved hand at Lianna. "Right this way."

Before anyone had the chance to wrap their head around what was happening, Kaz took Oomen by the lapels and hoisted him off his feet, bracing his body against the railing.

"I told you what you wanted!" Oomen screamed, struggling. "I did what you asked!"

Oomen tried to push Brekker off him, but with hands tied and in the aftershock of having his eyeball ripped out, his efforts were not succesful. Kaz leaned in and said something only Oomen could hear, before pushing him into the sea.

Lianna lunged forward, pushing Jesper and Helvar away, and leaned out of the railing rapidly, one arm holding onto it and the other extended. As soon as she angled forward, she tried to locate Oomen's body in the moonlit, ravening waves. Perhaps she would have been ready to jump into the waters herself, but then, just as she saw a movement amidst the tides in the sea, just as she raised her leg onto the railing, a hand tugged on the collar of her shirt sharply, knocking the air out of her lungs. Kaz jostled her backwards, tripping her over, and threw her body in the air, making her flip, as if she was lighter than a scatter cushion.

Lianna landed on the decks with a groan, trying and failing to support her fall with her arms, but hurting her rib cage again instead. She coughed a few times and rose to her knees despite the pain, standing up soon after with enragement burning in every bone of her body. She touched her face; the cut on her face she earned in the harbour that had began to heal was opened once more, raining blood all over the left side of her face.

"You're insane," she spat out.

"I remained calm," he answered impassively. "You, on the other hand, tried to dart out into the sea. Should we put you in shackles alongside Helvar?"

"You had no right to do that," she said. "Don't act like you had any right to kill him after promising you wouldn't."

"Do you want to go over, too?" asked Kaz. "Seems to me you are not in mint condition."

The furrow of Lianna's brows deepened. "Try me, Brekker. Let's see who comes out on top."

Kaz tilted his head slightly. "Is that really what you wish for?"

"Let it go," Jesper said, pleading.

"Shut up," she responded without looking away from Brekker, too furious to listen or obey anyone.

"Lianna's right," Wylan said. He still looked nauseus from vomiting, but he straightened up when Kaz looked over at him.

"Is she, now," Kaz chellenged. He must have been running out of patience, if he ever had any, but Lianna couldn't bring herself to care when his gaze returned to her face. "Because I think she's just being stupid."

Jesper walked up to Lianna. "You can carry on with this conversation once Kaz is not covered in blood and acting like a madman," he murmured, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Let it go."

Lianna's lips were pressed in a thin line and her eyes burned with rage of a thousand suns. Jesper pushed her backwards and eventually she hesitantly nodded. Kaz fixed her face with one last frigid stare before turning away.

"Fit Helvar with some shackles to keep him honest," he said to Jesper as he headed below. "And get me clean clothes and fresh water."

"Since when am I your valet?" argued Jesper.

"Madman covered in blood, remember?" he said over his shoulder.

"Man with a gun!" Jesper called after him. Kaz replied with a time-saving gesture that relied heavily on his middle finger and disappeared belowdecks.

"Unbelievable, that guy," Jesper murmured, then he looked at Lianna. "You, too. You're both distressing."

Lianna shot him a deathly glare.

Jesper walked closer to Lianna, raising one of his hands to touch the cut on her forehead. "Honestly, I am beginning to think you enjoy recklessness. Or getting hurt." He lowered his arm. "Wait untill I take care of our Fjerdan, I'll help you clean the wound then."

"I'll handle it myself, thanks," she reminded him with a flushed face.

Jesper smiled and shook his head. "You're so stubborn it hurts to watch. Let's go, big guy."

Matthias grunted something in response, but he followed Jesper obediently, and Wylan panned shortly after them.

Lianna was left alone, and she sat down next to the railing, the freezing, midnight air enveloping her. Loneliness hit her right away, and she almost regretted not agreeing for Jesper to take care of her bleeding forehead. She could not guess what it was about him – but, judging by the way Helvar followed him without complaining, she was not the only one affected. Jesper's mere presence seemed to scream, I am here and I am your friend. And Lianna did not fall for such ways of being; that is, usually she did not. Still; she could not help but think how similar Jesper and Nina were. How the Heartrender, too, found it easy to become friends with people. And how despite Lianna's reluctance, she had befriended the Squaller with ease.

They had first met in the early years of living in the Little Palace – not that many Grisha were brought there to study after the witch hunts had intensified. Everyone in the Little Palace knew each other back then, even if in passing. Lianna had been the distant, talented girl. She had many collegues, since it was common for Etherealki to stick together, Squallers especially, but she had always found it exhausting to have deeper relationships. The few that she had had started with Nina, through Nina, because of Nina.

She had always been a ray of sunshine, so true to herself, so lovely and kind while staying fierce and blunt. Lianna had adored Nina ever since they'd met, but once they became true friends, after they bonded over something silly and insignificant, something she could not even remember, that was when Lianna had known there truly was no one else like that girl. And so did everybody else; Nina had been a rose growing, flourishing on the castle grounds, and Lianna had been the one to take care of that flower, earning her sweet presence in return.

The start of their friendship had been rocky. They had been children, completely different from who they were now, and the beginning seemed silmuntaneusly have happened the day before and a lifetime ago.

"Is this place free?" Nina had asked then, standing over Lianna in the commons.

Lianna had been sitting on a wooden bench, creating tiny whirlwinds to carry the freshly fallen leaves away. It had been a bad day; as bad as it could get for a kid living in a palace, and she had wanted nothing more than to distress herself in utter solitude. Everyone had known not to bother her when she was irritated; the irl had always been a sore loser, and it was best to leave her alone to brood.

She had looked up at Nina, who had been standing with her back turned towards the sun, illuminated in its rays.

"It isn't," she had responded.

Nina had looked around through narrowed eyes, a bright smile on her face. "Well, who is occupying it? I'm sure they'll switch with me."

"No one."

"So it is free. Do you know the definition of something being free?"

Lianna had never been particularly patient, and that day she had been young and frustrated on top of it. And so, it had resulted in Nina being pushed away by a blast of air. A week after that, they had been practically inseparable.

Lianna huffed quietly, looking out into the night. The moon and the stars reflected on the stormy surface of water in the very same way they did during her journey from Ravka to Kerch. It was never pleasant to reminisce the time she had spent back home; the longer she thought of Ravka, the more she kept wondering, Am I even allowed to call it home still? To her, leaving was the most awful misery.

But meanwhile, the world went on.

King Nikolai ruled it now, and although the country had been weakened by the civil war, he was doing everything to rebuild Ravka to be strong and safe once more. If she returned to the Little Palace after all this time, it would not be as a student, an apprentice of the Grisha, but as a soldier.

The wind strenghtened, cold overlaped her arms and Lianna stood up abruptly. She looked at the vast sea, almost black so many hours away from the sun, before she headed belowdecks.

The surgeon's cabin Nina had been assigned was small and cramped. Upon walking inside, Lianna noticed the Heartrender slouching over a table on which Inej's motionless body lay, the Suli girl seeming fragile for the first time ever. Nina's auburn locks shone in the dim light of the oil lamps when the girl turned around to face Lianna.

"Oh," she murmured, slumping onto the wooden chair behind hair. "It's you."

She looked exhausted. Even though healing and heartrending was a different way of thinking about what was essentially the same power, both were draining for the Corporalki not used to performing them. Inej's athletic built did not help, either, fragile muscles and bones difficult to avoid. Nina had heavy bags under her eyes and her face was pale when she covered Inej with a light wool blanket.

"It's me," Lianna answered quietly, closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

"Why are you bleeding again?"

There was no surprise in Nina's voice, no accusation, only strained worry.

"Kaz and I disagreed on a minor issue, this was the outcome," Lianna said. "How's Inej?"

Nina looked like she wanted to make Lianna tell her more, but only a barely audible sigh escaped her lips when she pointed towards a cabinet in the corner of the room, on which a bucket was located.

"There's a washcloth and water inside," she said.

Lianna nodded and took the cloth to tend to her wound. She hissed at the sensation of the cold, almost freezing wet material coming in touch with her forehead.

"And about Inej," Nina began again, leaning back. "I closed the wound and tried to stop the internal bleeding. But there's nothing I can guarantee." Her lips pressed in a thin line. Nina tucked Inej's arms under the blanket, caressing the scars on her forearm gently. With hesitation, she spoke again: "Do you know why I joined the Dregs?"

That was sudden.

"No," Lianna said. "But you can tell me. If you want to."

"It wasn't about safety, I know I can take care of myself. I... I wanted to feel like I belong. After the Little Palace, after the Second Army, after being surrounded by people who shared my goals for so long, having to stay in Ketterdam..." She paused the stream of blurted-out words. "I'm terrified of being alone, Lianna."

"Why did you stay in Ketterdam, then." It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

Nina averted her gaze to the side and pressed her lips into a thin line.