The Formation of the Six of Crows

Lore & Background

Ketterdam is a city built on trade, corruption, and the quiet assumption that everyone has a price. It is here, in the shadow of the Van Eck family's sprawling influence, that Kaz Brekker operates—a young man whose physical disability (the loss of both legs) has made him a ghost in a world that values only strength. His mind, however, is a weapon, and he wields it to pull strings across the criminal underworld, the merchant guilds, and the fringes of Grisha power.

The crew he assembles is a deliberate mosaic of complementary skills and complementary scars. Inejah Ghap, a fighter of extraordinary skill, works under a crime lord whose debts she can never fully escape. Jesper Faulk, a gambler with a steady hand and a quicker tongue, drifts between debts and small cons. Nina Zarutina, a Volcra whose ability to read and project thoughts has made her a commodity in the most degrading of establishments, is both the crew's most sensitive instrument and its most vulnerable member.

Matthias Helvar, a former Red Guard soldier, carries the weight of a military life he is desperate to leave behind. And Wylan Van Eck, the youngest son of the very family they are meant to rob, brings insider knowledge, technical ingenuity, and the complicated loyalty of a son who resents his own bloodline. What binds them is not friendship—at least not at first—but mutual survival. Kaz's plan is a web of timing, misdirection, and exploitation of each member's specific expertise.

The Grisha magic system, with its rigid hierarchies and the political power it grants to those who can control it, forms the backdrop against which their heist becomes a collision of personal vendettas and institutional cruelty. The formation arc is, at its heart, a story about how broken people choose to become a unit, and how the act of trusting one another becomes the most dangerous and most liberating thing they will ever do.

Reader's Guide

The arc opens in Ketterdam, where Kaz Brekker receives a lucrative job from a mysterious client: steal a Grisha held captive by the Van Eck family. The central conflict is the heist itself, but the true engine of the story is Kaz's recruitment of five individuals whose skills are essential and whose personal stakes make them both invaluable and unpredictable. The key turning point comes when the crew, assembled in a makeshift base, begins planning the operation and their individual histories collide—Wylan's loyalty to his family, Inejah's debts to her crime lord, Nina's trauma as a Volcra, Matthias's guilt over his Red Guard past.

The plan fractures under the weight of these tensions, forcing Kaz to adapt in real time. The arc sets up the broader Grishaverse by introducing the political machinery of the Van Eck family, the existence of powerful Grisha subtypes, and the moral ambiguity of Ketterdam's underworld. It establishes the crew's core dynamic—mutual dependence forged under pressure—which carries directly into their next major operation. Cross-reference: the Van Eck family (rival faction), the Red Guard (Ravkan military, Matthias's former affiliation), and the Grisha hierarchy (the magic system that underpins every power struggle in the city).

Did You Know?

• Kaz Brekker lost both legs in a childhood incident, and his prosthetic legs are a constant physical presence in the narrative, shaping how he moves through spaces and how others perceive his authority.
• Nina Zarutina's Volcra ability lets her read and project thoughts, but prolonged use causes her severe physical pain and disorientation, making her a tactical asset the crew must protect rather than simply deploy.
• Wylan Van Eck is recruited into the crew despite being the son of the very family they are hired to rob, creating a central loyalty conflict that drives much of the arc's emotional tension.
• The crew's base of operations is an abandoned, run-down building in Ketterdam's Dregs' district, a space that reflects their outsider status and the city's class divisions.