49 pages • 1-hour read
Scythe & Sparrow
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Chapters 9-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Sutures” (Fionn)
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of sexual content, physical abuse, child abuse, graphic violence, addiction, and cursing.
Fionn closes himself in his room to work on his crocheting project. He picked up the craft after moving to Hartford. He imagines his brothers making fun of him for this hobby, but he is desperate to distract himself from Rose, who is sleeping across the hall. As he recalls the events of the day, he worries about Rose’s safety, and the incident also reminds him of his father’s death. Callum Kane, who had an alcohol addiction, often took out his anger on his sons. When a younger Fionn came home one day to find Callum drunkenly beating his brothers, he intervened, stabbing and killing Callum. Today, the aftermath of Eric’s murder gave him the same “rush of adrenaline” (100) that he felt on that day. Now, he puts his crocheting away and tries dismissing these thoughts, but he cannot help worrying that he is still that same violent person.
The next morning, Fionn checks on Rose, but she isn’t in her room. He observes her decor and plants and grows curious when he finds a postcard addressed to Sparrow on her nightstand. Fionn then goes to Sandra’s place for his meeting with the Suture Sisters: the elderly women with whom he crochets. When he arrives, he is shocked to find Rose there. She admits that she saw a flyer for their crocheting group and was curious. Fionn settles into the group, amused and embarrassed by the women’s jokes about him and Rose.
Afterward, on the walk home, Fionn and Rose discuss their living situation and Rose’s murder of Eric. Fionn explains that he is not used to having another person in his space. Rose surprises him when she responds by asking who broke his heart, Fionn tells her about his ex-girlfriend, Claire. She wasn’t right for him, but he was crushed when she declined his marriage proposal. Now, he drifts into private thought, realizing that he was saddened by her refusal because he didn’t get the “safe and secure” (116) marriage that he had imagined.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Renegade” (Rose)
Rose and Fionn watch television, crochet, and eat snacks. Then, a disturbance appears on Fionn’s clinic camera. He explains that it is only a raccoon that he named Barbara; she often gets into the building. On their way to the clinic, they pass some police officers and assume that they are looking for Eric at the lake where he usually fishes. Rose and Fionn arrive at the clinic and chase down Barbara. Suddenly, Matt shows up. Rose hides while Fionn deals with Matt, who saw the light on in the clinic and wants Fionn to check his eye. During the exam, Matt warns Fionn about Rose, whom he heard is staying with Fionn. From her hiding place, Rose realizes that she might be endangering Fionn.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Beast Mode” (Fionn)
Fionn goes to the club for the Blood Brothers fights. Sometimes he participates, but usually he sits on the sidelines and tends to the fighters’ injuries. He hopes that tonight’s fight will distract him from Rose, whom he is terrified of hurting. Then Rose shows up. Fionn doesn’t like her being there because he thinks that she is going to get hurt. When a fighter bumps into her, Fionn attacks him. Rose assures him that she is fine, but Fionn suspects that she is withholding something from him.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Reduction” (Fionn)
At work the next day, Fionn gets a call from Rose; she tells him that his brother Rowan and Rowan’s girlfriend Sloane are at the house. Fionn races home to find a worried Rowan waiting for him. Sloane is injured, and they cannot go to the hospital because they are both contract killers. While attending to Sloane, Fionn notices that she already seems protective of Rose. When Rose steps out, Rowan urges Fionn to take a chance with Rose because Fionn seems to like her.
That night, Fionn cannot sleep because he can hear Sloane and Rowan having sex elsewhere in the house. Feeling lonely, he wonders if he should act on his feelings for Rose. He stands outside her door but changes his mind and returns to bed, wishing that he were a different person.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Scratch” (Rose)
Rose and Fionn say goodbye to Rowan and Sloane the next day. While watching them leave together, Rose momentarily imagines a happy romantic future for herself.
Inside, Rose uses a crochet hook to scratch inside her cast. Fionn warns her about the risk of infection and blows air down the cast instead. The sexual tension rises between them, and they begin engaging in foreplay, but Fionn admits that he cannot commit to Rose. Although hurt by his rejection, she insists that she doesn’t want an official relationship either. They agree to be friends with benefits and set rules for the arrangement. Then Fionn performs oral sex for Rose.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Reckless” (Fionn)
Fionn carries Rose into his room, dismissing his nagging thoughts as the two have sex several times. Afterwards, Rose returns to her own room.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Descent” (Rose)
Rose and Fionn fly to Boston together for Rowan’s restaurant opening. They have sex on the way, and when they land, Rose is devastated to learn that her bag is lost. She laments putting her tarot cards in the suitcase because they belonged to her late grandmother. Fionn is sympathetic.
The two arrive at the Langham Hotel and discover that their room only has one bed. As they lie in bed together later, Fionn apologizes for making a scene at the Blood Brothers. Fionn opens up about his history of aggression but does not mention killing his father. Rose reassures him, insisting that they both have good and bad signs and she likes both parts of him. They turn off the light, and Fionn kisses Rose’s head.
Chapters 9-15 Analysis
As Fionn and Rose spend more together, they begin to question who they are and what they want from the world, and their unusual journey together indicates their progress toward the broader goal of Achieving Self-Acceptance through Supportive Relationships. Before they met, Rose and Fionn defined themselves in isolation; Rose’s vision of herself depended solely on her roles in the traveling circus, while Fionn saw himself as the dignified, solitary doctor. However, their decision to work together to hide Eric’s body changes their outlook profoundly, and their joint efforts to erase the gruesome aftermath of the scene paradoxically bring them closer together. Because the author utilizes morally reprehensible actions—such as cold-blooded murder—as points of bonding in the protagonists’ friends-to-lovers evolution, it is clear that Scythe & Sparrow, like the rest of the Ruinous Love trilogy, willfully subverts the standard tropes of the romance genre and imbues them with a whimsical tinge of dark humor. As Fionn becomes complicit in Eric’s murder, this plot point changes the stakes of the pair’s relationship and makes them wonder what they are capable of and what their actions imply about their morality.
In addition to playing with genre conventions, the author also employs internal monologues to convey Fionn’s attempts to understand himself in the context of his new connection to Rose. In Chapter 9, for example, Fionn is “holed up in [his] room like a hermit, spending [his] Saturday night crocheting a fucking blanket” (97). The deliberate incongruity of this setting once again employs a whimsical note of humor even as Fionn becomes lost in more serious reflections, musing, “I came […] to Hartford in the hope that I would isolate myself from the things that made me […] poke and prod the hidden dark corners of my mind. But from the moment Rose showed up, she’s invaded my thoughts as though she’s stripping my immunity, cell by cell” (98). In this moment, Fionn employs figurative language to express the intensity of his search for meaning and understanding, which has accelerated considerably in Rose’s presence. Acknowledging that Rose is in his mind just as his dark side is lodged in his spirit, Fionn begins to question who he is. Rose is an intuitive, magnetic person, and because he is developing feelings for her, he wants to be a good man on her behalf. However, he still feels caught between the contract killer he once was and the benevolent doctor he aspires to be in Hartford.
Within this context, the unique quirks of Rose’s character contribute to Fionn’s journey towards self-acceptance, for she is also trying to decide where she wants to be and what she wants for her future. However, unlike Fionn, she is more comfortable with even the darkest aspects of her nature, and her self-assuredness allows her to talk through Fionn’s questions with him. This dynamic becomes particularly prominent when they stay at the hotel in Boston, indulging in the setting’s intimate mood by lying side-by-side in bed and sharing their deeper thoughts and anxieties. For example, Fionn feels compelled to admit his fears of being “a monster like [his] father” (191). Instead of shying away from Fionn, Rose assures him that she has already surmised that he “might have seen and done some things [he isn’t] proud of” (191). However, she reminds Fionn that just because he has made mistakes and accumulated regrets, he is not a morally depraved person. Her sentiments indicate that she can accept the simultaneous presence of good and bad parts of a person’s makeup, and she encourages Fionn to adopt her approach of embracing dichotomous personality traits without shame. In this way, Rose’s gentle patience with Fionn furthers The Redemptive Power of Love. When he opens up to Rose, he is showing his capacity for redemption, his desire to change, and his unarticulated longing for companionship.
The surrounding sex scenes and allusions to sexual intimacy also affect a romantic mood, foreshadowing further developments in Rose and Fionn’s relationship. Even the Suture Sisters playfully tease Fionn about living with Rose, and these jokes make the protagonists’ mutual attraction overt. Likewise, Rowan and Sloane’s visit compels Rose and Fionn into “the presence of two people who have so obviously just realized they’re falling in love” (155). Hearing Rowan and Sloane have sex through the wall ignites the protagonists’ desire for a similar sexual connection, and in the following chapters, their initiation of a sexual relationship promises to create new conflicts even as it helps them to connect and communicate in new ways.
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