The Crows had been left in dire straits but just a few weeks later, new plans are in place and Kaz is sure that not only will be able to get the original windfall that Van Eck had promised them, but retrieve Inej from his Van Eck’s hiding place, save Grisha refugees and get Kuwei the hell out of Ketterdam. I enjoyed how Bardugo quickly dispenses an overdrawn save Inej mission instead having Inej try to save herself alongside the Crows devising their own plan.

Which is a good thing, with the whole gang together again the bigger guns can start rolling. What are those bigger guns? There is more than one player in this game and that player is able to outsmart Kaz just as easily as Kaz outwits Jan Van Eck. Yes, I’m talking about the man who ruined Kaz’s life-Pekka Rollins.

Kaz may be known for his ruthlessness but that is not his fatal flaw. kay, it kind of is as it pushes veryone away but also fuels the Crows to do better just to keep up with him. But I’d argue Kaz’s greater flaw is his grudge against Pekka Rollins as his need for vengence, for having Rollins suffer the way he does, the personal getting in the way of the bigger picture he is so fond of. That intense focus leaves major blindspots. It also makes him more vulnerable not in that he is pulled back into traumatic flashbacks and sometimes projecting his feelings of Jordie on others, but he becomes that more aware of how everyone he cares for is going to be put in danger, especially Inej. As much as he tries to kill the vulnerable boy to focus only on the money and grit that Ketterdam requires for people to survive, he cannot hide the growing distraction that is his feelings for the Wraith which just makes him more determined to push her away.

Inej is also struggling with her feelings after her capture with Van Eck as she brutally realizes Kaz only cares for if she’s useful. We, the readers know its untrue but considering Kaz’s treatment of her and intensity towards his ambitions, it’s hard not to see her conclusion. Especially as these last con promises her a chance to leave Ketterdam and sail the seas to raid traffickers. Should she even try reaching out to this impentrable boy. But Inej’s stories is more than just Kaz. She is still recovering from her feelings of helplessness, and entrapment from her time at Tante Helen’s Menangerie of Exotics, Bardugo giving special focus on the trauma of that system and the psychological aftereffects. Inej is also facing her own “shadow” as Suli proverbs suggest in the form of a fearsome assassin, bringing contemplation of whether this is just karma for all the crimes she has done to survive.

But it is more than just survival. Inej’s fight, all the Crow’s fight is because they’re nobodies. There’s a reason they say no mourners and no funerals because no one will care for the dregs of Ketterdam. But that doesn’t matter to them. They will kee fighting even though they’re not the chosen ones because they are worth something. It’s just very powerful.

But I must say a little something about Kaz and Inej’s relationship as that is also powerful because they’re torn from the same cloth in a way. They both cannot stand touch but with each other, they want to try again. They want the intimacy despite the fear because they have a trust that they cannot find anywhere else so when Kaz goes so far to take off his gloves. It means something and it give Inej hope to keep reaching out to this closed-off, seemingly ruthless boy. She doesn’t want to save him as Kaz reminds her she can’t but Inej knows she cannot. She is not imagining him as a better man than he is, but she knows he is a good man underneath the terror and precise brutality he wrecks. It’s okay because she can be that terror too.

Mattias’ storyline is more subtle I think. He feels more in the background than he had in Six of Crows which will make sense once you read the ending. But I like how he continues to dismantle his prejudice towards grisha and coming to reoriente his thinking to recognize their power can be dangerous but it is beautiful and miraculous. It only makes him more determined to help change his countrymen and his country just as he had been changed by Nina. Speaking of Nina, his Fjerd sense of honor and decency is clashing with his wish to become closer to Nina, emotionally and otherwise as he doesn’t want to impede or offset her recovery from jarem purda. Additionally, he had a great scene where he gets to show his military leadership in conjugtion with Grisha allies. Plus he had a very very important dream of forshadowing, that’s all I can say.

Nina: She is still recovering from her dose of jurda parem, the first one to seemingly survive the addiction but the fight isn’t over for her. Not only does she remember the pain she went through and how desperate and vicious she had become, consumed with getting another dose but her Heartrending powers seem to have been inconvertibly changed. She can no longer reach or touch the blood or organs of others. But she can feel the dead, she can control them and she is horrified and confused by her new powers. She also fears informing the others, especially Mattias of this new development as they are still treating her with fragile distance as if one wrong word will send her spiralling down to addiction. It’s frustrating for her but I admire her usua Nina balance between light-heartedness to urge people to treat her normalcy and her fierce sense of loyalty to the Grisha as her tangle with jurda makes her more convinced of her duty to save others of her kind from being enslaved to the drug and to the countries that would use and discard them through that control.

Speaking of helping fellow Grisha there is the nice addition of the Grisha Triumvante returning with Genya having an important part to the plot. Seeing Genya again reminded me of how similar they are with love of luxary, a more light-hearted nature with a good dose of self preservation.

Jesper: Just as I had hoped. This book dives more into Jesper and his feelings about his powers, his past and his estrangement/friendship with Kaz who keeps him, like he does everyone else, at arm’s length especially after his inadverted betrayal from the last book. He’s struggling with guilt for his part in letting Van Eck get ahead of the Crows. He’s also struggling with his compulsion for high stakes and gambling which Bardugo illustrates as just as crippling as addiction to jurda or other substances. Something he keeps going back to calm his restlessness, and theorizes an interesting corrolation between his gambling and his repression of his powers. Jesper is very sympathetic as he comes from the most normal background as a farm boy to university student but his family’s background and fears/ideas of being persecuted as a Grisha informs his complex feelings where he doesn’t want to be defined by it. The introduction of Jesper’s father, adding to Jesper’s feelings of being a screw-up bringing pain to those he loves.

Plus it expands on the flirtiness of the previous book to exploring Jesper’s attraction to Wylan and his relative innocence to the game yet the ex-merch boy also pushes Jesper to improving himself and see what true bravery is.

Wylan: And he is really brave. Still stuck with Kuwei’s face, Wylan goes through the wringer here as Bardugo expands on his childhood and the relationship between him and Jan Van Eck. Jan is just the worst as he uses Wylan’s disabilities to degrade him, piling on Wylan’s insecurities that he should be a better son if he ever hopes to gain his father’s love. This book completely crushes that hope with several stunning revelations that hardens Wylan but also makes him more determined when facing his father. There’s more about Wylan’s growth but as it ties with the spoilery twists I will recide my thoughts. However, like I said above, the relationship between Jesper and Wylan progresses nicely between their banter and real talk moments, leaving plenty of potential for their future together.

While Six of Crows creates a layered heist game, this ups the stakes with political intrigue between merchants and countries with a heavy dose of character growth and development balanced among the cast.