“That was her reason. Not monsters, not words on bark. The only way to keep her sister safe was to leave her.”

Red’s protectiveness towards Neve is her primary motivation for fulfilling her obligation to enter the Wilderwood. In keeping with the theme of sacrifice The Power of Sacrifice that runs throughout the novel, Red would rather sacrifice her own freedom than stay in Valleyda and risk harming her sister. The bond between the sisters is another powerful element throughout the novel.

“There was nothing in his form that carried monstrousness, but still that intangible sense of…of other, of a human frame that didn’t house a wholly human thing.”

One of the early plot twists is the reveal that the Wolf, who in the myths is represented as a monster, is really a young man with magical abilities, introducing the theme of What Qualifies as Monstrosity. Red’s perception of Eammon here combines the pathos of his humanity with the burden of his power and duty put upon him by his supernatural abilities. The Wolf, like many of the other stories Red was initially told, provides an example that myths and beliefs can sometimes misrepresent or misinterpret the facts.

“Ridiculous that she’d want to keep the thing that marked her as a sacrifice. But the memory it carried was the one of Neve, helping her get dressed.”

Red’s scarlet cloak, which alludes to the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, becomes an important symbol that changes valence throughout the story. Here, it serves to present the bond between Red and her sister, a connection she clings to now that they are physically parted.

“The forest is only as strong as we let it be.”

Kiri’s reminder to Neve is a philosophical statement about belief and the ways belief imbues power, speaking to the novel’s larger treatment of myth, truth, and the power of story. This also serves as a hint of Kiri’s antagonistic role, in that she wishes to weaken the protective aspects of the Wilderwood in order to release the monsters of the Shadowlands.

“This ends in roots and bones. For all of you. It always ends in roots and bones.”

This threat from the shadow creature speaks to what Red initially fears: That she will be consumed by the Wilderwood in the way of the Second Daughters before her. The image of “roots and bones” and the short, clipped repetition also mimic an incantation, echoing the magic that Red is learning to manipulate.

“Even if her power was something she could use, her mind was too shackled by fear to let her. Every time it surged, all she could see were her memories of carnage.”

Red’s fear about using her magic is connected to her lack of understanding about her connection to the Wilderwood or the way it works. As she grows in self-knowledge and awareness of the forces around her, this perception changes, becoming a metaphor for how young adults learn the power and responsibility of adulthood while wrestling with The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief.

“I have been guided by [the Kings] to see clarity, to know the true ways of things. It is not everyone who can be trusted with truth, Highness. It is a volatile thing.”

Kiri’s statement to Neve about “truth” reflects how there are different perspectives on their religion and what is right, speaking to the tension between myth and fact. After later events reveal Kiri’s real intentions, this dedication to supposed truth exposes her motivation for dealing in the magic provided by the Shadowlands.

“Ciaran. Gaya. He never referred to them as his parents, only by their names or titles. Turning them into distant people who didn’t require warmth.”

Red observes that Eammon uses his parents’ proper names to establish a distance from the pain he feels at losing them and inheriting their burdens, reflecting the impact of The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief in the story. Red relates to this as she feels distant from both her parents, another point of connection that builds their romance.

“If you give the Wilderwood blood, it won’t stop there.”

This early conclusion of Red’s indicates her limited understanding, in the first half of the book, about the relationship she can have to the Wilderwood. Her feeling of powerlessness speaks to the developing themes of control, choice, and making peace with The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief.

“[Her magic] flowed, rich and heady, deep green. A thin tendril, winding through muscle and bone like a root snaking toward the sun, waiting for her will.”

This passage again compares Red’s power to a growing plant, using the images of shoots and vines to represent her power as vibrant and healthy. Her control over her magic feels nourishing, a mark of her evolving character growth and increased self-awareness.

“Her husband, the Wolf. Scarred for her, scarred for everyone else, locked in a constant fight with a forest that was part of him.”

Eammon, as the Wolf, is more a tragic figure than a monster when Red first encounters him, reflecting What Qualifies as Monstrosity. He is heroically fighting a losing battle and sacrificing himself in order to protect others, also speaking to the novel’s themes of sacrifice and choice.

“Still getting worse, despite her using the forest’s magic, despite their thread bond. Still taking pieces of Eammon, whether let from a vein or a change in his body.”

Eammon’s insistence on tending to the Wilderwood at the cost of his own health speaks to the novel’s argument that power, and duty, are less burdensome when shared. His sense of obligation to the forest provides a metaphor for demands—even inherited demands—that drain a person of their time, health, or energy.

“I don’t think we’re ever ready to take on what our parents leave us […] The places left rarely fit.”

This statement of Eammon’s speaks further to the novel’s interest in The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief. While Red reckons with her duty as the Second Daughter, Eammon is still coming to terms with his own relationship to the Wilderwood, which he doesn’t yet feel he can share with Red.

“You begin and begin, yet never see it finished.”

This accusation that the Wilderwood makes haunts Red as she struggles to understand what the Wilderwood wants from her. This speaks to the novel’s larger metaphors about the struggle of new adults to understand and meet the responsibilities of adulthood as well as develop an understanding of, and control over, their freedom and power.

“Alone. Determined, always, to be alone, even when she was standing next to him.”

Eammon’s character arc in the novel entails learning to ask for help, something he has never done in his long isolation in the forest. His journey, like Red’s, is to understand The Power of Sacrifice and of choice.

“She was meant for the Wilderwood, and abandoning it tore at her, almost physically.”

Red’s attachment to the Wilderwood becomes a metaphor for the phase of new adulthood that entails finding a place where one feels one belongs, and which offers fulfilling relationships and productive work. The sense of strangeness Red feels upon returning to Valleyda underlines her realization that she has outgrown her childhood and her childhood home.

“You can’t just keep taking […] First the Second Daughters, and now him? They didn’t belong to you, and neither does he! None of us chose this!”

Red’s reprimand when she thinks the forest is consuming Eammon proves to be a turning point in her relationship with the Wilderwood. The matter of choice holds thematic importance as well as being a crux of the plot, as it speaks to The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief.

“I don’t care about happy endings. I care about you.”

Red’s declaration is a turning point in the romantic plot line, where she tells Eammon what he means to her though he is still trying to push her away. As Eammon is prepared to sacrifice himself to the Wilderwood, Red is prepared to make sacrifices for him, underlining the novel’s suggestion that love involves sacrifice. Her statement that she “doesn’t care about happy endings” is another allusion to the text’s fairy-tale influences, as living “happily ever after” is usually the close of many romantic fairy tales.

“It made a twisted sort of sense. Freeing Red would’ve been cause enough for Neve to weaken the forest, but not the Order. They had to have more of a reason, more of a reward. This cold, awful magic must be it.”

The return to the palace, which doesn’t feel like a home, is echoed in the comparison to Red’s vibrant, plant-based magic and the cold, deadening magic Kiri wields. Neve and Kiri’s work to pull magic from the Shadowlands is presented several times as the inverse of the life- and blood-giving work Red and Eammon perform to keep the Wilderwood strong.

“The atmosphere buzzed over her skin, a frequency at odds with the rhythm of her heartbeat, like Valleyda itself recognized she didn’t belong anymore.”

Red’s realization here is that her return to the palace is not a homecoming because this isn’t her home anymore. This awkwardness echoes the initial sense she felt that she never belonged there, even as a child, because she was destined for the Wilderwood, a sense that reinforces the novel’s message about the importance of finding a home and a place to belong.

“Anchored in rock, watered with blood. Sentinels, but inverted, twisted, so the pent-up magic that made the Shadowlands could be free. The Wilderwood taken and turned to horror, power tainted with the darkness it held back.”

In another inverse or mirrored image, what Kiri and the Order have done to the shrine is an inverse of what Red and Eammon are trying to do in the Wilderwood. This visually represents how Kiri and the Order are working toward evil purposes, while the Wolves are trying to protect.

“You’re rootless, Redarys. Nothing but bones and blood.”

Solmir’s accusation that Red is “rootless” is ironic because at the time he makes it, Red feels she has found a place where she belongs. This statement calls back to the earlier warning that the struggle with the Shadowlands will end in “root and bone,” but the emphasis on roots is what sparks Red’s final understanding of what she needs to make her power over the Wilderwood complete.

“It made her throat ache, to think of how close they’d been. How briefly everything had been balanced, only to be knocked sideways again.”

The balance Red strikes with the forest provides an image of harmony with the natural world that supports the cycle of life. This balance is short-lived when Solmir begins his ritual to free the Kings, showing how easily natural cycles can be thrown off-balance with human intervention.