Title: Phantom
Fandom: Grishaverse (Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo)
Characters: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Rating: General Audiences
Word Count: 681
Additional Tags: Unresolved Romantic Tension
Challenge: Written for no_true_pair's 2023 Eight-Character Challenge
Prompt: September Twelve - Kaz & Inej - another trial
Summary: The Wraith comes back to Ketterdam, but she never stays for long.
Notes: Set not long after the events of Crooked Kingdom.

Read on AO3.

“The Wraith’s been spotted in Fifth Harbor.”

It’s a quiet comment made between two members of the Dregs as they head into a back room of the Crow Club, but Kaz hears it nonetheless. He stops the door from falling shut with the end of his cane but doesn’t follow them in.

“Should we tell the boss?”

“Eh, he prolly already knows.”

Kaz didn’t know, in fact. The comings and goings of the warship don’t follow any set schedule, and the captain rarely ever sends word ahead when they plan to dock in Ketterdam. If Kaz heads down to Fifth Harbor now, he could probably find what he’s looking for before the crew disperses for the night.

He lets the door swing shut and continues on his way to his office down a different corridor. There’s work to be done, money to be made. The world doesn’t stop moving just because one ship is in Ketterdam’s harbor.

It’s almost daylight before he returns to the Slat, the cramped building surprisingly quiet. Ketterdam never sleeps, and neither do the Dregs, but tonight that doesn’t seem to be holding true. Kaz stops in his office to deposit a few papers into the safe there, closing the safe door with a soft click of the lock.

“How long will you be in Ketterdam?” he asks without turning around.

A ghost slips out of the shadowy corner, and Inej sits on the edge of his desk. “Not long. Picking up some new information, dropping off a few things in return.”

Kaz finally turns to look at Inej in the weak lamplight. Her hood is down, her long hair tied tight. She looks just as she did when she left him.

(She promised she would come back.)

“There’s still work to be done,” she says, answering the unasked question. He hears the echo of himself in her words.

Kaz nods. “Of course.”

Inej hops lightly off the desk, lands in front of him, and studies his face. He doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but he hopes she finds it.

“You’re looking the same as always,” she murmurs. His coat’s a little nicer, his gloves newly made, but he’s still Kaz Brekker, cane in hand and a look in his eye that’s ten steps ahead of everyone else.

When Inej is around, he feels like he’s falling behind.

“The sea air seems to agree with you,” he replies, stiff. It should be awkward, but she smiles.

“It’s wonderful out there,” Inej says, voice full of reverence, and Kaz would give her a hundred ships to hear her speak that way again.

In a moment of pure impulse he lifts a hand to touch her cheek. He’s still wearing his gloves, but Inej lets him, completely still as she looks up at him. The distance between them shrinks despite neither of them moving.

He could kiss her, he thinks idly. Anyone else would kiss her right now, alone in the dark, the first blush of dawn beginning to peek through the windows. Maybe she would even let him. She might curl a hand around the lapel of his coat and tug him closer, keeping him thoroughly in her clutches. Her skin would be warm beneath his fingertips, and they would kiss until there was no breath left between them.

He draws his hand back from her face and doesn’t let on just how much that sad smile of hers hurts him.

“I should get back,” Inej says softly. Like she’s afraid to disturb the illusion that he’s already ruined.

“Right.” He steps back, giving her space. “Give them hell.”

She flashes him a grin and tugs her hood back up. “I always do.”

Then she’s gone, presumably back out the way she came in. Kaz puts out the lamp, the only light now coming in front outside–perhaps the same way Inej got into places, slipping through cracks and crevices.

“Be safe,” he tells the empty room. He imagines her response, puts it in the same space as the kiss that never actualized, then heads to bed.