crooked kingdom kaz/inej lines

[hyojungss]

i read crooked kingdom in september 2019 and i had all the lines highlighted already but i was so lazy so i just didn’t type them up like i did for soc. now i’m reading king of scars so i was like i really better do it but then i noticed almost all of them were for kanej lol so i can’t in good conscience call it a ck fave quotes collection, and it's also been so long since i read that i can't offer insight just the confidence that kanej is the best pairing ever T_____T
 

 

4 INEJ

“He’ll never trade if you break me!” she screamed [...] “I’ll be no use to him anymore!”

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again. Lying in the dark, she realized that for all her doubts, she’d believed he would rescue her once more, that he would put aside his greed and his demons and come for her. Now she wasn’t so sure. [...] The magic [the words had] worked had been born of belief.
 

9 KAZ

All Kaz knew was he’d invested a lot of time and money in getting his Wraith back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her again.

11 INEJ

She watched him push himself up onto the stack of bolts across from her, resting his cane beside him, but she forced her eyes back to the window, away from the precision of his movements, the taut line of his jaw. Looking at Kaz felt dangerous in a way it hadn’t before.

She realized Kaz was studying her, and turned her gaze to his. Sunlight slanted through the windows, turning his eyes the color of strong tea.

Kaz didn’t look away when he said, “Did he hurt you?”

Kaz had been clear about his arrangement with her from the beginning. Inej was an investment, an asset worthy of protection. She had wanted to believe they’d become more to each other.

I’ll be no use to him anymore. Words torn from some hidden place inside her, a truth she could not unknow. She should be glad of it. Better terrible truths than kind lies.

She let her fingers drift to the place where the mallet had brushed her leg, saw Kaz’s eyes track the movement, stopped. [...] “No. He didn’t hurt me.” Kaz leaned back, his gaze dismantling her slowly. He didn’t believe her, but she could not bring herself to try and convince him of this lie. 
 

12 KAZ

“Why the net, Kaz?” Yes, why the net? Why something that would complicate the assault he’d planned on the silos and leave them twice as open to exposure? I couldn’t bear to watch you fall.

This was them at their best, with nothing but the job between them, working together free of complications. He should leave it at that, but he needed to know. “You said Van Eck didn’t hurt you. Tell me the truth.”

“I didn’t know if you would come.” [...] “We’re your crew, Inej.” [...] It wasn’t the answer he wanted to give. It wasn’t the answer she wanted. 

“He was going to break my legs,” she said, her chin held high, the barest quaver in her voice. Would you have come for me then, Kaz? When I couldn’t scale a wall or walk a tightrope? When I wasn’t the Wraith anymore?” [...] “I would come for you,” he said, and when he saw the wary look she shot him, he said it again. “I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together...”
 

26 KAZ

“They loved me. They love me. I believe that.” He saw her draw closer in the mirror. Her black hair was an ink splash against the white tile walls. She paused behind him. “You protected me, Kaz.”

He didn’t mean to say it. He meant to let her go. “I can help you.”

She had helped him. And she’d nearly destroyed him. Maybe he should let her finish the job.

They were eye to eye now. He took a step closer and then just stood there, unable to move. He could not do this. The distance between them felt like nothing. It felt like miles.

“It isn’t easy for me either.” Her voice, low and steady, the voice that had once led him back from hell.

A pulse beat furiously at her throat, in the soft hollow just beneath her jaw. He realized she had closed her eyes. Her lashes were black against her cheeks. As if in response to his shaking, she had gone even more still. 

He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. 

The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. [...] He wanted to... He wanted.

He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story.

Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine--the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

He didn’t deserve peace and he didn’t deserve forgiveness, but if he was going to die today, maybe the one thing he’d earned was the memory of her--brighter than anything he would ever have a right to--to take with him to the other side.

“Do I have a tell?” [...] She looked slightly affronted at that. “And what’s yours?”
Kaz thought of the moment on Vellgeluk that had nearly cost him everything.
 

27 INEJ

Two of the deadliest people the Barrel had to offer and they could barely touch each other without both of them keeling over.

But in that moment, through the wide slats in the banister landing, she saw his eyes were open. His gaze found hers. He’d known she was there all along. Of course he had. He always knew how to find her. He gave the barest shake of his bloodied head.
 

30 KAZ

And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.
 

37 KAZ

Now Kaz laughed. “The trick is not to love anything, Rollins.”

“Fate has plans for us all,” Inej said quietly. 
“And sometimes fate needs a little assistance.”

She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.

“You showed mercy, Kaz. You were the better man.”
There she went again, seeking decency where there was none to be had.
 

44 INEJ

It was time to put an end to this thing that had never had a chance to begin.

Part of her wanted to draw this moment out, to be near him a while longer, listen to the rough burr of his voice, or just stand there in easy silence as they’d done countless times before. He had been so much of her world for so long. 

He looked down at his boots. “That berth belongs to you too. It will always be there when--if you want to come back.”

Inej could not speak. Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain. “I don’t know what to say.”
His bare hand flexed on the crow’s head of his cane. The sight was so strange Inej had trouble tearing her eyes from it. “Say you’ll return.”

One of his hands balanced on his cane. The other rested at his side next to her. She’d need only move the smallest amount and they would be touching. He was that close. He was that far from reach.

She understood suffering and she knew it was a place she could not follow, not unless she wanted to drown too.

Half of her was aware of his bare fingers on her sleeve, his dilated pupils, the brace of his body around hers. The other half was still trying to understand what she was seeing.

Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible. 

She started forward, then turned back to Kaz. “Come with me,” she said. “Come meet them.”

Kaz nodded as if steeling himself, flexed his fingers once more. 
“Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?”
Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair.
“That’s the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground.

Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.