The Dregs' spy and infiltration specialist, known as the Wraith for her ability to move without being seen or heard. A former acrobat trafficked to Ketterdam's pleasure houses before Kaz bought her indenture. Her knives are named for Suli saints and she kills with a precision that has never stopped troubling her.

The seventeen-year-old underboss of the Dregs, Ketterdam's most feared gang. He plans the Ice Court heist with the precision of a man who has never let sentiment interfere with strategy, while concealing the fact that sentiment is exactly what drives him. His inability to be touched without triggering trauma is both a vulnerability and a weapon.

The Dregs' sharpshooter, a Zemeni with an addiction to gambling and a talent for gunplay that borders on supernatural. His easy charm and perpetual motion conceal a Grisha ability he has spent years refusing to acknowledge.

A Fjerdan Drüskelle trained from childhood to hunt and destroy Grisha. Imprisoned in Hellgate after being betrayed by Nina, he is released to join the Ice Court heist. His arc is about the slow dismantling of a worldview built entirely on fear and religious certainty.

A Heartrender from the Second Army who ended up in Ketterdam after a shipwreck and an unlikely alliance with a Fjerdan soldier. Warm, politically passionate, and capable of stopping a man's heart with a gesture. Her arc across both duologies deals with grief, addiction, and what it means to keep fighting for something after the cost becomes clear.

The son of a wealthy Kerch merchant, recruited for his knowledge of demolitions and chemistry. Cannot read, which his father considered a shameful defect and which turns out to be entirely beside the point. Becomes central to the Ice Court plan in ways nobody anticipated.