60 pages • 2-hour read
Fallen
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Chapter 17-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “An Open Book”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
Luce needs time to lie down alone in her room. She ignores a knock from Penn. She tries to process what Daniel told her and line it up with all her strange feelings and dreams. She wonders about the shadows and the deaths of people close to her, as well as about her own past deaths.
Luce finds the copy of The Watchers that Penn has left in her room, along with a note explaining that they need to talk urgently. Luce opens the book to the title page, where what appears to be a photo of Luce and Daniel is taped. The photo is very old, from another time. Luce accepts that Daniel is telling the truth. She goes to the library to find Penn. Instead, she encounters Arriane and Roland playing chess. She asks Roland if she can trust what Daniel tells her, but Roland isn’t sure what Luce means.
Luce looks for shadows in the library. She can feel that they are close, but she doesn’t see them. Luce then encounters Miss Sophia, who sees that Luce has found The Watchers. She seemingly knows what’s going on between Luce and Daniel, and she reacts with surprise when she learns that Luce survived a kiss from Daniel. Miss Sophia flips through the book, and Luce notices that Daniel has sketched her in the margins. When Luce fawns over Daniel, Miss Sophia informs her that both she and Daniel are damned.
Luce tells Miss Sophia the other things that Daniel told her and explains why it took her a while to believe him. This includes her agnostic upbringing. Luce reveals that she was never baptized in the Christian faith, and Miss Sophia seems to take this seriously.
Luce leaves to find Daniel, and Miss Sophia tags along. When they leave the building, Luce can feel that there are shadows nearby, pulling her toward the cemetery. Luce finds Penn at the cemetery gates. Penn had come to look for Luce, but then a crowd of other students arrived and headed for the center of the cemetery, where there’s a large, churning, black shadow. Penn is afraid of the flickering light at the center and has a general feeling that something bad will happen.
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Buried War”
Luce hurries toward the middle of the cemetery, to what appears to be a massive, swirling lightning storm. Luce worries that Daniel is inside the storm. She knows deep down what he is. Miss Sophia and Penn chase after Luce, but she tells them not to. A swarm of locusts sweeps through the cemetery, and Miss Sophia becomes distraught. Luce pleads with Penn to leave for her own safety, but Penn doesn’t understand why. Luce leaves her behind.
Luce reunites with Daniel at the mausoleum, but he is distraught that Luce has come. She asks Daniel how he can love her when he’s an angel and tells him about her dreams. Daniel is surprised and asks Luce to say it again. He’s surprised that she can say it without getting hurt. He tells her that she’s innocent in all of this; in Luce’s previous lives, she could never see the shadows, which Daniel refers to as “Announcers.” The shadows foretell bad situations and report back to something darker. There are other kinds of shadows, like the ones that have shown up for the battle that is about to take place. Daniel says that they still have time.
Luce informs Daniel that she found his book and saw the picture. She thinks about her past lives and about Trevor’s and Todd’s deaths. She finally feels that she has answers to the mysteries that have plagued her. Daniel explains that he couldn’t tell Luce that he was an angel because of how delicate things are when they are together. He’s worried that she’ll disappear at any moment. Miss Sophia warns Daniel that telling Luce more will kill her. Luce confesses her love for Daniel.
Cam interrupts them; he seems to be controlling the shadows. He threatens to light the cemetery on fire or set the shadows on them. Cam has called an end to a truce that Luce is not privy to. Cam’s motivation seems to be Luce and the fact that she is still around. He warns that she won’t be around for long and that this time, she’ll die for good because things are different.
Miss Sophia begins speaking in tongues. Gabbe and Arriane arrive and confirm what Cam is saying—something about Luce is different this time around, and they need to proceed with caution. Daniel realizes something about Luce and backs away from her. He says that she needs to get out of there immediately. An army of angels descends on the cemetery. Arriane and Gabbe appear to be part of the fight as well.
Miss Sophia, Luce, and Penn flee the cemetery, but Penn is struck by a blast of shadows that leaves a huge, burnt gash on her shoulder. Miss Sophia carries Penn the rest of the way to the gymnasium. She opens a secret staircase and gestures for Luce to lead the way. Luce is hesitant because she worries that Penn will need medical attention. Miss Sophia becomes more aggressive with Luce. She pulls a dagger from her sleeve and slices Penn’s throat, killing her. Luce realizes that Miss Sophia has locked her in.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Out of Sight”
Speaking in tongues, Miss Sophia brings Luce to a small chapel with no windows except for a stained-glass skylight. She lights candles and criticizes Luce for trusting so easily. She instructs Luce to lie on the altar. Miss Sophia has been waiting for this; she wants Luce out of the picture to free Daniel up for an unknown purpose. Miss Sophia implies that the fate of humanity rests in the hands of the two lovestruck teens. She hopes to end a battle that has gone on for millennia and claims to be on the good side.
Miss Sophia reveals that Luce won’t come back in 17 years because she wasn’t baptized at birth in this lifetime—a detail that she should’ve kept to herself. That’s why she can see the shadows and kiss Daniel. Miss Sophia is delighted to finally bring an end to Luce’s cycle. Just as she’s about to slice Luce’s neck, an opalescent light descends through the skylight, shattering it. It frees Luce. She knows it’s Daniel before he takes his human form. Daniel reveals his wings to Luce, and they embrace. Luce assures Daniel that she is not afraid.
Miss Sophia escapes the chapel. Arriane and Gabbe also appear, revealing that they are also angels. Miss Sophia, it turns out, is part of a secret organization. They thought that she was on their side, but she’ll be exiled for this. Daniel explains that Molly, Cam, and Roland are also fallen angels, but they’re on the other side of the war. Penn was mortal—just a person caught in the battle. The fight outside is one of the many battles fought between fallen angels. No one won; no one ever wins.
Luce says that they must bury Penn next to her father, but Gabbe says that there isn’t time. Daniel promises that they’ll make it right to the best of their ability. What’s important is getting Luce far away from Sword & Cross. The post-battle truce only protects angels, and now that Luce’s unbaptized status is known, there will be bad angels coming for her. Luce asks more questions but only receives vague answers. It will take a long time to explain everything, especially because they don’t want to tell Luce everything at once and overwhelm her.
Daniel cannot take Luce to safety, as it would jeopardize her location, but there is a staff member at Sword & Cross that Daniel trusts. He’ll make the arrangements. Luce wants more time with Daniel.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Daybreak”
The next morning, Luce considers her brief time at Sword & Cross and the devastating and beautiful events of the night before. They left Penn’s body in the chapel to wait until it’s safe to bury her. Luce laments that she will not be there, and she hopes that Penn and her father are together now.
As Daniel leads Luce through campus, she wonders how many other students heard or saw the battle last night. In the cemetery, remnants of Cam’s warfare hang in the air just above the grass. It’s often left after angel battles, and it confuses mortal scientists. Luce shows Daniel where Penn’s father is buried. She breaks down, and Daniel tells her how strong she is and how capable she is of facing what’s ahead.
As they cut through the forest, Luce spots several shadows hanging in a tree. They rear back as Daniel and Luce pass. Daniel takes Luce in his arms and tells her to close her eyes. He flies her the rest of the way to the lake. Luce wants to open her eyes, but she knows she is not ready for that. The two swim and kiss at the lake, enjoying their last romantic moments together. A plane waits in the field on the other side of the woods, ready to take Luce to a remote location. Daniel prepares her for what to expect and answers her questions about her parents and her absence from Sword & Cross. He sends her away with a locket containing pictures of them from a previous life. He tells Luce to trust her instincts because she has the guidance and intuition of her previous lives.
Daniel must go find Cam to sort out a few more things, but he promises to come for Luce soon. Mr. Cole is a trusted ally to the fallen angels and a licensed pilot. He understands what’s going on, but he doesn’t pry as he flies Luce to a safe place. Luce feels that she and Daniel are at the beginning of something big, scary, and significant. She wants to be part of fighting for her own destiny alongside Daniel. She knows that it’s worth it for their love.
Epilogue Summary: “Two Great Lights”
Daniel watches Luce sleep in a cabin on an island just off the coast. He sits in the rafters and wishes that he could go to her, but he cannot right now. She has a hard few days ahead of her.
Cam joins Daniel in the rafters. Daniel accuses him of trying to kill Luce, but Cam responds that he wouldn’t, adding that he would’ve slain Miss Sophia. Cam wants Luce for unstated reasons, but Daniel knows these reasons. Cam reminds Daniel that he doesn’t have claim over Luce yet and that there are things Luce has yet to understand. The two angels shake hands on an 18-day truce.
Chapter 17-Epilogue Analysis
The final chapters and Epilogue of Fallen feature the climactic battle between good and evil and explain many of the novel’s unanswered questions about Luce and the people surrounding her at Sword & Cross. These chapters also feature several important symbols.
In Chapter 17, while still reeling from the information that Daniel revealed about her past lives, Luce begins to uncover the narrative context that has been missing from all her previous, abbreviated lives. She finally gets her hands on The Watchers and discovers the photograph inside the cover. Luce realizes that she’s the woman with Daniel in the photo and that “[he] had been telling the truth” (367). This moment helps Luce come to accept the information she’s just learned about her cycle with Daniel. The Watchers alludes to a specific group of fallen angels in Hebrew lore who love mortal women and share forbidden knowledge. In Chapter 18, Daniel explains that he couldn’t tell her he’s an angel because “[i]f [he] told [her] too quickly or at the wrong time, [she]’d be gone again” (395). He appears surprised that, yet again, Luce has survived something that has taken her life in past lives. The idea that some knowledge is dangerous to Luce alludes to the Watcher angels providing humans with forbidden knowledge, and Daniel’s book, The Watchers, symbolizes the truth that has been, until this lifetime, forbidden for Luce.
These chapters make additional biblical allusions with the appearance of the locust swarm in Chapter 18 and the revelation that Cam, Gabbe, Arriane, Molly, and Roland are all fallen angels as well, caught in The Timeless Struggle Between Good and Evil. The novel presents this battle as a perpetual stalemate punctuated by frequent truces. Each side appears to accept that the other will always exist: “Nobody ever wins” the battles like the one at the cemetery, and it’s “just one of many battles [they] wage against the demons” (425). The climactic cemetery battle develops the idea that the powers of good and evil will always be struggling against one another.
The revelation that Luce was not baptized as a child clarifies the rules of this fictional, spiritual world. Her nonreligious parents did not bring her into the Christian faith, leaving her “soul up for grabs” (416). Her lack of baptism exempts her from many of the rules that bound her previous selves, but it also exposes her to the danger of permanent death. Without the baptism, Luce can withstand Daniel’s love, knowledge, and kisses, but she can also see the shadows, and Miss Sophia reveals that “the reason [she] come[s] back again and again is because all the other times [she’s] been born, [she was] ushered into religious belief” (416). Luce’s soul is in danger of dying forever now because of her lack of baptism. These chapters also reveal Miss Sophia to be a double-crosser. Throughout the book, Miss Sophia is an ally and a helpful mentor to Luce, but Chapters 18 and 19 reveal that she has her own motives for manipulating things between Luce and Daniel. When Miss Sophia takes Penn’s life at the end of Chapter 18, it is not only an unexpected twist but also the start of a complete shift in demeanor for her character, who taunts and insults Luce as she prepares to sacrifice her.
The symbolism of the shadows also comes into focus in these final chapters, and in Chapter 18, Daniel reveals their true nature, telling Luce that there are many kinds of shadows but that the ones she sees are called Announcers, who “scope out a situation and report back to someone else” (392). Daniel doesn’t explain further, though, leaving the mystery of who the shadows report to unexplained. After the battle, when Luce has come to learn a lot about the fallen angels and her place in this war, she still sees a few shadows hanging in the trees. The shadows symbolize the mysteries of Luce’s past and the questions that remain unanswered about her future.
Daniel and Luce have one final romantic moment at the lake together in Chapter 20, during which all of Luce’s yearning and passion for Daniel can finally be fulfilled. During this time, he tells her, “[I]f you feel an instinct, even about something you think you don’t know, you should trust it. You’ll probably be right” (441). Luce’s instincts come from unconscious memories of her past lives: The curse that has robbed her of necessary knowledge can also be a kind of superpower. Now that she is finally free to live past the age of 17, she will need these instincts as she continues to piece together the meaning of her existence. Daniel’s advice comes after 20 chapters of Luce pursuing the gut instinct drawing her to him. By validating Luce’s gut instincts, Daniel helps develop the theme of The Importance of Trusting One’s Instincts.
Finally, the Epilogue brings the implication that Daniel and Cam have a long history regarding Luce. The final moments of the novel set up the next book in the series, hinting that there will be trouble on the horizon once the 18-day truce ends.
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