Six of Crows: Six of Crows (Book 1)

He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to … I want you.”

I can hear the change in Kaz’s breathing when he looks at you.”
“You … you can?”
“It catches every time, like he’s never seen you before.”

“Stay,” he said, his voice rough stone. “Stay in Ketterdam. Stay with me.”

Instead, in that moment of threat, when he should have thought only of the fight, he looked at Inej.
And Van Eck saw it. He blew on his whistle. “Leave the others! Get the money and the girl.”

all he could think of was Inej. She had to live. She had to have made it out of the Ice Court. And if she hadn’t, then he had to live to rescue her.
The ache in his lungs was unbearable. He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.

She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.

m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he’d promised her so long ago.

Inej fell, plunging toward the sand. Kaz ran toward her without logic or plan.

I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl.

The ache in his lungs was unbearable. He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.