Six of Crows Reread 🪶
Chapter 38: Kaz
I have been waiting to get to this chapter-
This is going to be a long one so settle in and buckle up
I’m not kidding this one goes for ages—
He’d gambled on Matthias’ feelings for Nina, but he’d always liked those odds. The real risk had been in whether or not someone as honest as Matthias could convincingly lie to his mentor’s face. Apparently the Fjerdan had hidden skills.
Kaz is a Helnik shipper you can’t change my mind
And lmao he thought Matthias wouldn’t be able to lie basically because he’s “too good”—
He reeks of decency, right?
Kaz throwing up the bombs to fell the sacred ash is… something
I made a post about this last night
He had lock picks and extra pellets of that weird knockout gas they used earlier in the cells in his gut too—
Oh he learned to do this via a fire breather magician
I guess it kind of makes sense
But then Kaz notes that the magician died due to poisoning himself accidentally—
Man (meaning Kaz Brekker) is insane
He remembered Inej standing on the embassy roof, aglow with some new fervour he didn’t understand but could still recognise – purpose. It had suffused her with light.
She was glowing to him
He’s so proud of her
I’m so proud of her
I really like that we got to see exactly where everyone was when the black protocol bells began
Gives it that heist movie feel of recapping the mission but from other points of view
Does that make sense? Do you guys know what I mean?
He’d waited, counting the minutes, but there was still no sign of Nina or Matthias. They’re in trouble, Kaz had thought. Or you were dead wrong about Matthias, and you’re about to pay for all of those talking tree jokes.
Imagine the plan failing because Kaz made fun of Matthias one too many times
That would have been tragic
He quickly tries to think of a way to get to the treasury but…
Would he be going to help Nina and Matthias or just to grab the target?
Luckily we don’t have to find out
Hopefully he’d choose to help his new friends
I like to think he would
He’d been about to call out to them when the explosion hit, and everything went to hell.
They blew up the lab, he’d thought as debris rained down around him. I definitely did not tell them to blow up the lab.
I love when Kaz thinks things like this
It happens at least once more in Crooked Kingdom
You’ll see when we get there
I’m thinking about a line from the auction
Kaz hoped the Shu boy he was holding on to was a surprisingly young Bo Yul-Bayur and not some hapless prisoner Nina and Matthias had decided to liberate.
I mean.. you never really know with Nina
The voice of god. There was always truth in legend. Kaz had spent enough time building his own myth to know.
Woah this just made me think about Kelsier from Mistborn
Has anyone here read those?
Sometimes Kaz and Kelsier are pretty similar, but also polar opposites
They both run a thieving crew so there’s the obvious similarity
Kelsier loves to smile though so there’s a difference (he smiles out of spite, but it doesn’t really matter right now)
Water had a voice. It was something every canal rat knew, anyone who had slept beneath a bridge or weathered a winter storm in an overturned boat – water could speak with the voice of a lover, a long-lost brother, even a god. That was the key, and once Kaz recognised it, it was as if someone had laid a perfect blueprint over the Ice Court and its workings.
What god do you serve? Inej had asked him. Whichever will grant me good fortune. Fortunate people didn’t end up racing ass over teakettle beneath an ice moat in hostile territory.
He’s already starting to think about Inej
Also side note: “Fortunate people didn’t end up racing ass over teakettle” is just a really funny line-
He thinks that while tumbling blindly down a freezing cold river in the dark
Survive. Survive. Survive. It was the way he’d lived his life, moment to moment, breath to breath, since that terrible morning when he’d woken to find that Jordie was still dead and he was still very much alive.
Pain
I’m gonna cry
Kaz tumbled through the dark. He was colder than he’d ever been. He thought of Inej’s hand on his cheek. His mind had gone jagged at the sensation, a riot of confusion. It had been terror and disgust and – in all of that clamour – desire, a wish that lingered still, the hope that she would touch him again.
Hope doesn’t have to be dangerous
It’s beautiful really
When he was fourteen, Kaz had put together a crew to rob the bank that had helped Hertzoon prey on him and Jordie. His crew got away with fifty thousand kruge, but he’d broken his leg dropping down from the rooftop. The bone didn’t set right, and he’d limped ever after. So he’d found himself a Fabrikator and had his cane made. It became a declaration. There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken. The cane became a part of the myth he built. No one knew who he was. No one knew where he came from. He’d become Kaz Brekker, cripple and confidence man, bastard of the Barrel.
He really does go after Pekka brick by brick
He didn’t let his limp define him
He used it to sculpt how others saw him
They see him in the exact way he wants them to
In a way it made him stronger
I just want to copy paste this entire chapter
But the flashes of memories Kaz is getting:
Hot chocolate with Jordie and his warning to let it cool
Himself signing for the Crow Club
His first time seeing Inej, in purple silk, and with kohl around her eyes…
When he gave her her first knife, it had a bone handled hilt
She named it Petyr…
Her crying after her first kill and him ignoring the sobs…
Do you think he regrets that? What if he’d tried to comfort her instead..?
Kaz remembered her perched on the sill of his attic window, sometime during that first year after he’d brought her into the Dregs. She’d been feeding the crows that congregated on the roof.
“You shouldn’t make friends with crows,” he’d told her.
“Why not?” she asked.
He’d looked up from his desk to answer, but whatever he’d been about to say had vanished on his tongue.
The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbour wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world.
“Why not?” she’d repeated, eyes still closed.
He said the first thing that popped into his head. “They don’t have any manners.”
“Neither do you, Kaz.” She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and got drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.
Oh window scene my beloved
I’m stronger than this, he told himself. My will is greater. But he could hear Jordie laughing. No, little brother. No one is stronger. You’ve cheated death too many times. Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man.
The sound of water is Jordie’s voice for Kaz
A twisted tragic version of him
He’s trying to hang on and survive so he things of his revenge first
But it doesn’t work…
Only thinking of Inej saves him
He hopes she’s alive and that she escaped
He thinks about how if she’s trapped he has to live to safe her
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.
I love this beautiful broken boy who’s decided to try
The water pressed at his chest, demanding that he part his lips. I won’t, he swore. But in the end, Kaz opened his mouth, and the water rushed in.
Imagine an episode of the spin-off ending like that
That ends part 5, onto the final part!
Part 6: Proper Thieves
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