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There are coffee shops here that he likes. It's not Ketterdam - it never will be Ketterdam - but, between them, he and Inej are starting to construct a life that makes sense here. Last night was a particularly late one; Inej hadn't come in off the roof until dawn was staining the sky and, as a result, Kaz finds himself a little slow to start. He's sitting at an outside table at one of the coffee shops he likes best, a double espresso at his elbow and a cigarette between two gloved fingers as he idly reads the paper.

Maybe later, he'll be useful. Maybe.
What he's finding is that it doesn't matter as much here as it used to.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selkiesaoirse

Saoirse is carrying a small cup of cocoa as she looks for a table. Most grownups seem to like sitting outside, though, and all of the tables are full, except for one, where a grownup is sitting by himself.

She walks over to him and stops, stood only an arm's length away.

"Hello," she offers. "May I sit here? Please?" She remembers to use her manners, because now that she can speak, Miss Clara is always telling her that manners are Important.

From:

everymonstrousthing

The little voice startles him; he can't conceive, for a moment, that she might be speaking to him. Life in the Barrel wasn't devoid of children but it was a certain kind of child who survived being thrown into that kind of mess. Kaz, for one, would know. He looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

She certainly is very small.

"You don't have somewhere else to sit?"

From:

selkiesaoirse

She blinks at him, perhaps a bit startled at the question. Then she looks around. "All the other tables are full," she explains. She sets her cocoa on the table, climbs up into a chair without waiting to be told it was okay.

From:

everymonstrousthing

And that was him told, he supposed. There's something about her, small as she is, that reminds him of Inej. He feels an answering blossom of warmth, or something approaching kindness. He picks up his own coffee and takes a sip.

"Do you have a name?"

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Saoirse," she offers. "What's yours?" She seems pleased with herself, and pulls her cup closer so she can sip at it. The person had made sure that it wasn't too hot to drink, so she doesn't have to wait before having any.

Saoirse loves cocoa too much to wait.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Kaz," he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts, twitches in amusement. "Kaz Brekker." The bastard of the Barrel, the deadliest boy in Ketterdam who is now, apparently, content to drink coffee with small girls. He lifts his own coffee and takes a sips. He's got cookies on a plate and, after a moment's hesitation, he pushes the plate towards her. "Are you supposed to be somewhere?" he asks. "With someone?"

Just because he learned to fend for himself doesn't mean that everyone has to.

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Miss Clara's here somewhere," Saoirse confesses. "But she doesn't mind that I wander off anymore." She'd used to hate it, Saoirse knows, but she's such a curious little girl that Miss Clara has simply resigned herself to the fact that Saoirse won't be penned in.

She pulls the sippy-cup lid off her cocoa and dunks a cookie into it, right up to her tiny fingertips. Then she pulls it out and takes an enormous, soggy bite.

From:

everymonstrousthing

Dirtyhands is still there, an echo, prowling in the back of his head, but it's impossible not to become a different, warmer thing, when he watches her enjoying something so simple so thoroughly. He sets his own coffee down again, adjusting the cup precisely with gloved fingers.

"Is it good?"

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Yes, thank you," she says sincerely. She licks the crumbs from her fingers, then grabs another cookie to repeat the motion. "D'you want some?" she asks seriously. She's perfectly willing to share, even though Ben never shared.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"I have my coffee," he says, gesturing to the cup inf ront of him with one gloved hand. "But thank you." He smiles. "Children don't share where I come from."

From:

selkiesaoirse

Saoirse blinks. "They don't?" she asks. "Did their mums and dads never teach them manners?" She eats her second soggy cookie and almost loses a few chunks of it into her cocoa, but she doesn't rush to catch them. She'll get them eventually!

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Most of the children I know don't have parents," he says, picking up his cup again. "Barrel boys aren't born, not like you probably were. We hatch in the harbour and pull ourselves out." He shrugs, like it's nothing. Like it wasn't a feat of sheer will just to survive in a place like Ketterdam.

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Like birds?" she asks, looking up at him with that simple, innocent curiosity. "My mum died when I was born. Dad doesn't talk about it, because it makes him sad. Sometimes, I think she's not really dead. She's a selkie, like me. So maybe she just has to stay in the water. Did you hatch, too?"

From:

everymonstrousthing

"I hatched," he says, because it's as good an explanation for what happened to Kaz Reitvald as anything. "I'm a Barrel boy through and through." He sips his espresso. "What's a selkie?"

From:

selkiesaoirse

"I am," she answers simply. "Why are you called a Barrel boy? Is your egg shaped like a barrel?"

From:

everymonstrousthing

"The Barrel is the place that I'm from," says Kaz, which is a lie, but she's small and isn't to know. "It's a part of a city called Ketterdam. The Barrel, and the Lid, and the harbour." He smiles again; she seems to bring it out in him. "That doesn't really tell me what a selkie is."

From:

selkiesaoirse

She giggles. "I'm a faerie," she clarifies. "I can turn into a seal!" She looks quite proud of herself for that fact.

From:

everymonstrousthing

That, at least, is enough to give Kaz pause. He takes a sip of his coffee and then sets his cup down again.

"We have magic where I come from," he says, thinking of Nina. "But nothing like that."

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Macha's owls were trying to take me," she says. "They didn't like that I could wake up all the faeries with my song."

From:

everymonstrousthing

It sounds like a child's story, made up, but Kaz has seen stranger things than a lot of people. And the way she tells it, like it's nothing.

"And here you are," he says, picking up a cookie of his own between gloved fingers. "Is it better or worse?"

From:

selkiesaoirse

"I don't know," Saoirse admits. "Ben isn't here, or Cu or Dad, or na daoine sidhe. But Macha isn't, either, or her owls." Saoirse rubs a hand down the sleeve of her coat. "I don't know if it's better or worse."

From:

everymonstrousthing

"It's better than where I used to live," he says. He finished his coffee and, after a moment's hesitation, gestures for another. "Easier."

From:

selkiesaoirse

Saoirse watches him, and then says sincerely, "Then I'm glad you're here." She smiles over at him and lifts her cocoa to take a sip of it.

From:

everymonstrousthing

Kaz thinks about that for a moment. She might be small but that doesn't mean that the things that she says don't merit consideration.

"Me too," he says. "I have people here."

From:

selkiesaoirse

"I like having people," she agrees. She sips her cocoa happily. "People are good." She swings her little feet as she sits there, watching him. "Why were you alone before I came to this table?"

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Because my people were off doing other things," he says, watching her swing her feet. "That's what adults do. They do things in their own time." He shrugs. "Inej was still asleep when I left her. She stays up late."

From:

selkiesaoirse

"Don't you get lonely?" she asks. Somehow, she manages to pull of curious, sad, and nonjudgmental all at once, watching him with her big, dark eyes.

From:

everymonstrousthing

"Not with Inej around," he says, shaking her head. "She's all that I need." He shrugs, smiling a little. It's crooked but true. "I left her sleeping, but I stayed up last night until she came home."