Giggle blush. 

Ah, there's the smile she likes.

Kaz can have even more smile then! 

Good.

Though theoretically they do have a time-sensitive mission to plan.

...Where were they? 

If getting Nina involved would lock them into arranging for an outcome favorable to Ravka.

Right. 

Well - Inej thinks Nina's loyalties are a bit more split than Nina herself might realize. She's at a minimum staying here to help her Fjerdan, rather than returning to Ravka - she might be willing to take a neutral option, that neither harms nor helps her home country. 

True. And it's not as though they have a lot of other options lined up, either.

Especially for a way into the Ice Court.

They're going in eyes open, at least. That's something.

"I'm thinking also about not telling Jesper and Jana about the mission until after we've got Nina and her Fjerdan locked down. They'll be quick to load up, and they're pretty likely to accept."

"Makes sense, yeah. Keep the secret closer."

"Less time it could leak in."

"Start that first thing tomorrow, then."

"Use tonight to plan and then sleep on it?"

"Best way to do it."

They have a lot of details to go over then, plus contingencies...

And their first order of business in the morning will be recruiting Nina and verifying the Hellshow schedules - the rest can fall into place pretty quickly...

If Inej can take care of Nina, Kaz will see to the rest.

Sounds like a good split. 

Once dawn starts to threaten - before most potential customers will be out and about, after most have gone to bed - Inej slips out of the Slat, up West Stave until she reaches the Crow Club - and the Rookery, the brothel they've ended up more or less integrating into it. The club now dominates the block, its moody and harsh black and crimson color scheme broken up only by oxidized silver crows - an enormous one with its wings spread over the entrance, small renditions of the Dregs' tattoo (a crow drinking out of a nearly empty wine glass) at the employee entrances in the back alley, two women with crows' wings wrapped around them flanking the side door that goes straight into the brothel, nearly invisible in the gloom cast by the deep portico, windows with black-painted glass and heavy crimson shutters on the rooms over the portico...

Inej, of course, takes one of the many rooftop entrances, slipping through a small window crowned by a crow in flight into one of the 'nests' for her and her spiderlings, places where the only clear access is from the rooftops.

If you don't know about the trap doors, of course, built nearly seamlessly into the floor. Inej slips into the crawl spaces she'd asked Kaz to build in when remodeling, making her way quickly to where she can drop into the room next to Nina's. She raps on the wall between them - a bit of decorative paneling that hides both a peep-hole and a door.

The door slides open. Nina is, as ever, fashionably en deshabille without quite toeing over the line into outright lewdity. That's not the service she gets paid to provide.

"Miss Ghafa. You're up late."

"More like early; I already slept." She nods to the room past Nina. "May I come in?"

"Of course." She steps aside.

She waits for the door to shut behind her, and glances around, listening for the tell-tale signs of any of her spiderlings or other curious parties trying to listen in. (Inej usually knows when she's being watched.)

Once she's satisfied that they're alone: "We've got a mission for you - and for your girl."

"My girl?"

"Helvar," she says.