Jesper Fahey Character Analysis

It would have been easy enough to make peace. Kaz could have told Jesper that he knew he wasn’t dirty, reminded him that he’d trusted him enough to make him his only real second in a fight that could have gone badly wrong tonight. Instead, he said, “Go on, Jesper. There’s a line of credit waiting for you at the Crow Club. Play till morning or your luck runs out, whichever comes first.”

“Do you want to know the best way to find Grisha who don’t want to be found?”

Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his guns, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motion. “Never gave it much thought,” he said.

“Look for miracles and listen to bedtime stories.” Follow the tales of witches and goblins, and unexplained happenings. Sometimes they were just superstition. But often there was truth at the heart of local legends—people who had been born with gifts that their countries didn’t understand.

What would Jordie say if his little brother lost their chance at justice because he couldn’t conquer some stupid sickness inside him? But it only brought back the memory of Jordie’s cold flesh, the way it had grown loose in the salt water, the bodies crowding around him in the flatboat. His vision started to blur.

Get it together, Brekker, he scolded himself harshly. It didn’t help. He was going to faint again, and this would be all over. Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. “The trick is not getting knocked down,” he’d told her with a laugh. “No, Kaz,” she’d said, “the trick is in getting back up.” More Suli platitudes, but somehow even the memory of her voice helped. He was better than this. He had to be. Not just for Jordie, but for his crew.

What bound them together? Greed? Desperation? Was it just the knowledge that if one or all of them disappeared tonight, no one would come looking? Inej’s mother and father might still shed tears for the daughter they’d lost, but if Inej died tonight, there would be no one to grieve for the girl she was now. She had no family, no parents or siblings, only people to fight beside. Maybe that was something to be grateful for, too.

“Red for Corporalki. Blue for Etherealki. Purple for Materialki. Those are pieces of the kefta that Grisha wear in battle. They’re trophies.”

“There are so many.”

Hundreds. Thousands. I would have worn purple, Jesper thought, if I’d joined the Second Army. He reached for the fizzy elation that had been bubbling through him moments before. He’d been willing, even eager to risk capture and execution as a thief and hired gun. Why was it worse to think about being hunted as a Grisha?

“Chaos will come, and I will be its master. Its very wealthy master.”

“You will be ensuring slavery and death for Grisha everywhere,” Inej said.

Van Eck raised a brow. “How old are you, girl? Sixteen? Seventeen? Nations rise and fall. Markets are made and unmade. When power shifts, someone always suffers.”

“When profit shifts,” Jesper shot back.

Van Eck’s expression was bemused. “Aren’t they one and the same?”