Kaz was drowning.

He could see the lights of Ketterdam in the distance. The ships docked in the harbour. But he was out in open sea, the black lightless water threatening to pull him down.

He tried to move his arms, but they didn't work. He tried to scream, but his voice was gone. He was a stranger in his own body.

There- something was approaching. Kaz tried to shout again for help. It didn't work. But whatever it was drew closer, until Kaz could make it out.

It was Jordie.

Jordie was dead.

His corpse was floating towards Kaz.

Helplessness crawled through him. He tried to move, shout, do anything-but the water had trapped him, bound him. He could make Jordie's face out now- the dark lashes, the skin pulled tight over bones.

Just before he-it, the body- touched him, it sank, pulled by some current into deep sea. Gone.

Another thing was floating towards him now- he saw Inej floating listless, her brown skin dull and papery, her beautiful hair unbound and floating. Kaz felt panic seize his heart. No-no- he had to go to her-he had to save her. But he was stuck, stuck in place, watching helplessly as his lovely, dead Inej sank without a sound.

After that he stopped trying to thrash or yell. He didn't need a reason. He was subjected to a parade of dead bodies drowning right in front of him-Jesper, sprawled out even in death- Nina wore a kefta that floated around her- Wylan had blood on his face and looked so young. Helvar, the huge Fjerdan, bobbed in a spreading pool of blood. There was his father- and there was Colm Fahey, even, the lines of exhaustion that furrowed his face in real life gone. Inej's parents. Kuwei's head was turned and Kaz could see his vacant golden eyes. And then all his Dregs- Anika and Pim and Rotty and Keeg and Specht and Dirix and Muzzen-

Kaz closed his eyes.

He willed the sea to finally swallow him.

Instead, it started jabbing at him.

Every time he tried to close his eyes, prickly knives ran through his blood. Something was burning in his side.

Random memories went through him- Inej on his windowsill, lit by the setting sun; the hot chocolate he had shared with Jordie; light gleaming off Jesper's revolvers, and the quirk of Nina's mouth; Wylan hunched over a table sketching designs, Matthias on the Fjerdan ice.

Was this how he died? Reaping the fruit of all the misery he'd caused, the blood he'd spilled? Was he destined to go through the same suffering all at once?

After a while he realized the sea was getting colder. His teeth were chattering. There were stars in the sky now- Kaz tried to count them like a child, but they kept slipping away. So he shut his eyes and turned his head away.

Cold. Colder. So cold.

Perhaps he'd freeze. He wished he would.

***

An eternity later the sea began warming again. Kaz's limbs had gone numb a long while back, but they came to life slowly, with needles and twinges. He found he could twitch his finger, then his toe.

Were the stars still there?

Kaz opened his eyes to look, but there was no sky. There was no sea.

***

There was something crawling across his chest. He swatted it away. It hurt to move, to breathe. But his eyes were open and it was alright.

Until he realised the ceiling didn't belong to the Slat.

He jerked upright, gasping from the pain of it, like a broken rib being crushed underfoot. It took a few moments for the room to come into focus, for the hazy figures to resolve themselves into people.

Kaz brought a hand to his forehead. It was wet and sticky with sweat- that explained the nightmares about drowning. His shirt was half open and-

Where were his gloves?

He looked up again. The girl closest to him was Kaelish, unfamiliar to him. Probably a medik. He turned his head.

Inej looked back at him, her eyes glittering.

Everything snapped back into clear focus. There was Inej, standing beside some Fjerdan woman in a plunging cream dress and a cloak. Jesper and Wylan were in the room, too, looking intently at him. They were quite alive and safe.

He tried to remember what had happened before he ended up here- something about firelight and blood soaking into a carpet- but the details were murky. His head was killing him.

He looked at Inej again, focusing on her steadiness. Was that relief he saw in her eyes? How was she even in Ketterdam? Hadn't she sailed to Ravka, for the coronation? How long had he been out?

"About a full day," Jesper supplied, and Kaz realized he'd spoken the last part around. "You got poisoned. Good job."

He knew Jesper's light tone too well to not hear the stress under it. Poisoned.

He turned the word around in his mind. Poisoned, when half the Barrel didn't dare to touch him.

Barrel. Crow Club. Dregs. He saw Anika disappear through a window and the memories came in a flood, of Ada Dejaqo laughing, the flash of an eight year old's eyes. The pinprick in his side.

Oh.

He'd heard of it, of course, the quiet thief of poisons, stealing through a body, killing it silently.

He should've been more careful.

"What were you thinking?" Wylan said, crossing his arms.

Kaz rasped, "I was on a job, merchling. Things happen. Won't happen again."

The blonde woman put her hands on her hips. "That's what you say every time and then come up with an even more insane plan."

He slitted his eyes at her. "I don't remember telling fishwives my plans. Even if they were betrothed to princes."

She sniffed. "You've told me plenty."

He looked from Inej to her, the easy way the leaned into each other. "Zenik. Isn't this a cozy little gathering." But it was halfhearted enough that Nina's face softened. He would probably get used to the alien face at some point. Although he wasn't sure what she was doing here either.

"Where are my gloves? I should be at the Slat."

"Certainly not," piped up an annoyed little voice. It was the Kaelish girl, staring at him with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. "You will die halfway if you try."

"Kira here has done the lovely job of healing you," Jesper supplied.

Kaz nodded stiffly in her direction. He didn't like debt, especially life debts. "Thank you."

She sniffed. "I have to take your vitals."

This was exactly why he tried not to injure himself, why partly he'd let his bad leg stay that way. His one weakness.

Well. Maybe one of two. Inej was seeing right through him and getting ready to object- so he moved his head noncommittally, trying not to shudder.

Kira was blessedly quick in her examinations. "Still, the knot lingers," she remarked, regarding him. "There is something you are hiding, Kaz Brekker, something you are ashamed of-or perhaps scared of-or angry at. Perhaps all three. It is like an open wound, leaking darkness instead of blood."

He was unnerved. Not even a Grisha, as far as he knew, could see into the mind so deeply.

"Kira says you have to tell us your big dark secret or the poison will eat your brain," Nina said with a grin.

He froze. Willed his voice to remain emotionless. "I have no big dark secret. Unless you're willing to hear about the various ways I've dismembered people."

The Kaelish girl stood up and stretched. "I don't want to get into the science of it, but suffice it to say that bundle of negative emotions is feeding the poison. You either cut it down, or you die. It's quite simple. Now, I am going to take a nap. Summon me if you have need." And with this she sailed out quite confidently.

No one spoke.

Kaz wished he could jump out of the window, but his muscles screamed at the slightest moment. So he slumped back, surveying them all with his flat gaze.

"Well. A pity."

Inej snorted, the first sound he'd heard from her. "Stop being such a drama queen." And she went to the window silently, hopping up on the ledge and perching there like a little bird.

Nina padded to an armchair and threw herself down. "We're waiting, Brekker."

Anytime someone had asked where he was from, he'd lie, deceive, threaten. Say he crawled from the alleys of the Barrel, out of the docks. It served him, his monstrous reputation.

But all his carefully constructed masks had already been broken. They'd seen him angry and ashamed and as close to happy as he could ever be. His reputation was worthless in front of these four people.

So Kaz spoke.