Six of Crows

Seventeen-year-old Inej Ghafa— “the Wraith”—approaches the Exchange, the center of trade. It’s the heart of Ketterdam during the day and neutral territory in the city’s gang war. It’s night, and the Exchange stands empty, save for the crew Inej is meeting: 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, nicknamed Dirtyhands, the leader of the Dregs, and eight other members of her own gang.

Kaz mentions three ships sent to Ketterdam by the Shu, “stuffed to the sails with gold” (16), that will pay off the Shu’s debt to the Kerch. He wonders if the Shu assassinated a Zemeni ambassador a few weeks ago. Inej herself had searched the washroom where the ambassador was mysteriously found with a knife in his back; the room had only one entrance, and no one else was inside. Kaz and Inej remain concerned with this puzzle but have more pressing problems on their minds.

Kaz and his seconds, Jesper Fahey and Big Bolliger, remove their weapons in preparation for the parley with a rival gang, the Black Tips. Jesper wonders if Kaz should give up his walking stick as well, but Kaz responds, “Who’d deny a poor cripple his cane?” (18). While Kaz and his seconds meet with the Black Tips’ leader Geels and Geels’s crew, Inej scales the Exchange to spy from the roof, with an agility and invisibility suited to her nickname. She watches as Bolliger pats the Tips down for weapons, and Kaz tells Geels to keep his gang away from Fifth Harbor. When Kaz became leader of the Dregs, he mortgaged the gang’s previous venture, the Crow Club, to rebuild the harbor and revive it into a landing spot for merchant ships, tourists, and soldiers. The Dregs have dibs guiding the visitors—and their wallets—to the bars and gambling houses that the Dregs own in the Barrel, Ketterdam’s pleasure district.

Geels reveals he’s bribed two guards to kill Kaz and his seconds, and Inej begins inching around the roof, looking for these guards. Geels orders one of the guards to fire, and a shot from the roof hits Bolliger in the stomach. Geels continues to bluster but seems panicked, and Inej is sure the shot hasn’t landed as planned. Kaz names the two guards Geels bribed and reveals that he uncovered the plot and lured one guard to his side. Geels orders the guard still on his side to shoot, but Inej reaches the guard and puts a knife to his throat first.

Geels pulls a pistol from his jacket and prepares to shoot Kaz. The Dregs realize Bolliger, who searched Geels but left the pistol, must have betrayed them for the Black Tips (Kaz had suspected Bolliger was a traitor, and chose him as a second that evening to confirm it). Kaz says two Dregs wait at the home of Geels’s sweetheart, prepared to burn her home if Kaz doesn’t “walk out of here whole” (32). Inej is struck by the change in Kaz’s manner as he makes the threat: “the monster [is] here […] Dirtyhands […] to see the rough work done” (32). Geels surrenders and agrees to keep the Black Tips out of the harbor. Even so, Kaz uses his cane to break Geels’ wrists.

Kaz tells Bolliger he must leave town by sunset tomorrow, and Inej watches everyone leave from her perch on the roof. She sends the guard home and pities Bolliger, wondering if she should help him, but she concludes that “the Wraith [doesn’t] have time for traitors” (34).

Kaz leaves the Dregs celebrating while he goes to check on business at Fifth Harbor. He senses Inej “shadowing him” like the silent Wraith she is, and eventually she reveals herself and asks about the fire set for Geels’s sweetheart. Kaz says there was never a fire—he was bluffing, which pleases Inez. Kaz notes that she often “wrings little bits of decency from him” (38).

Inej leaves, and a man attacks Kaz. When Kaz fights back, his ghost-like assailant seems to disappear and re-emerge, even stepping through a wall. Kaz wonders if his brother, Jordie, has “come for his vengeance at last” (41) as the attacker impales him with a syringe.

Kaz comes to in a luxurious room, chained to a chair, and recognizes from his captor’s red laurel crest that he’s Jan Van Eck, a Kerch merchant. Although Kaz has never met Van Eck before, he knows Van Eck’s house well, and he knows he’s not in the mercher’s house at the moment.

While Van Eck verbally reviews Kaz’s arrests, the first of which happened at age 10, and Kaz’s considerable list of crimes, Kaz works his way out of his chains, grabs a letter opener, and holds it to Van Eck’s throat. The mercher’s guards approach, weapons drawn. Van Eck calls for someone named Mikka, and a boy “pale as a corpse” (45) walks through the wall—just like the man who attacked Kaz. Mikka’s coat identifies him as a Grisha Tidemaker, but even the magical Grisha can’t “just stroll through a wall” (45).

Kaz demands an explanation, and Van Eck says Mikka has been drugged with jurda parem. A Shu scientist, Bo Yul-Bayer, created the drug and sent a sample to the Kerch Merchant Council. Kaz releases Van Eck in exchange for his pistol and cane, and the mercher explains that while any Tidemaker Grisha can control water and draw moisture from the air, jurda parem enables a Tidemaker to change himself or any object “from solid to liquid to gas” (47)—including a wall. Van Eck says the merchers gave jurda parem to two other Grisha; one, a Fabrikator, then transformed lead to gold.

Van Eck reminds Kaz of the Shu ship full of gold, probably created with the help of jurda parem, as well as the ambassador’s assassination and documents stolen from a military base, all probably the work of drugged Grisha. Yul-Bayur, worried about the Shu misusing his creation, asked the Kerch merchers for asylum, but the scientist was captured and imprisoned at the impenetrable Ice Court in Fjerda. Van Eck wants Kaz to free Yul-Bayur—a possible suicide mission—and he will pay Kaz a fortune to do so. Kaz feels tempted; the money will allow him to pay his debt to Jordie and realize his dream. Kaz wonders why Van Eck chose him, and the mercher reveals he knows Kaz stole a valuable painting from him, and the theft convinced him of Kaz’s criminal talent.

Kaz still wonders about the other Grisha to receive jurda parem, and as Van Eck begins to describe her, Kaz realizes they are in Councilman Hoede’s house. Van Eck escorts him to the boathouse to see her work. The Grisha, a Healer and a servant of Councilman Hoede, ordered Hoede’s guards to “wait” days prior—and they are still doing so, showing no reaction even when Kaz nearly shoots one in the head. The Grisha also told Hoede to cut off his own thumb and he did so, “smiling all the while” (56).

Van Eck describes this Grisha’s fate: She stole a boat and likely headed to Ravka, but her body washed ashore. The Grisha probably fought against the current, attempting to return to Ketterdam for one more dose of jurda parem. The drug appears incredibly addictive, leaving the Grisha hooked after the first dose.

Kaz raises his fee for the job to 30 million kruge and Van Eck agrees. Van Eck reminds Kaz that if he fails to save the scientist and the formula for jurda parem is unleashed, “Kerch will not survive” (57). Finally, Van Eck wonders why Kaz always wears gloves. Kaz contemplates the many rumors—people say his hands are bloodstained or covered in scars, or that Kaz possesses demonic claws—and then demurs and tells Van Eck all the stories are “true enough.”

From her room on the third floor of the Slat, a house in the Barrel that Kaz has fixed up with his own earnings, Inej senses Kaz entering the building. Intent on eavesdropping, she follows him to the office of Per Haskell, the Dregs’ official leader. Per Haskell berates Kaz for not asking permission before ousting Big Bolliger, whom Haskell considers his own soldier. Kaz tells Haskell he has a job that will make them “rich as Saints in crowns of gold” (64), and Haskell will get 20 percent.

Inej accompanies Kaz to his office, where he offers her a job for four million kruge, and she responds that “money like that is more curse than gift” (65). Kaz takes off his gloves, something he only does in front of Inej, who sees nothing wrong with his hands. He tells Inej to gather a few others so he can explain the mission to all of them, and he emphasizes she can take or leave this job—an unusual development. Since Per Haskell bought Inej’s contract from the Menagerie brothels, Inej has been indebted to the Dregs and has to do what they say. This optional job appears different—and most likely very dangerous.

Kaz walks through the Barrel, passing his own popular Crow Club and another gambling club that makes him seethe with rage: “the Emerald Palace, Pekka Rollins’ pride and joy” (70). Kaz’s desire to take revenge on Pekka keeps “Jordie’s ghost at bay” (70); Kaz, already stealing Pekka’s business and hoping to bring Pekka to “his knees, begging for help” (71), believes Van Eck’s payment will help him exact his revenge.

Kaz enters the pleasure district and arrives at a brothel called the House of the White Rose, where he uses a peephole to spy on employee Nina Zenik. Nina, wearing the red kefta of a Heartrender Grisha, and her fully clothed client sit in silence until the man thanks her and leaves with “tears in his eyes” (75). Nina, a member of the Dregs, uses her Grisha talents to calm her clients’ anxieties. Believing that her power over the human body will prove invaluable for his mission, Kaz tells her about jurda parem and asks her to join his crew. Nina, loyal to the Grisha and their homeland of Ravka, thinks Yul-Bayer should be killed rather than saved. She refuses Kaz’s offer, but when Kaz says he’ll help a prisoner named Matthias Helvar, Nina becomes more interested.

Kaz, Nina, and a Dregs enforcer named Muzzen ride a rowboat to Hellsgate prison after midnight, all of them wearing elaborate costumes. Nina feels perplexed to see other boats with riders dressed for a party; she can’t imagine what these masked people are doing at a prison, and Kaz won’t explain his plan. They disembark at the prison and pay off waiting members of the Dime Lions gang. Inej, who snuck in on a supply ship, meets them inside.

A Dime Lion member guides them to an amphitheater, where the costumed audience watches prisoners battling fearsome creatures like a giant lizard with “wet, white, and foaming” (87) poison dripping from its teeth. Kaz explains that Pekka Rollins, leader of the Dime Lions, first conceived of this Hellshow. Nina recalls how, after she arrived in Ketterdam a year ago and testified in the case against Matthias, Pekka had tried to convince Nina to use her Grisha talents for the Lions. Inej also recruited Nina—who needed employment to stay in Ketterdam, since she refused to abandon Matthias—so Nina joined the Dregs instead. Since then, Nina has tried to convince Kaz to break Matthias out of Hellsgate, and she realizes now he’s finally doing so.

When the guards bring Matthias out to fight, Nina sees that the boy who once seemed like “a shining savior with […] eyes the pale blue of northern glaciers” (90-91) now seems hardened: “a killer.” In fact, Matthias has always been a killer: He is a drüskelle, a witchhunter from Fjerda who once hunted down Grisha and executed them.  

Matthias must battle three wolves, a terrible task since wolves are sacred to the drüskelle, but he kills all three. Nina sees that Hellsgate has stripped Matthias’s eyes of anything human, and she blames herself. The guards take Matthias away, and the Dregs soon head toward him. Nina uses her Grisha talents to put a guard to sleep, and Kaz takes off his costume to reveal a guard uniform underneath.

Kaz picks the lock to Matthias’s cell, and they find Matthias passed out from a sleeping draft. Kaz tasks Nina with recreating Matthias’s wounds on Muzzen and making him appear to have firepox as well. Muzzen—who will be paid handsomely for this duplicity—will be placed in quarantine while the real Matthias leaves Hellsgate. That task finished, Nina heals Matthias, kissing his forehead with “the ache of tears threatening” (99). Matthias wakes and gently touches her face—then throws her to the ground and wraps his hands around her throat.

Matthias dreams, as he often does, of hunting Nina. In the good dreams, he throttles her until “the life drain[s] from her eyes”; in the bad dreams he kisses her, hating the fact that “some sick part of him” still wants her (104). He wakes, sees Nina there, and begins to strangle her, but Kaz shoots something into his shoulder that makes his arm numb.

An uproar begins outside: According to Kaz’s plan, Jesper has released the Hellshow beasts, and the group escapes to the boat where Jesper is waiting. Matthias attempts to kill Nina again, but Nina uses her Grisha powers to put him to sleep.

Matthias awakens in the Crow Club, surrounded by the crew from the prison breakout. Kaz explains their mission and asks Matthias, a Fjerdan with intimate knowledge of the Ice Court, to help, but Matthias refuses to “betray his country again” (111). Kaz offers Matthias the chance to become a drüskelle once more: Nina will recant her testimony against Matthias, and he will be pardoned for charges of slave trafficking while Nina spends two months in prison for perjury. Matthias thinks the punishment isn’t enough for Nina, but longs to return to his home “without the burden of dishonor” (115). Even though sharing inside knowledge of the Ice Court will be treasonous, Matthias compromises his morals and joins the “demon” Kaz’s crew, planning to hunt Nina and make her suffer as soon as he’s free.

Kaz formally introduces the rest of his crew, including Wylan Van Eck, demolitions expert and son of Councilman Jan Van Eck—and as such, the group’s “guarantee on 30 million kruge” (118).

The crew argues over whether Wylan should be allowed to stay; because he’s been to the Ice Court and has a talent for drawing, they decide he can. Wylan sketches the Ice Court as Matthias describes it—built on unscalable cliffs, with only one guarded entrance, two checkpoints, and an inner fortress of “concentric circles, like the rings of a tree” (122). As Matthias details the formidable alarm system, the others experience “a ripple of unease” (123) at the near impossibility of their task. Matthias guesses that Yul-Bayur will be in the White Island, beyond the ice moat, where the palace and treasury are located— “the most secure place in the Ice Court” (124), and the most difficult for foreigners to penetrate.

Nina points out that it’s only two weeks till Hringkälla, or the Day of Listening, when new drüskulle are welcomed with a huge celebration on the White Island. Kaz decides to use Hringkälla as a distraction while his crew enters through the prison. They will enter as criminals, using the prison as their front door. Once incarcerated, they’ll break out of the prison and exit through the embassy; with Hringkälla in full swing, they can pass unnoticed. Kaz assures the team that Yul-Bayur will trust them, since they have the code word established by the Merchant Council in earlier communication with the scientist: “Sesh-uyeh,” or “heartsick.”

Kaz tells the others to prepare to leave by ship the following night. He worries about Wylan and his wealthy background— “like a silk-eared puppy in a room full of fighting dogs” (130)—but he must keep the boy around to ensure Van Eck pays their reward. Kaz asks Jesper to watch out for Wylan, to Jesper’s annoyance.

Matthias asks Kaz if they can speak alone and immediately attacks him, looking for the piece of paper with his pardon. The feeling of Matthias’s bare skin on Kaz’s “set[s] off a riot of revulsion in Kaz’s head” (132), but Kaz quickly gains the upper hand. Kaz warns Matthias not to test him again.

When Inej shares her doubts about their mission and Kaz’s arrogance, Kaz reminds her she can be replaced. Inej wonders why she doesn’t just walk away, and she remembers the Suli saying her father often told her: “The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true” (135). She knows she must be clear on her mission, yet she’s still not sure what she wants. For now, she’ll “settle for an apology” (136).

Running errands for Kaz, Inej passes the Menagerie where she was once indentured. She also passes a brothel called the House of Exotics, which is built “like a tiered cage” (137). The foreign girls who work there go by animal names; as a Suli, Inej was the lynx. Suddenly, the proprietor of the Menagerie—Heleen Van Houden, known as the Peacock to the public and as Tante Heleen to the Menagerie girls—grabs Inej by the arm. Hellen tells Inej, “You’ll wear my silks again, I promise” (139), before letting her go. Inej touches her daggers, all named after Suli saints, and asks for protection.

Inej makes it to the dock where the crew waits by the schooner Kaz has commandeered, which is decked out like a Kerch hunters’ ship. Then, the boat explodes.