“It was impossible to tell, with the shroud that covered their faces from their brows to the bridge of their noses, where any of the women were truly looking. I did not know their names, and I did not know the color of their eyes. I did not know the color of my eyes.”

Gillig introduces the symbol of the shrouds in the first chapter, illustrating how the shrouds keep the Diviners from fully knowing themselves or each other. This divide between the Diviners keeps them from joining together to overthrow the abbess and find their freedom. This is just one way in which the abbess keeps the Diviners under her control, developing the theme of The Powers of Fate and Free Will by highlighting the depth of her manipulations.

“When it came to this particular gargoyle, who called everyone and everything Bartholomew for no discernable reason, it was better to be contrite. When he took to sulking, it lasted for days.”

Gillig foreshadows the reveal of Bartholomew’s identity by describing him as often sulking, a behavior often associated with children. Bartholomew was a child when he was starved of spring water and turned into stone, leaving him in a state of adolescence, unable to grow up.

“And while we all bear our own creeds, we must never forget—it is the Omens who rule Traum. Omens who scrawl the signs. We are but witnesses to their wonders. Pupils of their portents. […] Ever but visitors to their greatness.”

The abbess’s story places the power at the feet of the Omens, continuing to enforce the false history that hides her own true nature. Her insistence that the Omens rule the kingdom belies her own desperation to avoid the truth coming to light. The novel established the theme of The Influence on Faith early on by developing the complex religion that the abbess has created to maintain power.

“And for some perverse reason, I liked that. Knowing I could hold so much pain without anyone being the wiser made me feel…Strong.”

Six feels pride in herself for being able to tolerate the pain of divination and living as a Diviner. The abbess only values Six when she’s useful and capable of enduring immense pain, demonstrating the limitations of the abbess’s love and care and Six’s unyielding fealty to Aisling.

“I wouldn’t say it to anyone else. But One never made fun of me for being the abbess’s favorite, for trying so hard to be the best Diviner I could. It was just…easier, saying shameful things out loud to her, so I whispered, ‘I can’t wait until we’re free of that spring.’”

One is the Diviner that Six is closest to, and her interactions with One demonstrate the depth of the Diviners’ bonds with each other. Six had a found family with her sister Diviners, women with whom she can share her darkest secrets. Before the Diviners disappear, Six is so faithful to the abbess that her darkest secret is her desire to stop Divining, but her confession also reveals the seed of her eventual rebellion.

“I had no right to promise. I knew, just like the other women in the room, that Divining—reading the Omens’ signs—gave me no sway over their enactment. There was no telling what tapestry the future would weave for us.”

Gillig uses foreshadowing with her reference to the future of the Diviners as a “tapestry.” When Six finds the Heartsore Weaver, the Weaver has a tapestry of Diviner shrouds sewn from all the dead Diviners whom the abbess delivered to her. The Diviners’ future is death, though they don’t know it yet.

“The king’s castle was near, yet it was coin that reigned.”

Gillig’s world building centers on hamlets that each have a specific Omen and symbol. In Coulson Faire, the coin and the Artful Brigand reign. This statement reveals that the power of the king is second to the power of the abbess, underscoring Benji’s motivation to obtain more power and foreshadowing his eventual corruption.

“A sixth figure stood at the mouth of the cathedral, hooded like the others. It bore no stone object—its hands were empty, arms held wide, as if it were beckoning me into the cathedral. As if the cathedral itself was the figure’s personal stone object.”

Gillig foreshadows the revelation of the abbess as the sixth Omen, the Moth. The abbess rules Aisling Cathedral and the spring, which is her sacred object, the symbol of her power over Traum. Her arms are empty not because she doesn’t have a sacred object but to embrace the entirety of the cathedral.

“If I told him, No, I’m not a pair—I’m one of six and there are five cracks in my heart for it, he would laugh at me. He’d remind me that the only reason I am distinct now is because there are no other Diviners around to make me indistinct.”

Six mourns the loss of her fellow Diviners and the community that they had together. The imagery of Six’s cracked heart connects to the imagery of cracked stone, hinting at the true impact of Aisling’s spring water.

“Strange, that Aisling has sent you to me in this fashion. I’ve never felt a Diviner’s pulse before. Even stranger, that you come under the wing of a heretic.”

The Harried Scribe hints at the other Diviners’ fates, as all the Diviners whom the Scribe previously encountered are dead. The Scribe also dubs Rory a heretic for his lack of faith, demonstrating how the Omens truly believe in their false godhood. His attitude and cool assessment highlight how much of his humanity has been lost to the abbess’s manipulations.

“The signs from the five stone objects are plain, but the Omens themselves are never seen, smoke and mirrors and rumors, seemingly wielding these signs from everywhere at once. It is their scarcity that makes them sacred, their distance that keeps them divine, for only the privileged can access them through Divination, thusly making the master of Aisling the most potent of rulers, and the cathedral itself the most prosperous of markets. No one is above it—not kings, not nobles, not Diviners—not even the Omens. In conclusion: To rule the tor is to rule Traum.”

When Benji tells Six the truth, he clearly outlines how the abbess has set up a system that keeps her unquestioningly in power over Traum. The distance that the Omens keep from the people in their hamlets keeps them scarce, mysterious, and, to some, holy. The cathedral is the most profitable institution in Traum, and this profit allows the abbess to maintain control over both the Omens and the hamlets.

“I saw you on the wall that first day at Aisling, all in white, looking down your nose at me, so patronizing and pious. I wanted— […] I don’t know. To sully you, maybe. To rip the shroud from your eyes so you’d know what I knew—that nothing is holy. That the Omens were a lie. That you were no better than me.”

Rory explains to Six what he wanted to do when they first met. Rory reacted strongly because he knew the truth about the Omens, while Six demonstrated unyielding faith and fealty to the supposed gods whom Rory seeks to destroy. Rory’s confession is coupled with an increase in romantic tension between him and Six, as their emotional intimacy grows as they start being honest with each other.

“‘Pauldron,’ he murmured, his hands manipulating the wax over my shoulder. ‘Rerebrace.’ He pressed over my bicep, then my forearm. ‘Vambrace.’”

Rory’s references to the specific names for each piece of armor demonstrate Gillig’s research into the medieval period of history that she loosely bases her world building on. The specificity adds a realistic texture to the novel, even though it falls into the fantasy genre. The passage also highlights the sexual tension between Rory and Six, as his identification of each piece is accompanied by a touch.

“One word from me, and they’ll eviscerate you. Starving things are loyal when fed.”

The Oarsman’s reference to the link between his stone sprites’ starvation and their loyalty hints at the true dynamic between the Omens themselves and the abbess. Like the sprites starve for shale, the Omens starve for spring water, and even the little they get from the abbess keeps them willing to keep up the charade of godhood.

“The gargoyle sprite has no discernable home, save the tor, for their bodies are composed of the same limestone as the spring in which the Diviners dream.”

The excerpt from King Benedict the First’s journal hints at the true identity of the tor’s gargoyles. They are made of the same limestone as the spring because they are Diviners turned into stone from a lack of spring water.

“‘Well, Six.’ Benji’s arm was there. ‘You’re about to see me prostrate before man and god alike. Again.’ 

I sighed. Took his arm. ‘If I could draw the short straw and do it in your place, I probably would.’”

Six’s hypothetical offer to take the short straw for Benji, as she used to for her fellow Diviners, demonstrates their sibling-like relationship. It acts as a reminder of the fundamentally compassionate nature of Six’s character. The hint of Benji’s bitterness at again having to endure humiliation by the hamlets foreshadows his imminent betrayal.

“Hunger is a slow, maddening torture. If the sprites are monsters, it’s because we’ve made them so.”

Six points out that the sprites are simply trying to survive in a landscape in which all their natural resources are being monopolized by the humans, making important commentary on ideas surrounding power. Those who have power often hoard it, like Benji seeks to hoard the stone objects of the Omens. Yet they accept no responsibility for the severe methods they use to control their followers.

“But it wasn’t that. It was the newness of his expression. There was wonder in his gaze I’d never glimpsed before, as if seeing my eyes for the first time had profoundly altered his.”

When Rory sees Six without her shroud for the first time, he is changed by the truth just as she is changed by the truth. Six has never seen her own eyes and has never known herself fully, yet she allows Rory to see her fully first, demonstrating the deep trust between them.

“People who love you for your usefulness don’t love you at all.”

The gargoyle succinctly illustrates how the abbess does not love the Diviners. Though she claims to act as a loving mother, she is neither loving nor maternal. She uses the Diviners to keep her own power in place and then tosses them aside as soon as they are no longer obedient.

“I’d quested through Traum. Battled Omens, sprites—loneliness and longing. I’d made the agonizing pilgrimage from Six to Sybil. That was death in and of itself.”

Six, now Sybil, notes how she had to let her Diviner identity die in order to move forward with her life, refusing to further pay The High Cost of Power and reclaiming her humanity. She buries Six and emerges as Sybil, fully letting go of her faith and fealty to Aisling and taking hold of her free will.

“Strange, that you have no memory before Aisling, yet you still knew to claw yourself free from that horrible tor. How wonderful, how wretched, it must have been, stepping out into the world. Learning the story you’d been told was a lie.”

The Heartsore Weaver demonstrates the difficulty of learning the truth, which she juxtaposes as both “wonderful” and “wretched.” Sybil’s innate desire to flee from Aisling Cathedral indicates potentially buried memories that she may explore in the next novel in the series.

“To collect the last stone object—to kill the final Omen. To end the story.”

The novel begins with the abbess telling Bartholomew a story, and Part 7 begins with Sybil preparing to end the story by killing the abbess, the original storyteller. Sybil seeks to end the abbess’s story and begin her own, and her direct reference to what has always been seen as historical truth as a “story” shows how fundamentally she has changed since the beginning of the novel.

“All of her was stone. She had no hair, her skin—lips, cheeks—just as pale as her eyes. Only she was not a gargoyle. Her face was still that of a woman. She was beautiful. Mythical. Fearsome. Entirely inhuman.”

While the Omens and the Diviners have stone eyes, the abbess is revealed to be made entirely of stone. Her use of the spring has eroded her humanity entirely, demonstrating the high price of the spring’s magic.