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Night had fallen, and the darkness found every inch of the city of Ketterdam.
Inej avoided a lamppost, not wanting to be seen, and silently navigated her way through the dark alleyways.
It was then that she heard a voice behind her—a familiar, a rock-salt rasp.
“Wraith.”
She turned to see a boy standing behind her in a black coat, his silver cane gripped by a black gloved hand.
“How did you find me, Kaz?” Inej said, raising her eyebrows. “You always know when I’m around.”
“I see everything.” Kaz said.
Inej didn’t even bother asking for a better answer. That was always the way it was. “Are you on your way to the club?”
Kaz nodded. It was likely the club was just reaching its busiest hour. He walked on, and so Inej dropped into step beside him.
She heard a cat hissing from deep within some nearby alley.
The wind blew, and Inej shivered in the cold. She looked down at her hands, which felt frozen.
She caught Kaz looking and quickly dropped them, but he’d probably seen the blue tinge on her fingers.
“You’re freezing,” Kaz said, with a much gentler voice than Inej had expected.
“I’m not.” Inej tried, but she shivered again, and to her annoyance, her teeth chattered against the harsh wind that blew on her cheeks.
Kaz rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.” He shrugged off his coat—quickly, and with the flourish that a magician would, probably accidentally— to his black suit jacket. He offered it to her, and she tilted her head, surprised. Kaz whirled the coat around her shoulders smoothly, and her eyes widened at how close his face had been to hers, though she acted like she hadn’t even noticed.
“We have to get you a better coat,” Kaz said, and kept walking. “Yours is thinning.”
Inej put her arms through the coat and hugged it tight to her, feeling sudden warmth spreading through her. She shivered again as goosebumps rose all over her flesh. The coat was too big for her, but it was like a shield from the cold, and she buttoned it up quickly.
“Thankyou,” Inej said, her voice barely above a whisper. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Hm.”
She put her cold hands deep into the pockets. When she looked up, Kaz was already quite far away, but she caught up easily.