Kaz taps the lock. "You should try again, then."

"Yes, boss."

She gets it faster, this time. 

Good.

Time to switch, so she doesn't get too locked in on just the one.

Yeah, that slows her back down. 

As expected.

She's still a fast learner though - she's pretty solidly at 'talented amateur' on these locks at least by the end of their session. 

And she talks as she goes, tries to draw stories of times Kaz has encountered notable locks - of impressive heists in general - out of her. 

Merchers always get rich quicker than they get wise. If you keep an eye on the trading boards, you can pick up a lot of good targets. Her favorite is seeing how many times she can knock over the same house before they finally get some decent locks in- then doing it once more just to remind them who's in charge.

Her favorite things to steal are paintings. You can't beat the value to weight of a good artist. And people don't care where it's coming from, only that it's going to them. You can always flip a painting.

Though if she happens across a DeKappel, she usually keeps it for herself for a couple months. The man had an incredible eye for landscape composition.

"I've seen the works in your office. They're lovely."

Tiny smile, and - 

"I want to learn to paint like that," she says, almost like a confession. 

"You can buy a tutor, when we're rich."

"Maybe even the best possible use for my share."

"That's up to you, of course."

"And then I could make custom pieces for your pleasure house."

"You wouldn't want to sell any for yourself?"

"I think I'd like still being able to see my pieces when I want," she says, then shrugs. "And I dunno how I'll feel about selling, or how much I'll even want to do..."

"It could help pay your indenture," Kaz says quietly.

"Rate I've been going - I've got about nine and a half years left on the payment plan, and my cut would drop that by four years if I put it all towards the indenture." Inej, of course, isn't getting an even share. A hundred thousand kruge as a share is still pretty damn generous, though. (Kaz is generous with her a lot.) "And if I end up even halfway skilled - twelve or thirteen thousand kruge a year isn't odd for a good artist. So I could probably knock another one to two years off with that pretty easily. More if I get famous. And you've said I should start earning more with my missions for you soon, on top of - anything extra I bring in."

"Nine and a half years isn't - it doesn't sound bad. Not if it's with you."

(She hasn't been thinking about this explicitly yet. Just that - there's a lot of other things she could spend money on or do with her life.)

Kaz is briefly speechless.

"Well, good."

"You're a useful tax write-off, you know. Besides- everything else."

Tiny smile. "I know."

Then: "Haskell won't cause trouble for you if - I don't pay it off faster?" (The indenture is in Kaz's name - but Inej has spied more than enough to realize the Dregs' nominal true boss, Per Haskell, loaned her the money to buy Inej.)

"All Haskell cares about is a steady drip of free money to gamble with. As far as he's concerned, the longer that goes on, the better."

Nod.

"So - I'm not going to worry too much, about - paying my indenture to you down quickly."

"If- that's what you want."

She glances away extremely awkwardly. 

"It is."

Well. That's settled, then.

Good.

"Done with these locks for now?"

"I think it'll help to practice on them again tomorrow, but - yeah."

Kaz will go tidy them away, then.