[Or just be absolutely blunt with him— both have potential to be useful in conversations with the likes of Kaz Brekker. Depends on the day and the situation which tactic works best.]
It isn’t. No one else knows exactly the way it feels, when he turns his attention on you and gets suave with his words and starts making grand, sweeping speeches tailored specifically to you.
[Which isn’t this exact case, but she knows Jesper has been in the receiving end of Kaz doing this— and something with some flirtatious edge? Well, that’s just specifically tailored, grand, sweeping speech on a smaller scale, isn’t it?
And from anyone else, it would just sound like talk. The right thing to say in the moment to twist things just enough to get it tilted all in his favor. But he isn’t anyone else, and Inej knows there is no one else but the two of them that know.
So, no, it doesn’t strike her as a weird thing to ask. Who else could he go to about the likes of Kaz Brekker, anyway?]
Oh Saints you do understand. That is exactly what it felt like for a minute.
[ And since she knows Jesper, she knows that it would unsettle him, throw him. He's gone all this time without special attention from Kaz, although there has been. He's his second, there is trust and affection between them, but it's different when there's an undercurrent of flirting. ]
I'd say 'not in danger yet' but my city managed to stay independent during wars around us just fine. Neutrality can work.
[ Although he's fairly certain Fjedra will just bang them down next, but that's neither here nor there. ]
I know, I'm just worried about Mat. We've been leaning into these separated lovers by war thing, but it doesn't change he's trapped in a castle with violent royalty with a tendency to throw Summoned into prison.
[ He may not have outwardly admitted to being so involved with someone, he always seems so cheerful and flirtatious to everyone, but few people know that he has a close attachment to Mat. ]
[A light tease lobbed his way- a break in that blink of something chest-tight and anxious. She doesn't have to wonder if he'll pick up on it, because he's him.
There is no diminishing his experience, here, though: She doesn't flip it around as a holier-than-thou sort of move, only as a perspective to hold up against his own.
The way Kaz cares for people is always specific and tailored. His attention to detail, no matter how small or throwaway a comment might be in the moment of a conversation, makes the whole thing more intense.]
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