Chapters 31-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, graphic violence, and substance use.
Sebastian shakes Brie awake, urging her to breathe. He heard the Banshee and promises that he “won’t let death be the end” (364). He explains that they need to be bonded in order to give her the Potion of Life, which will turn her into fae. She asks him to describe the bonding ceremony, which he depicts as “elegant” and “pure,” though he gives few specifics. An audience is optional, though he recalls his own parents’ bonding ceremony, which happened when he was a child. Some physical connection is required; this need not be sexual or romantic, though it commonly is. Brie is surprised to discover that she longs to feel this connection one day.
Sebastian falls asleep again, but Brie is kept awake by memories of the Banshee. She slips out of bed and asks the mirror to show her Jas. The mirror first shows Jas on a stone floor and then shows her sleeping in a comfortable bed. Brie is uncertain of which image to trust. She uses her shadows to approach the Grimoricon. When she touches the book, however, it turns into a giant serpent and attacks her. Guards approach, but Brie summons darkness and leaps out the window and onto the beach, the serpent still biting into her shoulder. The book transforms into a little boy, who begs Brie to take him home.
Brie summons Bakken, who transports her to the Unseelie Court just as Sebastian and the guards pour onto the beach. Mordeus is pleased and insists that she toast with him again before revealing the third relic. When she drinks, he reports that the third relic is Oberon’s crown; this is, he contends, the source of Brie’s power. He urges her to consult the Mirror of Discovery, which shows her wearing a crown.
Chapter 32 Summary
Mordeus explains that the human whom Oberon loved was Brie’s mother. She refused to return to Faerie with him; when he returned to her, years later, she had a husband and children. The night their house burned, she summoned Oberon, who healed an injured Jas and traded his own life for Brie’s, as she had already died from her wounds. This passed Oberon’s power to Brie. The crown can only be given willingly, so nobody has been able to steal it from Brie. To give it to Mordeus, she must bond with him. She assumes that this is why Finn befriended her.
Brie demands that Mordeus summon his goblin, who reveals that if a human bonds with an Unseelie, the human dies—a consequence of Arya’s curse. Mordeus offers to revive Brie as fae after she dies. Suddenly, Brie recognizes the feeling that means that she has been drugged again. She retreats to a private bathroom to think and take the elixir that Finn gave her. She realizes that the mirror has been showing her what she hopes to see, not what is real. When she asks to see Jas, it shows her sister in a dungeon. When she asks to see her mother, she’s shown a corpse. She feels numb and hopeless.
When she returns to Mordeus’s room, she recalls his promise that Jas will be returned home “once the three artifacts are returned […] where they belong” (384). She confirms that the mirror and book are in their proper locations and then sits, the crown atop her head, on the Unseelie throne.
Chapter 33 Summary
Instantly, Brie feels the power of the Unseelie Court. Mordeus is compelled to send Jas back, which he does with a snap of his fingers. He seizes a nearby human servant and threatens to kill her unless Brie bonds with him. When Brie refuses, he kills the servant and magically summons another. Brie uses her shadow powers to make the room dark and then sneaks to Mordeus, stabbing him with the knife that Sebastian gave her. The girl she saved weeps because the girl who was killed was her sister.
Brie summons Bakken and demands to be taken to Finn’s catacombs. When he balks, she gives him an enormous fistful of hair. The catacombs are lined with glass coffins filled with humans, including Kyla, Finn’s tribute. Finn appears; he insists that these tributes are kept to honor their sacrifice. He admits to killing Isabel, the woman he loves. Brie distrusts his apparent grief. She insists that she will never forgive him for killing these humans; he insists that he will not stop trying to secure his crown. When she threatens to kill him with the knife, he does not move to defend himself, but she doesn’t strike. She flees the catacombs, bereft that she betrayed Sebastian and was betrayed by Finn.
Chapter 34 Summary
After collapsing from her wounds, Brie wakes to her maids’ voices. Sebastian, too, is present, gently urging her to wake. She apologizes for her betrayal, and, after a healer tends her, she tells him everything. He holds her while she sleeps and, the next morning, asserts that he still loves her. He doesn’t know what would happen if Brie died without passing on the crown but asserts that he cannot possess it; only an Unseelie can sit on the Throne of Shadows. Brie’s mother traded herself to the fae to hide Brie and the crown from Unseelie for seven years, long enough to let Brie grow up and learn to defend herself. He has sent the other potential brides home and vows to wait until Brie is ready to marry. Arya is still alive and working with healers. Sebastian is prepared for the possibility that she will die, however. They plan to visit Jas at Nik’s the next day. Brie plans to stay in Faerie with Sebastian.
Chapter 35 Summary
Nik is relieved to see Brie safe, though she reports that Gorst still pursues her. Jas, too, is thrilled to see Brie. Brie tells her sister everything, including her plans to return to Faerie. Jas is not yet ready to return to Faerie after her ordeal but plans to join Brie eventually.
Chapter 36 Summary
Back in Faerie, Brie thanks Sebastian for standing by her and forgiving her betrayal. She asks to bond with him. At the ceremony, Brie has flashes of doubt, though she pushes past them. They drink wine and bond. She suddenly feels intense pain and frets that someone poisoned her wine. He gives her the Potion of Life and urges her to drink; she recalls Lark’s prophecy that the “next time she dies, it has to be during a bonding ceremony” (411). She drinks the potion, which causes a burning sensation. Sebastian talks to a woman (who is not clearly identified but implied to be Arya) who insists that Brie endure the pain or die. Brie falls unconscious.
Chapter 37 Summary
Brie dreams of Finn, who reports that she is sleeping following “the metamorphosis.” Brie realizes that Sebastian knew she would die from the bond, even though the curse did not discuss humans dying when bonding Seelie. Finn explains that after their encounter in the catacombs, he had Pretha return her to the Seelie Court. He apologizes for manipulating her, insisting that he tried to find another way to secure the crown without risking her. She retains her faith that he will help his people, despite his betrayal. She worries that he will shorten his life by using his magic, but he reports that her magic is creating the dream, not his.
As Brie wakes, she realizes that Sebastian appeared as her neighbor almost exactly seven years after her mother’s disappearance. (This indicates that Sebastian came to Elora specifically to meet her as part of a plot to secure the crown.) Her maids urge her to hurry, as Sebastian’s coronation is imminent. Brie realizes that the maids are actually fae who have been glamoured. They report that Sebastian is taking the throne even though Arya still lives, as has both Seelie and Unseelie royal blood. Oberon is his true father; this was a magically bound secret until Sebastian retook Oberon’s crown. This is how, Brie realizes, Sebastian knew that she would die when bonding him.
Brie feels power rush through her as her fury at this betrayal overtakes her. She casts darkness over the palace. Sebastian approaches, drawn by their bond, but he cannot see her. He asks to talk to her, but she leaves the Golden Palace.
Chapters 31-37 Analysis
In the final portion of the novel, Brie learns that the political atmosphere in Faerie is even more complex than she previously realized. The revelation that Brie wears Oberon’s crown reframes her outsider status in Faerie, though it does not erase it entirely. While her connection to Oberon reveals that Brie has always been inextricably linked to the fae realm, the manner of her connection does not make her part of the fae’s world. Rather, it puts her in the position of yet another artifact for the immortal fae to squabble over, just as Mordeus attempts to characterize her in his riddle. Brie, used to fighting against seemingly impossible odds, uses Mordeus’s underestimation to her advantage. Because he sees her as a tool, not as someone with her own agency, she outplays him at his own game and turns the binding bargain to her advantage.
The plot progression in these last chapters plays with expectations about climax and denouement to surprise the readers. Brie’s understanding of her own adventure would indicate that killing Mordeus is the novel’s climax, and, indeed, her visit to Elora to check on Jas after she kills Mordeus follows the narrative beats of a denouement. Brie and Jas both address their plans for the future, something they explore in the long term, as they both seem to anticipate that their adventures are over. This temporary shift to a slower pace in the narrative encourages readers to be as surprised as Brie is when her supposed happy ending with Sebastian turns out to reveal that he has been manipulating her all along. Ryan therefore plays again with readers’ expectations to create surprise and suspense in the novel. This makes the cliffhanger even tenser, as readers are invited to put the pieces together at the same time as Brie does.
The novel also leaves the love-triangle narrative unresolved, as Brie finishes the novel angry with both Finn and Sebastian. This indicates that the romance narrative, as well as the adventure narrative, will see new twists and turns in the next installment in the series and that Brie’s bond with Sebastian might not prove as binding as he has claimed.
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