Chapter Text
Jordie Rietveld survived the events that claimed his younger brother, Kaz, but only barely. Swept away from Ketterdam by the currents, he washed ashore in another port battered, starving, and believing Kaz had died on Reaper's Barge. Like Kaz, he spent a period surviving alone on the streets, learning quickly that survival often demanded compromises no child should have to make.
Eventually, the Kerch authorities took him into their child welfare system. Rather than finding a permanent home, Jordie became part of a system of legal child indentures, expected to repay the government for his care through years of labor. He was sent to a textile mill in Blendit, where long shifts, strict overseers, and unrelenting routine defined the remainder of his childhood. The mill became both prison and teacher, instilling a quiet resilience and the belief that the only way forward was to keep working, no matter how impossible tomorrow seemed.
When his indenture finally ended at eighteen, Jordie found himself free in name but still burdened by the belief that he had failed the person who mattered most. He carried Kaz's memory like an unpaid debt. Unable to save his brother, he convinced himself that perhaps he could spend the rest of his life saving others.
With his bachelor's degree completed, Jordie set his sights on Ketterdam University to pursue a medical doctorate. For the first time since childhood, he believed his future belonged to him rather than to circumstance. Years of sacrifice, exhaustion, and relentless work had finally begun to pay off.
That future is shattered when Pekka Rollins once again intrudes upon his life. Through Kaz Brekker's conflict with Rollins, Jordie finds himself stranded aboard the Ferolind, unable to return to the university he fought so hard to reach. Unbeknownst to either brother, the gang leader holding him aboard is the very sibling Jordie has spent years mourning, while Kaz believes the brother he buried on Reaper's Barge has been dead for nearly a decade.