- The effects jurda parem had on Anya's powers
- She heals a boy with the wave of a hand, takes control over the minds of everyone in the boathouse, and makes Hoede carve his own thumb off his hand (him smiling all the while).
- Inej's introductory description of Kaz.
“Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason. Those were the words whispered on the streets of Ketterdam, in the taverns and coffehouses, in the dark and bleeding alleys of the pleasure district known as the Barrel. The boy they called Dirtyhands didn’t need a reason any more than he needed permission – to break a leg, sever an alliance, or change a man’s fortunes with the turn of a card. // Of course they were wrong, Inej considered as she crossed the bridge over the black waters of the Beurscanal to the deserted main square that fronted the Exchange. Every act of violence was deliberate, and every favour came with enough strings attached to stage a puppet show. Kaz always had his reasons. Inej could just never be sure they were good ones. Especially tonight.” (page 16)
- Kaz during the parley
- He manages to intimidate and terrify a gang lieutenant that is decades older and more experienced than him.
- Kaz is completely in control of himself whilst having a gun pointed directly at his chest, and even steps into the gun barrel, letting it rest on his chest.
- Kaz makes Geels lower the gun and not shoot him, just through talking.
- Kaz shattering Geels' wrist for drawing a gun on him.
- Kaz manages to pick the locks on his chains whilst chained to a chair, and then lunges at Van Eck, threatening to slit his throat with a letter opener.
- The rumours about Kaz's hands
"Brekker's hands were stained with blood. Brekker's hands were covered in scars. Brekker had claws for fingers because he was part demon. Brekker's touch burned like brimstone - a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die." (page 63)
- When Inej fires Rojakke on Kaz's behalf, Rojakke tries to grab her to "shake a few coins out of her". Inej slips her fingers into a set of brass knuckles and hits him twice in the face.
- Matthias fights three wolves and kills all three, despite his reluctance and slow movements that were brought on by his religious beliefs.
- Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, and Muzzen break Matthias out of the most secure Kerch prison.
- Inej sidesteps Matthias with ease, as he tries to knock her into the water.
- Kaz easily handles an attack from Matthias, despite Matthias' size and stength, and personally having a limp.
"For every trick you've seen, I know a thousand more. You think a year in Hellgate hardened you up? Taught you to fight? Hellgate would've been paradise to me as a child. You move like an ox - you'd last about two days on the streets where I grew up. This was your one free pass, Helvar. Don't test me again."
- Jesper manages to keep his hold on the rigging and haul himself into the crows nest despite being shot in the thigh.
- Wylan throws a flash bomb to help Jesper pick off the Black Tips.
- Inej kills six gang members that had ambushed the crows on the docks without any of them realising she was even there before she ended their lives.
- Inej stabbing Oomen in the groin after he stabbed her in the side.
- Inej managing to climb two cargo containers with a fatal stab wound.
- Kaz interrogates Oomen on the ambush at the docks. When Oomen lies, Kaz cuts and rips his eye out to get him to be honest and to punish him for stabbing Inej.
"Oomen spat in his face. Kaz took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and carefully wiped his face clean. He thought of Inej lying still on the table, her slight weight in his arms. “Hold him,” he told Jesper and the Fjerdan. Kaz flicked his coat sleeve, and an oyster shucking knife appeared in his hand. At any given time he had at least two knives stashed somewhere in his clothes. He didn’t even count this one, really – a tidy, wicked little blade. He made a neat slash across Oomen’s eye – from brow to cheekbone – and before Oomen could draw breath to cry out, he made a second cut in the opposite direction, a nearly perfect X . Now Oomen was screaming. Kaz wiped the knife clean, returned it to his sleeve, and drove his gloved fingers into Oomen’s eye socket. He shrieked and twitched as Kaz yanked out his eyeball, its base trailing a bloody root. Blood gushed over his face. Kaz heard Wylan retching. He tossed the eyeball overboard and jammed his spit-soaked handkerchief into the socket where Oomen’s eye had been. Then he grabbed Oomen’s jaw, his gloves leaving red smears on the enforcer’s chin. His actions were smooth, precise, as if he were dealing cards at the Crow Club or picking an easy lock, but his rage felt hot and mad and unfamiliar. Something within him had torn loose."
- Kaz threatening Oomen
- "I want you to think real careful now, Oomen. Geels probably thinks you're dead, so there are no rules of barter here. I can do what I want with you."
- "Listen to me. You have two choices. You tell me what I want to know, and we drop you at our next port with your pockets full of enough coin to get you sewn up and buy you passage back to Kerch. Or I take the other eye, and I repeat this conversation with a blind man."
- "Who hired you? [...] Don't make me ask again Oomen. Whoever it was can't protect you now."
- "He'll kill me!" "And I'll make you wish for death, so you have to weigh those options."
- Kaz hoisting Oomen off his feet, bracing him on the railing, then tipping him into the sea.
- Wylan standing up to Kaz who is threatening to toss him into the sea after Oomen.
- Kaz killed all of the Black Tips that had cornered Inej.
Nina: Kaz killed a lot of people. Rotty saw him go after the Black Tips who had you up on the crates. I believe his exact words were, "There was enough blood to paint a barn red."
- The fight against the drugged grisha.
- Jesper kills one, and lands a hit on another with his gun despite poor angles.
- Kaz vaults Inej up the ice in a practiced move.
- Inej throws a knife at the other grisha, dealing a fatal wound.
- Wylan explodes a way out of the ice ditch a grisha had trapped them in.
- The crows actually manage to break into the Ice Court.
- (In a flashback) a young Kaz manages to swim back to shore after being dumped on the Reaper's Barge, weak with thirst and the aftermath of plague, whilst holding onto his brother's dead body - using it as a raft.
- When he almost gives up on life, he decides to live for revenge, to get vengeance for himself and Jordie, and that's what gave him the strength to swim back, despite the strong currents.
- Kaz manages to stay conscious whilst a guard is rummaging in his mouth for lockpicks, despite his haphephobia.
- Kaz dislocates an inmate's arm after the man lunged at him, trying to attack him because he noticed that Kaz has a limp (and thus thought that Kaz would be an easy target).
- Kaz then shoves the man's arm back into its socket (after threatening that if the man made a sound, he would make sure it would never heal properly).
- After this display, none of the inmates try to bother Kaz again.
- Jesper fabrikates a pair of lockpicks for Kaz despite not having any grisha training.
- Kaz breaks the other crows out of their cells (in the most secure prison in the world).
- Inej climbs up six storeys of a blazing hot incinerator shaft.
- Kaz flips a rifle into his hands and points it at Matthias in the space of a breath, demonstrating that he had never been in any danger at all.
- He had been testing Matthias to see if he would shoot him whilst Kaz was unarmed, easily fooling Matthias into thinking he is defenseless.
- Jesper leaps down from halfway down a wall, snaps a Fjerdan guard's neck, steals his rifle, slams the butt of that rifle into another Fjerdan guard's face, then rams the rifle into the final guard's gut (whilst Wylan is holding him from behind) then strikes him twice in the jaw.
- Jesper and Wylan trigger Black Protocol at the Ice Court.
- Inej manages to push past her panic at seeing her past abuser, and gains strength by thinking of how strong she is, how she isn't weak.
- Inej chokes Tante Heleen and steals her diamond choker.
- Matthias turns on Jarl Brum and renders him unconscious, betraying the drüskelle, because he has learnt that the grisha are not inherently evil and that Jarl Brum enjoys torturing them, which disgusts Matthias.
- Jesper fights off, and possibly kills, two Tidemakers with his grisha powers despite being untrained.
- Nina, Matthias, and Kuwei explode the lab where the drüskelle were trying to get Kuwei to recreate the jurda parem formula.
- Kaz, disguised as a drüskelle, kills an actual drüskelle and grabs the barbed whip that the drüskelle had held in his hand.
- Kaz used Wylan's root bombs to kill the roots of the sacred ash tree to gain access to the wellspring beneath it, in order to use it as an escape route out of the Ice Court.
- Kaz yanks Matthias, Nina, and Kuwei through the hole to the wellspring using the barbed whip, pulling them to their escape route out of the Ice Court.
- This declaration from Kaz when he was fourteen
"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."
- Inej breaks a Fjerdan guard's nose.
- Jesper stabs a Fjerdan guard from behind with some shears, killing him.
- Inej kicks the Fjerdan guard whose nose she broke in the head. He doesn't move again.
- Inej, Jesper, and Wylan steal a Fjerdan tank.
- Jesper makes a sizable dent in the wall of the Ice Court using cannonballs from the tank, then slams into it, making a hole in the so called impenetrable wall.
- Jesper shoots a cannonball at the bridge connecting the Ice Court to where the crows are, preventing the Fjerdan army from being able to follow them.
- Nina takes jurda parem (which could kill her after just one dose and is highly addictive) in order to save her friends from the Fjerdan army and another drugged Heartrender.
- Nina flicks her wrist and the Fjerdan prisoner Heartrender's eyes explode in his head, killing him.
- Nina makes a whole Fjerdan army stop, lay down their arms, and sleep - all with just a few words and a couple gestures.
- When Matthias gets shot, Nina purges the bullet from his chest in seconds and heals him, leaving no wound.
- Nina is shot at repeatedly by drüskelle, but she merely heals herself over and over with ease, walking towards them remaining unharmed.
- Nina could've easily killed all of the drüskelle. The only thing that stops her is Matthias pleading that they are just brainwashed boys like he once was. She leaves them be.
- The crows board the schooner and sail away from Fjerda, heist successfully completed.
- This quote on the schooner leaving
"The Elderclock chimed on unheeded as the schooner vanished into the cast black shelter of the sea, leaving only suffering in her wake."
- Nina could only hear Inej approach because the parem allowed her to hear her pulse and breath. That's how silent Inej is, and how powerful the drug is.
- It turns out that Kaz beat (tortured?) Pekka Rollins for information whilst in the Ice Court before breaking him out of his cell.
- Wylan let himself get tailored to look like Kuwei despite it being possible that he will never be able to get his face back.
- Wylan doesn't let himself get shaken by his father's insults, and walks back to Kaz and the rest of the group despite his father calling him a "traitor" for it.
- The fight against the drugged grisha before Inej gets knocked out and taken
- Inej kills two Tidemakers in quick succession after they (foolishly) try to take her in close combat.
- Jesper kills a squaller that was about to attack Inej.
- Inej kills the squaller midair that was attempting to take her.
- Kaz starts to scheme on a way to get back at Van Eck (a way that Van Eck and everybody else will never forget).
- When Kaz determines to himself that he will get Inej her freedom
"Inej had wanted Kaz to become someone else, a better person, a gentler thief. But that boy ended up starving in an alley. He ended up dead. That boy couldn't get her back. I'm going to get my money, Kaz vowed, and I'm going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the frredom he'd promised her so long ago.
"Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done."
- What Kaz says when Pekka underestimates the damage he wants to do to Van Eck
Pekka: I respect your drive, kid. And I understand. You want your money; you want the Wraith back; you want a bit of Van Eck's hide-
Kaz: No. When I come for Van Eck, i won't just take what's mine. I'll carve his life hollow. I'll burn his name from the ledger. There will be nothing left.
- Kaz makes a chill sliver up Pekka Rollins' (King of the Barrel and most feared gang leader) spine.
- What Pekka says about the look in Kaz's eyes
"Pekka Rollins couldn't could the threats he'd heard, the men he'd killed, or the men he'd seen die, but the look in Brekker's eye still sent a chill slithering up his spine. Some wrathful thing was begging to get loose, and Rollins didn't want to be around when it slipped its leash."
- What Kaz says after shaking Pekka's hand (with a knuckle crushing grip)
Kaz: You don't remember me at all, do you?
Pekka: Should I?
Kaz: Not just yet (with a "black thing flickering behind his eyes")
- Kaz picks Pekka's pocket
Doughty: (incredulously) He picked your pocket?
No one got one over Pekka Rollins. No one dared. But Brekker had, and Rollins wondered if that was just the beginning.
- Pekka thinks that it's best to pray for Van Eck
Pekka: Doughty, I think we'd best say a prayer for Jan Van Eck.
Doughty: You think Brekker can best him?
Pekka: It's a long shot, but if he's not careful, I think that merch might walk himself right onto the gallows and let Brekker tighten the noose.
- Kaz is seen as a threat by the biggest gang boss is the barrel
Pekka: We better hope Van Eck kills that boy.
Doughty: Why?
Pekka: Because otherwise I'll have to.
- Kaz is able to control any game of cards.
- Nina steals Smeet's dog whistle without anyone noticing.
- Kaz breaks the locks on Smeet's front door in a second.
- Kaz hung a clerk by the ankles from the top of the lighthouse, for an extended period of time. That takes crazy strength.
- Kaz dropped the clerk that he'd been threatening because the clerk was blackmailing a prostitute (into having sex with him for free) which disgusted Kaz and made him drop the man to his death.
- Kaz pretends to be the bogeyman and terrifies a little girl into staying quiet.
- Kaz's acting
- When he bumps into Smeet on purpose, he pretends to be a green youth, respectful of his elders, and plays the role well. Not to mention, Smeet didn't realise that the boy he'd bumped into was his card dealer from a couple hours ago.
- This thought from Matthias about Kaz
"He often wondered how people survived this city, but it was possible Ketterdam would not survive Kaz Brekker."
- Wylan made a chemical weevil.
- Inej refuses to betray the Dregs, Crows, and Kaz, despite the threat of torture.
- Inej starves herself to fit through a vent in order to escape captivity.
- Inej falls over whilst captive on purpose to break a bowl and get its sharp pieces to cut through her bonds.
"If Van Eck had really done his research, he would have warned Bajan that the Wraith did not fall. Certainly not in a clumsy hap where she could easily tuck a sharp piece of crockery between her bonds."
- Inej fights back the homesickness Bajan was trying to exploit and hisses at him, then tells him to tell Van Eck that she will not make any deals with him.
"Tell your master to honor his old deals before he starts making new ones. Now leave me alone."
- When Van Eck orders his men to catch Inej in the theatre she'd crawled through the vents into, she dodges all of them and starts to climb a rope, despite having been starving herself for around a week.
- Inej manages to stay mostly calm and deny knowing anything that Van Eck wants, even in the face of torture.
- Inej's reputation as described by Van Eck
"You are the Wraith, Miss Ghafa, legend of the Barrel. You've gathered the secrets of judges, councilmen, thieves, and killers alike. I doubt there is anything in this city you do not know."
- Inej manages to make her voice steel when one of Van Eck's guards prepares to torture her.
"'Go on,' she urged, and her voice was steel."
- Inej's vow (voiced internally, in her thoughts) to kill Van Eck
"I'm going to cut you open. I'm going to excavate that pathetic excuse of a heart from your chest."
"I'll do penance for the rest of my days if it means I get to kill him."
- Inej forsaking Bajan
"Kadema mehim."
"'You are forsaken. As you have turned your back on me, so will they turn their backs on you.' It was the worst of Suli denunciations, one that forbade you the welcome of your ancestors in the next world, and doomed your spirit to wander without a home."
- The bomb that Wylan set off in the university.
- Nina kills someone with dust.
- Inej headbutts Van Eck in the nose, breaking it.
- Kaz tricks Van Eck and kidnaps his wife to use as leverage in order to get Inej back.
- Inej draws on Kaz's fearsome reputation to scare Van Eck
"You lay a finger on me and Kaz Brekker will cut the baby from your pretty wife's stomach and hang it's body from a balcony at the Exchange."
"You think he won't? Vile, ruthless, amoral. Isn't that why you hired Kaz in the first place? Because he does the things that no one else dares? Go on, Van Eck. Break my legs and see what happens. Dare him."
- Wylan mouths off to an angry Kaz and still wants to argue back even as Kaz threatens him
“We’re in the middle of a job,” Kaz said. “There’s a lot that has to happen before the exchange tomorrow. Someone find a way to shut her up, or I will.”
“She’s a frightened girl—” Wylan protested.
“I didn’t ask for a description.”
But Wylan kept on. “Kaz, promise me you won’t—”
“Before you finish that sentence, I want you to think about what a promise from me costs and what you’re willing to pay for it.”
“It’s not her fault her parents shoved her into a marriage with my father.”
“Alys isn’t here because she did something wrong. She’s here because she’s leverage.”
“She’s just a pregnant girl—”
“Getting pregnant isn’t actually a special talent. Ask any luckless girl in the Barrel.”
“Inej wouldn’t want—”
In the space of a breath, Kaz had shoved Wylan against the tomb wall with his forearm, the crow head of his cane wedged beneath Wylan’s jaw.
“Tell me my business again.” Wylan swallowed, parted his lips. “Do it,” said Kaz. “And I’ll cut the tongue from your head and feed it to the first stray cat I find.”
“Kaz—” Jesper said cautiously. Kaz ignored him.
Wylan’s lips flattened to a thin, stubborn line. The boy really didn’t know what was good for him. Matthias wondered if he’d have to try to intercede on Wylan’s behalf, but Kaz had released him.
- The coordinated way that Kaz and Inej get Inej's bonds off (whilst fighting people off)
"He shoved Inej’s shoulder and she spun around, offering her wrists so he could slash through her bonds. He tossed the knife in the air, trusting her to catch it as he knelt to deal with her shackles, his picks already sliding between his fingers. Kaz heard the clomp of boots approaching, felt Inej bend backward over his kneeling form, and heard a soft whoosh, then the sound of a body falling. The lock gave beneath Kaz’s fingers and the shackles fell free. He rose, whirled, saw one stadwatch officer down, the shaft of the oyster knife protruding from between his eyes, and more purple uniforms rushing toward them from all directions."
- Kaz and Inej's escape from the bridge.
- The distraction Wylan rigged that consisted of fireworks.
- The other distraction that consisted of over a hundred people dressed as Mister Crimson making it impossible for the police to watch Kaz and Inej.
- Wylan downs (and possibly kills) a Shu Kherguud with purple flames inspired by lumiya. Just hotter.
- Nina blows the head off a Kherguud soldier with one of Jesper's revolvers, by shooting her through the eye.
- The plan to ruin Van Eck's life (and get 30 million kruge) through the manipulation of the stock market.
- Wylan's weevils are so powerful that one singular weevil is capable of destroying a whole silo of sugar. The silos are huge.
- Inej forces Kaz to help Nina get the grisha out of Ketterdam.
- Wylan briefly emulates Kaz's scheming face.
- Kaz steals Per Haskell's bullets from his gun in a matter of seconds, without him noticing.
- Nina and Matthias fight a group of people in a tavern in Little Ravka
- Matthias uses a duskbomb to prevent Heartrender visibility.
- Nina controls bone shards and use them to attack
- Zoya is such a powerful squaller that she slams every single person in the tavern into wall or ceiling, and holds them there, stopping the fight.
- Kaz is the most wanted man in Ketterdam (and he's proud of it)
- Kaz and Wylan break into Van Eck's house
- Wylan burns through his father's safe with acid
- Matthias leads Kuwei and Jesper, and uses their grisha powers to lead them to escape
- Inej's fight with Dunyasha
- Kaz burns through the floor with acid
- Nina raises the dead
- Kaz manages to rewrap Inej's wounds without his gloves, despite his touch aversion
- Kaz beats up around a dozen gang members. On his own
- Genya tailors Wylan to undos Nina's work whilst she was on parem, and gives Wylan his real appearance back
- Colm plays his role as a jurda farmer in a con convincingly (good job for a complete novice to crime who had no idea his son was even a gang member until a few days ago)
- Kaz coined Sturmhond's real identity in like five minutes.
- Wylan spits in his father's face
- Wylan let himself get tortured as part of the plan
- Kaz convinces everyone that Van Eck tampered with the auction and the market
- Nina starts a fake plague outbreak
- Inej kills her "shadow"
- Jesper kills a Khurguud with a weevil
- Jesper shoots around a corner
- Kaz convinces Pekka that he has buried his son alive and makes him go to his knees and beg to tell him where
- Zoya restarts Kuwei's heart
- Wylan pretends to read something by remembering when Jesper read the same document before. That is insane memory.
- Kaz and Wylan convince everyone that Van Eck is not sane
- Kaz faces the Council of Tides and lies to their faces, even under threat, and then threatens them back, saying he'll stage a fake plague outbreak in their towers and have them demasked if they try do anything to him
- Kaz buys Inej a ship, finds her parents, and holds her hand without his gloves
- Inej threatens to carve Pekka's heart out if he ever returns to Ketterdam
- Inej leaves a stuffed crow (Kaz's symbol) in the arms of Pekka's son as a threat
