Chapter Text
prologue
Every letter sent to Kaz during Inej’s first voyage on the Wraith contains a small, colored stone. Each one is frosted, not quite opaque, in a slightly different shade of green or blue or amber, the color palette of a sunset on the sea.
Kaz isn’t quite sure what to make of Inej’s hobby, but he dutifully collects them in a little glass jar he keeps locked in his desk and often thinks of a treasure far more valuable than jewels or coins.
When she finally returns to him, she finds the jar within minutes, his welcome thief, and he can finally ask her what they are.
“It’s sea glass,” she tells him happily, tilting her head toward the colorful array now spread out on his bed. “A bottle could be broken in Ketterdam, tossed into the harbor in a dozen crooked, cutthroat pieces. But after a couple of decades, after it’s been tumbled by the waves and worn soft by the salt, it might be spit back out on a shore somewhere, smooth and shiny and more beautiful than ever before.”
Kaz pauses for a moment and thinks. He thinks about his own crooked pieces tossed into a Ketterdam harbor and battered by the sea, and wonders what came out when he reached the shore—something crueler, perhaps, something sharper than before. What could it possibly be worth?
Inej runs her fingers over the smoothness of the stones, admiring their color, feeling their shape. “I found one for you at every beach where we dropped anchor. I love them.”
But perhaps, Kaz thinks, the waters aren’t done with him yet. Perhaps he’d find some kinder, distant shore, and Inej would meet him there amidst all the lovely, broken things.
“Yes,” Kaz chuckles, sliding his hand under her own, scattered sea glass beneath them. “You would love them, wouldn’t you?”