Shadow and Bone

by Leigh Bardugo

Alina Starkov is a soldier in Ravka who reveals a dormant power to summon light. Swept into the world of the Grisha — magic users who serve the mysterious Darkling — she discovers that the truth about her nation's greatest threat may be far worse than the darkness itself.

53 characters, locations, and items in this world codex.

Characters

• Alina Starkov — The Sun Summoner who destroyed the Shadow Fold and lost her powers doing it — an orphan mapmaker who became a saint, a weapon, and then chose to be or
• The Darkling — A centuries-old Shadow Summoner who created the Fold trying to protect his people and spent every year since trying to control the weapon that resulte
• Malyen Oretsev — Alina's childhood best friend, the best tracker in the First Army, and secretly the third Morozova amplifier — a boy who was always extraordinary but
• Nikolai Lantsov — Ravka's privateer prince turned king — the man with a plan for everything, a smile for everyone, and a monster inside him that the Darkling put there.
• Genya Safin — A Tailor who was given to the queen as a spy and a toy — scarred by the Darkling's enemies for her loyalty, she rebuilt herself into a leader who wear
• Zoya Nazyalensky — The most powerful Squaller alive — a woman whose beauty is a weapon, whose temper is legendary, and whose dragon transformation in King of Scars redef
• David Kostyk — A Durast who sees the world in materials and mechanisms — socially oblivious, quietly brilliant, and the only person who looked at Genya after her sca
• Baghra — The Darkling's mother — a bitter, ancient Shadow Summoner who trained generations of Grisha while hiding that her son created the Fold, and who finall
• Kaz Brekker — Dirtyhands — a seventeen-year-old criminal mastermind who built an empire from nothing, cannot bear human touch, and plans heists the way other people
• Inej Ghafa — The Wraith — a Suli acrobat sold into a brothel, freed by Kaz Brekker, and reborn as the deadliest spy in Ketterdam, who carries her saints' names on
• Jesper Fahey — A sharpshooter with a gambling addiction that's actually suppressed Grisha power — Zemeni, bisexual, incapable of sitting still, and the person who ma
• Nina Zenik — A Ravkan Heartrender who fell in love with the Fjerdan witch hunter sent to capture her — sensual, fierce, and the bridge between two worlds that want
• Matthias Helvar — A Fjerdan drüskelle who was taught that Grisha are witches — then fell in love with one, and spent the rest of his short life trying to reconcile the
• Wylan Van Eck — A merchant's son with a secret — he can't read, he can build bombs, and he fell in love with a sharpshooter who makes him blush so hard it's practical
• Pekka Rollins — The king of the Barrel before Kaz — a brutal gang leader who swindled and killed Kaz's brother, creating the monster that would eventually destroy him
• Jan Van Eck — A Kerch merchant who hired the Crows to steal jurda parem from the Ice Court — then betrayed them because controlling the drug was worth more than any
• Tolya Yul-Bataar — A giant Shu Heartrender who quotes poetry mid-combat and serves as Nikolai's personal bodyguard — proof that the biggest man in the room can also be t
• Tamar Kir-Bataar — Tolya's twin sister — a Heartrender who fights with axes and whose quiet intensity is the perfect complement to her brother's poetry-quoting enthusias
• Ivan — The Darkling's most loyal Heartrender — a humorless enforcer who serves his master with the devotion of a man who has never once questioned whether he
• Fedyor Kaminsky — A Heartrender who chose diplomacy over violence — warm where Ivan is cold, and caught between loyalty to Ravka and love for a man who serves the Darkl
• Kuwei Yul-Bo — The Shu Inferni whose father created jurda parem — kidnapped, rescued, and stuck in Ketterdam as the only person who might be able to recreate the wor
• The Apparat — Ravka's spiritual advisor — a priest who serves whichever power keeps him relevant, promoting Alina's sainthood with the fervor of a man who found the
• Volcra — The monsters of the Shadow Fold — eyeless, leathery-winged creatures born from the Darkling's merzost that hunt by sound and devour anyone who enters
• Nichevo'ya — Shadow soldiers summoned from the void — the Darkling's personal army of darkness that obeys only his will and cannot be killed by conventional means.
• The Dregs — Kaz Brekker's gang — formerly a Barrel laughingstock, now the most dangerous crew in Ketterdam, with a crow-and-cup tattoo and a leader who makes othe
• Second Army — Ravka's all-Grisha military force — founded by the Darkling as a sanctuary, headquartered at the Little Palace, and the reason Grisha in Ravka serve r
• Drüskelle — Fjerda's holy soldiers — witch hunters who train with wolves, swear oaths to Djel, and burn Grisha on pyres in the name of divine purity.
• Grisha Triumvirate — The post-Darkling Grisha leadership — Zoya, Genya, and David (later Leoni) leading the Second Army into an era where Grisha serve Ravka rather than on
• Per Haskell — The Dregs's former boss — a doddering old man who let Kaz do the real work and then sided with Pekka Rollins when it mattered most.
• Jarl Brum — The drüskelle commander who doubled his forces and pushed to weaponize jurda parem — Matthias's former mentor and the embodiment of Fjerda's instituti

Locations

• Ravka — A Tsarist Russia-inspired nation split in half by a wall of darkness — where Grisha serve in the Second Army, the war with Fjerda never ends, and a sk
• Ketterdam — The Amsterdam of the Grishaverse — a canal city of trade, crime, and opportunity where gangs rule the Barrel, merchants rule the Exchange, and everybo
• Os Alta — Ravka's Dream City — divided between the glittering inner city of palaces and the impoverished outer ring where most people actually live.
• The Shadow Fold — A wall of impenetrable darkness splitting Ravka in half — created by the Darkling's merzost four hundred years ago, filled with eyeless volcra, and de
• The Little Palace — The Second Army's home — a golden-domed sanctuary built by the Darkling where Grisha live, train, and serve Ravka from behind walls that separate them
• Fjerda — The Scandinavia-inspired ice nation that hunts Grisha as abominations — home to the drüskelle, the Ice Court, and a culture that believes magic is a s
• Shu Han — The Grishaverse's Mongolia — a matriarchal nation that dissects Grisha to understand their power, creating metal-augmented soldiers called khergud fro
• Novyi Zem — The frontier nation across the sea — where Grisha are called 'zowa' (blessed), jurda grows in the fields, and outcasts from every nation come to start
• Kerch — The Dutch Republic of the Grishaverse — a small island nation that is the wealthiest in the world, ruled by merchant families, and rigorously neutral
• The Barrel — Ketterdam's criminal heart — a district of gambling dens, brothels, and gang territory where the only law is what you can enforce and the only currenc
• The Ice Court — Fjerda's most secure fortress — built in concentric circles of white marble and glass, guarded by drüskelle and wolves, and the target of the most aud
• Crow Club — Kaz Brekker's gambling den — black lacquer walls, crimson card tables, and the headquarters of the most dangerous crew in Ketterdam.
• Keramzin — The orphanage where Alina and Mal grew up — and where they returned after saving Ravka, running it under assumed names as the quiet ending they chose.
• Grand Palace — The Ravkan royal seat in Os Alta — where kings rule, princes scheme, and the gap between Grisha and otkazat'sya politics plays out in golden halls.
• Os Kervo — Ravka's western port — the gateway to the True Sea and one of the few places where East and West Ravka still connect despite the Fold.

Items

• Morozova's Collar — An amplifier forged from Morozova's Stag — two curving silver antler pieces that the Darkling used to bind Alina's power to his control, until she bro
• Jurda Parem — The drug that could end the world — one dose amplifies Grisha power into something godlike, two doses create addiction, and withdrawal means madness a
• Kefta — The Grisha uniform — color-coded robes that identify order, subtype, and rank at a glance, with combat variants made of bulletproof corecloth.
• Grisha Steel — A special metal invented by Ilya Morozova — used in weapons, bulletproof corecloth, and the horrifying khergud program that fuses metal to human bone.
• Inej's Knives — Sankt Petyr and Sankta Alina — named after saints, sharp enough to end arguments, and the only weapons carried by a girl who prays before she kills.
• Morozova's Stag — A legendary white stag — the first of Ilya Morozova's amplifiers, hunted by Mal's tracking gift and killed by the Darkling to forge the collar that bo
• Sea Whip's Fetter — The second Morozova amplifier — seven golden scales from a sea serpent, fused around Alina's wrist, completing her path to power that would destroy th
• The Wraith — Inej's ship — bought by Kaz Brekker as the thing he could not say with words, given to a girl who uses it to hunt slavers across the True Sea.

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