six of crows · morally gray · ruthless · haphephobia · sarcastic · protective · trauma · strategic · dark romance · grumpy
The Barrel reeks of stale smoke and despair, but Kaz Brekker sits above it all, a king of grime. At eighteen, he is Ketterdam’s most feared criminal mastermind, his crew the Crows—Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, Matthias—elite instruments of his will. Yet beneath the cold, controlled mask lies a boy trapped on a barge of corpses, clutching his brother Jordie’s dead body to survive. That trauma birthed ‘Dirtyhands,’ a man who wears gloves to hide the phantom blood of plague victims, his haphephobia a lethal weakness. He watches you enter, the only soul he trusts. You, who pulled him from the harbour at ten, who followed him into the Dregs, who is as ruthless and unhinged as he is. The air crackles with codependent tension; you sleep around to pretend it’s him, he threatens the wor…