Kanej

Kanej is the het ship between Kaz Brekker and Inej Ghafa from the Grishaverse fandom.

Six of Crows
Before the start of Six of Crows, Kaz and Inej first met during her time in the Menagerie. Tante Heleen, the owner of the Menagerie where abused and harassed Inej, and prevented her escape. Desperate for any assistance, she attempted to offer Kaz information, whispering, "I can help you," which manages to Kaz off guard. Later the next night, Kaz shows up to buy Inej's indenture on behalf of Per Haskell, the boss of the Dregs at the time. Kaz offers her a place among the Dregs, calling her "dangerous", convinced that her ability to turn practically "invisible" would be invaluable to the gang. Kaz tells Inej never to sneak up on him again, and although Inej tries afterward, Kaz seems to have mastered the art of seeing her.

Kaz gifted her first blade, Sankt Petyr, which Inej compared to wild geraniums, her mother's favorite flower and something her father always left for her mother. Sometime during Inej's first year with the Dregs, Kaz had caught Inej feeding the crows on the roof, and for a moment, he was transported back to his childhood, sure that magic existed. When Inej finally decided to join the Dregs, she didn't take the tattoo when given the choice. When questioned by Nina, Inej says that "He [Kaz] said it was my choice, that he wouldn't be the one to mark me again."

At the start of Six of Crows, Kaz is offered a job and invites Inej to join his ragtag crew to break into the Ice Court. However, on the way to the harbor, Inej is severely wounded by Oomen. Kaz comes to her rescue and brutally blinds Oomen in one eye and tosses him into the sea. During this, Kaz is acting incredibly irrationally, shaken by the situation. The other characters, most notably Nina and Jesper, take notice of Kaz's peculiar, irrational behavior during this, both attributing it to something romantic. Inej brushes this off, as Kaz called her an "investment" and "replaceable" earlier.

However, despite Kaz's attempts to distance himself from Inej by being a massive jerk, he still feels the need to confide in her, looking for any excuse to talk to her. He tries getting her to say she believes in him because he trusts her judgment. By far, Inej is the crew member he depends on the most, going as far as to reveal the fact that "Pekka Rollins killed my brother," to her. Annoyed at himself for telling Inej this, Kaz tries to justify it to himself - convincing himself that he doesn't want Inej”; he just wants their routine back.

During their wagon ride to the prison, Inej is the only one of the crew to notice Kaz’s ragged breathing and to hear him faint due to his haphephobia. Her voice is the sound that brought him back from his nightmare, grounding him. Kaz is embarrassed about this, but he knows that out of anyone, it was best it was Inej. His trust in Inej is so great that he knows that Inej would never betray his greatest weakness, his “shame”, to anyone. When he enters the prison, he worries about Inej, trying to convince himself she’d be fine.

While Inej gets ready to disguise herself, she reveals to Kaz her plan to leave the Dregs to hunt slavers; he remarks that Inej was always too good for the barrel. He tries to tell her something, but he stops himself. Inej waits for the words, but they never come. She cupped her hand to Kaz’s skin, the first time they’d ever touched skin-to-skin, and she understood this was the best he could offer. Despite her feelings for him, she knew her path led away from him.

When Kaz is drowning, he tries to think of revenge, but instead, he thinks of Inej. He recalls the memories of her fondly. He realizes that he needs to be honest and open with Inej. That, despite her being completely out of his league, he could at least try to “pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her.” He realizes that he relies heavily on Inej.

On their way back to Ketterdam, Kaz tries to convince Inej to stay in Ketterdam, to stay with him. But Inej recognizes that this is too little, too late. Kaz turns away, frustrated. She waits - quietly begs for Kaz to speak, to try. He stays silent, and Inej leaves.

Kaz gets into a fight with Van Eck after the merch double-crossed him. At first, the merchant ordered his guards to “kill everyone but Brekker” but then Kaz instinctively looked for Inej to see if she was alright. Van Eck saw and shifted his attention to Inej. Kaz tries to keep his composure, but the Squallers end up taking Inej captive. At the end of Six of Crows, Kaz is determined to rescue Inej.

Crooked Kingdom
At the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Kaz is seen especially sensitive and angry towards most of the Crows, and the rest of the crew imply he is behaving like that because of Inej being kidnapped. His uneasiness is specially shown in a scene in where, after kidnapping Alys Van Eck, who is pregnant, Wylan argues with Kaz, attempting to tell him Inej wouldn’t want them to torture her. Kaz immediately snaps at this accusation and shoves Wylan against a tomb on Black Veil. He then strides off into the graveyard and when Jesper goes to help Wylan up, the sharpshooter tells the merchiling its “best not to mention Inej if you feel like continuing to live”.

While being kidnapped, Inej is also shown to have her own reluctancy towards her feelings for Kaz, considering that he may not come back for her. The fact that they’re close to the deadline Van Eck set for the exchange between her and Kuwei doesn’t help her thoughts either. When she tries to escape and gets caught by Van Eck, the merchant threatens to break her legs with a mallet. To avoid this, Inej screams at him: “He’ll never trade if you break me” in reference to Kaz. This makes Van Eck reconsider hurting her, and this realization hurts Inej deeply and makes her even more unsure about him coming back for her.

When the exchange happens at the West Stave, Kaz notices Inej and is immediately worried about her well-being, but restrains his body and his emotions to avoid focusing on her. The moment he sees that Inej is bound in both hands and ankles, he felts a rage inside of him, the thought of killing Van Eck crossing his mind. After doing the exchange and seeing that Van Eck has put the Stadwatch on them, Kaz starts cutting her ropes with an oyster knife, then passes it to her while picking her shackles, to then see a Stadwatch member die by Inej’s hands. Immediately after that, they go to a flower boat on the West Side of the canal. Kaz then throws a flat of genaniums into the canal, grabs the costumes the Crows gathered for the exchange and sweeps a red cloak around Inej’s shoulders, while geranium petals rain on her. At this, Inej startles, telling him that it’s her mother’s favorite flower. He then says he is glad that Van Eck didn’t cure her of sentiment, and they greet each other back. Seconds after, they go off the canal, and while running between all the Mister Crimson peasants arguing with the stadwatch, Inej laughs. Kaz then thinks he’d never heard her laugh like that. He then thinks he sure won’t lose Inej again, and they both go off the Stave in tandem.

Later, they both go to the warehouse district and get into an abandoned linen storehouse. They rest in a room full of bolts of linen, and Kaz gives Inej a bit of food and water. Inej then restrains herself of looking at Kaz, believing that the bare glimpse of him is “dangerous”, still thinking about the mallet situation. He then asks her if Van Eck hurt her, which Inej denies dryly, not feeling completely secure in sharing the details. She reminds herself that he may just see her as an “investment”, acknowledging that Van Eck had robbed her of the illusion that she and Kaz may have become more to each other than just a business relationship. She notices that Kaz doesn’t believe her when she answers him, but then he leaves to see business at the silos and tells her to rest there since it’s safe. Inej then dozes off, thinking she can at least trust him on that.

While meeting everyone back, Kaz tells her the work she has to do at the silos, telling there is going to be a net down them, a fact that Inej doesn’t like at all since she doesn’t work with one. Not long after, the two of them are alone in the cemetery of Black Veil, and she asks him again why the net. He thinks to himself that he couldn’t bear to watch her fall, to then say that he went to a lot of trouble to get her back, so he didn’t want her cracking his skull the next day. She then tells him he did so because he “protects his investments”, while feeling resigned. After that they both decide to go meet Per Haskell and inspect Van Eck’s house.

During the meeting with an angry Per Haskell, the boss of the Dregs manages to negotiate with Kaz, allowing him to keep his plan going, on the condition Inej stays with him, since that her contract is on his name. Kaz doesn’t allow this, saying the issue can wait. Inej then disappears from the scene and Kaz tells Haskell that as soon as he finds her, he’ll let her know she has a job to do. Since Per Haskell had seen Inej when they both arrived to meet him, he is shocked at the fact she is gone. At this, Kaz has to force himself to not smile. Haskell then tells him to bring her back, and that she doesn’t belong to him, to which Kaz answers that she doesn’t belong to anyone.

Then, they go back to the boat, and Inej insists she can handle the surveillance alone. He stays with her nonetheless, and she suggests they may get good eyes at Van Eck’s house from the Church of Barter. The cathedral has a lot of stairs so it’s not an easy climb for Kaz, so Inej tells him he doesn’t have to come up, but he ignores this. When they get to the vantage point in which the Van Eck’s house is reachable, Inej draws a rope and tells him to give her half an hour to do the inspection by herself. He then angrily says she made him climb for nothing. She then answers that his pride dragged him up there. Then she says her future is on the line and that she doesn’t tell him how to do his job, so he should as well do the same for her. After that Kaz curses her and all her Saints, while smiling at the fact that she has outsmarted him.

After her inspection, they go back to Black Veil. While already on the island, Kaz knows that they’re both at their best when they just talk about the job between them, but then again he insists on asking her if Van Eck did something to her. Inej struggles to find the answer. She then tells her the whole mallet ordeal, which makes Kaz angry in a matter of seconds. The boy then promises her than he will make Van Eck suffer, and after this, Inej confesses to him that she wasn’t sure if he would come to save her. Kaz acknowledges to himself that he helped to build that doubt on her too, feeling guilty. Inej then asks him if he would have come for her if her legs had been broken, to which he says that he even would have gone for her crawling.

Later, when Inej has climbed the silos, she finds herself reflecting on her time at the Menagerie and the physical and psychological trauma it implied. She remembers when she told Kaz that she will have him without armor, and wonders what would have happened if he had shown her some part of his heart on that occasion. Inej even doubts that she herself would have shown him a degree of passionate affection, feeling that she may have broken if he had tried to kiss her, implying that she neither would have dropped her own armor in the process.

At pretty much the same time, when Wylan and Kaz are breaking into Van Eck’s house, Wylan asks Kaz if he would trust someone with the knowledge of a secret that could destroy him, the merchling referring to his dyslexia. Kaz then thinks without much hesitation that there is one person he would trust, feeling sure that that one person would never use his weaknesses against him. Her name is not explicitly said but it’s pretty obvious he is referring to Inej and the fact that she is the only person that knows about his haphephobia. Then, when Pekka Rollins catches them red handed, the man tells Kaz that he has prepared something “special” for the Wraith, aluding to Dunyasha. Kaz suddenly feels a sick sensation in his stomach, thinking about how confident she was about the idea of not working with a net, and trying to assimilate that their plan was busted.

After this altercation, both Wylan and Kaz go to find Inej and Nina at the silos. When both boys arrive, Nina notices that Kaz’s pacing is unreleting and then she glances at Inej and Kaz and sees them wearing the same expression, an expression which she describes as “the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore”.

Not long after meeting with the crows in the hotel where Jesper’s father is staying, Kaz goes to find Inej and encounters her in the bathroom. He takes his gloves off and washes his face, and they both talk about the situation with the Dregs. Kaz asks her to map the fastest route to the Slat. Inej helps him with this, and then Kaz hands her the contract of her indenture to Per Haskell, telling her she is free and he doesn’t want her beholden to him. She is completely surprised and thankful at that.

The conversation leads to Inej talking about her parents and Kaz is marveled that she still can see the good in people while she talks about her family. She then tells him she protected him, at which Kaz answers negatively, alluding to the fact that she is bleeding through her bandages. Inej then tells him she needs Nina to fix that, but Kaz suddenly asks if he can help her. He feels unsure about the situation, worried about his aversion to touch while he takes care of her wounds. When he touches her skin, he feels water numbing his senses, feeling shameful. At this, Inej tells her that since her time at the Menagerie, she also has her own share of problems with touching, and doing it isn’t easy for her either. This helps Kaz come back to reality. He then loops a bandage towards one of her arms, fighting with his sickness and his weaknesses while being extremely close to her. Next thing he knows, his lips hover above the union of Inej’s shoulder and neck, to then brush her skin directly. At this, Kaz feels overwhelmed, first with desire and then with repulsion, which makes him get away from her. She then approaches him and Kaz stops her, an action that makes her wonder about his past. He talks about what he did to everybody who conned him and Jordie, telling her how he will never get peace in his life. Inej then says people don’t ask for forgiveness, they earn it, while talking about her motivations behind her plans to hunt slavers. Kaz takes a long look at her, and then grabs his gloves and tells her to survive the mess he got them into. When leaving to face his gang at the Barrel, he asks her to not follow him if she cared about him.

Inej follows him, reflecting on her own relationship with Kaz and the bathroom situation, hoping they could try being close again. She then watches his brawl with most of the Dregs and notices how Kaz uses her line about forgiveness while talking about respect. At that, she almost smiles.

A while after the auction, they both face Pekka Rollins. Kaz tells him that he has his son kidnapped, something that he knows it isn’t to Inej’s liking. After Rollins runs away helpless, Kaz tells her it was a ruse and then talks about how he and Nina spread the fake plague on his business at the Barrel. He also tells her he had her stop at the Menagerie, at which Inej smiles. Kaz feels he might die to earn a smile like that one again. After that he offers her a gloved hand, which Inej takes, and they go off to look for the rest of the crew. Not long after the whole situation has calmed down, we are told that Kaz has moved his Slat office to the ground floor. We are also told that, despite Inej staying at Wylan’s house, Kaz would occasionally find a note of his desk from her. Some night, when Inej is about to go to sleep, she sees a note from Kaz that reads “Sunrise, Fifth Harbor”. She then thinks about him and falls asleep with the note clutched in her hand.

The next morning, they both meet at the harbor. They talk about their current situations and then Kaz hands Inej a long glass, and Inej realizes he isn’t wearing his gloves. Kaz tells her to look at berth twenty-two, the berth in where they set out for the Ice Court. Inej sees a warship named “The Wraith”, and Kaz says it’s hers. The girl is at a loss for words, and then tells him she wants his help at hunting not only slavers but to everyone that turns a blind eye to suffering in Ketterdam. Kaz is surprised by this and tells her she might be looking to fight half the city. Inej wonders why they can’t fight them one by one, at which Kaz responds “brick by brick”. Then, after a few cautious movements from both of them, they held hands while looking at the sea. A Ravkan ship then docks near where “The Wraith” is. Inej then lets Kaz’s hand go and holds the glass towards the ship, and notices two Suli acrobats coming down from it. Completely shocked at seeing her parents, Inej reaches for Kaz’s sleeve, as she thinks she is about to fall. He then holds her up, and Inej feels her mind split at what Kaz is doing and the fact she has just seen her parents. She then asks how did she find them and Kaz tells her it was a favor from Sturmhond, unsure if this was the right choice. Inej then cries and tells her it wasn’t a mistake. In the end, she tells Kaz to go meet her parents, to which he asks if his tie is straight. Inej laughs at this and Kaz mutters “That’s the laugh”.

Six of Crows

 * “One minute he made her blush and the next he made her want to commit murder.” - Inej, Six of Crows


 * "Nina thought of the look on his face when he'd set Inej down on the table. He was the same Kaz - cold, rude, impossible, but beneath all that anger, she thought she'd seen something else, too. Or maybe she was just a romantic." - Nina, Six of Crows


 * "Matthias suspected that Brekker would drag the girl back from hell himself if he had to." - Matthias, Six of Crows


 * "But he had, in his own way - despite her best intentions. Feeling anything for Kaz Brekker was the worst kind of foolishness. She knew that." - Inej, Six of Crows


 * "I mean, I think it was hard for him to be around you that way. The first day you were hurt...he went a little crazy." - Jesper to Inej, Six of Crows


 * "Even the idea of being this near someone should have set his skin crawling. Instead he thought, What happens if I move closer?" - Kaz, Six of Crows


 * "The old answers came easily to mind. Money. Vengeance. Jordie's voice in my head silenced forever. But a different reply roared to life inside him, loud, insistent, and unwelcome. You, Inej. You." - Kaz, Six of Crows


 * "She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough." - Inej, Six of Crows


 * "She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it." - Inej, Six of Crows


 * “She'd laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.”- Kaz, Six of Crows


 * “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.”- Kaz, Six of Crows


 * "It catches every time, like he's never seen you before."- Nina to Inej, Six of Crows


 * "I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all." - Kaz, Six of Crows


 * ”For all his selfishness and cruelty, Kaz was still the boy who saved her. She wanted to believe he was worth saving, too.” - Inej, Six of Crows


 * ”Instead, in that moment of threat, when he should have thought only of the fight, he looked at Inej.” - Kaz, Six of Crows


 * "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.” - Kaz, Six of Crows

Fanon
Kanej is a very popular ship in the Six of Crows fandom as it has proven to be canon. Fans enjoy the contrast between the two personalities, as well as the closeness of their relationship. There is also an appreciation for their smaller moments.

Some where upset that they didn't officially become a couple at the end of the series, but other's were okay with it. There were others who appreciated it as the two both suffered from PTSD, and many thought they needed to heal before becoming a part of a romantic relationship.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Inej/Kaz tag on FanFiction.Net
 * Inej/Kaz tag on FanFiction.Net