Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit, and no infringement of copyright is intended. This is my first time working in this universe, so I'm hoping I get these wonderful characters right. Set post Crooked Kingdom, and Kanej all the way, baby! Enjoy!

HIGH WIRE FAIRYTALE

- Complicated -

It's Inej's mother, who sets her thinking about it.

Inej's mother, whose eyes still see everything, and whose mind is still as taut and direct as the tightrope she walked in her youth.

They're sitting in her caravan, drinking tea and exchanging gossip after another three months at sea when Mama asks, far too casually, after Kaz.

How is he? Has he been in touch since they met him? Has he been to visit Inej on The Wraith?

Despite herself, Inej feels her cheeks heat. She tells herself she doesn't know why.

She tries to hide it by pouring more tea, but of course her mother notices. (She always does.)

"Has he… Have you had a falling out?" Mama asks gently and Inej shakes her head, unsure why her mother's tone is making her uncomfortable.

"He has business to attend to, Mama," she points out. The words seem stilted. "And getting letters to me at sea is difficult: I have to be careful who knows of my movements."

Her mother nods. "Because of what you do now. Of course." The words sound curt, but they are not meant that way. Inej knows that her mother approves, somewhat, of her daughter's calling: she lost a child to slavers, after all, and few parents got the happy reunion that she had.

She also raised her daughter to stand up for what she believes.

But her mother is also clearly curious about what her daughter went through in Ketterdam, and the part Kaz Brekker may have played in it. While Papa is determined in his efforts to avoid talking about what happened to Inej in the years between her disappearance and their reunion, her mother is anxious to do so. Inej thinks it's because she wants to show her daughter that it doesn't matter to her what she had done to survive. She wants her to know that she is still her little girl. The only problem with that being that Inej isn't ready to talk with her mother, not about Tante Heleen or her life as The Wraith, and certainly not to talk about Kaz Brekker…

There are still so many elements of her life with The Dregs that she doesn't know how to explain.

And so they ended up with moments like this, Inej thinks, awkward moments where her mother- with the best of intentions- tries to pry and Inej, with the best of intentions, tries to discourage her.

Where are Jasper and Nina when you need them? She muses. They would have provided excellent cover for her, by now.

At the thought of her friends Inej feels a pang, the pain of their loss still fresh. While she might see Jasper whenever she goes back to Ketterdam, she suspects that she might never see Nina again. The Saints only know what losing Matthias had done to her. Her mother must read her expression because she reaches out and takes her hand. Squeezes it.

"I am sure that wherever he is," she says softly, "he still thinks of you, my love."

Inej blinks, surprised. "I'm not thinking about Kaz," she says quietly.

Her mother cocks an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Inej shoots her the sort of look which made Ketterdam criminals quail. It merely makes her mother smile. "I am quite capable of living my life without Kaz Brekker, mother," she says primly, at which her mother's smile widens.

"I do not doubt it, daughter," she says. "The question is: do you want to?"

She frowns. "I don't know."

It's only when the words fall out of her mouth that she realizes they're true, just as she realizes she wanted to speak them. She meets her mother's eyes and the older woman leans back, waiting. She is prepared, Inej realizes, to let her take her time. Her own words rattle around inside her brain: the question of Kaz and her feelings for him have sat sat crouching on her heart like a toad ever since she left Ketterdam, and she's no closer to having an answer now than she was then. Perhaps she should at least try to discuss her feelings with someone besides NIna. The heart is an arrow, she remembers her own words from long ago: It requires aim to land true.

But when it comes to Kaz Brekker, her sense of aim always seems to abandon her.

"Would it help to know that we would approve?" Her mother asks in the silence, and when Inej rushes to say that she's not even thinking that far ahead, the older woman shakes her head. "I don't mean as a husband, though we would be happy to have him," she says. "I mean in… other ways."

Inej looks at her warily. She knows well the traditional Suli opinion of relationships outside of marriage. "Such as?"

Her mother's eyes are so understanding, it hurts a little to look at them.

"Such as… Any way you want." When Inej tries to speak over her, she hurries on. "I've heard the stories," she says quietly. "I know why you were taken, and what sort of place you were sold to." She squeezes her daughter's hand in sympathy, but it doesn't take the sting out of the words. "If you- If you found a way out, and if Kaz was that way out, then I wouldn't blame you-"

"Don't ever speak of him like that again."

Inej doesn't know where the depth of anger in the words comes from, she just knows it's somewhere deep. For a moment she is reminded of Per Haskell, and when she had to persuade him not to smash her legs. That same helpless rage bubbles up inside her.

Her mother stares at her in horror: she's never heard her speak that way before.

"I meant no disrespect," she stammers, and for a moment she stares at her daughter as if she's a stranger.

For a moment Inej feels like she is.

But then she sighs. Stands. Tries to marshall her temper. Her mother is trying to help, she reminds herself. She couldn't know how little Kaz has in common with the people she was sold to. She doesn't. And she is seeking reassurance, perhaps, in the lack of knowing what Inej went through.

It is just her mother's way.

Taking a deep breath, Inej forces herself to sit down and take the older woman's hands.

She did not rediscover her parents after all these years, only to lose one of them now.

"Kaz wasn't a client," she says softly. She meets her mother's eyes. "Kaz never would have been a client, believe me."

Her mother frowns. "So you mean he likes boys-"

Inej is well aware that he probably does, (she had seen how he looked at Jasper) but she is not discussing Kaz's business with her mother. "No, I mean that he doesn't use the houses," she says. "Not ever. He wouldn't, even before-" She checks herself, reminds herself what her parents do and do not know about his business. "Even before The Crow Club," she finishes, because that seems safe, "Kaz didn't use the houses."

"So you weren't..?"

Inej shakes her head. "Never. And he certainly didn't do everything he has for me because we were… Because we were like that." She grimaces at the thought. "Kaz has always treated me as a person, not a thing to be bought," she says softly. "That… That is why I care about him."

She can't bring herself to be more graphic than that. She prays to her Saints that her mother won't ask her to be.

"So he wasn't..?"

"He wasn't."

Her mother taps her lip. "And yet he clearly thinks the world of you," she says.

Despite everything, Inej feels a little puff of joy at the words.

"I hope so," she says quietly.

She does not add that she thinks the world of him.

Her mother squeezes her hand. "So, are you and he..?"

Mercifully, she doesn't elaborate.

Inej shrugs, unsure how to respond. "We're… friends," she says softly. "At least, I believe we are. We- He-" She sighs. "It's complicated," she says, aware that this might be the understatement of the century.

Her mother snorts in wry amusement and Inej looks at her askance.

"I rather thought it might be." She smiles slightly. "He had the look of a complicated one- Just like your father." And before Inej can say anything else she stands. Walks over to a corner of the caravan and pulls out something. It turns out to be a small flagon of shavra, the sweet brandy which Suli mothers sometimes share over a game of cards.

The scent of it immediately brings Inej back to her childhood.

She looks at it in surprise- it's something only shared between adult, married women, she knows- but before she can say anything more her mother pours her a nip into the lid and hands it to her. "Sometimes it helps loosen the tongue," she says softly. Again her eyes soften, so painful Inej doesn't want to look at them. "And sometimes it helps loosen the heart… Perhaps that would help."

Cautiously, Inej sniffs the liquid then takes a sip. It burns as it slides down her throat, but it doesn't taste anything like the alcohol in Tante Heleen's, nor any of the other drinks in Ketterdam.

It tastes sweet, like home. Like it's hers.

For some reason, Kaz's tea-brown eyes flash into her head and she tries to push the image away.

"You won't tell Papa?" She asks and her mother shakes her head.

"You think he wants to know we're having this conversation?" She asks, and Inej must admit that's true.

So she sits down and takes another sip of her shavra. Shares some with her mother.

Slowly, slowly, she starts talking about what she feels for Kaz Brekker, and what she hopes he feels for her.

Her mother merely listens, holding her hand long into the night.