"Truly," she nods her agreement about the coin. Neither of them can help thinking of it. Not after the years with Kaz, and not with the newness and the uncertainty of being in an unfamiliar city. No connections, no jobs like they're used to. No planner in their ranks to make a dozen impossible decisions before breakfast.
(She misses him already, and it's an ache she doesn't want to admit to).
"Difficult has never stopped you before," she points out. A small nudge of saying-without-saying she isn't blind, nor stupid, and she knows his doubts are playing too loudly in his head. She thinks they know each other well enough that unspoken meanings aren't entirely missed, by now, though.
She smiles, that small, sad smile and she pushes to her feet, ever so briefly on her toes in some long-engraved habit from the circus, and she crosses over to where he stands. "You can do unfathomable things, beautiful things, wonderful, delightful things, Jesper." Her eyes are on him, emphatically, resting her hands on top of his own. "But I think you have to strengthen your belief in yourself first."
Belief, as it is, is something Inej has in spades. Despite everything that's happened to her. Perhaps in spite of it all. She would not let the slavers or Heleen, or the clients she was forced to take, win that way, to steal the most deeply personal part of her away from herself like that. Her beliefs, in every shape that they take, from her Saints in her religion, to her trust and loyalty in her friends, were hers and hers alone. Nothing and no one had been able to taint that.
"And until you can do it for yourself... I'll believe in you for you," her smile smooths at the edges, no sadness traced inside of it now, only brightness like the sun is inside her somehow.
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"Difficult has never stopped you before," she points out. A small nudge of saying-without-saying she isn't blind, nor stupid, and she knows his doubts are playing too loudly in his head. She thinks they know each other well enough that unspoken meanings aren't entirely missed, by now, though.
She smiles, that small, sad smile and she pushes to her feet, ever so briefly on her toes in some long-engraved habit from the circus, and she crosses over to where he stands. "You can do unfathomable things, beautiful things, wonderful, delightful things, Jesper." Her eyes are on him, emphatically, resting her hands on top of his own. "But I think you have to strengthen your belief in yourself first."
Belief, as it is, is something Inej has in spades. Despite everything that's happened to her. Perhaps in spite of it all. She would not let the slavers or Heleen, or the clients she was forced to take, win that way, to steal the most deeply personal part of her away from herself like that. Her beliefs, in every shape that they take, from her Saints in her religion, to her trust and loyalty in her friends, were hers and hers alone. Nothing and no one had been able to taint that.
"And until you can do it for yourself... I'll believe in you for you," her smile smooths at the edges, no sadness traced inside of it now, only brightness like the sun is inside her somehow.