Inej felt Kaz with her no matter how far she sailed from Ketterdam: She felt him as she stood at the wheel of the ship he had bought her and remembered the shape of his hand in hers as they had stood in Fifth Harbor looking at her ship; she felt him each time she withdrew his knife to splice ropes (a lesser purpose than he had intended it for, but surely he would not mind that now); she felt him as she climbed the rigging of her ship, laughing to herself that it was a miracle he hadn’t had the ship fitted with a net beneath the rigging.

She heard his voice in her head, warning her to have backup plan—several, ideally, and several more after that—as she planned with Specht and her crew how they would attack their next target, and she could imagine the furrow in his brow as she steered her ship headlong into danger and justice.

She had been at his side too long to cleanly extricate herself from him—and she didn’t want to: Kaz Brekker was as much a part of her as her knives or proverbs, and everything he had taught her had molded her into the capable and feared captain she was, the Wraith released from the shadows and transformed into an instrument of justice.