Natasha Van Doren is a shadow summoner. She bides her time and resides in darkness, feared and esteemed by Ketterdam's civilians, a ghost . She cons Kaz Brekker into joining a heist he can't refuse and with thirty million kruge on the line, the crow...
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"WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?"
Kaz Brecker didn't spare NatashaVanDorena glance as he dragged her by the wrist down the sleepless streets of Ketterdam. Pleasure houses thronged with drunk men. Children kicked tin cans down the alley for entertainment. The final few flocks of ships were trailing into the harbour. Under the sunless sky of darkness, the capital was alive.
"Away."
His crow cane stabbed into the ground with each step. Kaz Brekker would listen for Natasha's uneven footsteps and grinned with each curse she hissed beneath her breath.
"Rietveld, I will murder you,"
"Not if I get there first, Darkling," he proclaimed through gritted teeth.
Kaz rounded up the high street, kicking through the swinging wood gates, and into a dim-lit café. His gloved hand immediately dropped Natasha's wrist as he turned towards Mariam.
The owner wore a bedraggled grey cardigan and was encircled by a cluster of children who looped their fingers through the torn threads. She pushed them into the back room gently before turning towards Kaz.
"What do you want?" Kaz's voice rasped, turning back to Natasha. His tone was laced with annoyance and impatience. Natasha took it as an invitation to waste as much time as possible.
His gloved hands traced across the rows of buttered rolls and decorated cakes behind the glass cabinet. Natasha could hardly believe the sight before her. TheKaz Brekker, the bastard of the barrel, scouring a café for baked goods, let alone offering.
Jordie would have laughed at the sight of them. Natasha's stomach turned painfully at the memory of the elder Rietveld brother.
"I'd rather be poisoned,"
"Very well, One hot coffee, with three sugars and cream." Kaz Brekker spoke whilst sliding a collection of kruge across the countertop. His hand rested atop the head of his cane, an unwavering monument of support, almost an additional limb.
Several moments later, Mariam delivered Kaz his coffee before following after her children, leaving the two in tortured silence.
The single coffee glass stood in the middle of the table. Kaz reached across the counter and grabbed the silver sugar pot, and stirred additional teaspoons of sugar into his coffee.
"Stop doing that," Natasha hissed. She knocked his palm off the glass with the back of her hand and drew the glass towards her. Before he could steal it back, her dark lips were around the rim, draining half the mug of its frothy contents.
"Was ordering coffee with your sugar necessary?" She grimaced, staring at the dregs of the undissolved sugar.
She was one of the few who knew of Kaz Brekker's unmistakable sweet tooth. Cakes, coffees, cream buns, whatever he could get his thieving hands on.
