Sometimes she wondered if she’d made a mistake leaving her friends in Ketterdam. She missed Inej’s stillness, the knowledge that she could say anything to her without fear of recrimination. She missed Jesper’s laughing ways and Wylan’s sweetness. She even missed Kaz’s ruthlessness. Saints, it would have been a relief to hand over this whole mess to the bastard of the Barrel. He’d have sussed out Vadik Demidov’s origins, raided the Fjerdan treasury, and placed himself on the throne in the time it took Nina to braid her hair. On second thought, probably best Kaz wasn’t here.
