The Astral Library
53 pages • 1-hour read
Kate QuinnThe Astral Library
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Chapters 12-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, graphic violence, death, racism, gender and transgender discrimination, antigay bias, and cursing.
Chapter 12 Summary
While traversing through the books of Jane Austen, Alix is accosted by more red cards. The Librarian and Alix return to deliver more Patrons to the Gallerist and Programmer. The Librarian looks haggard and exhausted, and Alix tries to make her rest. She refuses and they travel next to the world of Wuthering Heights.
On the moors, another card flies out and strikes Alix in the face. The card is blank and razor-sharp. Alix suggests that the cards are a trap. Suddenly, thousands of red cards descend on them, shredding their clothes and cutting skin. The Librarian lifts her cloak over Alix to protect her. When the attack continues, the Librarian transforms into a large green dragon.
She leaps into the air and tears through the cloud of red cards, but there are too many to completely destroy. She lands and tells Alix to climb on her back. Shocked and elated, Alix climbs up and shouts “fly, fly, FLY!” (152), recalling her childhood dream.
Chapter 13 Summary
Riding the dragon, Alix watches the landscape beneath them disappear and turn into a sea of parchment. Alix realizes that the Librarian is a literal book dragon, her scales made of bookbinding leather and her wings made of vellum. The Librarian says that the Library grants dragon privileges after the first 100 years. She admits that Alix was right: The cards are a trap meant to exhaust her so that she cannot fight the real threat.
As they reach the Astral Library, another cloud of red cards attack. The Librarian crashes through the green windows into the Library. The cards swarm and attack. The Librarian shifts back into a woman with a broken arm and bleeding eye. She inhales deeply and shouts, “SHUSH,” the single word filling pages 158-59.
The library leaps into action. The windows go dark and the books fly from the shelves to form a barricade of paper that covers every window and door. Then the Librarian collapses. She says that the Library will heal her but it will take time. From an old fax machine at the Librarian’s desk, a single sheet of paper prints. It announces the annual board meeting in two days, and states that the Librarian has ignored the Board’s repeated requests to restructure the Library. They are now implementing “stringent measures and/or involuntary retirement options” (161).
The Librarian explains that the Board has tried to take control of the Library through bureaucratic means and has moved on to more violent means. Then she passes out. A voice calls for Alix. She turns to find Beau standing in the Library, looking confused.
Chapter 14 Summary
Beau was at a party at his local branch of the BPL. He left to find a quiet place to hide and found a door that led him here, just as the dragon burst through the window and turned into a woman.
Alix tries to explain the situation. He must have entered the Library just before the Librarian sealed it. He is stuck there now until she can find out how to open the Library. When he panics about being behind on his deadline for the Belle dress, she reassures him that time does not move in the Library. Realizing that he can take a break from his work, he relaxes.
Alix tries to unlock the green tablet but it changes the password again. When she fails to guess the right one, Beau suggests, “My paradise […] is a library” (170), a quote from fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. The tablet opens, giving Alix provisional status as a Page.
Alix does not understand how the Library Board can be evil. Beau retorts that many evil people have operated through legal and bureaucratic means, hiding their inhumanity behind protocol and committees. He knows this firsthand, being part Black and part Japanese, two marginalized populations in America who were subjected to enormous injustice through legal means. Alix begins to panic and Beau promises to help.
Then a piece of paper slides through the book-drop slot. This one is addressed to Alix from the Library Board. It urges her to unlock the Library for the annual meeting in two days. Alix decides to distract the Board from attacking the Librarian again. The tablet has given her margin-traveling and costume-change privileges. She asks Beau to join her on a trip to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then she sends a quick note to the Library Board, taunting them, and leaps into a book.
Chapter 15 Summary
They enter The Great Gatsby in the middle of Chapter 3, during Jay Gatsby’s first party. Beau is still wearing what he entered the Library in—a Victorian-era suit with a top hat and walking stick—but Alix now wears a 1920s beaded dress. Alix speculates that the Library Board needs her alive to unlock the Library so they will do something to capture her. Proving her right, two people approach. They look like Chad and Chester, the security guards at BPL, but they move and speak oddly and Alix realizes that they are copies. They try to grab her. Beau reveals a sword hidden in his walking stick and fights them off. When struck, the copies of Chad and Chester dissolve.
Alix and Beau run. Chad and Chester rematerialize and follow them. Alix leads them out of the house and into the street just in time for them to be struck by a car. She explains to Beau that she remembered a car crash in Chapter 3 of The Great Gatsby and thought it might be useful. She adds that she is “not equipped to be the Chosen One in any novel” (186) because she has no useful fighting skills or magic, but she has a wealth of book trivia to keep the Library Board distracted.
Chapter 16 Summary
Alix and Beau margin travel, but at each new location, a new version of Chad and Chester appear. They pop through Bleak House, Treasure Island, The Bride of Lammermoor, and finally pause in The Three Musketeers. Beau is elated because it is his favorite novel.
Chad and Chester attack again, but Beau uses his walking-stick sword to fight them off, starting a brawl among the musketeers in the palace. Cardinal Richelieu’s men arrest them and lock them in a room. They take the moment to rest. Alix is worn out from margin-traveling. Beau speculates that the Board seems to have taken a personal interest in Alix now and wonders how they know so much about her. Alix wonders if Sarah made a deal with the Board in exchange for protection and is feeding them information.
To change the subject, Alix asks about Beau’s love for The Three Musketeers. He explains that as a child, he liked dressing up in fancy clothes, which his brothers teased him for. He convinced his brothers to dress as The Three Musketeers for Halloween because it was fancy enough for him while still being manly enough for them. His bisexual identity and career choices confuse and disappoint his family. Alix has always seen Beau as happy and successful when compared to her failures, but now realizes that beneath his confident veneer he is just as lost and tired as she is.
Beau says that she is far more interesting than he is, and she realizes he is flirting with her. They kiss. Then D’Artagnan appears, releasing them from the locked room and offering to help them escape. They ride out of the palace, but Chad and Chester block their escape. D’Artagnan and Beau fight them off.
Chapter 17 Summary
They return to the Library to check on the Librarian. The Library is repairing itself from the attack and the Librarian’s wounds are healing, but she is still unconscious.
Beau realizes that the hunger he felt in the book worlds is gone. Alix reminds him that time does not pass in the Library. He realizes he misunderstood her, thinking that time did not pass at all—neither in the books nor the Library itself. They have been traveling through books for over eight hours and he has lost valuable work time. Then another note floats through the book-drop slot.
The note is addressed to Beau, accusing him of trespassing and threatening his business. Angry and panicked, Beau demands that Alix let him out. She urges him not to run away. She understands that his business is everything to him, but the Library is important and they need to save it. He retorts that he needs to save his place. The Library’s door slides open. He exits and it seals shut again.
Alone, Alix tries to think of a plan. Then another note appears. This one is written in her mother’s handwriting and claims that her mother has been living in a book and is in trouble with the Board as well. She asks Alix to meet her in the Reading Room of the BPL. Elated, Alix rushes out of the Astral Library to meet her mother.
When she emerges, she cannot find her mother. Then the real Chad approaches her. On instinct she lashes out, forgetting that she is not in a book world. He falls and hits his head on a table. Chester arrives and arrests her for assault.
Chapters 12-17 Analysis
Now at the halfway point of the novel, the plot’s trajectory shifts in three ways. First, Chapter 12 confirms Alix’s suspicion that the red cards are a trap, forcing the Librarian to reassess the threat. The Library Board notices now reveal that the true antagonist of the plot is not an outsider such as an abusive spouse, but rather the Library Board itself. This brings the theme of The Weaponization of Bureaucracy to the forefront, demonstrating its pervasiveness and power to inflict violence on the people it controls. Beau’s dialogue in Chapter 14 neatly summarizes this point. He explains that many examples of evil and injustice were legal and acceptable during their time “[b]ecause a lot of men claimed the right to sit around a table and bring exceptionally evil things into practice,” using bureaucratic methods to normalize “the inhumane” (172).
Second, Alix’s role in the plot shifts. Despite the Librarian’s insistence that she is not a wise mentor figure and that Alix is not a hero, the novel ironically places them in precisely these roles. The Librarian fulfils the role of mentor figure as established in the Hero’s Journey, leading Alix into adventure and teaching her the rudimentary rules of the Library system. Then, in keeping with the stage of the Hero’s Journey called “Crossing the First Threshold,” the Librarian is injured and removed from active participation in the plot, forcing Alix (the hero) to enter unknown dangers alone. Alix literally enters danger by stepping into the book worlds using margin-traveling with little idea of what she is doing or what she will find.
Third, the plot shifts as well due to Beau’s entry into the Astral Library, reflecting The Power of Choice and Connection as Alix slowly realizes she is less isolated and unlovable than she once feared. Previously, Beau appeared to be a minor character whose only contribution to the plot was equipping Alix with appropriate costumes. Now, however, he takes on a crucial supporting role who impacts both the plot and Alix’s success. Without his assistance, she would likely not escape the simulacra of Chad and Chester for as long as she does. Additionally, his arrival adds a romantic subplot to the narrative. Though the romantic element is minor to the conflict and overall plot arc, it is valuable to Alix’s emotional well-being and growth, as she begins to feel more attractive and confident, even openly flirting with Beau.
Moreover, Beau brings the motif of fashion with him. This motif was introduced early in the story through Beau’s handmade costume and fashion business in Chapter 2, but it gains new significance in this section. Fashion, especially historical costuming, is an important vehicle through which both Alix and Beau explore and express their identities. Beau uses fashion to express his fluid gender identity and sexuality, while Alix rediscovers her sense of self-worth, confidence, and power through fashion.
After Beau’s arrival, the plot continues its movement through the stages of the Hero’s Journey. Alix and Beau’s page-hopping journey typifies the “Road of Trials,” in which “the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials” (Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 81). Alix and Beau move through dreamscapes in the form of book worlds, during which they must overcome several confrontations with the simulacra of Chad and Chester. Alix’s particular skills and knowledge of literature prove paramount for success, demonstrating that she is uniquely qualified for this role. These scenes also demonstrate the healing capacity of their journey through the book worlds as they allow Alix to see herself in a new way, giving her opportunities to grow in strength and confidence, while deepening the connection between Alix and Beau.
However, the emotional conflict between Alix and Beau in Chapter 17 threatens to undo some of this healing progress while simultaneously throwing Alix into the next stages of the Hero’s Journey. Often, the hero fails at least one or two of the tests faced in the Road of Trials. When Beau succumbs to the Board’s threat to his business, he abandons Alix, failing his test of courage and loyalty and leaving Alix alone to face the next step of the Hero’s Journey: the moment of temptation, often (but not always) represented by a woman temptress.
Crucially, Beau’s betrayal makes Alix susceptible to this temptation, as Alix feels alone and unwanted again. Throughout the novel, Alix ruminates constantly on her feeling of never being anyone’s priority, fearing that she will never be chosen by anyone. When Beau leaves, his decision seems to confirm her internal narrative. Therefore, when the Temptress appears in the form of a letter seemingly from her mother, Alix gives in to temptation without thinking. Alix’s decision here was foreshadowed by the earlier sightings of Alix’s mother, which made it clear that she would risk serious danger for the opportunity to find her mother.
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