55 pages • 1-hour read
The Book That Broke the World
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Chapters 13-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, racism, death by suicide, and death.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Livira”
Two hundred years in the future, Livira follows Malar through the portal to the Exchange, another series of portals, where they regain their physical selves. Livira knows the portals are all different timelines and chooses one. They emerge in Evar’s library chamber, where Evar is holding Livira’s book.
Livira touches the book and is transported inside one of her stories. She appears in a highly ornamented dining room and recognizes two characters, Lord Algar and Meelan, whom she hugs. Meelan identifies her as his sister, and Livira realizes that she is in one of her characters, Serra Leetar.
Serra’s father is hosting a dinner party, and General Rodcar Charant enters and tries to cut off his head. Livira manages to escape the book, and she realizes that just as she was in Serra, Malar was in the General. She wonders how she is supposed to retrieve the book if she vanishes inside of it whenever she touches it.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Celcha”
In the present, Celcha and Hellet return to their chamber, and Celcha dwells on what the assistant said to them. She is concerned about how much Hellet depends on the angels and their interest in the book he found. She asks him to send them away, and Hellet does.
Lutna invites Celcha to accompany her into the city. Celcha notices the sneers and accusing looks when she walks too close to Lutna, so she chooses to follow behind. Lutna asks if Celcha will come with her to the palace to visit the ganar who helped take care of Lutna when she was younger. Celcha doesn’t point out that they were servants and had to be kind to the princess.
In the palace, they encounter two of Lutna’s cousins, who are cruel to Celcha. Celcha sees one of the boy’s eyes “glittering with the kind of hate that’s hard to understand in one with a life so filled by privilege and plenty” (108). She is glad to get away.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Celcha”
The ganar live in the lowest level of the palace and have the least pleasant jobs. Lutna explains apologetically that the royal children were given ganar as a kind of pet, because of their fur. Lutna greets F’nort and H’sun, the ganar who cared for her. They ask Celcha what clan she is from, but she doesn’t know.
Celcha asks about the gas room that supplies the city without explaining why. Lutna arranges for their guard to take them there. The room is on the far side of the city and is staffed by ganar, who explain how the system works. Celcha is surprised by the scent of the air and learns the gas that powers the city is methalayne, which is also part of the atmosphere of the ganar’s home moon. To the ganar, Celcha reveals that Hellet sent her, and he wants to change the world.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Arpix”
Two hundred years later, Arpix sees that Clovis was wounded while fighting the skeer. He leads her into their encampment, which includes a well and the top part of a statue of a queen. The humans have located items in the tunnels beneath the city that have helped them survive. They’ve also had help from an unseen presence that provides food.
Clovis wants to know the location of the weapon that keeps away the skeer. They explore the tunnels, looking for it. Arpix reveals that his family were killed by the canith who invaded the city, while Clovis shares that her mother was killed by humans. Clovis tells Arpix that he needs to grieve properly.
Meanwhile, Evar shares all he knows of what happened to Livira. The humans deduce that Livira and Malar were the assistants who helped them escape the fire.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Evar”
Evar sees hundreds of skeer approaching the encampment with white round balls that they push up to the perimeter. The balls contain fierce creatures known as cratalacs, and they appear impervious to the weapon’s barrier. Clovis fights one, and it injures her. As they retreat, Arpix throws a stone at one and fells the creature. He tells Evar that his projectile contained mercury, scraped from the cliffs.
They hide in the tunnels and realize they have lost Salamonda. Evar wants to help her because she was a friend to Livira, whom Evar feels is always with him. He and Arpix find Salamonda among the bodies of the cratalacs, which were destroyed by Wentworth, Yute’s cat, who has been living with the humans.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Livira”
Livira asks Malar why, when he was the General in her book, he tried to kill Serra’s father. Malar says it is because he has weakened the army and mistreats soldiers. Livira thinks she needs to take control of the story, and then maybe she can take control of the book.
They return to the story, and this time, Malar is Serra’s father. He immediately dies by suicide. Livira is now in a different story, and she is an armored knight astride a horse. She rides through a green landscape toward a tower. She remembers writing this story; it was meant to teach a lesson about relishing life.
She returns to the story of the dinner, where she is Serra again, and she glimpses a white child in a carriage. Evar arrives, finely dressed, and Livira sits next to him at dinner. As her control of the story grows, she imagines that Evar will fall in love with and marry Serra, offering her a secure future. She reminds herself that she shouldn’t need someone to save her, that she has other choices.
The white child from the carriage appears in the room, and at first, Livira thinks she is Yamala, Yute’s wife, who was killed by Mayland. The child touches her, and Livira vanishes.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Celcha”
In the present, Celcha reports back to Hellet that she found little cooperation for his plans when she spoke to the ganar in the gas house. Hellet has been reading books that denounce enslavement and has been making plans that he doesn’t explain to Celcha yet. He says he wanted to do some experiments, but he will proceed on his own.
Months pass, and Celcha enjoys her time at the library. One day, Hellet wakes her up and says it’s time. Hellet says they are going to give the other ganar a choice. The nootki remind Celcha that she is acting on behalf of all her people.
Hellet leads her to a chasm outside the library door where he has stored several flasks. They are filled with quicksilver, which he describes as a catalyst, an agent of change. He admits that he stole some money from Celcha and borrowed from Lutna to pay for the supplies. Hellet notes that while the city has been rebuilt several times, this seems to be the first instance in which canith and humans lived side by side. They find a hatch and tunnel that were built by a previous civilization, which also used the gas that forms in the mountain.
Hellet says the liquid in the flasks will change the methalayne in the gas room and put the humans and canith in the city to sleep. The ganar won’t be affected, and while the others are sleeping, the ganar can decide what to do. Hellet says the ghosts Maybe and Starve helped him plan, but they have to find where the gas is drawn from.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Celcha”
Celcha understands that Hellet’s goal is to give the ganar a choice about what to do when they finally have power. She suggests he call back Maybe and Starve to help them, and the ghosts lead them to the intake that leads to the gas house. Celcha climbs the construction, which is a difficult process, and locates the intake pipe.
Celcha hopes the liberated ganar won’t choose to slaughter their enemies but will instead negotiate peace. She pours the flasks of quicksilver into the pipe. She compares what she’s done to the library itself, which supplies knowledge but leaves it up to the individual to apply it.
Celcha and Hellet return to the library to watch a yellow fog seeping into the city. Hellet says the changed gas shouldn’t be yellow and frets over whether his calculations were correct. The fog enters the library. As they try to leave the library, a guard says only one of them is allowed to go. Hellet sends Celcha to alert the ganar.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Arpix”
Two hundred years earlier, as Arpix and Clovis return to the camp, they argue, but Clovis allows Arpix to tend her injuries. Evar warns Arpix that Clovis likes him, and he should be careful. Meelan concludes that Yute is watching over them and “expects something” from both “canith and humans” (174). Arpix reflects that the group needs a combined purpose or direction. Evar notes that the statue of the queen looks like Carlotte (a friend of Livira’s from the first book of the series).
Chapter 22 Summary: “Evar”
Evar reflects that he last saw Carlotte being held by canith. He concludes that she escaped through the Exchange and must have gone back centuries in time. Clovis believes they have to defeat the skeer and reclaim the library. She says, “People keep building cities at the foot of the mountain, and burning them down, for a reason. The library is the ultimate weapon” (178).
Kerrol describes the ideological war going on between Irad, the founder of the library, and his brother Jaspeth. The founder believes the library should serve “as a kind of universal memory” (179), while the others like Jaspeth believe new civilizations should start from scratch. Evar thinks the argument is more nuanced, but Kerrol says war always gets reduced to two sides. He points out that people rarely pick sides based on issues; they take sides out of loyalty.
They discuss Wentworth, Yute’s cat, whom Arpix concludes must be some kind of guide. Salamonda calls for the cat, and he appears.
Chapters 13-22 Analysis
Livira’s main complication in these chapters probes the metafictional dimension of the novel, which self-consciously examines the act of writing, the aims and effects of storytelling, and the author’s relationship to their work. As the author of the story she finds herself inside, Livira has special insight into the meaning behind the action and themes and the message she wanted to impart to her reader. Her message to Evar through her story is both a personal communication and a comment on a larger argument that will evolve throughout the novel. The failed attempts to reclaim her story, while they echo the struggles of a writer in the act of composition, also mimic her frustrated attempts to draw closer to Evar. Instead of full and equal interaction, he remains merely a character in her story, a fiction she can’t quite engage.
Livira’s quest follows the dramatic structure of the heroic journey, amplified by her characterization as a knight in shining armor. This narrative structure typically offers a turning point in the form of a character’s choice. Livira wants her character to script her own future, echoing the theme of choice that Yute, in the earlier section, raised to Hellet and Celcha. The twist of the white child, a new antagonist, recalls the function of the assistants within the library and the larger novel, bringing in new questions about their role to design and influence events. Just as the assistants are architects of the library, someone besides Livira is shaping her story, which raises a metafictional question about who, ultimately, directs and controls a narrative.
Arpix furthers the metafictional conceit when he introduces the idea that a story needs purpose or direction. His narrative, now entwined with Evar’s, has been mostly a tale of survival and defense against the attack of the skeer. The skeer and their seemingly unthinking quest to destroy—a drive shared by the cratalacs—illustrate the novel’s proposition that conflict drives the ceaseless rise and fall of civilizations, a repeating cycle of invention and destruction that illustrates The Costs of the Ongoing Cycle of Violence. In contrast, by drawing closer to Clovis, Arpix evokes the novel’s exploration of The Healing Power of Peace and Alliance as he attempts to negotiate the differences between their species and confront the prejudices, as well as resentments, that each group holds toward the other. For Arpix, regarding the canith as equals and individuals, with their own personalities and skills, works against the racism he has been taught.
Celcha’s storyline returns to the themes of choice and the consequences of cyclical violence as well as illustrating The Uses of Knowledge and Power. Her experience with the boys at the palace emphasizes the cruelty with which ganar are treated in this world, an episode that explains her and Hellet’s resentment. Hellet’s revolution, an overturning of the social order, is intended to correct injustice and give the ganar the autonomy they’ve been denied. Celcha compares this to the function of the library, which is to supply information and then allow the individual to choose how to use it. As Celcha notes, this opportunity could lead to either peace or slaughter. While Hellet disclaims any responsibility over their ultimate choice, this claim is disingenuous. As Hellet’s actions will prove, the mere presentation of a choice is not in itself an objective act, just as the exchange of knowledge is not a neutral process. As Clovis notes, knowledge can easily become a weapon, which is why the skeer—as well as the assistants—want to control the library. The ease with which knowledge can be manipulated will bear out in the consequences of Hellet’s plan, built on consultation with his books as well as the advice of the ghosts.
While Hellet’s resentment illustrates the poisonous consequences of oppression, Celcha’s position exposes the uneasy negotiations that take place within structures of power and control, leading to inevitable conflict. Evar and Livira have formed a bond of affection across species, and Arpix and Clovis seem to be developing one, but this same connection is not present in Celcha’s timeline. Lutna, who is human, attempts to be sensitive to Celcha’s situation and aware of the prejudices at work. However, she is still complicit in this system, benefitting from a social hierarchy that exploits the ganar for labor. The weakness of a system based on oppression is symbolized by the gas chamber, run by ganar; the subjugated people have control over this precious resource and the fundamental operations of the city, giving them a power that will later be taken advantage of by Hellet.
The references to the ways civilizations rise and fall also underline the emerging revelation that Hellet and Celcha are living in a Crath very different from the city of Arpix and Evar’s versions of the story. The questions create suspense about what has happened to Crath City. Further suspense emerges around the role of Wentworth, who seems to be a powerful and influential entity but is as mysterious as the weapon that is protecting the encampment, offering a fragile protection from outside threats.
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