52 pages • 1-hour read
Thieves' Gambit
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Chapters 23-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, illness or death, and cursing.
Chapter 23 Summary
Ross’s team settles into their luxury suite. Devroe locks the potentially bugged cell phone in the safe, burying it under layers of metal so it cannot pick up their voices. While Ross maps hotel exits using schematics from Kyung-soon, Mylo details how the golden sarcophagus has been disassembled over time. They notice protestors outside demanding the artifact’s return.
Devroe outlines a plan to intercept the sarcophagus during transport. Ross refines it: Identify the bidder with the weakest security team, steer the win to them, and then target their transport. The team agrees. Kyung-soon volunteers to hack the guest list to ban their rivals, Team Noelia. Ross and Devroe will scout bidders at the auction preview, while Mylo and Kyung-soon research the transport teams’ security. Ross and Devroe agree to pose as a couple at the preview, Devroe claiming he finally got his “date” with Ross.
Chapter 24 Summary
Ross struggles with an evening gown, and Devroe helps her fasten it. They feel some attraction as he talks about the thrill of manipulating people, framing social engineering as a kind of heist. Ross reaches for her meteor bracelet, but Devroe suggests it is too conspicuous and should be colored gold for such venues. Ross reluctantly agrees to leave it behind for the night and they head to the auction preview. Devroe continues to flirt and Ross jokes back that she will consider a second date if they pass the phase.
Chapter 25 Summary
In the ballroom, Ross mingles and pockets a ruby cufflink from a rude attendee. She and Devroe study the sarcophagus. Ross notices an underdressed man get special access to scan the artifact. Ross tails him into a second ballroom where he meets a young, underdressed woman. She enlists Devroe, who joins her on the dance floor and lip-reads their conversation. He learns the man is a British Museum proxy, and the man confirms that that sarcophagus is authentic and that the museum set aside $200 million for it, making them the likely winner of the auction.
Chapter 26 Summary
Ross and Devroe return to the suite, worried the British Museum’s budget makes their plan unworkable. Devroe insists they must ensure the museum’s proxy backs out. He shows her his watch, which hides a powder that makes people suggestible, and he gives Ross a diamond bracelet that works the same way. Devroe teaches Ross how to use it. The lesson turns intimate, and they almost kiss. Ross pulls away, afraid of being manipulated. Hurt, Devroe accuses her of not trusting her feelings and storms out.
Chapter 27 Summary
Ross texts Jaya for advice about Devroe, and Jaya warns her not to trust him. Mylo and Kyung-soon return from reconnaissance and report that the British Museum’s security detail is the strongest on-site. Ross updates them on the new plan to drug the museum’s proxy. Kyung-soon then reveals that Devroe deliberately made the team wait for Ross at the museum earlier, risking their place in the competition. The revelation makes Ross question Devroe’s motives just as he returns.
Chapter 28 Summary
The team convenes and selects a new target: Sadia Fazura, a socialite with weak security. They finalize the plan: Ross will drug the British Museum proxy, Devroe will persuade Sadia to win, and Mylo and Kyung-soon will hijack her transport. They toast the plan, but Mylo makes a teasing remark about family issues that provokes Devroe. He snaps back with a cruel insult about Mylo’s parents, shattering the team’s unity.
Chapter 29 Summary
Devroe storms out, followed by Kyung-soon. A hurt Mylo also leaves, and Ross follows to support him. In the lobby, Ross reveals that she lifted Devroe’s phone. Using Kyung-soon’s tech, she and Mylo access the device. They find cryptic daily messages between Devroe and his mother, a photo of them in a cemetery, and a letter from Devroe’s deceased father. After reading the letter, Ross’s anger turns to empathy.
Chapter 30 Summary
The next day, Ross and Mylo speak with the protestors and donate to their cause. Back in the suite, Ross notices her meteor bracelet is missing and suspects Devroe took it. Devroe soon returns with gift bags. They argue about the bracelet. After Ross changes, he hands her a box. Inside is her meteor bracelet, newly plated in rose gold to match her attire. Touched, Ross apologizes for hacking his phone. Devroe accepts, apologizes for his anger, and they reconcile before leaving for the auction.
Chapter 31 Summary
Ross and Devroe enter the ballroom and split up. Ross identifies the British Museum’s proxy and sits at her table. Noelia Boschart arrives, having used her connections to bypass the ban list. Ross alerts her team. A message from the Count initiates a 30-minute penalty game: Ross must break into two hotel rooms and access their occupants’ digital folders. She realizes she is the only one that is available to complete the mission and rushes out.
Chapter 32 Summary
Ross finds the target rooms guarded. She picks the lock of an unguarded room above and drops from its balcony to the target rooms. Inside, she uses baby powder to reveal the pattern on the safe’s keypad and correctly guesses the code. She finds a laptop and, before wiping it with the provided flash drive, copies its contents. She discovers surveillance files on Gambit participants, including photos proving her mother won a past Gambit.
Chapter 33 Summary
Ross moves to the second room, repeats the process, and copies the data, discovering the Count’s real name is Aurélie Dubois. She sends the stolen files to her family’s server and prepares to exit when Taiyō and Noelia ambush her. Noelia appears and takes the diamond bracelet that conceals Devroe’s drug from Ross, while Taiyō cuffs Ross to the balcony railing, balanced precariously. Ross realized Noelia’s team is copying her team’s plan for the heist. Taiyō explains he planted a bug on her during their train encounter and they leave her trapped.
Chapter 34 Summary
Stranded, Ross calls to children in a neighboring suite who use a dart gun to shoot a bobby pin to her. She picks the handcuff and frees herself. The Count texts that she lost the game and blocks her team’s communications for one hour. Ross sprints back to the ballroom to find the bidding for the sarcophagus finished. She spots Devroe at the bar, drugged, and arranges for a bellhop to take him to their room. She hot-wires a car to reach the warehouse.
Chapter 35 Summary
Ross infiltrates the airport warehouse by riding on a truck’s undercarriage. Inside Sadia Fazura’s unit, she finds Mylo and Kyung-soon tied up, guarded by Lucus and Adra. They spot Ross and seize her. Team Noelia loads a large crate onto their truck and leaves Ross’s team bound. Ross frees herself and her teammates with a hairpin. Mylo reveals their counter-plan: They fed Team Noelia false information and let them take a replica sarcophagus obtained from the protesters. Ross’s team finds the box with the real sarcophagus.
Chapter 36 Summary
Ross returns to the suite and finds Devroe drugged and emotional. He confesses his feelings and admits he needs to win the Gambit for his mother. They fall asleep together. In the morning, Ross wakes alone and joins Mylo and Kyung-soon. Kyung-soon confesses that Devroe hired her to act as his wing woman to improve his chances with Ross. As an apology, she gives Ross a designer sun hat. Ross accepts, and the team agrees to be more honest.
Chapters 23-36 Analysis
This section of the novel focuses on The Paradox of Trust in a World of Deception. Trust is complicated but often necessary among thieves. The sarcophagus heist becomes a key test for Ross’s evolving understanding of teamwork, where trust is a calculated risk. Their success comes from both crafting a successful plan, but also anticipating potential pitfalls. When Noelia’s team hijacks their strategy, it exposes the vulnerability of straightforward collaboration. The plan theft reveals that Ross’s team is vulnerable because their straightforward, honest teamwork leaves them exposed to anyone willing to twist that openness into an advantage. Later, when Ross and Mylo reveal they secretly planned and gave their rivals false information, it deepens the story’s exploration of trust. It shows that in this world, the strongest kind of trust is not honesty, but agreeing that betrayal will happen and planning for it together. The team’s success depends on Ross and Mylo carrying out a lie alone, trusting only each other with the hidden counter-plan and keeping their teammates in the dark. Their staged failure hides a real victory, showing that trust in the Gambit is less about teamwork and more about using secrecy as a strategic tool.
Ross and Devroe’s relationship shows a smaller, more personal version of this same paradox. Objects that mix danger and romance reflect their developing relationship. The changes in Ross’s meteor bracelet highlight this shift. Devroe steals the bracelet and plates it in rose-gold. He turns her primary tool as a Quest thief into something that fits the high-society world they need to enter. This is more than a gift; it is a way of pulling her identity into his plans. The bracelet, which symbolized her family and skills, now shows how her identity is becoming tangled with Devroe’s influence. Similarly, the drug-dispensing watch and tennis bracelet function as dual symbols of their partnership and its inherent toxicity. These items are tools for a shared goal but are also instruments of deceit, a fact underscored when Noelia steals Ross’s bracelet to use against Devroe. Devroe’s drugged confession further complicates their relationship. His words are honest and unfiltered, but because chemicals bring them out, his sincerity is compromised.
The narrative structure reinforces the theme of external control through the competitions. The Count’s sudden “penalty game” creates a game-within-the-game and proves that the Gambit’s designers push players into traps. By separating Ross from her teammates, the penalty game gives Noelia’s team the opening they need to attack her, steal the bracelet, and take over the heist. It is not random; it is a planned twist meant to increase pressure and create drama. The game also leads Ross to a crucial revelation about her family legacy. Ross discovers digital files proving her mother won a previous Gambit, changing her understanding of her family and her own purpose in the competition. The game advances the plot while deepening Ross’s internal conflict.
This discovery also deepens the exploration of Navigating the Weight of Family Legacy, comparing Ross’s hidden family history with Devroe’s tragic one. When Ross finds the file listing her mother as “Quest, Rhiannon: Winner” (251), she must confront the weight of a family legacy she never knew existed. Her mission to save her mother shifts as she realizes Rhiannon kept her entire history with the Gambit (its existence, her participation, her victory, and even her wish) a complete secret. The reveal leaves Ross struggling to understand why her mother hid something so important and what that silence means for Ross’s place in the Gambit. In contrast, the letter from Devroe’s deceased father is filled with open love and affection. The letter makes Devroe seem like a sympathetic character shaped by loss. Ross’s empathy for him is real, yet based on incomplete information. She feels a kinship with his family struggles though she does not yet see how their histories clash. This contrast creates strong tension, as Ross begins to doubt her family while also misreading Devroe’s motivations.
Throughout these chapters, the motif of doors, exits, and locks illustrate the theme of The Illusory Promise of Freedom. Ross defines herself professionally by her ability to bypass physical barriers; she maps hotel exits and picks locks. These actions show her constant search for an escape route, both literally and metaphorically. The penalty game showcases these skills as her primary tools for independence. However, her confidence in her abilities shatters when Taiyō and Noelia cuff Ross to a balcony railing. Complicating matters, and deepening the symbolism, it is not the cuffs alone that trap her. Instead, her dangerous position over the drop keeps her from using the skills she usually relies on, mirroring how her home life also limits her ability to act freely. This moment transforms the idea of being trapped into something real and frightening. Ross only escapes by relying on and trusting strangers, two children playing nearby. However, this escape is not true freedom. Instead it illustrates how every obstacle Ross overcomes leads to another, more dangerous one within the Gambit’s strict and controlling world.
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