67 pages • 2 hours read
Leigh BardugoCrooked Kingdom: A Sequel to Six of Crows
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Forsaken”
Chapter 1 Summary: “Retvenko”
Emil Retvenko drinks alone in a squalid tavern in the Barrel, the city of Ketterdam’s criminal district. Retvenko fought in the Ravkan civil war before fleeing to Kerch. He is a Squaller, a Grisha with the power to raise storms and calm the winds. He reluctantly serves the Kerch Merchant Council and dreams of paying off his indenture so that he can return home. When the bartender asks if he is Ravkan, Retvenko worries that the barman suspects that he is a Grisha. Although several Grisha have recently disappeared in the city of Ketterdam, Retvenko upbraids himself for his “cowardice” and is “filled […] with disgust—at himself, the barman, this city” (5).
Retvenko reports to the merchant ship he is assigned to protect. Before the ship can set sail, a man and a woman from the nation of Shu attack. The woman survives a gunshot wound to the chest and demonstrates superhuman strength. The Shu man has “two vast wings […] gracefully wrought in looping silver filigree and taut canvas” and carries the terrified Retvenko off into the sky (11).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Wylan”
As part of Kaz’s plan to rescue Inej, the Dregs go undercover in a gambling den. Their mark is Jan Van Eck’s lawyer, Cornelis Smeet. Jesper plays cards with Smeet in the guise of a fellow patron, and Kaz is the dealer. Posing as a brothel worker, Nina pickpockets Smeet’s dog whistle and gives it to Wylan, who is disguised as a waiter. Wylan already feels like an imposter because Nina used her powers to make him look like Kuwei in Six of Crows, and he still bears the Shu boy’s features.
Kaz and Wylan break into Smeet’s house and use the whistle to calm the lawyer’s dogs. The Dregs learned about the whistle from one of the lawyer’s clerks. Kaz killed the clerk, and his last words haunt Wylan—“I’m a good man” (25). Wylan cannot read, but he helps Kaz search through Smeet’s ledgers by providing information about his father’s business dealings. Wylan mentions that his mother died when he was eight and that he doesn’t know where her grave is. Kaz notices that Van Eck has sent money to a place called Saint Hilde’s for the last eight years and suggests that it’s a church where Wylan’s mother is buried.
After examining lists of Van Eck’s properties, Kaz declares, “I know where she is” (27). (At the time, “she” appears to be Inej, though in retrospect it becomes clear Kaz is talking about Van Eck’s wife.) The lawyer’s daughter spots them, and Kaz tells her that he is a monster, threatening to kill her parents and “cut out the hearts of all these sweet slobbering hounds” if she tells anyone what she’s seen (30). As Kaz and Wylan walk away from Smeet’s home, they run right into the lawyer himself.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Matthias”
Running into Smeet allows Kaz to return the dog whistle without the lawyer noticing. Matthias acts as a lookout and gives Kaz back his crow-headed cane, which serves as both a mobility aid and a weapon. The Dregs regroup on Black Veil Island, an abandoned “miniature city of white marble mausoleums” (35). Nina and Jesper are in cross moods. Jesper lost his beloved revolvers to Smeet. Nina is still recovering after taking the drug jurda parem to save her friends in Six of Crows, although Matthias finds her distractingly beautiful even in her depleted state. Ketterdam’s harbors are already full of vessels from several nations that wish to claim the power of parem for themselves.
Kaz mentions that he plans to target Van Eck’s silos and make them all rich once they have Inej back. Kuwei states that he wishes to go to Ravka and create an antidote for parem, but Kaz shoots down Kuwei’s idea because Van Eck would expect him to go there.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Inej”
Van Eck holds Inej prisoner in a nondescript room. The man who delivers her meals claims that Van Eck can help her find her family, whom she has not seen since she was abducted by slavers at 14, but she refuses to betray her friends. Inej cuts through her restraints and squeezes through the vent in her cell. To give herself courage, she remembers her father saying that fear is a “visitor” with an important message and focuses on her dream of hunting down slavers.
Inej emerges into a dilapidated theater and finds Van Eck waiting for her. When she refuses to reveal where Kaz is hiding Kuwei, the merchant orders his guards to shatter her legs. An injury like that would destroy the acrobatic abilities that make Inej the Wraith, the best spy in the Barrel. Terrified that Kaz won’t care about her if she is no longer useful to him, she screams, “He’ll never trade if you break me!” (63). Van Eck returns her to her room unharmed. Back in her cell, Inej recalls how Kaz saved her from her enslavement at a brothel called the Menagerie. Before the incident in the theater, “she’d believed […] that he would put aside his greed and his demons” and rescue her once more (65), but her belief gives way to doubt.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Ketterdam serves as the novel’s primary setting, and Part 1 quickly establishes the city as a dangerous place that treats people like commodities and forces them to fend for themselves. Retvenko’s foiled hopes of returning to Ravka introduce the theme of The Search for Home and Family. His abduction by the Shu soldiers shows the precarity of existence for Grisha in Ketterdam, which later chapters explore further. Another important setting, Black Veil Island, first appears in Chapter 3. Kaz and his crew resort to hiding among tombs, a decision that reflects their isolation and the deadly odds stacked against them. The teenagers have only one another to depend on, and they lack their full strength due to Inej’s capture and Nina’s withdrawal from jurda parem.
The crew also faces divisions from within. Wylan exemplifies this with his belief that he is an imposter among the Dregs. Even though Jesper ranks highly among Wylan’s reasons for staying with the gang, Wylan worries that his feelings are unreciprocated. Meanwhile, Nina and Matthias are aware of their mutual attraction but are uncertain where they stand with one another since Nina used parem, and Kaz holds everyone at arm’s length. During their search of Smeet’s office, Wylan asks Kaz why the Dregs say, “No mourners, no funerals.” The expression serves as a rallying cry for the crew throughout the book, but Kaz downplays the saying’s significance with a quip instead of explaining its meaning. This retort is just one example of Kaz’s efforts to keep his allies and his own emotions at a distance so that he can focus on vengeance. As the novel progresses, the crew become a family for one another, but their relationships are full of insecurities in Part 1.
Despite these doubts and divisions, the crew is united in its determination to free Inej and to wreak vengeance on Van Eck. This second aim introduces the theme of The Struggle for Revenge and Redemption. In addition, Jesper tries in vain to earn Kaz’s forgiveness for his missteps in the previous book, when his gambling inadvertently gave away the group’s plan. Although Kaz does not ask Jesper to wager his beloved revolvers, he intentionally deals the sharpshooter losing hands and instructs him to keep Smeet at the card tables by whatever means necessary. In this light, the loss of the revolvers serves as both a punishment for Jesper’s risky behavior and a test of his desire for redemption. Inej also seeks revenge and redemption. She vows to wreak vengeance on Van Eck and motivates herself by thinking about hunting down slave ships. Achieving this dream would allow her to avenge herself on the slavers who tore her from her family and to atone for the crimes she committed amongst the Dregs.
Part 1 introduces the novel’s chief symbols, including jurda parem. The drug represents greed for power and wealth, and the foreign ships gathering in Ketterdam’s harbor show the dangerous and far-reaching threat of avarice. The novel’s bird symbolism also begins in this section. The use of pigeons as a symbol for gullible targets appears twice; Nina and Kaz both invoke the symbol as they enact the plan to steal information from Smeet. Crows, a symbol of remembrance, appear in the shape of Kaz’s crow-headed cane. Symbolically, Kaz remembers his promise to destroy those who wronged him and his friends with every step.
Part 1 also presents the theme of The Making of Monsters. Kaz shows his capacity for brutality by killing the clerk, and the chilling warning he gives Smeet’s daughter demonstrates his willingness to avoid violence when he can command fear through other means. The clerk considered himself “a good man” but exploited a young woman without compunction (25), which shows that the vulnerable in Ketterdam need a monster like Kaz. This woman worked at the same brothel as Inej, a narrative choice that underscores Kaz’s feelings for Inej and his vengeful anger against those who harmed her.
Kaz describes himself as a monster, but Inej sees in him a rescuer, an ally, and perhaps something more. As someone who has literally been bought and sold, Inej naturally wants Kaz to value her for her intrinsic worth, not her usefulness. Her terrified words to Van Eck in the theater lay bare her fear that Kaz sees her as a business asset. Part 1 ends with Inej’s failed escape attempt, emphasizing her feelings of abandonment and hopelessness. These emotions give this section the title “Forsaken” and impact her relationship with Kaz in later parts.
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By Leigh Bardugo
