Scythe

When the novel begins, Citra is having dinner with her family when a scythe visits. He is there to glean someone across the hall in their apartment. Citra demands to know how he can do something so horrible. The scythe likes her attitude and eventually returns to tell her that he wants her to be an apprentice preparatory to becoming a scythe. Citra is empathetic and headstrong, two qualities that Scythe Faraday feels that a scythe must have. As she begins her apprenticeship, she finds that her competitiveness, curiosity, and tenacity for learning serve her well in her training. As she trains, she begins to fall in love with Rowan, which is complicated when Scythe Goddard orchestrates a competition between them that will result in the loser being gleaned. After Faraday’s apparent death, she apprentices to Scythe Curie while conducting a secret investigation into his demise. She is framed for his death by Faraday’s enemies but cleared of the charges later after fleeing to Amazonia as a refugee while disguised as a monk. By the end of the novel, she has become a scythe and has helped Rowan—with whom she has fallen in love—escape. She takes the name of Scythe Anastasia, treats her office with the solemnity it deserves, and no longer sees gleaning as an evil.