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Summary: Chapter 30
Kaz recalls meeting with Sturmhond, where he pressed the man for his true identity and learned that Sturmhond is in truth the King of Ravka.
Nina and Kaz go to the morgue and find decaying bodies. Nina picks one and Kaz gives her a vial he took from Genya’s kit. Being in the morgue is upsetting for him as it powerfully recalls using his brother’s body to float to safety after escaping the Reaper’s Barge. This is a trauma he has yet to overcome. He thinks back to his earlier attraction to a girl, Imogen, who seemed to like him back. No matter their shared desire, he was unable to touch her. All efforts to overcome this aversion, like taking off his gloves and practicing touching people, had failed—and, because showing weakness would threaten his reputation, he had always hidden his attempts. Gathered before the auction, Kaz tells the gang that his friends will communicate to all of Ketterdam that they picked a fight with the wrong group of people.
Summary: Chapter 31
Before the auction, Wylan and Colm hide in a deserted bakery, as Kaz has instructed. Colm says that he thinks Wylan would be good for Jesper. Wylan goes to investigate a noise and is kidnapped by the Dime Lions and taken to his father, where he spits in his father’s face. His father offers to give him an allowance and take care of him, but only if he will reveal Kaz’s plans. Wylan challenges Van Eck over the treatment of his mother. On Van Eck’s orders, the Dime Lions beat Wylan until he talks. Though he tries to draw strength from the gang, he eventually tells his father everything.
Summary: Chapter 32
Inej steals into the Church of Barter on a lumber cart and makes her way to the chapel’s roof. From its cupola, she accesses the roof, where she has stowed Jesper’s rifle. Then she plants Wylan’s explosives, which are meant to create a distraction. From the roof, a place Inej sometimes visits to listen to the church music, she can see and hear the auction. The Dime Lions and other members of the Barrel arrive, as do the Ravkans, Fjerdans, Zemeni, Kaelish, and Shu delegations. Inej worries about being attacked by the Shu’s flying soldiers and acknowledges that she will undoubtedly also see Dunyasha again.
The arrival of Kuwei, flanked by Kaz and Matthias, generates a commotion. The Church is full of their enemies, but the auction’s formal proceedings offer temporary protection. The council examines Kuwei to guarantee his health, and Inej recalls the unpleasant experience of being auctioned to Tante Heleen. In the Church, the bidding starts at one million kruge. The delegations go back and forth, eager to purchase Kuwei and his knowledge. When the Ravkan delegation bids 120 million kruge, a wave of seawater floods the nave and fifteen cloaked figures, the mysterious Council of Tides, the Grisha who control the seawater on which Ketterdam’s trade depends, announce the auction is a sham.
Inej dodges a metal star, thrown by Dunyasha, who is only thirty feet away. The assassin says she wants to look Inej in the eyes when she kills her. The Wraith reaches for her knives.
Analysis
This section explores how each character is doubly haunted, by their past and by hope for redemption, in the pivotal moments before their final scheme is deployed. Kaz is preoccupied by memories of the first time he tried to face his traumatic response to human touch. In order to survive in the Barrel, Kaz found various ways to adapt, donning gloves and becoming tougher and more violent than others. He marvels that he has grown from that broken, fighting boy to the person who brokers deals with kings, which suggests that, if his plan succeeds, it will usher in a new phase in his life, one in which he will wield a new kind of power. Wylan is also haunted by his past, as he faces his father and all the pain his parent caused him. Though he appears to be breaking under his father’s gaze, he’s actually lying to him, which the completion of the scheme will reveal. As a result, Wylan will be able to finally escape the cruel iron grip that Jan Van Eck has had over his life. Inej, too, reflects on the pain of her indenture from the roof of the Church of Barter and reflects on the possibility of freedom once their plan succeeds. The success of their plan will not only result in revenge for the betrayal that takes place at the end of Six of Crows, it will also free many in the gang from the literal and metaphorical shackles of the past.
The return of Wylan’s original face, shedding the Kuwei disguise, parallels his internal journey to self-understanding and acceptance. As Wylan looks in the mirror, he finally has an answer to the question he’s been asking himself since the beginning of the book: What am I doing here? Through the gang’s love and friendship, he has begun to see himself differently. He slowly unlearns the messages of self-hatred and self-doubt that his father instilled in him and has begun to recognize his own inherent worth and value. By learning the truth about his mother—that she is alive, loves him, and needs his help—he also comes closer to the truth about himself. He knows that he is engaged with the scheme and fighting ardently against his father to avenge his mother’s imprisonment and disenfranchisement, and to help his chosen family get the reward from his father they have worked so hard far. In getting his old face back, Wylan also can see clearly that he has become much more than the person who had that face before.
The auction shows the worst excesses of nationalistic identity. As each nation takes its seat in the Church of Barter, it is filled with its own self-importance, pride, and rage. The Fjerdan delegation disowns Matthias and yells epithets at the Ravkans, filled with hatred toward Grisha sympathizers. The Ravkan delegation, though, responds in kind, countering with its own stereotypical ideas about who the Fjerdan are. The Shu delegation is critical of Kuwei, such that he folds into himself, apparently weighed down by the shame of his country’s vision of him. The merchers of Kerch are self-important and oversee the affair with a faith in their own system that is proven to be blind by the actions of the ragtag gang of Dregs. The auction goes as the six have planned for it to go: each nation, with the exception of Ravka, thinks that it is participating in a global exchange that is operating under terms they have agreed upon. However, in reality, the fate of entire nations is being controlled by six young criminals and their allies. Here, as across the novel, there is a clear emphasis on the power of individuals to effect change, even against powerful adversaries.
