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Hex Hall

3/23/2016

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Hex Hall
Rachel Hawkins

Sixteen year old Sophie Mercer is at her nineteenth school, Green Mountain High, and was asked to prom by an unpopular boy named Ryan.  While in the bathroom, she hears a senior girl, Felicia, crying likes she does everyday at school.  Sophie tries to cheer her up, but Felicia is too distraught over not having a date for her senior prom.  Sophie takes her out to the parking lot and asks who she wants to go with.  Felicia says the popular football captain.  Sophie concentrates on an image of the two and sends it into the hole in the dark cloud that forms above her.  Lightning flies out and then Sophie takes Felicia back inside.  The dream boy, Kevin, crashes his car into the gym and immediately goes to find Felicia, who is screaming in horror.  Felicia points out Sophie and says she is a witch.

Now that Sophie has risked exposing herself as a witch several times since she got her powers at age twelve, her mom takes her to Hecate Hall - a reform school for Prodigium adolescents in Georgia on Graymalkin Island.  After the prom incident, Sophie’s mom got an email from Sophie’s dad who works for the council.  She will have to stay at Hecate until she turns eighteen.  Her parents broke up because her dad told her mom he is a warlock.  She left him and then found out she was pregnant.  She didn’t really communicate with him until Sophie got her powers.  They take the ferry out to the island and see the school looks like two houses magically sewn together.  Sophie wonders which kids are witches, warlocks, or shapeshifters.  She can pick out most of the fairies with the bright hair and wings.  She sees a couple scolding their werewolf son, Justin, as he growls at them.  He stops and cocks his head like a dog and Sophie laughs.  Justing charges at her.

A boy named Archer Cross stops Justing from mauling Sophie with a blocking spell.  HE is surprised she didn’t use the simple spell herself.  They trade insults and then Archer starts to walk away.  Sophie gets ready to use a spell against him but is stopped by Mrs. Casnoff, who informs her (and reminds Archer) they aren’t allowed to use spells against each other.  She takes Sophie and her mom inside the house on a quick tour.  She explains the girls’ dorms are on the third floor, boys on the second, and classes are on the first and in the out-buildings.  She points out the spirits and says they cannot touch them, so they are harmless.  She introduces Sophie to her roommate, Jenna, they only vampire student.  Jenna helps Sophie carrie her trunk to their room.  Sophie is impressed with the pink stripe in Jenna’s hair and Jenna offers to do Sophie’s hair in another color.

Jenna shows Sophie to their room.  Jenna’s side is covered in pink.  Sophie starts to unpack and they talk.  Jenna says a lot of the kids at Hex Hall have divorced parents, but she hasn’t seen hers since she met a guy and got bit.  Sophie gets a little defensive when Jenna asks about why Sophie’s parents split, but quickly apologizes saying she doesn’t know the answer.  Jenna has to go to the nurses office to eat her blood from bags.  Sophie asks about Jenna’s last roommate, but Jenna gets angry and leaves.  Sophie’s mom comes in and they say their goodbyes.

Sophie decides to explore the school and starts in the girls’ lounge where the dorm halls meet at the stairs.  She sees a shifter girl, Taylor, get into an argument with her fairy roommate, Nausicaa, over the TV volume.  Taylor starts to shift into a mountain lion, but stops herself when he niece of the Seelie king leaves.  Sophie talks to Taylor a bit, but doesn’t like how she talks about the others or her apparent distaste for Jenna.  Sophie makes her way downstairs and looks at the display of yearly pictures.  The latest one shows the class and Jenna has her arm around her old roommate, Holly.  Three witches, Anna (African American), Chaston (California blonde), and Elodie (redhead), come to great her.  They say she is the only other dark witch on their list.  Sophie is confused so they explain white witches do little spells.  Dark witches are more powerful and aspire to do things like control the weather and necromancy.  Sophie is appalled at the idea of raising and controlling dead things.  They start to reconsider whether they want her in their coven, but they need a fourth.  They mention Holly was their fourth, even though she was a terrible dark witch.  Sophie asks about Holly.  They tell her she was killed by Jenna.

Sophie starts laughing at the idea of Jenna killing anyone.  the girls tell her one of them found Holly crying in the library and then she was found dead in a bathtub two days later with two holes in her neck and her blood drained.  They admit the council came and said it was far too neat to be a vampire because they are messy eaters.  Sophie still doesn’t believe it was Jenna.  They ask her to join their coven.  Sophie says she will have to think about it and turns to leave.  The door flies shut before Sophie can exit.  The girls levitate and make a display of their power that makes them glow and their eyes fiery.  A few of the picture frames’ glass break and a piece cuts Sophie’s arm.  When they are finished, Sophie says she will think about joining them.  They leave and Jenna finds Sophie sitting in the same room an hour later.  Sophie notices Jenna starting at the blood dripping down her arm.  They make up quickly and start heading to dinner.

After they get their food, Sophie points out a small table for two and they take it.  Jenna points out the teachers.  Lord Byron is the vampire teacher who has been sentenced to Hex Hall for wanting to convert all of England into vampires.  There are also teaches for all the other types of Prodigium.  The dark witch, Ms. Vanderlyden (who the students call “the Vandy” behind her back), had her powers stripped and is not the evil P.E. teacher.  Jenna then starts to tell her about their classmates.  Sophie asks about Archer Cross.  Jenna tells her all the girls love him.  He and Holly were close.  When she died, he left the school and it is rumored he went to England to see the council about the Removal (process to take away powers, few survive).  Mrs. Casnoff dismisses the returning students, but tells Archer to stay with the new kids because he needs to see what they will be shown.  He breaks away from Elodie and sits at Sophie’s table.  Everything goes dark.

Mrs. Casnoff starts off telling the new kids about the history of Hex Hall.  The place started as a sanctuary for witches and quickly became a school and later a reform school.  Then she shows them movie-like projections of Prodigium being killed because they exposed their powers to humans.  The images are very gruesome.  Archer puts his hand on top of Sophie’s to help her through it.  Mrs. Casnoff then tells them there are three groups that specialize in the hunting and killing of Prodigium: the Alliance (people in government agencies around the world), the Brannick family (Irish family descended from a witch that had her powers stripped to pursue God), and L’Occhio di Dio (the Eye, Rome based group thinks they are holy knights; biggest threat).  She continues  to tell them these three groups may become more dangerous as they start cooperating with each other.  She then dismisses them, and they quietly leave the room scared of what they saw.  Archer says it was different from the last time he was shown the presentation and then takes off down the hall.

Sophie chases down Archer and asks him what he means the lecture was different.  He tells her when he first saw it three years ago, there weren’t nearly as many images.  Sophie doesn’t believe there are so many dangerous humans actively hunting them down.  She explains how her mother likes Prodigium.  Archer points out she is a mother to one.  He goes on to tell her she isn’t living in the human world anymore.  Sophie suggests the groups are hunting the dangerous Prodigium, but Archer tells her to not say stuff like that around there.  Sophie goes back to her room and tells Jenna she is trying not to have a crush on Archer.  Jenna points out it is odd that he ignored Elodie’s obvious interest last year, but is suddenly into the dim-witted girl.  They are told to go to bed early because they have a busy day planned.  That night, Elodie, Anna, and Chaston wake up Sophie to talk about joining their coven.  Jenna tells her to go and hear them out or they will never leave.  Sophie decides she is right.

The girls take Sophie back to Elodie and Anna’s room.  They tell Sophie the first spell cast by a witch is important.  Chaston created a three day storm; Anna froze time; and Elodie made a girl vanish.  Sophie admits her first spell was turning her hair purple accidentally.  The girls are disappointed, but Sophie points out how each of their first spells hurt people.  They scoffs at the ramifications and Sophie decides she doesn’t want to be part of their coven.  Chaston really wants her to the their fourth to make their coven powerful, but Elodie has had enough.  She tells Sophie she will have a hard time at Hex Hall because of her roommate and who her father is.  She closes the door on Sophie.  Suddenly another door opens and Taylor is kicking her fairy roommate and her friends out for trying to contact the Seelie Court while she is trying to sleep.  After the fairies leave, Sophie asks why Taylor isn’t out for the full moon with the weres.  Taylor explains she is a shifter and isn’t affected by the moon.  Sophie asks the difference and Taylor frustratedly explains shifters actually become the animal and weres transform into a humanoid animal.  ON the way back to her room, a werewolf named Beth sniffs and drools on her.  Sophie gets to her room to find Jenna sneaking a bag of blood.  She tells Jenna what happened and they laugh over the absurdity of it all.

Jenna doesn’t have any specialized vampire classes, so she is with Sophie in most of hers.  However, they do not have the bi-weekly Defense class together with the Vandy.  Sophie goes outside to make her way to the gym.  Elodie, Anna, and Chaston come up to her to apologize for their behavior.  They say they realized they might have freaked her out because she is new to magic.  Elodie tells her to compliment the Vandy’s purple arm tattoos to get on her good side.  Inside the gym, Beth waves to Sophie.  The Vandy enters and immediately chooses Sophie for a demonstration with a wooden stake.  She then calls Archer up to show how to block the attack using Skill Nine.  He is reluctant and the Vandy says she will do it if he doesn’t.

Archer quickly knocks the breath out of Sophie and then takes out her legs to get her to the floor.  He ten puts his knee on her chest and the stake under her chin.  He picks her up and puts her back on her feet while she tries to catch her breath.  The Vandy then asks him to use Skill Four on her.  Archer refuses, so the Vandy goes to attack Sophie.  Sophie kicks her in the chest and she goes to the ground.  The Vandy is furious.  Sophie tries to make it better by complimenting her tattoos, but that makes it worse.  Archer tries tot ell the Vandy that Sophie didn’t grow up like the rest of them, but they are both sentenced to detention and cellar duty for the rest of the semester.  The Vandy sends them to Mrs. Casnoff’s office.  ON the way, Archer is angry and confused about her ignorance.  Sophie tells him Elodie gave her the advice and she really doesn’t know who her dad is.  Archer explains her dad is the head of the Council and the one that put the Vandy through the Removal (the tattoos are the mark of it).  He is also the reason all the students are there.

Sophie starts crying and then turns and runs until she is at the far end of campus by a pond.  She uses magic to make a comfortable seat and different clothes.  As it all starts fading back into their original forms, Mrs. Casnoff comes out to get her.  Sophie admits she doesn’t know anything about being a witch and the others grew up with the knowledge.  Mrs. Casnoff says Sophie’s presence at Hex Hall is sensitive and suggests they go to her office to talk.

Mrs. Casnoff pours from a kettle while Sophie notices the furniture is different.  She explains the public rooms are enchanted to reflect the student’s view of Hecate.  The tea has a comfort spell to make it whatever drink the person likes best.  After swearing Sophie to secrecy, sh shows her a picture of her grandmother, Lucy Barrow Atherton, standing in front of Hex Hall as a young woman.  She tells Sophie her family was human until her great grandmother, Alice, was turned during a black magic spell to give another witch, Mrs. Thorne, more power.  Alice went crazy and when the Council found her, she was pregnant.  After Lucy was born, they sent them both to Hecate.  Alice escaped.  Lucy was kept for observation to see if Alice’s power (strongest Prodigium ever recorded) was passed down genetically.  Not only did Lucy have her power, so does Sophie and her father.

Sophie uses the rarely used telephone to call her mom.  It is clear right away her mom knew everything but didn’t tell her.   She says they will talk when Sophie comes home for winter break.  Sophie hangs up and just sits on the floor for a while.  A ghost appears that she has seen several times and it seems to be studying her.  It walks away making no sound.  Sophie gets up and turns a corner and runs into Jenna.  Sophie explains Mrs. Casnoff gave her the rest of the day off and asks about cellar duty.  Jenna explains she will have to catalogue magical items that move on their own.  She leaves to go to class and Sophie goes to the library.  She pulls out a book about L’Occhio di Dio.  She sees a picture of blood being drained from a witch.  She takes the book back to her room and shows Jenna it could’ve been the Eye that killed Holly.  Jenna says it wasn’t because they want people to know about their kills; she has seen them.

Later in the week, Sophie and Archer report for the first hour of cellar duty.  The Vandy explains the job and the leaves them with a list of items to determine the locations of.  Once they are alone, Archer hands Sophie some kleenex as a joke.  She says he and Elodie are just alike.  He takes offense and says he will try to get the girls to lay off her.  He explains most witches and wizards have their marriages arranged by their parents when they are thirteen.  Holly was his betrothed.  Sophie is shocked at the process and Archer tells her the witch can refuse the marriage.  He points out her dad probably has someone picked out for her, as does Elodie.  He got to know her over the summer after Holly died.  Sophie unintentionally makes a joke and they both end up laughing.  The Vandy comes to dismiss them.  Sophie goes to the bathroom to take a shower and finds Chaston bleeding from her neck and writs in a tub.

Sophie runs out of he bathroom and starts shouting for help.  Mrs. Casnoff arrives and sends Sophie out to get Cal from his house by the pond.  She runs the whole way and knocks on the door.  Cal is about to scold her, but she quickly tells him Mrs. Casnoff sent her because Chaston is hurt.  He rushes off and Sophie trails behind.  By the time Sophie gets back to the bathroom, a group has gathered.  Cal picks up Chaston and he takes her to Mrs. Casnoff’s office.  Elodie immediately starts to blame Jenna, who points out Elodie’s coven tried to raise a demon.  Jenna storms out of the room and slams her dorm door.  Sophie sticks up for Jenna.  Taylor points out they don’t have any proof, but Beth tells her not to trust Sophie because of her dad.  Mrs. Casnoff comes out and says Chaston will be fine and is going home with the hopes she will return after winter break.  She warns them not to spread rumors in the meantime.  Sophie asks Anna about Cal and she says he is a white warlock, which can heal wounds other witches and warlocks can’t.  He couldn’t heal Holly because she was already dead.  Mrs. Casnoff sends them all to bed.

Sophie joins Jenna in their room.  Jenna is upset and tells her story.  She met a girl named Amanda, and they fell in love.  Amanda didn’t tell Jenna she was a vampire and bit Jenna.  The Eye came and got Amanda.  Jenna ran and went to Amanda’s parents (also vampires) who contacted the Council.  Sophie does her best to comfort her and doesn’t believe Jenna hurt Holly or Chaston.  The next morning, Sophie is woken up by Jenna’s screams of pain as the sun burns her.  Sophie wraps her in her comforter and gets her into the closet.  She goes to Elodie and Anna’s room to demand Jenna’s bloodstone (allows her to endure daylight).  Elodie doesn’t seem to know what she is talking about, so Sophie uses a spell to find it.  It comes out of Anna’s dresser and into Sophie’s hand.  Back in her room, Sophie gives Jenna the necklace.  Sophie wants to tell Mrs. Casnoff what happened, but Jenna gets intense and says not to while grabbing Sophie’s arms hard enough to leave marks.  Jenna apologizes.  Mrs. Casnoff comes to take Jenna for questioning.

Over the next few days, Sophie has cellar duty again with Archer.  He uses his magic to turn jars into cold pops.  Sophie mentions the rumor about him trying to have his powers removed. He explains he petitioned the Council for time off and he got away for a while.  Sophie asks if it would be possible for anyone at Hex Hall to summon a demon.  He doesn’t think so and explains how bad that would be.  Demons can only be killed by demon glass (only found in hell) weapons.  They are let out shortly after.  Sophie is about to go up stairs to the dorms when Archer calls to her.  Elodie comes down past her and his attention goes to his girlfriend.

Chaston sends word that she will be fine but doesn’t remember seeing her attacker.  Elodie makes a comment about Jenna’s favorite hot pink color being tacky.  Sophie says something about her and Ms. East kicks her out with an assignment.  Rather than working on the essay, Sophie goes outside to enjoy the weather.  She runs into Cal and asks him why he is the groundskeeper at Hecate.  He explains that after he was free to go, he offered his services to the Council to protect the kids.  He suggests the teachers are overcompensating their attempts to not show favoritism towards her by punishing her more.  The bell rings and Sophie hurries off to Lord Byron’s class where she is assigned another essay for being late.  She looks over at Jenna, who is drawing the faces of Holly and Chaston on her notebook.

Sophie works on her essay during cellar duty while Archer catalogues.  They talk and flirt a little.  he asks her why she doesn’t fall all over him like the other girls, and she says she isn’t into pretty boys.  She asks about his family and he clams up.  While walking back to her room, she overhears Elodie and Anna in their room insulting her.  Sophie stops to listen and is hurt by what they say.  Elodie says she plans to have sex with Archer the night of the All Hallows Eve Ball.  Sophie continues to her room and finds Jenna covered by her blankets.  Sophie tells her what Elodie said about loosing her virginity to Archer and they stay up talking until lights out.  Sophie wonders how Elodie and Anna can be so calm and vapid when two of their coven members have been attacked.  She wakes up in the night to find the ghost she has been seeing around campus.  She says Sophie has been trouble.

The British ghost tells Sophie to follow her.  Sophie grabs her blazer and runs down the hall to catch up.  She is worried about getting caught, but the girl says she put a sleeping spell over the school.  She pulls Sophie outside.  They go into the woods to a graveyard.  One tombstone has an angel with a sword.  Sophie realizes the girl is her great-grandmother, Alice, but the way she is dressed.  Alice says she is there to train her, but Sophie points out she is the worst witch at Hecate.  When Alice uses a simple attack spell, Sophie doesn’t anticipate it.  Alice says she has the power, but doesn’t know how to use it.  She is going to prepare Sophie to become Head of Council.  

Alice explains Sophie is only bad at witchcraft because she was raised by a human. Alice takes her to a ring of trees and says that is where they will meet to train.  Sophie is unsure at first, but Alice assures her she will be stronger than Elodie, Anna, and Chaston.  Alice gives her a necklace with a black teardrop shaped stone that will prevent her from getting too tired.  They start off working on a few defense spells.  Then Alice has her try to make a pencil appear out of nothing.  After hours of concentration, Sophie gets a feeling like water rushing through her.  A pencil finally appears and then more follow.  Sophie suddenly realizes their time to get back inside is running short.  Alice makes two brooms appear and takes off on one.  Sophie reluctantly gets on the other and takes off for the school.  She decides she loves flying, even if it is cliche.  They land and Alice gives Sophie a small back of grave dirt to give a spell more power.  As they say goodbye, Alice warns Sophie the Eye is watching her even at Hecate.

Sophie continues to practice with Alice every night.  She starts to get better at defending herself against Archer in the Vandy’s class.  The upcoming All Hallow’s Eve Ball is all anyone can seem to talk about.  In Ms. East’s class, they are transforming pillow cases into dresses and tuxedos.  Elodie makes a beautiful pink one, but Sophie can only make hideous ones.  Elodie makes fun of Sophie’s crush on Archer, so Sophie says something about Elodie’s plan to have sex with him.  Ms. East sets them back to work.  Jenna asks if something is off with Sophie’s magic. Sophie says it feels like it always does rushing up from the ground.  Anna and Elodie say magic comes from above and should feel more like falling snow.  Sophie ignores them and continues to make ugly dresses.  She and Jenna get kicked out of class for laughing, but Sophie is glad Jenna is finally able to laugh again.  That night Sophie tells Alice about the ball and her problems with Elodie, Alice, and the dress.  Alice suggests her magic is affected by her confidence, which is much lower when she is in school.  She also asks why Sophie doesn’t use a love charm on Archer.  Sophie says she only wants him if he really does like her, not from a spell.  Alice suggests they change Elodie’s dress.

The day of the ball, Sophie is still working on her dress.  She can’t understand why she is having so much trouble.  Jenna suggests her dummy is cursed, so Sophie uses a revelation spell to show it really is.  Sophie is so infuriated, she takes the tiny bone Alice gave her and sneaks it into the hem of Elodie’s dress.  When she returns to her room, she uses some of Alice’s grave dirt to make a beautiful ball gown.  She then makes one for Jenna and they go to the ball together.  As they are waiting to get into the ballroom, someone whispers in her ear.

Sophie turns to see Archer.  They are impressed with each other.  Elodie joins them and is surprised at Sophie’s dress.  Sophie tells her about the curse she had to lift and Elodie’s eyes go wide.  Sophie is glad the bone didn’t do anything to Elodie’s dress.  Her boyfriend checking out Sophie is enough revenge.  They go inside and Sophie and Jenna hang out. They watch Archer dance with Elodie, but they seem to be fighting.  Suddenly, Elodie has to come off the dance floor and is clutching her side.  Mrs. Casnoff gets her out of the room with Anna and Archer following.  Archer returns twenty minutes later and Sophie asks what happened. He says Elodie’s dress was cursed, and it kept shrinking.  Sophie wonders if Alice deliberately lied to her when she said it would only change the dress’ color.  Archer asks Sophie to dance, and she accepts.  As they waltz, Sophie notices Jenna has disappeared, but is distracted by Archer.  He admits he wanted to be at the ball with Sophie.  Elodie rushes into the room in a robe and says Anna was attacked and might be dead.

Anna was found in the hallway of the girls’ dorms.  Even though Jenna was in her room the whole time, she is taken away for questioning.  When Sophie wakes up in the morning, Jenna hasn’t returned.  An assembly is called and everyone meets in the ballroom that now looks normal again.  Mrs. Casnoff tells them Anna will be fine, but they have sent all vampires away from Hecate, including Lord Byron.  She asks Elodie and Sophie to stay behind as the others are dismissed.  They go to Mrs. Casnoff’s office and admit they cursed each other’s dresses as they bicker back and forth.  MRs. Casnoff quiets them by saying three members of their coven have been attacked.  Sophie is furious Elodie did the ritual to make her part of the coven without her permission (used a hair stolen from her room instead of blood).  Mrs. Casnoff tells them they have to look out of each other.  She tells Sophie that Jenna is with the Council and may be guilty.  Sophie suggests a member of the Eye is in the school, but Mrs. Casnoff scoffs at the idea and excuses them from class the rest of the day.  Sophie stays in her room all day and doesn’t even answer when Archer comes to see her.  When the sleeping spell falls over the school, Sophie rushes out to meet Alice, but Elodie is there to bust her.

Sophie tells Elodie that she is being tutored by a ghost and invites her along for the lesson.  Elodie agrees and they find two broomsticks waiting for them.  Sophie introduces her to Alice, but leaves out that she is her great-grandmother.  While Alice teaches Elodie how to summon things, Sophie works on the transportation spell she has been trying.  At the end of the night, Alice warns them to be careful because they are the only two powerful witches left at the school.  They tell her what happened and suggests again the Eye is inside the school.  Sophie tells Mrs. Casnoff said they have too many protection spells.  Alice points out how easily her sleeping spell penetrated them  She warns them the Eye might not be as magic-less as they say.  They killed her at Hecate and shows them her chest wound.  She puts a protection spell on both of the girls.  Elodie goes inside.  Sophie asks if Alice really thinks the Eye is there.  Alice says there is definitely something there.

As Elodie continues to join Sophie for lessons with Alice, they start to get along better.  Elodie and Archer break up, but things are odd between him and Sophie.  Still not convinced Jenna is responsible for the attacks, Sophie starts researching demons.  She trouble with the books written in Latin and takes them to Mrs. Casnoff for help, but the teacher tells her to stop her research and accept Jenna’s guilt.  Sophie goes to cellar duty and is cold toward Archer.  HE thinks she told Elodie about the dance and that is why she dumped him.  Sophie tells him to get over himself and he pulls her to him.  They start kissing and undressing each other until Sophie sees the Eye tattoo appear on Archer’s chest.

Sophie fights away from Archer and goes up the stairs to beat on the locked door.  Archer pulls out a silver knife and uses it to open the window and escape.  When the Vandy opens the door, Sophie falls into her arms.  Shortly after, Sophie is in Casnoff’s office with the Vandy explaining what happened.  She says she only saw the tattoo because of a protection spell, but she lies and says she put it on herself.  Mr. Ferguson comes in with two shifter kids (one is Taylor) and says they couldn’t find Archer anywhere on the island.  Sophie leaves to go to her room and Cal follows saying he is to watch her until Archer is found.  On the way to Sophie’s room, she sees Elodie and goes to tell her what happened in private.   Elodie realizes Sophie was making out with Archer and gets up and walks away.

Everyone is relieved the attacks have been solved and security is lowered for the other students.  Jenna returns and tells Sophie about what happened at the Council’s Savanah location where she met a vampire named Victoria.  Sophie pulls out Jenna’s stuffed lion she hid in the closet and Jenna is scared of the black charm on the necklace (from Alice) Sophie put around its neck.  She tells Sophie it is a bloodstone made from demon blood.  Jenna shows the reaction of her own bloodstone to dark magic.  Sophie smashes it and the blood burns the carpet.  She knows Elodie has been seeing Alice and is currently in the woods.  Sophie realizes Alice wasn’t turned into a witch, but a demon.  She sends Jenna for help and runs out into the woods on her own.  

Once Sophie makes it to the clearing, she tries to convince Elodie to go back to the school with her.  Alice is surprised it took Sophie so long to tell the difference between a ghost and a demon.  Elodie admits her coven raised the demon for protection from the Eye.  They used Holly as the blood sacrifice to bind the demon to them, but didn’t mean to kill her.  They did make the wounds in the neck to frame Jenna.  She didn’t know what happened to Chaston and Anna.  Alice pushes Sophie against a tree and attacks Elodie, draining her blood from the neck and drinking it.  Once Sophie is free, she rushes over to Elodie, who asks for Sophie’s hand.  Elodie passes on her magic to Sophie.  Sophie knows she isn’t a match for Alice, but sees the angel’s sword on the nearby statue is made of demon glass.  Alice says the other girls were just fodder.  She fought hundreds of demons so only she would be summoned.  She was wanting to find Sophie, her family.  Sophie breaks the sword and comes up to the unsuspecting Alice with the blade.  She cuts Alice’s head off with it.

Mrs. Casnoff knew the whole time Sophie is a quarter demon.  When Alice performed her ritual pregnant, hers and her baby’s (Lucy) souls were replaced by the demon.  Cal tried to heal Elodie, but she died.   He did his best with Sophie’s wounds, but the cuts from the demon glass leave a scar.  Sophie tells Jenna what she really is.  Jenna tells her no one has heard from Archer or any of his family.  Mrs. Casnoff explains the other Prodigium outside Council and teachers don’t know about her.  Sophie is still dangerous.  Her father is always accompanied by another Council member.  When Lucy was thirty (no prior incidents), she killed her husband.  Then the Eye killed her.  Sophie asks if there is anyway to stop that for sure.  Mrs. Casnoff says the Removal, but it would most likely kill Sophie.  Sophie’s mom arrives to take her home.  She sees Elodie’s ghost behind her mom and says she is going to London to go through the Removal.

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The Elite

3/23/2016

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The Elite
Kiera Cass

America is on a date with Prince Maxon looking at stars in the garden.  He tells her he has never looked at the stars for fun, only for astronomy lessons.  He doesn’t normally have time for anything but lessons and meetings.  When he says he is bad at war strategies, America asks for other flaws to make him seem more normal.  He makes note of his weakness for her and she asks for more time.  A guard comes out to let them know it is getting too late for them to be outside.  They kiss and America goes back to her room.  Aspen is guarding her door and is jealous he can’t spend time with her to try to win her back.  They miss each other, but America knows she can’t do anything about it without risking their lives.  Her choice seems clear when she is alone with either man, but she can’t decide.

Queen Amberly talks with the six remaining girls about their hopes for their wedding.  When it is America’s turn, she talks about having her dad give her away because he approves of who she marries.  Celeste makes fun of her.  After the queen leaves them in the Women’s room, America spends the day with Marlee.  On her way to the bathroom, she runs into a guard named Woodwork.  She apologizes and goes about her business and then returns to the Women’s room to sit with Marlee.

While studying a report all of the girls will be quizzed on, Maxon stops by America’s room.  She is excited to see him and asks if they can go outside for a few minutes.  As they walk, he asks about the callouses on America’s fingers.  She explains it is from playing the violin.  He says he has seen the world and knows things, but he loves her hands because of the music they produce.  He wants to share something with her and tells her to ask him about anything.  She challenges him to answer a question about Halloween.  He takes her through the house, running as quickly as he can with her following.  He shows her a secret chamber behind a painting.  It is full of books.  He uses a computer (America has never seen one before) to find which book will answer her question.  Two of the three books he pulls give the answer.  The last is one of Gregory Illea’s diaries.  It has a picture of three children dressed in costumes standing behind him and his wife.  Gregory wrote the festival they threw was frivolous.  Maxon offers to let America take the book back to her room.  America accepts and promises she will hide it well and keep his trust.

America has been attempting to give Marlee piano lessons, but after a week, Marlee seems to have gotten worse.  They give up and start talking about Maxon.  Marlee admits he is not the one for her and he is in love with someone else.  America is jealous until she realizes Marlee means her.  They promise to be each other’s maids of honor no matter what.  Marlee asks why America hasn’t ended the competition yet.  America says she just isn’t sure.  That night at dinner, America tugs on her ear, but Maxon has to work.  She returns to her room to find Aspen guarding her door.  He brushes her arm and she rushes inside to get away from the feelings overwhelming her.  Her maids instantly swarm her to help her get ready for bed.  America knows she has to make a choice.

The next Friday night on the Report, the girls debate.  Celeste wants to increase the number of men drafted in order to end the war in New Asia.  America disagrees.  She suggests they allow volunteers.  Afterwards, while Anne, Mary, and Lucy are pulling pins out of America’s hair, Maxon comes to see her.  He suggests they throw a Halloween celebration and invite the Elites’ families.  America is excited.  She admits to Maxon she stays in the Selection because she doesn’t want to leave him.  They sit for a while, but then Maxon leaves to prepare for the families to arrive.

While maids start working on designs and costumes, photographers float around taking pictures.  Maxon comes and has his picture taken with America.  She is surprised when he says he came from talking with Celeste.  He leaves shortly after to visit the other girls.  He spends more time with the others throughout the week.  When the Report is over the next Friday, America waits for Maxon as usual.  He doesn’t show up.  They have dance lessons through the week and Aspen is one of the guards that volunteers to help.  America isn’t a great dancer and he helps her.  He has noticed how sad she has been.  When she says it isn’t about him, Aspen realizes it is about Maxon.  He tells her she is incredible and he will be there for her.

All of the girls are excited when their families arrive.  America ends up in a pile on the floor with her parents and May.  Maxon comes by to get them.  After he moves on, America tells them about their earlier encounters.  Her mother is horrified.  May asks to stay with America during their visit, and she agrees to it.  America takes a walk with her dad and she tells him what she has learned about the country’s history.  She carefully tells him about the hidden room full of books.  She tells him Maxon let her borrow one and he points out how much the prince trusts her.  America goes back to her room so she and May can get ready for tea with the queen.  She overhears Lucy telling May about love before she enters to find May braiding her hair.  The maids get them ready and they go to tea.  May pulls America out of a conversation to show her (through the window) their dad is in the garden talking passionately with Maxon.  Afterwards, they shake hands and he puts his arm around the prince.  They wait at the window, but Maxon doesn’t take any other fathers to the garden to talk.

America goes to the Halloween party dressed as a butterfly and May as a bride.  She notices Maxon dancing with the other girls and waits her turn.  When Maxon starts having second dances with them, America is even more discouraged.  She dances with the guard named Woodwork.  Later, Aspen asks her to dance and she scolds him for flirting with Celeste.  She tells him Maxon has been avoiding her and he tries to comfort her.  He asks if she will wait for him, but she changes dance partners before she can answer.  America notices her dad has been missing most of the night.  She sits to rest and Maxon asks her to dance.  He asks about making Halloween an annual event and she is shocked to learn she isn’t going home.  He wanted to make sure America was real and none of the other girls were a possibility.  He asked her father about proposing and wants to slowly get America adjusted to being the princess.  He will finish out the Selection process and then propose to her.  Maxon takes all the Elites outside for a champagne toast and winks at America to celebrate their secret engagement.

The next morning, Anne, Mary, and Lucy wake up May and America.  May is sent to her parents while they get America ready and dressed in a simple black dress.  No one will tell her what is going on.  When all the girls are gathered, guards start leading them.  America notices Marlee is missing.  They are seated outside and Marlee is brought out in chains with the guard, Carter Woodwork.  They were caught together and Maxon has sentenced them to fifteen lashes and being demoted to Eights.  They are tied up and Carter tries to talk Marlee through the lashings.  America is held back as she tries to go to Maxon to beg him to stop.  When she tries to get to Marlee, she is dragged inside.

America is taken back to her room and she screams for everyone to get out, including her maids.  She spends all day crying and doesn’t bother to answer the door when someone knocks.  Maxon lets himself in and explains the cameras caught Marlee and Carter.  He did what he could to save them from death.  America says she knows she cannot be a princess.  She will never be able to stand by calmly while people are hurt.  Maxon reminds her she promised not to leave him.  She nods her agreement to stay.  That night, she allows her maids to help her get ready for bed.  Aspen comes in to make sure she is alright.  She wonders how she could have had any delusions she didn’t belong with him.  

The next day, America gets a letter from her dad.  He is proud of her for trying to help Marlee.  She goes to the Women’s room for a distraction.  Queen Amberly calls her over to tell her she shouldn’t have reacted the way she did, but she is glad she did.  America is dismissed and goes to sit with Natalie and Kriss.  They start debating the ethics of Marlee and Carter’s treatment.  Celeste says Marlee deserves what she got because she is a whore.  America tackles her and slaps her several times.  Celeste manages to smash a teacup against her head before they are pulled apart by the guards.  Queen Amberly sends them both to the hospital wing.  A nurse comes to tell America she is a hero among them for attacking Celeste.  She treated Anna (the girl that slapped Celeste early on) before leaving and Celeste’s maids come in for ice sometimes.  America starts to ask about Marlee, but Maxon comes to see them.  He visits Celeste first.  When he comes to see America, she tells him she can’t do the job and wants to go home.  HE asks her to give him time to show her what the job will really be like and she agrees.

America is released from the hospital wing and sees Aspen on her way back to her room.  He tells her to look in her jar, and she finds a note from him containing detailed instructions on where to meet.  She finds herself in a dark room that night.  Aspen comforts her, but also points out Maxon is a skilled actor.  He is sorry the prince hurt her, but he is glad he may get his second chance.  He sends her back before they are caught.  The next day, Celeste gives America a magazine opened up to an article.  It talks about the first Selection, Queen Amberly’s refinement, and then goes into the current candidates.  America’s recent actions have made her unpopular and Celeste and Kriss are favored.  The author doesn’t think having anyone from a lower caste is fair to the prince, especially after Marlee and America’s behavior.

America leaves the room and goes to her own room.  She starts playing the piano as a distraction and then shuffles through the music in the bench seat until she finds Gregory Illea’s diary.  She reads a bit and finds the man was inspired to make the country better just like Maxon.  Aspen comes in that night to check on America.  She asks if she would make a good princess even if it didn’t involve marrying Maxon.  Aspen says she isn’t calculating enough to hurt people for the greater good.  Aspen tells her he is happy living at the palace hasn’t changed her.  She tells him she doesn’t know what to do, and she hasn’t forgotten him.  Aspen says it is enough for him.

America watches Maxon and plays with the button Aspen gave her on a string around her wrist.  That Friday before the Report, the girls are invited to tea with King Clarkson so he can get to know them better.  America is nervous and ends up being late.  Maxon stares at her as she walks in.  She ends up talking with Kriss and Elyse joins them after she is done talking with the king.  When it is time to leave for the Report, America never got her turn.  She makes it through the show and sends her maids away before she starts crying.  She wonders if she was left out on purpose.  Maxon doesn’t show up.

America has her maids dress her up for Saturday in the Women’s Room.  She notices they seem upset, but decides to not intrude on their privacy.  She meets with the other girls and then Sylvia and Queen Amberly come to assign them a project.  The German Federation and Italy are having guests tour the country and will be at the palace Wednesday and Thursday respectively.  The girls are split into teams to prepare for the event.  Celeste, Elise, and Natalie are assigned Germany and America and Kriss get Italy.  America suggests they hide their things for the event in their rooms.  Kriss makes a comment about America being smart was what Maxon had liked about her.  She decides to ignore the comment.  That night a siren goes off.  Aspen rushes into the room swearing to get America to the safe room.  Elise comes in a few minutes later.  Maxon sends them further in and goes to find Kriss.  Sylvia points out the cots for the girls and says she expects them to sleep to complete their projects.  Maxon comes in carrying Kriss, who says she tripped and sprained her ankle.  America wakes up in the night to see Maxon talking to Kriss with his arm around her.  When she is woken up in the morning, Maxon and Kriss are gone.

The next day, everyone is working outside while the palace is being cleaned up.  Maxon, being excluded in his father’s meeting, waves and before America can wave back, Kris does.  When the prince makes his way to the refreshment table, Kriss and Celeste both join him.  Suddenly, a guard runs out to tell them there is a rebel attack.  Maxon puts Kriss in Aspen’s arms and has him carry her to the safe room after the queen.  America is frozen.  She suddenly realizes the pooping around her is gunfire and takes off running.  When she looks back, she sees King Clarkson pulling Maxon away while the prince tries to go after America.  She realizes she ran the wrong way and continues to runs into the woods.  She finds a tree thick enough to hide behind and then starts climbing.  A few minutes later, a boy and a girl appear, saying they shouldn’t have come during the day when people would be outside.  Her back of books rips and the pair scramble to gather them.  America can tell there is affection between them.  They hear a whistle and the boy leaves to check on someone they call Jeremy.  The girl looks up and sees America.  She laughs, gives a curtsey, and then takes off.  America waits an hour before trying to find her way back, but she is lost.

America leans up against a tree and ends up falling asleep.  When she wakes up, she hears guards calling for her.  She doesn’t believe she is safe until she sees Aspen.  She runs into his arms.  The other guards gather around her and she tells them the rebels never caught up.  As Aspen carries her back to the palace, she tells him what really happened.  He takes her to the hospital wing and she is checked out by the doctor.  She falls asleep and when she wakes up at two in the morning, Maxon is there.  He is glad she is alright.  She tells him she has seen how much he cares for the girls and knows he would’ve helped Marlee if possible.  He tells her their team presentations will send another girl home from the losing team.  He tells America he can’t lose her or Kriss.  Her heart breaks.  He says he has never been as grateful for anything as when she was found alive.

After spending all day with Kriss working on their project, America stews over all her contradicting emotions.  She decides she isn’t completely ready to give up on Maxon.  She takes out Gregory Illea’s diary from the piano bench.  He says he used his money and position to become favorable to the people, but he will play by the rules to become their leader.  America decides to write to her dad.

America and Kriss agree to be on their best behavior when the German’s arrive for the first reception.  Sylvia takes notes through the entire day as several small things go wrong.  Elise seems to be the only Elite staying calm.  The next morning, America and Kriss get ready together and get down to the room early to make sure everything is perfect.  They go up to Queen Amberly and Sylvia and give them each a necklace that matches their own to mark them as hosts.  Sylvia is touched to be so recognized.  When the other girls arrive, they tell them to spread out so the Italians can meet them all.  America is relieved to find the Italians are beautiful, jovial people.  Their monarchy is still young and this is their first time reaching out to Illea.  America meets with their princess’ cousins, Orabella and Noemi, who encourage her to drink and gossip.  They love America, but she has to excuse herself.  Kriss toasts Queen Amberly and Sylvia and then America toasts their guests.  America plays her violin some and then goes to mingle more.  Princess Nicoletta asks to speak to America privately.  She explains the reason Italy hasn’t reached out previously is because the people of Illea seem distraught and it is probably due to the caste system.  She tells America she will do anything she can to help her get the crown after seeing her reaction to Marlee’s treatment.  She stuffs a piece of paper into America’s hand and walks off.  Elise compliments the work they did and America offers to tell Maxon how hard Elise worked.  Elise says she is competing and wouldn’t do the same even though she likes America.  After the party, America goes to her room and receives a response from her dad.  He tells her he will support her no matter what she chooses, but he thinks she will make a great princess once she is int he position.  He points out Maxon seemed sure about her and the reluctance was from her.  She pulls out the paper from Nicoletta and sees it is the princess’ phone number.  She wonders if she really could be the next princess.

The next day, Queen Amberly doesn’t show up in the Women’s Room.  the girls are trying to guess why when a note show sup for America.  Maxon asks to speak with her for a moment.  She leaves the room to find Maxon in the hallway.  He rushes her down the hall saying they only have fifteen minutes.  They arrive at the princess suite.  Maxon explains the room is undecorated so the princess can decide what to do with it.  A secret door opens to reveal Marlee.  They fall into each other’s arms and Maxon gives them some time alone.  Marlee explains Maxon has been hiding her and Carter in the kitchen and not even the king knows.  Maxon arranged their wedding for the day the German Federation visited and gave her away.  They now live in a tiny apartment and have changed their names.  America tells her all about her situation with Maxon.  She has to leave quickly and hopes to be able to visit America more.  America finds Maxon outside the room reading.  She thanks him.  He asks her if she still wants to be there.  She considers and says yes.  When she returns to the Women’s Room obvious she had been crying and refusing to say what Maxon wanted, the other girls are hopeful it will be America going home.

While spending Saturday in the Women’s Room, Queen Amberly and Sylvia come to report on each group’s reception.  They note both groups did very well even though one was more fun to them than the other.  Maxon and King Clarkson enter the room with the queen’s permission and announce they are going to New Asia to try to smooth out the war.  Maxon makes his way down the line to say goodbye to the girls.  America can tell there is something between him and Kriss and wonders when it started.  His goodbye to America is cut short by the king. He notices her bracelet when he kisses her hand.  The queen retires to her room after they leave.  After Celeste leaves, America decides she will as well.  While her maids are getting her ready for bed, they say they found Aspen in his street clothes searching her room.  He said it was for security and they point out how he is always a very observant guard.  When they leave, America finds a note from Aspen in the jar saying things are different with Maxon gone.

When it is time for dinner, America follows Aspen’s instructions to go into a room across the hall that had belonged to one of the girls that had been sent home.  He makes them a fort under a table and they eat the dinner he brought.  She asks if he likes being a guard even though he doesn’t like the king, the prince, or their politics.  Aspen explains the job gives him a sense of purpose protecting his country.  He has hope it will get better.  He feels like he is in his own form of the Selection waiting for her to choose him or Maxon.  America goes to sleep that night contemplating her choices and knowing she will have to live with her decisions.

Everyone is quiet at breakfast and the queen keeps to herself.  Kriss tells America that Elise called her family to greet the king and prince, but they never showed up, which contradicts the call the queen received from them saying they arrived.  She asks America to talk in the garden after they eat.  They walk out together and Kriss admits she wants to talk about Maxon.  When everything happened with Marlee, Kris sent Maxon a card to cheer him up.  They started spending all their free time together.  America suddenly realizes she doesn’t want to hear it or share her private moments.  Kriss asks for warning if America hears Maxon is sending her home and America agrees.  They make a pact to be fair about their competition for him.  ON her way back to her room, America finds a note on the floor.  There was a rebel attack in Paloma (300 dead, 100 injured) demanding the end of the Selection and the royal line.  America puts it back on the floor knowing she wasn’t supposed to see it.

America has trouble sleeping that night and opens up the journal.  She reads about Gregory’s plan to continue to win the people’s hearts by just being there while the president flounders.  He has a plan to make his daughter useful as well.  America becomes frustrated and stops reading.  She goes out to the balcony and sees Maxon with his camera.  She catches his attention and pulls her ear to signal him.  He signals back and they both go inside.  It takes him longer to get to her room than expected.  He explains he had to go to his room first and pulls out a blue beaded bracelet he got for her while he was gone.  He asks her not to tell the other girls and she agrees.  He puts it on the wrist that doesn’t have Aspen’s button.  She starts crying and tells him she is confused over him.  He promises to tell her anything she wants to know, but she admits she sin’t ready to know.  He says they will talk when she is ready and leaves her.

Wanting to distract herself, America asks Sylvia for extra lessons everyday.  She pours herself into her assignments and tunes out the other girls.  When they all have classes together again, Sylvia gives them their next project.  They have to come up with a proposition for a philanthropic activity.  America though she would have the advantage, but has trouble coming up with an idea.  That Friday night during the Report, Maxon tugs on his ear.  America returns the signal and he comes to her room after the show.  She tells him she knows there are many people needing help, but she is frustrated because she doesn’t know how to help them.  Maxon changes the subject and tells America her time to make a decision is running out.  He doesn’t want to send home a girl that wants to be there just to have America chicken out in the end.  When she still can’t answer, he goes to see Kriss.

America goes to breakfast late and runs into Aspen along the way.  She asks to talk to him and he tells her to meet him at two.  When the time comes, America leaves the Women’s Room and goes to the place he designated.  She tells him about the project and he suggests a caste exchange program.  America notices he seems to be a little bitter even though he is now a Two and some of his new friends started out that way.  She is angry he is focused on hate rather than how to help the lower castes.  After trying to distract herself, she pulls out Gregory Illea’s diary and reads how he sold his daughter into a marriage just to help him become a king.  America realizes the reason history isn’t written is because Gregory Illea wasn’t a hero, just a conquerer.  He rewrote history to make himself look better and the further removed people are from it, the more likely they are to believe his lies.  America decides she has to know if this is what Maxon is really like.  She makes her way up to his room, but is stopped by the guards.  On her way back to her room, a maid tells her to check the first floor.  She searches until she finds Maxon with Celeste and her dress straps falling down while they make-out.  Maxon open his eyes to see America, and she takes off.  He finds her in her room and she tells him she has made her decision.  She wants to go home, but he says he will not let her go even after she explains she can’t be with him after what she just saw.  He leaves the room at her request.  She decides she will go out with a bang.

In preparation for the presentation of her project on the Report, America asks her maids to make her a dress that will make her look angelic.  The night of, she secretly gives a note to Lucy to pass onto Aspen to say goodbye.  Once the girls are all seated, Sylvia tells them what order they will present in.  Natalie’s project is to get rid of all the rebels.  Elise suggests a pen-pal system with New Asia to improve relations.  Kriss has ideas to revamp education.  Celeste has a plan to crate certifications for the lower caste systems they can achieve through classes with Threes in order to receive a minimum wage.  Finally, America presents why the caste system should be eliminated.  She sites several sources and even uses Gregory Illea’s diary.  The king is furious and demands to know how she got the book.  Maxon admits he let her borrow it.  King Clarkson starts yelling at Maxon and demands America is sent home.  Maxon refuses ands says it is his decision to make.  He agrees to talk with his father in private.  Before the two men leave, King Clarkson tells Natalie her sister was killed and they found the remains.  America is shocked and stays in her seat while Queen Amberly tries to comfort Natalie.  The other girls leave one by one.  America apologizes to Natalie and then the queen before leaving.  

When America gets back to her room, her maids are impressed with her presentation.  She needs to think, so she leaves them to go out to the garden.  On the way, she runs into Maxon coming out of the hospital wing with a metal box.  Suddenly the alarms start to sound and a guard is shot.  Maxon tells a guard he won’t make it to the large safe room and pulls America into a small one hidden in the wall for servants.  He explains there are three ways out: use a key from the inside, key from the outside, or wait for it to unlock automatically after two days.  He asks her to help him with his jacket and shirt and tells her not to tell anyone.  She sees the fresh canning marks the king gave him over the previously healed ones.  He has kept it hidden from everyone except his doctor, who has never said anything.  America cleans the wounds and bandages them using supplies from the metal box  She washes the bloody shirt as best she can.  He asks if she wants to know about Kriss and Celeste.

America tells him Kriss already gave her side of the story.  Maxon explains she is always stable and he needs that in his crazy life.  He admits he knows Celeste is using him, so he doesn’t feel too bad about using her to feel normal sometimes.  Natalie and Elise are his father’s choices, but he doesn’t want either.  King Clarkson was originally okay with America because she didn’t cause trouble.  Maxon knows his father will continue to pull the strings even after he is supposed to retire when Maxon is ready to rule.  America realizes she’s been foolish and they start kissing.  Their is a fire between them she knows she’ll never feel with anyone else.  Suddenly she realizes the Northern rebels are looking for Gregory Illea’s diaries, which is why they had so many books when America saw them in the woods.  Maxon tells her the broadcast was shut off before she got that far.  He pulls her bracelet form his pocket and puts it on her wrist over Aspen’s button.

The guards find Maxon and America on their second sweep of the palace.  The guard Maxon sent to tell the queen they were safe never made it.  Another guard, Markson, tells Maxon the attack on Natalie’s sister was a deliberate attempt to end the Selection, and they have send guards to the remaining families’ houses.  America tells the guards to let her family know she is coming home and Maxon confirms.  They say their goodbyes and part.  America finds all of her maids and Aspen in her room.  The girls leave to make preparations to send her home.  Aspen assumes they are automatically back together, but she tells him she has to heal and recover.  Then she wants to choose who to be with rather than being forced into her seemingly sole option.  He tells her to write when she is ready.  She tells him to be careful before he leaves her alone in her room.

America (dressed in a brand new dress) says her goodbyes to her maids.  She makes her way to the front door and is stopped just before she is about to leave.  Maxon tells her he lied to his father and said America saved him during the rebel attack.  He tells her King Clarkson has agreed to let her stay if she can remain quiet and behave.  He also explains he can’t trust her completely yet because of her actions.  Kriss comes along to ask if America is really leaving.  America says she is staying.  Maxon confirms his plans with Kriss for that night and she takes off.  America says she won’t let him down.  On her way back to her room, America runs into the king.  He takes the opportunity to insult her and praise the other girls.  He says if she stays, she will have to hold her tongue as she has already tried to undo decades of work.  America says she understands, but is actually furious.  She composes herself before going to tell her maids she is staying

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The Battle of the Labyrinth

3/22/2016

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The Battle of the Labyrinth
Rick Riordan

The day before going to camp, Percy’s mom drops him off at the school her boyfriend (Paul Blofis) works at for orientation.  When he sees a redheaded girl he recognizes, he sneaks around to the side entrance.  There are two cheerleaders, Tammi and Kelli, waiting there to great him.  They get overly interested in him when he says his name is Percy and already know his last name.  Paul comes over to show Percy to the auditorium.  Percy is glad to escape the cheerleaders and finds a seat.  The deadheaded girl ends up sitting near him and she gets his attention.  Rachel Elizabeth Dare asks for an explanation.  Suddenly, her attitude changes and she tells him they need to get out of there and hide.  Percy ends up following her and they find a spot in the band room behind the drums.  She tells him the two cheerleaders are not what they seem.  He tells her that he is only half human and that most people can’t see through the mist.  He admits that the monsters and gods from Greek mythology are all real.  Then Tammi and Kelli come in to find them.  They talk about camp going up in flames. Tammi moves in to bite Percy, but he is distracted by her disguise.  Finally he can see that they are both empoursai (Hecate’s vampire like mix of ghost, animal, and bronze).  Percy is able to kill Tammi, but this just infuriates Kelli.  She goes running to the door and just before Percy is about to cut her with his sword, the door opens and Paul is on the other side.  Kelli bursts into flames.  Rachel pulls Percy away and they get out through the window.  Percy runs into Annabeth and introduces her to Rachel.  Rachel tells him she will make something up to tell the school, but writes her number on his hand so he can explain what is going on later.  Annabeth says they need to get to camp immediately.

The cab ride to camp is quiet after Percy uses Annabeth’s cell phone to call his mom and leave a voicemail.  When they arrive, they pass the dragon guarding the golden fleece on Thalia’s pine tree and go into camp.  Annabeth immediately leaves Percy to go work with Clarisse on a project.  Percy decides to practice with his sword, but when he gets to the practice arena, there is the largest hellhound he has ever seen.  He gets ready to attack, but Quintus, the new sword teacher, stops him.  The hellhound, Mrs. O’Leary is his pet.  He throws a practice dummy for her to play with.  Quintus, an adult demigod, has come to help teach while Mr. D is away helping out the other gods.  Chiron comes to get Percy so he can attend Grover’s hearing.  On the way, Percy explains what happened with the empousai and Rachel.  They go deep into the woods where Grover stands before the Council of Satyrs.  They are ready to take his searchers license away because they don’t believe he actually heard Pan as he claims.  Annabeth and Clarisse work together to hold back Grover’s girlfriend, Juniper.  The council gives him another week to bring them proof.  Grover is crestfallen when he approaches Percy, who is really confused about what is going on.  A conch horn sound and they all have to return to their cabins for inspection.  Percy rushes to his cabin to clean up as quickly as possible.  Tyson is already there and has the place spotless.  They spend the afternoon together.  Percy takes him to see Annabeth, but she is distracted by Grover’s problem.  She says Clarisse found something, but it would be extremely dangerous, especially for Grover.  Next, they visit Quintus and he teaches Percy about different techniques.  Percy asks about some mark on his neck, but Quintus is cryptic and presses his swordplay harder to keep Percy occupied.  Tyson sees the crack in the ground and Percy tells him about Nico and how they need to keep his parentage a secret to keep him safe.  That night, Percy lies awake in bed not wanting to have any prophetic dreams.  The fountain in his cabin starts glowing and he goes over to find a collect Iris message.  He drops a drachma into the image and is connected.  He sees Nico talking to a ghost about how to get his sister back.  The ghost tells him he has to offer a soul that has already escaped death to get his sister’s back.  Nico doesn’t want to murder anyone, but he agrees to do it.  Percy knows he is coming for him.  

At breakfast, Chiron brings Grover to sit with Percy.  He asks Percy to convince Grover, but Percy doesn’t know what he is talking about. Chiron takes off and Annabeth joins them at the Poseidon table (even though it is against the rules to sit at other tables).  She explains Clarisse found a former camper, Chris Rodriguez (joined Luke’s side), near her mom’s house.  He was wondering the dessert and mumbling about string.  Clarissa took him to her mom’s house to recover, but they don’t know if he will ever be sane again.  Annabeth explains Luke has possibly been trying to figure out how to use Daedalus’ labyrinth and is looking for Ariadne’s string to guide them through.  They think Pan might be in there as well.  Annabeth leaves the table and says they will talk later.  Grover says he is too much of a coward to go underground and leaves to go see Juniper.  Percy takes some sugar cubes to Blackjack, who is ready to help until Percy mentions the maze.  He tells Percy to whistle if he needs to fly anywhere.  After dinner, Quintus explains his new war game.  There are golden laurels in a silk package tied to one of six monsters.  Each pair is trying to get the laurels first.  Percy is paired with Annabeth and Tyson with Grover.  As Percy and Annabeth follow one of the monster’s trails through the woods, he tells her about the Iris message he got the night before.  As they make their way further into the woods, Juniper finds them and begs them not to let Grover go into the maze.  Before they can really discuss it, three giant scorpions appear, one with a red silk bag tied to its tail.  Percy finds a spot between two boulders that they go to hide in.  Annabeth grabs him as she falls and they land in a stone corridor.  Percy uses his sword for light and Annabeth stops him from wondering forward.  She tells him to search the wall for the mark of Daedalus (Greek Delta).  Once she finds it, she uses it to open the hole they fell into.  They emerge to find everyone looking for them because they have been missing for over an hour.  Clarissa asks if they found it and Annabeth confirms they found the place Luke’s army could enter through the maze.  

That night Percy dreams about Daedalus being dragged into his workshop by guards.  His son and the king are waiting for him.  HIs son is worried about him, but the king is upset Daedalus helped kill his Minotaur and turned his daughter against him.  The king warns him that if he refuses to obey him, he will take it out on his son.  The next morning, everyone meets in the arena to discuss what to do next.  Juniper confirms that Luke knows about the labyrinth entrance in the camp.  Clarisse tried to cover the entrance they found in Arizona with a demolished building, but the entrance just moved a few feet to uncover itself.  Annabeth says they need to go into the labyrinth and find Daedalus’ workshop.  If he is there as some suspect, they need to convince him to side with them instead of Luke.  They also need to find Ariadne’s string.  It is unanimously agreed that Annabeth will lead the quest, so she goes to see the oracle.  While waiting for Annabeth to come out of the attack, Juniper comes to tell Percy that she saw Quintus by the labyrinth entrance shortly after he arrived.  She warns him not to trust him.  Percy makes his way to the Big House, but when he gets inside, he hears crying coming from beneath him.  He opens a door to the basement and sees Chris Rodriguez crying and Clarisse trying to comfort him and help him remember what is real.  When Percy hears someone coming, he goes back outside. Annabeth comes back to the arena to tell everyone the prophecy she received.  She talks about the rise of the dead, the traitor, and the lost.  She also mentions the ghost king and a child of Athena’s last stand.  She is reluctant to tell them about destroying with a hero’s final breath.  She asks Percy, Grover, and Tyson to go with her.  Chiron warns her that three is a sacred number and that she is breaking the rules.  She tells him to trust her that she needs all of them.  Quints pulls Percy aside to give him a whistle made of Stygian ice (from the River Styx) that will call Mrs. O’Leary no matter the distance and then shatter.  Percy remembers Luke’s gift before his first quest that was meant to kill him and promises himself not to use it.  Percy goes to see Annabeth in her cabin.  She is worried that breaking the rules and taking three people with her own her quest will get one of them killed, but she feels like it is the right thing to do.  She starts crying and Percy hugs her.  Her half brother, Malcolm comes in to tell her about Archery.  She tells Percy she will be fine.  He asks if the last line of the prophecy ending with breath rhymes with the previous line ending in death.  Annabeth doesn’t answer and leaves for Archery practice.  Percy feels one of them won’t come back from the quest.

That night, Percy dreams about Luke meeting with Kronos.  The Titan already knew a few heroes would be sent out on a quest and is determined to lead the invasion of Camp Half Blood himself.  Kelli, the empousa, is escorted in by snake women.  She starts to give Luke her update, but she can sense that someone is watching them.  She looks at Percy and darts towards him.  Percy wakes up to see the fountain glowing.  He goes over to it and asks to see Nico.  He watch as Nico has skeletons dig a grave and talk to the same ghost as before.  He pours Coke and Happy Meals into the grave and calls on spirits.  Theseus arrives and thinks he recognizes the voice of the other ghost.  He says Nico should not go into the labyrinth.  He was only able to navigate because of the love of a mortal girl leading him.  Nico doesn’t get an answer about if it is possible to revive his sister.  Percy’s cabin starts to shake and he ends up having to split the fountain in half with his sword.  The next morning, everyone meets at the rock formation, Zeus’ Fist to see off the questers.  Percy pull Chiron aside to tell him about his dream, the Iris message about Nico, and what Juniper said about Quintus.  Annabeth comes to get Percy and they all prepare themselves to go into the labyrinth.

As soon as they get into the maze, Percy realizes it already looks different than the last time him and Annabeth were in there.  Annabeth comes up with a plan to keep their left hands on the wall, but the maze suddenly changes to put them in a circular room with eight tunnels.  They try to go back, but everyone ends up facing a different tunnel.  Annabeth picks a tunnel and random and they start moving.  They find a room from the Roman Empire with mosaics of the gods.  She thinks they are going the right way because the older the path gets, the more likely they are to finding Daedalus’ workshop.  They find a dead milkman and continue on.  They end up back in the room with the mosaics where there are two doors and a two faced god named Janus tries to get Annabeth to make a choice between them.  A woman appears and tells Janus it isn’t his time to make Annabeth choose yet.  After Janis is gone, she introduces herself as Hera and provides food and drink.  She explains that she wants to keep her family together and the best way to do that is to help them on their quest.  She advises them to talk to Hephaestus about the fate of Daedalus.  She gives Annabeth one wish.  Annabeth wishes for a way to navigate the labyrinth, but Hera says Percy already has that.  She warns Annabeth that her decision has only been postponed before she disappears.  Grover and Tyson suddenly agree that they should take the left door because there is something coming from the right one.

They quickly find their way blocked by a boulder and Tyson pushes it into a room and then back into place to trap whatever was after them.  In the room, they notice their are bars.  Annabeth recognizes Alcatraz from a recent field trip.  Tyson hears something and bends the bars to get them out and lead them to the courtyard.  There, he relays what he hears between Kampe (jailer during Kronos rule, bottom half is a dragon) and Briares (one of the Hundred Handed Ones).  He doesn’t want to listen to the master and Kampe is trying to convince him.  She leaves him to think about it.  Tyson is excited to meet Briares when they approach the cell.  He tells him to break the bars and come with them, but he is afraid of being punished by Kampe.  Percy challenges him to a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and cheats to win so he will join them.  Kampe sees them from the lower level and gets ready to attack.  They start running and think they are safe when they go through a door that is too big for her to follow.  She busts through the wall and scares the tourists inside.  Tyson says her swords are poisonous, but will not kill a Cyclops, so he distracts her to let the others get away.  They find the door back into the maze and get in as quickly as possible.  As Tyson runs to join them, Percy sees that Kampe is gaining on him.  He throws his shield at her to give his brother enough time to get in the maze and then follows.  The door closes in time, but they get away from it as quickly as possible to be safe.

Tyson asks Briares about his brothers, but he explains that they have faded.  Percy is confused, so Grover explains that monsters disappear all together if they are forgotten.  Percy tries to get Briares to help them, but the Hundred-Handed One runs off into the maze.  They decide to get some rest for the night.  Percy apologizes to Tyson for loosing the shield he made him.  Tyson thanks him for saving him.  Percy goes to talk to Annabeth.  She is having trouble with the lack of logic in the maze.  She asks if he knows what Hera was talking about, but he says he doesn’t.  He asks her for the last line of the prophecy, but she doesn’t want to say it in the dark.  Later that night, when Percy takes his turn sleeping, he dreams about Daedalus and his son, Icarus.  Daedalus has just finished making metal wings for them both.  Icarus puts Daedalus’ on first and then Daedalus struggles to put Icarus’ on.  King Minos arrives, but Daedalus and Icarus open the grate and escape the maze.  Icarus is drunk on the freedom and flies too high and too low over the sea as his father warned him several times not to.  His wings start to come apart.  Daedalus tries to advise him to stay still and drift, but Icarus panics and starts to fall as all of his bronze feathers fall off.  When they all wake up, they continue through the maze.  They find a pit with half a hamburger in it that Nico used for summoning.  Percy thinks he is close and runs until he finds a cattle guard on the ceiling.  Tyson helps them through and they meet Eurytion (son of Ares), a demigod.  He warns them to get back in the maze, but Annabeth insists on seeing the other heroes.  Eurytion leads them to Geryon, who has three bodies, who welcomes them to his ranch.  Nico comes out onto the porch from inside the house to join them.  He draws his sword and plans to kill Percy, but Geryon tells him they will all get along while there. He takes them on a small sightseeing train to show them the animals he breeds.  The heroes realize he is selling to Kronos, and Geryon confirms he sells to anyone with gold.  He stops the train when they get near the feces filled stables of the flesh eating horses.  Geryon reveals his plan to sell Nico to Luke, but he has been paid to let the questers pass through.  Percy makes a deal with him.  He offers him, his friends, and Nico if he can’t clean the stables by sunset.  Geryon agrees and takes leaves Percy while taking the others back to the house.

Percy looks around for a way to clean the stable quickly, but knows he will need a river to wash it out.  He makes his way to the river, but the Naiad is waiting form him.  She is scared of him and yet still tells him no because it will kill her ecosystem and make her sick.  She tells him to pick up a handful of dirt and he does.  She points out the sea shell in the dirt and that the land used to be under the sea.  Percy returns to the stable and throws the piece of shell into them.  Water starts to trickle up from the ground.  He throws in more shells and the forces the water up to form geysers to clean the stables.  The flesh eating horses beg him to stop and he does once they are clean.  He stops the salt water from running into the river and tells the horses to only eat what they are fed or else he will come back to bathe them again.  When he gets back to the house, Geryon doesn’t want to make good on his end of the deal saying it wasn’t binding because they didn’t swear on the River Styx.  Percy’s companions are bound and gagged.  Eurytion refuses to fight Percy as Geryon commands, so Geryon fights himself.  Percy stabs him in one of his chests with a pair of hot tongs, but Geryon points out he has three hearts and can’t be killed by stabbing just one of them.  Percy runs inside and finds a bow and arrow.  He prays to Artemis and Apollo before taking the shot.  It goes through Geryon’s side and all three of his hearts to kill him.  Eurytion doesn’t have any plans to stop them from leaving.  He was offered immortality by his father and regrets taking it now that he is tied to Geryon.  Annabeth suggests he starts to turn the place around and treat the animals of the gods correctly so that they will be impressed with him and allow him to stay in charge when Geryon returns.  Percy doesn’t know what to do about Nico, so he asks him if he wants to stay safe at the ranch.  Nico insists he is going after the soul that will bring his sister back.  Percy suggests they call on Bianca to ask her what she wants.

Nico performs the ritual to summon Bianca while Percy and Annabeth try to keep other spirits away from the offering.  Minos is able to get some of it and appears before them.  He tries to convince Nico not to listen to Percy and his friends and offers to make them insane like he did Christopher Rodriguez.  Nico sends him away.  Bianca appears and tells Nico what really happened.  She said she made her own choices and that he is mad at her, not Percy.  She warns him that the spirits are drawing the attention of Kronos.  She leaves them to keep them safe.  That night, the group stays at the ranch.  Percy first dreams about Luke talking with Kampe.  She is upset the heroes got away from her and wants to go after them.  Luke says she can keep hold of Ariadne’s string as they navigate through the maze.  Luke tells Kelli he is worried Kampe has too much power and should’ve been left in Tartarus.  Kelli says she let their enemy see their conversation to intimidate him.  Percy then dreams of Daedalus dealing with his nephew, Perdix.  They boy has come up with a way to put a soul into an automaton.  Daedalus is jealous that the boy is smarter than him.  Janus appears to give him a choice.  Daedalus tosses Perdix a bug automaton over his head and Perdix falls off a cliff.  He tells his nephew to make better wings quickly.  Athena comes down to make Daedalus pay, since they both had her blessing.  Percy wakes up and Grover is watching TV.  He is depressed because they have been in the maze where time moves differently.  His deadline to find Pan is past and he can’t return to camp empty handed.  Percy tries to reassure him they will find Pan.  In the morning, Nico decides to stay at the ranch and think things through.  Eurytion gives them a disk that will lead them to Hephaestus’ forges.  Annabeth presses the button on top and it turns into a spider that scurries away.  They get into the maze to follow.  Eventually, they come to a Sphinx and Annabeth goes to answer the riddle.  When she starts asking questions about random historical facts, Annabeth points out they are not riddles.  The Sphinx says everyone knew the riddle she was asking, so changed it to a test of twenty questions.  Annabeth says the questions are an insult to her intelligence and refuses to answer.  The Sphinx attacks.  Tyson jumps to save Annabeth.  Percy tells her to use her hat to go invisible while they take care of it.  Grover uses the pencils and his reed pipes to bind the Sphinx to the ground and they get away.

The follow the spider to a door with the mark of Hephaestus on it.  Tyson is excited to meet him and opens the door.   Hephaestus isn't impressed with the heroes, but seems to like the Cyclops.  Annabeth tells him they are looking for Daedalus, but Hephaestus says the old man will not help him.  Annabeth insists.  Hephaestus says he needs a favor first and sends them to Mount Saint Helena (where Typhon is captured) and see who is invading on his territory and report back.  He reprograms the Spider to lead them to Mount Saint Helena and they all take off after it.  On the way, Grover finds a tunnel that smells like Pan.  He knows he has to go down it. Tyson offers to go with him.  Percy tells them to go and that they will meet up someone.  Grover reminds him of their empathy link.  Annabeth is not comfortable with them splitting up, but she and Percy take off after the spider.  As they race after the spider, Percy asks Annabeth how she was born from a maiden goddess.  She explains that she was born from intellectual thought like her mother.  When they reach the forges, Annabeth puts on her cap to go investigate.  Percy starts creeping along the edges to get a better view.  When he hears something approaching, he jumps into a mining cart and covers himself with a tarp.  He is wheeled over to where young telekhines (sea demons with dog faces) are watching old videos about growing up and eating people.  Afterwards, a teacher like authority figure asks them why they are there.  The group responds that they want revenge for being thrown into Tartarus after making several of the god’s weapons (such as Poseidon’s trident) because they used magic.  The tarp is pulled off Percy’s cart to give the young ones time to practice with celestial bronze.  Percy jumps out and draws his sword.  They back off and he makes a run for it.  He flies through a door and seals himself in the main cavern.  He calls for Annabeth and she reveals she is right next to him.  She shows him how the grown telekhines are making a weapon for Kronos. Percy sends Annabeth back to Hephaestus to report what is going on.  She dons her cap and goes.  Percy doesn’t have a plan and is found out a few seconds later.  The Sea demons are not happy to see the son of one of the gods that betrayed them.  One takes some of the lava from the forges and sets Percy on fire.  The burn is slow to reach him, but it eventually does.  Percy calls on water and is able to get a powerful stream in the volcano.  It lifts him and the fire out in one big wave high into the sky.  Percy passes out.   

Percy wakes up in a cave wearing clothes that aren’t his, but Riptide and the whistle are still in his pocket.  He goes outside to see his rescuer, Calypso talking with someone.  By the time he gets to her, the other person is gone.  She tells Percy he is in Ogygia, her island that doesn’t really have a location.  Percy tells her he needs to get back to his friends because they are in danger.  Calypso tells him to rest and heal first, and Percy falls asleep where he is.  When Percy wakes up again, it is night and he finds Calypso planting moonlace in her garden.  She explains she cannot leave the island because she is being punished for her father, Atlas’ actions.  Percy tells her about Zoe.  Calypso asks if Percy will be ready to leave soon.  He is surprised and she tells him to rest until morning. Percy watches Calypso and eventually calls her out on pulling away from him.  She tells him she is a prisoner because she supported her father during the first war.  He asks her why and she points out that she supports her family just as Percy supports his by siding with the Olympians.  Hephaestus comes to visit and shows Percy what he did when he made the volcano erupt.  Typhon stirred and they are carefully watching to make sure he doesn’t get free.  Percy has to make a choice wether he is staying with Calypso or leaving to finish the quest.  He tells Percy the best way to navigate the maze is with a mortal that can really see.  Percy realizes they need Rachel Elizabeth Dare.  Hephaestus admits he doesn’t know if Daedalus will help him.  He tanks Percy for destroying most of the telekhines and takes off.  Percy walks around thinking all night.  When he gets back to Calypso, she tells them her punishment is every so often the gods send her someone she can’t help but fall in love with, but that can never chose to stay with her.  She offers Percy to stay, but he says he has to leave and help his friends.  He offers to visit later, but she says no one ever returns.  She sends him off on a raft that will take him anywhere and he choses to go to Camp Half Blood.

Percy arrives back and camp and finds it deserted until he get to the pavilion where they are about to burn his shroud, assuming he is dead.  Annabeth spots him and everyone crowds around.  Annabeth is furious and starts yelling at him for being gone for two weeks.  Chiron takes them both on his back to the Big House.  When Percy tells Annabeth they need Rachel, she only becomes more furious and storms away.  Chiron has guessed where Percy was marooned and suggests he visit his mother.  After that, he has bad news.  Chris Rodriguez has been getting worse and Quintus has disappeared leaving Mrs. O’Leary in the arena.  Percy asks about Grover and Tyson, but no one has heard from them.  Percy goes to the arena and Mrs. O’Leary tackles and licks him.  She starts to growl when Clarisse comes around, but Percy keeps her calm.  She asks Percy to kill Daedalus if he finds him because anyone that can create something like the maze is pure evil.  That night, Percy dreams about King Cocalus and his daughters hosting Minos, who has offered a large reward for anyone that can solve his riddle.  Cocalus says his daughter’s tutor has solved how to string a sea shell and explains he used an ant with a silk thread tied to it drawn to honey on the other side.  Minos says only Daedalus would know the answer.  He explains he has been searching for the traitor for a decade.  Cocalus is weary about giving up a man he promised protection to, but Minos points out it is worse to protect a criminal and make an enemy of Crete.  The daughters offer to draw a bath for Minos and he accepts.  The girls drop something in the water and Minos soon becomes a bronze mummy as he promises to hound Daedalus even in death.  Daedalus enters and tells them he must leave.  He plans to return to the maze and work on escaping death using his nephew’s notes.  He leaves using an entrance to the maze.  The dream fades away to Luke in the maze with another half blood.  He promises the other boy that Quintus will come through.  Another boy comes running up to say he found another half blood alone in the maze.  They go to see if he will be useful.  The next morning, Argus drives Percy and Annabeth.  She tells Percy she got an Iris message from Eurytion that Nico went back into the maze.  Percy tells her about Luke finding an alone half blood in the maze in his dream.  They go to visit Percy’s mom and fill her in on what has been going on.  She can tell that Percy and Annabeth are fighting, but doesn’t push.  She tells Percy to use the phone to call Rachel.  He has the number memorized from when she wrote it on his hand.  They go to Time Square and find Rachel painted in gold and acting like a statue to raise money for children’s art programs.  When she is relieved by another person, she suggests they go to a coffee shop.  Percy explains their situations between Rachel’s and Annabeth’s barbs at each other.  She agrees to go and says there is an entrance to the maze in the basement of the Marriott where they keep their costumes.  

Rachel shows them the door and explains that it is rusted shut.  Annabeth says it needs to be touched by a half blood and it opens for her.  Rachel starts leading the way.  When they come to a crossroads, Rachel explains why they need to keep going straight, which has a slight glow to it.  There are traps down the tunnels going either left or right.  Percy and Annabeth follow Rachel and are surprised at how easily they are advancing, but they soon run into Kelli and two dracanae.  Percy pulls out his sword, but Kelli grabs Rachel before he can do anything.  A Laistrygonian giant appears behind them and wants to eat them, but Kelli says the master will want them alive.  The monsters lead them to an arena where Percy will fight his brother.  They arrive and Percy watches a giant fight a centaur.  Percy wants to help the centaur, but is held back.  The centaur is killed and only a hoof is left as a trophy.  Percy is shoved out and starts out fighting a dracanae.  He quickly dispatches of her and then another half blood, Ethan, is sent out.  The other boy has obviously been trained, but his armor slows him down and makes him tired.  Percy waits for an opening and knocks him down.  He puts his sword to his chest.  Antaeus, the arena’s owner, is disappointed that Percy keeps winning.  When Percy refuses to kill Ethan, Antaeus plans to kill them both. Percy challenges Antaeus, the self proclaimed favorite of Poseidon.  Annabeth tries to tell him something about Antaeus being not only the son of Poseidon, but also the son of Gaea.  The giant covers her mouth.  Luke agrees to judge the match.  Percy starts fighting Antaeus, but every time Percy gets a hit in, he is healed by the earth.  Percy realizes he needs to get Antaeus off the ground and uses him as a springboard to grab onto the chains dangling skulls from the ceiling.  When Antaeus comes after him, Percy uses the chains to suspend him in the air.  Percy then kills him.  Luke is ready to have the entire stadium full of monsters attack, so Percy uses the dog whistle.  Mrs. O’Leary comes and gives them a chance to escape.  Rachel points them in the right direction.

When they are finally able to stop, Percy realizes Mrs. O’Leary is gone.  They offer Ethan to join them, but he refuses to participate in the pointless act of finding Daedalus.  He takes off going back the way they came.  Annabeth is jealous of Percy paying attention to Rachel and takes off to get more wood for the fire.  Percy tries to talk to Rachel, but when he asks about why her family wouldn’t notice that she was gone, she clams up.  Annabeth comes back and says she will take first watch.  While Percy sleeps, Kronos contacts him to thank him for helping his plan along.  He shows him Tyson and Grover being chased by a giant snake.  It starts squeezing Tyson.  Annabeth wakes him up and tells him there is an earthquake.  Percy wakes up Rachel and they grab their things and start running.  Rachel gets them to Daedalus’ workshop and they go in.  They start looking around, but Daedalus isn’t there.  Quintus appears and tells them they are in Colorado Springs.  He tells them the workshop changes locations daily, but keeps coming back to the garden of the gods for some reason.  Annabeth demands answers.  Quintus tells them he is Daedalus.  Percy looks into his eyes and knows he used his nephew’s plans to make himself a new body (quintus means he is on his fifth).  After Minos was killed, Daedalus went back into the maze and has been hiding from death since.  He shows them he has been marked for the murder of Perdix by Athena.  He went to Camp Half Blood to see if it was worth saving and apologizes to Annabeth because her quest was doomed to fail from the start.  He tells them he already gave Luke the string, but Rachel is a much more accurate navigator.  Kelli comes in with Nico in shackles, her minions, and Minos.  Luke is double crossing Daedalus.  Mrs. O’Leary arrives to help.  They start fighting while Rachel goes to the wall and fits herself with a pair of wings.  She helps Nico, Percy and Annabeth with their own pairs as well.  Percy tries to get Daedalus to go with them, but he doesn’t want to leave Mrs. O’Leary behind.  The four kids jump out the window.

They sore through the air and get used to the wings, but Annabeth tells them they need to land as quickly as possible.  They end up near a visitor center and throw the wings in the trash.  Annabeth and Nico go inside while Percy follows Rachel to get a ride.  Rachel talks to the chauffeur of a car and he immediately ditches his client to drive them.  From the highway, Rachel sees an entrance to the maze at a mining museum.  They make their way there and get back into the labyrinth.  As Rachel leads the way, she and Annabeth start to talk about architecture.  Percy talks to Nico about returning to camp, but Nico thinks he will only fit in with the dead.  They come to a fork in the road and Rachel stops.  Percy decides he has to go down the mysterious tunnel alone to see if Kronos or Luke is there.  Annabeth gives him her hat.  Percy emerges on Mount Tam and sees telekhines with Ethan unwrapping Kronos’ scythe.  Percy goes up to the huge black mausoleum and to Kronos’ golden sarcophagus.  He opens it up and finds Luke’s body with a small hole where the heart should be.  The telekhines tell Ethan that his pledge of loyalty will awaken Kronos.  Percy takes off the hat and tries to convince Ethan, son of Nemesis (goddess of revenge), not to do it.  Ethan is furious with the gods and pledges himself to Kronos.  Luke’s body wakes up and Kronos is inside it.  He is given his scythe.  Percy knows he cannot beat him, so he runs.  Rachel, Annabeth, and Nico were coming to help him, but he gets them running with him.  Rachel throws her blue brush into Kronos’ eye.  They get back into the labyrinth and Nico makes the ground rise to block the way behind them.

They stop to rest for a little while.  Annabeth doesn’t believe that Kronos has completely taken over Luke’s body yet and they can still save him.  Percy is upset that she doesn’t get that Luke has given himself to Kronos.  Rachel tries to pitch in, but Annabeth snaps at her.  They start moving again and soon find hoof tracks and large footprints.  They follow them and find Tyson holding Grover, who has passed out from being near Pan’s power.  Grover wakes up and Percy introduces everyone.  They continue towards Pan’s power and find the dying god in satyr form with extinct animals.  Pan tells Grover the Wild has been disappearing for two thousand years.  He had Ephesos tell everyone that he was dead so that he could fade, but the satyr’s belief that he was alive kept him painfully around for two centuries. He asks Grover to let him go so what is left of him can be spread among everyone to revive the Wild.  Grover accepts this.  Pan and his animals disappear.

Rachel leads them all back to New York City.  When they arrive, Percy calls for Blackjack and four other pegasus.  He says goodbye to Rachel knowing she can’t come to camp with them and they promise to keep in touch.  Percy and the rest of his friends get back to camp to see Chiron has everyone ready for war.  He tells them about Luke and Kronos, and Chiron hopes it will restrict Kronos’ power to be bound to a human body.  The ground starts to rumble and they get ready for the attack.  Monsters start pouring out of the labyrinth and Percy waits to see where he is needed most.  When a hellhound comes out, he goes to fight it.  The forest starts to catch on fire and Juniper’s tree is close to the flames.  Percy calls on the water from the creek to put it out.  Kampe appears.  Percy and Annabeth go to fight her together, but cannot defeat her.  Mrs. O’Leary appears and tackles Kampe.  Daedalus is with her and starts cutting down monsters.  Briares shows up and throws rocks at Kampe until she is buried.  Grover lets out a terrible scream and the monsters all run back into the labyrinth.  Everyone is worried about Chiron’s injuries, but Tyson calls out to Percy about Nico.  Percy rushes to his side and gives him nectar.  Nico explains he has never summoned so many dead warriors before, but he will be fine.  Daedalus says that he found Briares in the labyrinth and they both came to help.  He knows that Kronos will be able to use the maze anytime he wants as long as it exists.  He tells Nico that he is ready to face his punishment in the underworld for his evils.  Nico helps release Daedalus’ soul.  The body turns to ash and an earthquake suggests the end of the labyrinth as well.  

The council gets together and listens to Grover’s story about Pan.  Percy and Annabeth try to assure the elder satyrs that Grover is telling the truth.  They don’t believe him.  Dionysus returns and tells Grover to tell the story again.  He thinks it sounds exactly like Pan.  The sound Grover made was also similar to the sound Pan made to induce panic in the Titan’s army in the first war between the Titans and the Olympians.  The satyrs on the council decide they don’t believe any of Grover’s words and find him guilty of lies.  Dionysus says his vote is worth two because he is a god.  Chiron's vote brings them to a tie.  The satyrs don’t want a tie, so Dionysus dissolves the council.  Grover tells the remaining satyrs that they can find their own way to protect and slowly rebuild the Wild and starts handing out assignments.  After dinner, Percy follows Nico out into the woods.  Nico says his final goodbyes to Bianca.  Percy tries to get him to stay at camp, but Nico knows he isn’t wanted there.  He takes off in hopes of finding out about his past.  He promises to let Percy know if he learns anything useful.  Dionysus comes to talk to Percy.  He points out that he started off as a mortal wine maker.  Small things can become big.  Percy sees Chris Rodriguez sitting by Clarisse at the campfire.  Dionysus restored his sanity.

The summer continues on and seems oddly normal for camp.  However, Percy notices a distance between him and Annabeth.  He finally gets her to tell him the last line of the prophecy, that she would loose a love to something worse than death.  Hera appears expecting a “thank you” for her efforts.  Neither of them are grateful for her help after she says their friends all got what they deserved.  Percy wants to talk to Annabeth, but his ride arrives to take him into Manhattan.  A few days later, his mom throws him a small party for his fifteenth birthday.  Paul pulls him aside to ask Percy if he is alright with Paul proposing to Sally.  Percy likes that Paul makes his mom happy, so he tells him to go for it.  Poseidon arrives and asks to talk to Percy in private.  Percy tells him the whole story.  Poseidon is impressed with his son and gives him a sand dollar for his birthday.  He warns Percy that Typhon is stirring and will probably rise soon.  Percy asks about Antaeus hanging skulls in his name.  Poseidon explains what a demigod does in the name of their parent is usually more a reflection of the person than the god.  He tells Percy he is his favorite son and then takes off.  Later that night, Percy goes to his room and finds the moonlace Calypso gave him.  He plants it in a flower box and pours some nectar over it.  Nico shows up and says he has some information.  Percy invites him in for cake and ice cream. 

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The Bands of Mourning

3/22/2016

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Click here to veiw on Amazon.com
Bands of Mourning
Brandon Sanderson

Six months after shooting Lessie for the second time, Wax tells Wayne to go ahead in the carriage and uses a bullet casing to push off into the air.  He soars into the nicer part of the city until he arrives at the Survivalist church where he will be marrying Steris.  He goes inside and Steris takes him to a room to change.  She had anticipated him having a raid that morning and encouraged him to go.  He gets ready in his white suit and tells Steris he gave Wayne their pendants.  She had extra copies made just in case.  Before they are about to enter the main hall, Steris asks him if he is sure he is ready.  He says he is and gets ready to go.  A kandra appears to give him the pendants from Wayne and says that they need his help.  Harmony has been distracted and they are worried about him.  Wax refuses.  He and Steris make their way through the guests and to the front of the church.  Wax starts to become unsure of himself as he stands in the church where Lessie killed a priest.  He looks out through the glass domed ceiling and sees the water tower on a neighboring roof is tipping over.

Wax apologizes to guests as they leave the church soaked.  Steris wonders if the cosmos is against her.  Wax assumes she has backup dresses and churches, and she admits that she has another date set in two months incase the church exploded.  She asks again if he is sure he still wants to marry her and he does.  Marasi has been out looking for Wayne.  She checks the catering kitchen across the street from the church and finds him bossing around the cook’s assistants.  He dismisses them when he sees her.  Marasi knows that Wayne hired men to flood the church and stop the wedding.  He admits it, but he thought the men were going to bust some pipes, not drop a water tower.  He says Wax won’t find out it was him because he will be to relieved at the delayed wedding to look into it.  He tells Marasi she has a chance at winning Wax’s love now.  She tells Wayne that she has moved on.  He asks if he should move on from Ranette and Marasi points out she has a girlfriend.  The kandra finds them and says he wants Marasi’s help since Wax turned him down.  He asks what she knows about Investiture and Identity.

Wax arrives home and can hear people on the floor above him.  He pulls out his gun and makes his way upstairs.  The kandra that approached him earlier, VenDell (a Sixth Generation), is there.  He explains that Wayne insisted they use Wax’s study.  Wax enters his study to find Marasi, MeLaan, and Wayne are also present.  Using a projector, VenDell starts to explain why he needs help using pictures.  There are other rare attributes that are connected to rare metals: Fortune, Investiture, Identity, and Connection.  If a Feruchemist could use two different metals at once, the theory is that the Identity could be stored while another attribute is stored.  This would allow anyone to use the attribute.  VenDell is worried that others might resort to Hemalurgy to test these theories.  A Third Generation kandra, RaLuur, was traveling the world looking for the Bands of Mourning (Lord Ruler’s Feruchemical bracers; said anyone can use their stored power).  He had taken several pictures of mosaics depicting them and was said to have found them.  However, he was attacked while leaving New Seran and had one of his Blessings stolen.  He returned to TenSoon, who offered his own Spike to get necessary information from RaLuur (can’t be used by a kandra that doesn’t have both his/her own spikes), but he is not right and will have bigger holes in his memory the longer his spike is gone.  VenDell wants Marasi to find the spike and return it to RaLuur.  Wax still refuses to join in on the mission.  VenDell moves to the last slide and shows a picture of New Seran.  There is a woman trying to get away from two men as they hold her arms.  It is Wax’s sister, Telsin.


Wax starts looking around for the perfect offering to give to a god.  He overhears Wax and Steris debate whether or not she should go with them.  Wax admits it wouldn’t look proper if she didn’t, but it would be extremely dangers for her to join him.  VenDell arrives to give Wax all the information RaLuur brought back with him.  Wayne slips out and starts out on his own quest before the train leaves in a few hours.  He tricks a man into taking him down the canal into the slums.  He stops at a bakery and uses the silver fork (from his pacesetting at Wax’s wedding breakfast that didn’t happen) to buy meat buns for the little girls sitting outside the shop, telling them to share with people who need them.  Wax slips on some slime and falls into the canal, thinking it is karma coming back to him from that morning.  He finds a man writing down numbers of cars that are improperly parked so they can be given tickets.  Wayne pull out the silver-wear knife and the man drops his notebook.  Wayne runs away and finds himself by a woman writing a letter.  He borrows her pen before stopping at Ranette’s.  He leaves her the notebook as an offering.  She arrives home just as he is leaving.  He tells her he is done pursuing her and she is grateful.  Wayne throws an empty wallet into the street.  When a carriage driver stops to get it, Wayne claims he found it first.  He tells the driver he will let him have the wallet if he takes him to the train station.  The man agrees.  Wayne boards the train with the others.  He ends up in a room with Herve, who snores.  Wayne crawls out the train window and lays down on the roof.

As the train goes south, Wax finds himself alone in a car with Steris.  He goes through the package that Ranette dropped off.  There is the newest version of her rope (metal ball that releases hooks with a Push) and a shotgun with especially large slugs to kill a Thug or koloss.  They make a stop at a station and the people there throw eggs at him and are furious.  Wax asks Steris about politics outside Elendel, but she is engrossed by her book.  Wax starts to look at what she is reading, but she hides it.  She tells him that people outside Elendel are upset that they are taxed to maintain transportation to/from the city.  However, they are also taxed when their goods have to go through Elendel to get to another city because everything is on a hub system.  Wax’s house in particular thrives off of this.  His mind starts to wander as Steris explains and she points it out.  She doesn’t understand how he can be interested in hunting down criminals, but not finding out why his house’s ledgers are off by three clips.  He distracts her and grabs her book to find out she is reading about child bearing.  She is embarrassed and admits no one will give her any information.  She even tried to interview prostitutes.  Wax tries to comfort her by saying they will only have to be intimate a few times to bare an heir, but instantly realizes this was the wrong thing to say.  He says he wants to stop thinking of their relationship as just a contract.  He asks her to show him how it can be like a hunt to find three missing clips.  She grabs a ledger for him to go through and one for herself.

Marasi is in the dining car going over the notes from RaLuur’s return, including a drawing of a monster he says came from the sky.  Marasi thinks back to the Lord Mistborn’s words about not using Hemalurgy because there were too many ways it could go wrong for every good intention.  She wonders if this monster is a creation of Hemalurgy using the new metal of Trell.  Suddenly, she hears Wayne.  He was in the both behind her collecting the New Saren accent.  He sits with Marasi and orders liquor.  Marasi tells him she feels like she is always in Wax’s shadow and never gets credit for her own work.  Wayne tells her a story about a man named Chip that had a horrible life and tells her it could be worse.  Marasi decides she is done for the night and packs up the papers.  An envelope slips out addressed to Wax, just in case.  She goes two cars back and finds Wax and Steris thrilled to have found the last missing clip in the ledger.  Marasi gives him the file and the envelope before making her way to get some sleep.  As she travels down the car, a man busts in and fires a gun down the corridor.

Steris is still talking when Wax realizes someone else is in the car.  He steel pushes as a bullet flies down the corridor and it hits the wall.  Their car is slowing.  Wax finds Marasi and tells her to protect Steris.  He gets outside the car and sees bandits on horseback chasing the train.  He knocks several off their horses and hops onto the tracks.  He increases his weight and pushes on the train several times until it reconnects with the rest of the train.  He gets back inside and loads himself up with guns.  He works out a plan with Marasi and goes out the window.  He clears out the last few cars of bandits and makes it back to the their car.  He realizes his vials were smashed.  Steris has extra for him.  He makes his way to the front of the train where the first car has armed guards.  He makes it in and starts shooting bandits until he has to go back a car for cover.  There is an explosion that makes his ears ring and he goes back to firing.  A metal box is thrown by him and his reserve of steel is completely gone.  Marasi moves through a few cars to check on people.  A woman is taken hostage, but Marasi shoots him in the head.  After making her rounds, she goes back to find Steris, but her sister is missing.  A man tells her he saw Steris heading toward the front of the train.  Marasi grabs the rifle and goes after her.  A very large coinshot comes to fight Wax.  Once he is pushed against the wall, Wax has to drop his guns and vials.  He starts to fight, but ends up escaping to previous car and breaking a window to get on top of the train.  He sees men ahead, but has no way to fight them.  The coinshot joins him on the roof with his gun belt.  He uses Ranettte’s shotgun, but the kickback is too much and breaks his thumb.  Wax is able to grab his belt and a vial of steel.  The coinshot uses the steel to push Wax back.  Steris brings the extra large shotgun on top of the train.  She fires it and the force pushes her off.

Wax jumps off the train after Steris and drinks the vial.  He gets to her and uses the shotgun she dropped to push off.  He allows them to fall into the river and replaces the shotgun to push off.  He uses Ranette’s cord to get them back onto the tracks.  Wax admits he is surprised at Steris’ actions before he pushes them off to the front of the train.  He shoots the bandit holding the engineer captive.  Wax tells him to get them to the next city as quickly as possible and prepares himself.  Marasi works her way through the cars helping people and looking for her sister.  She finds a man in a car alone.  When she approaches him, he pull something out of his coat: a metal box.  Marasi starts to lift her rifle at first thinking the man is pulling a gun.  The train slows knocking them both off balance.  He leaves the box on the floor and jumps off the train.  Marasi takes the box.  Wax pushes himself to get a few cars back.  He finds dynamite with a detonator and throws them aside.  The large coinshot arrives.  Wax throws Ranette’s cord and the coinshot pushes it away.  Wax wraps the other end around the man’s leg and then extends the hooks into the passing trees.  The man is ripped off the train.  Wax gets on the room to see men throwing a bandit with a cane (the one Marasi was dealing with) into the river and trying to follow after him.  Marasi freezes them in a speed bubble from inside the car.

After getting patched up, Wax asks about the bandits while he starts searching the train for Wayne.  Constable Matieu tells him the gang is called the Nightstreets and they usually stick with towns close to the Roughs.  Wax asks if the man with the cane or the large Allomancer is the leader.  Matieu tells him a kig (human with koloss blood) named Donny is the leader.  He asks Wax to join them when they go after the gang.  He says he will think about it.  Wax and Marasi continue to search the train and find Wayne in a luggage compartment making out with MeLaan.  Marasi is disgusted, but Wax is just happy he is alive.  Wax fills him in on what he missed.  He thinks they could be involved in his uncle’s plan, but Marasi points out how unlikely that is.  It is decided they will take the next cargo train to New Seran.  Wayne and MeLaan go to collect luggage.  Marasi tells Wax to check on Steris because she is doing needlework (she hates it but uses it to appear normal).  Wax leaves Marasi inspecting the box that wiped out his Allomantic reserves to go talk to Steris.  She points out his bluntness and he says he felt more like himself in the Roughs than in Elendel.  She says he really only seems really happy when he is steel pushing through the air.  She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder.

Wax is woken up by the waterfalls flowing out of New Seran as their train approaches in the morning.  The engineer tells them their hotel is on the third tier of land up.  Wax decides to take Marasi up first and come back for the others to save time.  When they land, Wax is distracted by an article in a broadsheet.  A mansion was robbed and he and Marasi walk to it.  She asks about the symbol painted over the building.  Wax tells her it was the the symbol of Ape Manton, his nemesis from the Roughs that hunted Allomancers.  Wax wonders how he got from a very secure prison in the Northern Roughs to New Seran.  Marasi wonders if he is involved with the Set, but Wax points out the Ape would never work with Allomancers.  They both agree they need to focus on what they came for.  Marasi warns Wax not to let his uncle cloud his judgement.  He goes to get the others from the train.  When they are all at the hotel, a lady named Aunt Gin shows them their rooms.  Wax pushes the sealed windows open while Steris gives her a list of things that could go wrong during their stay.  MeLaan changes bones until she decides to be a man.  Wax, Steris, and MeLaan will be going to a party while Marais and Wayne go to the graveyard to see if the spike is buried.  Wax suggests they get rest before their tasks.  

Wax and Steris take a carriage to the party, but Wax gets frustrated with the line they are waiting in  He helps Steris out and they start making their way to the doors.  A man in the bushes begs for change.  Wax gives him a bank note and walks away. The man calls out that Wax forgot his change and Wax turns to catch the coin flying towards his head.  At the door, the guard tells Wax he has to check all his weapons.  Marasi and Wayne make their way to the bank.  Wayne has a disguise picked out to give Marasi time to look at the ledgers, but she walks right in and shows her badge.  After Reddi sends confirmation, they show her the ledgers.  She compares the cemetery workers’ wages to their deposits.  Several are robbing graves to make a profit.  Before they leave, Marasi put out a flask liquor to trick Wayne into trading the banker’s letter opener for it.  Marasi is ready to go knowing who she needs to employ.

Steris has prepared conversation notes and descriptions of people to help Wax.  After they get drinks, Wax leaves a tip with the bartender.  The man calls Wax back to point out he left an odd coin with strange markings (like RaLuur’s pictures) and a profile with a spike through the eye.  Wax takes the coin back realizing it came from the beggar.  Steris leads him to Lord Gave to practice conversation, but the host subtly insults Wax.  His lady tells them he likes archaeology.  Wax gets fed up with the insults and scares them away.  Steris points out a person for Wax to talk to that is unrelated to the case, but as he is asking the woman, Lady Demoux, to dance, another woman cuts in.  She points out how rare Mistings and Ferrings are let alone Twinborns.  Wax is one of three Crashers born on Scadrial.  She asks him to experiment with his abilities (increase weight while in the air) for her research.  She leaves him a card before disappearing.  He goes back to Lady Demoux for a dance.  Afterwards, he asks the doorman about the odd woman he danced with, but he says he didn’t admit anyone with the description.  On his way back to Steris, he sees her turn down a man asking for a dance without even looking at him.  She is shocked when Wax suggests he just thought she was pretty.  She points out his next target, Delvin Airs, an informant.  On their way to the graveyard, Wayne alters his look by crushing Wax’s hat before putting it back on.  He then quickly alters Marasi’s dress with a few cuts and pulled seams.  He tells her not to talk because she sounds too smart.  They walk through the cemetery full of mistwraith statues (supposed to keep the real things away).  They find Dechamp (man with the most unaccounted deposits) and Wayne tells him he wants something for sentimental value that no one else would want.  Dechamp is suspicious at first, but Wayne pays him.  Dechamp sends a boy out to keep watch and leads Wayne and Marasi to the fresh grave while the men joke about stabbing nobles.  When spoken to, Marasi uses the Terris language to reply to keep herself out of the conversation.  Dechamp starts digging.

Wax makes his way over towards Delvin the informant and waits for his not to approach him.  Wax asks about the strange coin and Delvin says they are being sold on the black market even though they are perfectly legal; Gave bought a few, but no longer displays them in his home.  Delvin tells him about a building project involving Allomancers in the Northeast, but no one has been able to get more information.  Wax asks about the explosion from a few weeks back.  Delvin doesn’t think it is the Ape because no metalborns died.  Delvin points out Wax’s concern should be focused on the people unhappy with how the cities outside Elendel are treated before the Basin has its first civil war.  The host, Lady Kelesina approaches Wax on his way back to Steris.  He knows he cannot out talk her, so he shows her the coin to let her know he is onto her.  She excuses herself to go talk to suited men.  Wax goes back to Steris and tells her what happened.  HE needs an excuse to get out of the party, so Steris drinks ipecac and salt-root and starts vomiting.  Marasi wonders around the graveyard reading marking stones.  When she turns to make her way back, she is startled by a statue of Vin, the Ascendant Warrior.  She wonders if Vin was ever like a normal person.  Marasi goes back to Wayne’s side.  Dechamp has already dug four feet out of the grave.  She hears gunfire above.

Wayne falls into the grave on top of Marasi.  He put a speed bubble up and they look out to see men in the distance and Dechamp full of holes.  Marasi asks if they can get to the next grave over.  Wayne tells her to fire her tiny pistol to give him time to put up a new speed bubble.  She fire the two shots and then moves to the back of the grave to avoid a stick of dynamite that lands near them.  They carefully get to the other grave.  After the explosion, Wayne uses another bubble to fight off the men.  Wax assures the cook Steris wasn’t made sick from the food and tells the other servants they will be find in the guest room.  Steris asks about Wax’s sister.  He feels bad he didn’t stay in contact with her.  She stayed in the Village when he left.  When Wax goes to leave, Steris points out she should go with him to avoid suspicion or in case they need to get out quickly.  They make their way into the main atrium of the house.  Before Wax takes off, Steris offers him one of his small guns she taped to her thigh.  He undoes the tape and takes off with the gun after telling Steris to stay out of sight.  Wayne and Marasi hide in the grave keeper’s shack while the constables are searching outside.  While looking for booze, Wayne finds a ledger that tracks all the grave robbing activities.  Marasi sees a note from the boss to send anyone asking about a particular grave to him.  She has another stop to make.

While Templeton Fig is admiring his collection of stuffed albino animals, Wayne dumps Dechamp’s body through his window.  He acts like Death and asks where the spike is.  Templeton says he sent ti to Dulsing (small farming settlement) but doesn’t know anymore.  Wayne leaves and the constables come for Templeton shortly after.  Wax makes his way through hallways looking for clues until he hears his uncle talking to Kelesina.  He tells her to distract Wax and get back the device they lost on the train.  They have a spy on the hotel staff looking for it.  The outer cities are getting riled up for war against Elendel, but they don’t have the army Suit promised.  A girl comes in and Wax uses a coin to push himself to the ceiling.  She tells Kelesina and Edwarn they detected Allomancy being used nearby.  When Edwarn asks about Wax, he reveals himself.  However, his uncle’s voice is coming out of a box on a desk rather than a person.

Edwarn is already prepared for Wax’s intrusion.  He tries to distract him by talking about the person that died on  the train in the attack.  The steward grows large and hits the gun out of Wax’s hand.  He shoots Kelesina in the head.  The maid runs from the room yelling that Wax did it.  Wax quickly gets out of there to find Steris.  He takes servants’ tunnels, but the steward catches up.  MeLaan is there with an aluminum skeleton to kill the steward.  Wax finds Steris.  He grabs her, pushes his bullets to shatter the glass ceiling, and takes off into the mists.  He balances himself using two skyscrapers and Steris looks at the mist below them.  Wax kisses her.  Marasi and Wayne are waiting for Wax and Steris when they arrive at the window.  They exchange information before quickly packing and leaving in a carriage driven by MeLaan. they stop outside the city.  Wax lights a cigar and enjoys the dark.  MeLaan approaches him to ask his next move.  Wax knows he should return to Elendel to prevent war.  MeLaan tells them there are other perspectives.  He decides they are going to Dulsing.

Marasi is excited to be in a stage coach and on an adventure like she always dreamed.  She starts writing a letter to send to Elendel to warn them what has happened.  Wax tells her to get some sleep because they won’t be stopping.  He admits to her that he started out as a gentleman adventurer and found being a lawman is a good way to earn money.  He knows going back to Elendel is what he should do, but he can’t let his uncle give him more distractions.  He goes back to sleep.  Marasi investigates the box from the train.  She finds a switch and flips it.  Nothing happens so she makes a speed bubble.  The stage isn’t big or fast enough to support the bubble and it lurches everyone.  She apologizes for the mistake and everyone is ready to experiment with it.  They find out whoever activates the box can use it to extend their power.  Marasi might be able to use it to trap someone in a speed bubble she isn’t in.  Wax tosses Wayne Kelesina’s gold metalmind.  Wayne is able to use the stored health (Wax couldn’t).  Wax wonders if Edwarn has already found the Bands of Mourning or Hemalurgy.  MeLaan calls him over to show him men are setting up a perimeter and trying to make roadblocks look natural.  They won’t be able to continue in the stage coach.  When they get close enough, Wax and MeLaan use a spy glass to see some sort of structure being built and a small army.  They move to higher ground and Wax tells Steris she will stay with the horses.  She agrees and says she will try not to get kidnapped.  Wax and Wayne argue over several strategies.  Finally Wax tosses Wayne a shotgun and uses it to launch him off into the distance.  Wayne lands on a rock and uses the new metalmind to heal himself.  He moves just before a guard comes to check on the noise.  When Wayne’s trick convinces him it was just falling rocks, the guard starts back on his patrol.  Wayne follows in the shadows.  He uses the power cords to trip the guard and unplugs the lights at the same time.  Wax, Marasi, and MeLaan use the opportunity to join Wayne.  They sneak inside the building and hide.  There is a very large boat that is being repaired.  They guess it is a warship, but wonders why it is so far from the ocean.  Marasi is taking MeLaan to look for the spike.  Wax and Wayne go to look for Edwarn.

Marasi and MeLaan sneak through the warehouse.  They see engineers that seem to be new to the project.  Marasi spots the man with the limp she met on the train.  She plans to sneak up a ramp into the hull through its hole.  Wax and Wayne head in the opposite direction of the girls.  They start climbing ladders to catwalks and after a few, Wax starts to get winded.  He slows down in case they need to fight on a higher level.  An engineer spots them from above.  Wayne grabs his ankle to trip him and then climbs up to knock him out.  Irich, the man with the limp, lead five scientists through the vessel to show them around.  There are many strange things they don’t understand.  The ship’s navigators haven’t been cooperating and the language barrier doesn’t help.  Irich is called away and leaves the scientists to inspect some sort of power cell that doesn’t use electricity.  He finds a storage compartment open and a box like the one he lost on the train.  He plans to lie to Suit and say he recovered it.  Marasi and MeLaan watch Irich from closets and wait to see if he comes back out of the room he entered.  Wax and Wayne watch Irich as he makes his way out of the ship and to a room, figuring he will lead them to Edwarn.  Wax uses the spyglass to see Telsin is in the room.  Wayne stops Wax from rushing in and alerting everyone they are there.  He wants to impersonate the engineer they knocked out.

Acting like the belong there, MeLaan leads Marasi from the ship to the room.  MeLaan quickly gets them in and they start looking around.  While MeLaan is trying to get into a safe, Marasi notices another door.  She opens it to find cages inside.  She recognizes a monster inside from ReLuur’s pictures.  It says, “Please.”  Wayne, disguised as an engineer, goes to the room where Telsin is held.  He uses his practiced smart talk to convince the guards to push on wood and the scientists to supervise.  Wax is free to do his part.  MeLaan comes to tell Marasi the safe is open.  She goes to get the Allomantic grenade, a few discs with the strange language, and ReLuur’s second spike.  She puts them all in her purse and grabs a set of keys.  She uses them to free the monster, who is really a masked man.  He stumbles out of the cage and opens another door to find a bloody surgical room with masks like his hanging on the wall.  He takes off his mask and has tears in his eyes.  Telsin hugs Wax when he comes into the room.  She asks for one of his guns and he gives her one.  She says she just spoke to Edwarn through the box on the table.  She has a lot of questions for Wax, but he tells her they don’t have time.  The large Allomancer Wax fought on the train comes in and Telsin shoots him.  Marasi insists they take the young masked man with them, pointing out he is proof there is life beyond the Roughs.  He grabs a disc from the safe and attaches it to his arm by the cloth strap.  Just as Marasi is wondering how they will sneak out, gunfire starts.

Wax takes Telsin to the top of the large ship and tells her to stay there.  She wants to kill all the men that held her captive, but Wax wants to get her out alive.  He goes back down to Wayne and they dodge bullets. When Wayne points out Telsin is using a rope ladder to climb down the ship, Wax sends him after her while he goes to Marais and MeLaan.  The guards keep shooting at Wayne after he is down.  Wax launches himself in the middle of the fight and draws fire.  He pushes the bullets away, but is scraped in the arm by an aluminum one.  HE has Telsin and Wayne get into the ship and follows after.  A kill squad comes after them and Wax kills one man with the oversized shotgun.  He turns to face another kill squad.  Marasi uses the Allomantic grenade to push on metal.  As more shoot at Wax, Marasi is able to grab the grenade, load it, and toss it to slow time for the guards.  Wax thanks her and tells her to get out with MeLaan.  MeLaan is shot in the face and part of her skin is ripped off.  The masked man is scared of her and tries to plead with Marasi not to follow.  She hesitates and is shot in the side.  The man and MeLaan carry her to the ship as she goes into shock.  Wax sees that Marasi is shot.  He and Wayne make their way to follow the others into the ship.  The guards keep firing.  The masked man leads them up a rope ladder into a secret compartment.  He changes out the disc on his arm for one that allows him to speak their language.  He passes out discs to everyone but Wax and has them make themselves lighter.  The man holds Wax in high esteem but is confused why he doesn’t wear a mask.  He pulls a lever that moves the room and has Wax push to separate the small ship they are in from the large one.  

Wax continues to hold onto straps and push against the anchor from the large ship to lift them into the air.  The masked man, Allik Neverfar, presses the grenade against Wax to charge it and then inserts it into the controls to make a giant fan under them spin and keep them airborne.  Wax jumps out, collects Steris and their things, and gets them into the ship.  Wax tells Allik to head north towards Elendel, but Telsin tells Wax that Edwarn is looking for the Bands of Mourning in the mountains to the south.  MeLaan stitches up Marasi’s intestines and graphs skin to her.  Wax asks Marais to talk to Allik.  He explains the sovereign came to his people 330 years ago.  Wax and Marasi assume it was the Lord Ruler, but the dates are after Harmony’s ascension.  Allik’s people were used to the heat of the Ash World.  The Sovereign came and showed them how to make the medallions that can store Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities.  The Firemothers and Firefathers stored heat so they could live.  Wax asks if someone created one that stored all of the abilities.  Allik says they have been bale to get up to three abilities in one medallion, but not more.  A person would have to already have all the abilities to do that.  He explains they can only wear one at a time because the medallions interfere with each other.  The Sovereign made a set, the Bands of Mourning, and took his priests to hide them in a temple in the mountains.  His people took it as a challenge to find them to help them fight the Deniers of the Masks (not Wax’s people which they consider barbarians).  A new mountain range was found, but their light flying ship was knocked out of the sky by a storm.  Wax confirms they are going to the temple.  

While everyone else is sleeping, Marais talks with Allik.  He tells her more of the lore around the Bands.  His people have their own version of Ruin and Preservation, called Herr and Frue (sibling spouses).  He explains as a pilot, he is expected to be a gentleman.  He starts telling a story, but remembers his friends hanging on the wall.  He is even more sad when he realizes he doesn’t have enough fuel in the ship to get back home.  He shows her the ettmetal that runs it and explains it explodes when wet.  The group that came before his - the Hunters - brought a bomb made of ettmetal to destroy the Bands (believe they were left as temptation, not supposed to take the power).  When he switches back to the heat medallion, Marasi tries the connection one, but it doesn’t work.  Allik explains the visitor wears it to connect to the land.  Wax points out tall mountains with a light on them - Suit’s expedition party.

Wayne looks over Telsin’s shoulder to see Suit’s party below.  He accidentally kicks a bag out and it hits a guard in the head.  Telsin wants to kill them all, but Wax explains it would be better to be able to question them.  When they get to the right mountain, Allik lands.  Wax covers the ship with snow.  Wayne sees a ship with several dead Hunters.  There is a statue of the Sovereign with a spike through his eye and a spear.  Wayne takes the metal spearhead before he enters.  There are several more Hunters dead inside.  Wax guesses a few tried to get the Bands for themselves and failed.  Wayne, Marasi, and Steris stay behind to watch the entrance.  MeLaan leads the way to look for traps.  Telsin insists on going with Wax.  Allik follows in case they need translation.  

Marasi finds Steris rating everyone’s usefulness on the trip on a chart.  Marasi tries to comfort her sister by saying she used to feel the same way.  Steris corrects her and points out she doesn’t feel left out, but wants to become more useful.  She loves Wax and he gives her passion.  Marasi is happy for her.  She joins Wayne, who points out Suit’s group has left their lanterns behind while approaching in the shadows.  A man waves a parley flag nearby.  MeLaan makes her way through poison darts, spears, and endless looking pits.  Eventually, Wax finds a pattern to the traps.  The last one seems to be some sort of acid, but it separated and froze over the years.  They reach the end and Allik doesn’t recognize the language on what they assume is a door.  They start to go back for the others and find the rest of the traps.  When they get back to the entrance, Wayne says Edwarn wants to talk to Wax.

Edwarn asks to come inside the temple and Wax allows it.  He tells Wax the Set doesn’t care if he is killed, but he knows how to open the door at the end of the trap tunnel.  They all reach the door and Edwarn shows Wax the sequence to push on Allomanctically.  It opens and Wax sends MeLaan in first.  The others follow with Edwarn and Wax last.  There is a smashed glass case.  The Bands are gone.

Wax pulls out his gun and points it at Telsin, but she is quicker and shoots him with aluminum bullets.  Marasi aims her rifle at Edwarn, but he deflects the bullet.  Marasi sees Wax go to the side of the room and set a pit trap and fall down into the darkness.  Wayne escapes out the door, but MeLaan is frozen in place.  Edwarn, who has a Hemalurgic spike, herd Marasi, Steris, and Allik together while Telsin cuts MeLaan’s spikes out of her.  Down in the pit, Wax drags himself along.  He realized there was too much glass for the pedestal and the Bands were never in the above room.  He makes his way to corpses sitting like sentries and hides among them when he hears his uncle.  Edwarn follow’s Wax’s trail of blood and tells him Telsin recruited him. He sees Wax tried to lead him into a trap and Wax says it would have been worth collapsing the ceiling on himself if it took Edwarn out with him.  Wax challenges him to a duel, but Edwarn sets off the trap.  The guards come to lead Marasi, Steris, and Allik outside.  They take their heat medallions and are searched for weapons.  Telsin (codename Sequence) tells her men to watch out for Wayne.  The rocks fall on top of Wax and he cannot move.  Edwarn gets the Bands and puts them on to find they are empty.  He thinks Irich will be able to figure them out.  He puts a gun to Wax’s head, but Wayne hits him and knocks him away.  Wayne went down one of the other pits (spikes at the bottom) to get down to him.  Wax tries to tell him to help the others, but Wayne says he’d be lost with out Wax.  Marasi tries to think of what she can do to save them.  Guards go through her purse, but ReLuur’s spike isn’t there; Wayne traded it for the aluminum spearhead.  Suit comes out and says Wax is dead and Wayne is distracted.  Wax lies on the ground with Wayne crying over him.  He realizes the Bands Suit took were a diversion and then he dies.  

Wayne wants to sit for eternity like the corpses around him.  Instead, he takes Wax’s shotgun.  Marasi realizes the entire temple is a distraction.  The weapon they are looking for is the spearhead; Wax couldn’t push on it because it is a full metalmind.  Wax finds himself walking with Harmony as everyone does when they die.  He asks why he lets people suffer and why he made him kill Lessie.  Harmony explains he keeps the worst of it out and did what he had to do for Wax to become the version of himself needed.  Wax sees light on the world below.  Harmony says it is trust.  Marasi taps the metalmind and uses her speed to take the metal vials from the surrounding guards and drinks them.  She pushes all the guards away, leaving just Edwarn and Telsin.  She pushes them away by their Hemalurgic spikes.  Marasi thinks of what she can do with the power, but realizes it isn’t want she wants.  She takes off into the air.  Steris grabs her notebook and pulls open a compartment she made into the backing.  She gives Allik the warming medallion inside and suggests they flee.  Harmony offers Wax a choice - Freedom or duty.  When Wax chooses duty, Harmony tells him to stop hating it so much.  Wax returns to his body where Marasi has given him the spear head metalmind.  He is surprised she didn’t stop the Set herself, but she explains it isn’t her.  He understands and drink the vial of metals.

Suit looks for the advantage in Wax’s friends getting the Bands.  He goes to a ship his men have cleared off and gets in.  They ask about Sequence, and he says their priority is to get the ship to safety.  Allik brings heat medallions to the tent where his captain, Jordis, and the rest of the crew are freezing.  Steris gives them rifles and Jordis says she is more than happy to shoot at their captors.  Wax heads right for the ship and his uncle.  Edwarn points out that Wax doesn’t have any options to win because he has activated the bomb.  Wax goes over the scenarios in his head and can’t find a solution. Edwarn promises to disarm the bomb below if Wax tosses the Bands of Mourning overboard and consents to a duel with guns only.  Wax agrees.  Telsin goes to the skimmer ship they arrived on, but is shot.  Wayne is there with a shotgun and shoots her in the face.  Marasi makes her way out from beneath the temple.  She hears the shotgun and then Wayne appears with three spikes.  Edwarn draws first.  Wax rushes him with a push and tackles him.  Edwarn leeches away Wax’s steel reserves.  Edwarn thinks he has won, but Wax increases his weight as much as he can and they fall through the bottom of the ship.   Edwarn spits out the coin in his mouth to use to slow their fall.  He is dazed by the impact and Wax punches him to knock him out.  MeLaan is a mistwraith on the stone floor until Wayne returns her Blessings and she reforms.

Marasi and Allik talk and drink hot chocolate as they watch the ship land.  Jordis and Wax start talking and both demand the ship and the Bands of Mourning.  Steris interrupts to tell Wax they should let the Malwish people take the ship in order to get home.  She continues to tell Jordis the kandra will hold onto the Bands incase any of the people from their lands try to attack the Basin.  They agree and Wax asks for a ride home.  Wax and Marais go to get anything left at the skimmer, but the ship and Telsin are gone.  

The airship comes to Elendel at night and Wax’s group watches as the city get closer.  Jordis lands on top of a tower with a flat top.  Aradel is there to greet them.  He admits Wax has put him in a bad position with the senate.  Allik gives Marasi his mask and says he intends to visit.  They leave MeLaan to deal with Aradel and Jordis.  Wax walks Steris downstairs and asks her to marry him because they both want to.  He has a priest waiting and she kisses him.

Marais works with Reddi to question the guards they brought back with them.  They were recruited to fight back against Elendel.  They don’t have the information needed to take down the Set, but politicians know what to work on to avoid civil war.  Edwarn is in his basic cell when Trell’s faceless immortal comes to visit him.  He tells Edwarn they no longer need the Set.  He says Edwarn will serve in another realm and uses a device to blow him to oblivion.  Wax is with Steris on their honeymoon.  He wakes one night and finds the strange coin the beggar gave him.  He realizes it is made of two metals and one of them is copper.  He taps the metalmind and is show the Sovereign’s memory through one normal eye and one with a spike through it.  He goes through villages and sees people freezing.  He reaches out with an arm full of scars to an old woman and says, “Survive.” 

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The Titan's Curse

3/9/2016

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The Titan’s Curse
Rick Riordan

Percy, Thalia, and Annabeth are driven by Ms. Jackson to a military boarding school, Westover Hall, in Main just before winter break.  The three heroes make their way inside, but are quickly stopped by two teachers.  Thalia uses “mist” to make them think they are students, and Grover comes to take them to the gym to join the other students for the dance.  After greetings, Grover tells them he has found two halfblooded - a brother and sister.  He points them out when they get the guys, but Dr. Thorn, the vice principal, has followed them, not convinced by the mist.  Grover tells them he is the monster that is after them, but luckily the kids don’t know who they are yet.  The heroes split into twos and dance while watching the siblings, but not bringing attention to them.  Annabeth tells Percy she loves her new school in New York, but her dad wants to move to SanFrancisco.  She suddenly realizes the siblings are missing.  ANnabeth goes after Thalia, but Percy sees Dr. Thorn and decides to go after him alone.  He finds the siblings in the hall and tries to tell them they will be safe with him.  Dr. Thorn shoots a poisonous thorn that grazes Percy’s shouldering, pinning him to the wall.  He tries to fight back, but is not effective.  He fells the pain of the poison as Dr. Thorn says he is taking all three of them.

Percy is lead outside with Bianca (10) and Nico (8).  Dr. Thorn calls for their transportation while Percy tries to use his link to Grover to call for help.  Percy can feel the sea over the edge of the cliff they are on.  Dr. Thorn says he is taking them to the General.  The Great Stirring of monsters is underway and they are needed for the army to take down Olympus.  He calls for their ride.  Annabeth knocks the three halfblooded over using her invisibility cap, which gives Thalia the chance to attack Thorn with her spear and shield.  Dr. Thorn reveals he is a manticore.  A military style helicopter arrives with some heavy artillery.  Percy goes to help Thalia, but they get pinned down.  A horn sounds and silver arrows com out of the woods and fly at the manticore.  He  complains that divine intervention isn’t allowed, but Artemis appears and says she is allowed to hunt him.  She grants permission for her girls to kill him.  Thorn goes after Thalia and Percy.  Annabeth jumps on his back and stabs him with a dagger.  The monster leaps off the cliff.  Percy tries to go after Annabeth, but the helicopter starts shooting at them.  Artemis turns it into a bird with a wave of her hand.  Percy wants to go after Annabeth, but Artemis says she is beyond saving.  She introduces herself.

Percy wants to go after Annabeth, but Artemis points out that she has been taken away by some sort of magic.  They try to explain to Bianca and Nico they are demigods and need to be trained to fight monsters.  Artemis takes Bianca aside to talk to her.  Thalia blames Percy for trying to defeat Thorn on his own.  The Hunters set up their camp and Percy sits by the fire feeling guilty.  Nico asks him questions until Zoe comes to get him for Artemis.  She asks about the Manticore.  She is worried when Percy explains Thorn said the General will explain things to him and there is a monster that will bring the downfall of Olympus.  Artemis plans to hunt the monster herself.  She wants Percy to take Nico and the Hunters back to camp while she is gone.  Zoe isn’t happy about not going with her, but Artemis insists.  Bianca gives her oath to Artemis and becomes a Hunter.  Artemis calls her brother, Apollo, to give them a ride back to camp.

They wait for the sun to start coming up and Apollo arrives in his sun car in sport car mode.  He teases Artemis and flirts with Zoe until Artemis reminds him to stay away from her Hunters.  She takes off into the woods.  Apollo turns the car into a bus to transport them to camp.  Once everyone is on the bus, Apollo tries to explain the car is made up of what people think about the sun.  He insists Thalia will be sixteen (aged slower when she was a tree) and should drive.  She tries to decline the offer, but Apollo won’t let her.  She has trouble keeping a good height and Apollo and Percy try to give her advice.  She continues to say she is in control until they land in the canoe lake at Camp Half Blood.

The hunters immediately start heading for their cabin and Grover trips over himself to show them the way.  Percy and Thalia take Nico to the Big House to introduce him to Chiron, who is playing a game of cards with Mr. D.  Grover arrives to show Nico the welcome video.  After Thalia and Percy explain what happened, Mr. D. refuses to let them go on a mission to save Annabeth.  Percy’s temper slips out, but Nico comes back and distracts Mr. D by telling him about his game.  Chiron announces there will be capture the flag, Hunters versus campers.  As they make their way back to their cabins, Thalia tells Percy she found out her mom died in a late night drinking and driving accident.  She goes to split up an Ares camper and a Hunter arguing.  Percy goes to tell the other campers about capture the flag.  When he gets to the Ares cabin, he asks about Clarisse.  The boy there says she has ben on a top secret mission from Chiron for about a month.  Percy goes to his own cabin to find a new fountain installed (a gift from his dad).  He makes an Iris call to Tyson.  His cyclops half-brother is working in the forges making swords to arm the mermaids.  The titans have been gaining power and they are helping hide Luke’s ship, which is heading towards the Panama Canal.  Percy’s feelings of loneliness continue when he has to sit alone through dinner at the Poseidon table.  That night, he dreams about Luke asking Annabeth for help.  She hesitates, but as the ceiling of the cave starts to crack and fall, she jumps in to help him bear the load.  Luke leaves her there as bait.  Percy wakes up.

Percy tells Grover about his dream and is surprised to learn Zoe also had a nightmare.  Grover followed her to the Big House where she asked Chiron for permission to leave camp because Artemis is lost.  Percy wonders if Kronos has reassembled himself enough to have kidnapped a god.  Grover shows Percy a brochure aimed at girls who are thinking of joining Artemis’ Hunters.  He found it in Annabeth’s things.  While everyone is off performing their duties, Percy necks into the Big House attic to talk to the oracle.  When nothing happens, he turns to leave.  He finds Aphrodite’s scarf he and Annabeth retrieved two years ago.  That night after dinner, capture the flag starts.  Even though Thalia and Percy agreed to be co-captains, she insists on taking lead.  She has Percy run defense and splits up her group into distraction and retrieve teams.  Percy climbs up onto the rock that holds the flag and sees both of Thalia’s teams have encountered Hunters.  Percy figures the middle ground is clear and takes off running.  He is able to pass everyone, grab the flag, and run back towards his own territory, but Zoe beats him over the creek that serves as the boundary line.  Thalia and Percy start using their powers against each other in a fight until Percy sees the Oracle of Delphi approach and acknowledge Zoe.  When she asks how to save Artemis, the oracle tells her a combination of five Hunters and campers will travel west to free Artemis, who is chained at the top of a mountain.  She says one will be lost in the desert and another will be killed by a parent.

While Percy and Grover are returning the Oracle to the attic, Grover admits he wants to go on the quest.  The Great Stirring might turn up Pan.  All the cabin leaders meet with Chiron, Mr. D, and Zoe, who brings Bianca with her.  Once they get Zoe to agree to have campers on the quest, Grover and Thalia volunteer.  Percy realizes he is being left out and protests, but Zoe refuses to have a boy along with them.  She only agrees to Grover because he is a satyr.  Chiron and Grover visit Percy in his cabin later.  Chiron admits Thalia wasn’t his first choice, but neither was Percy, as both are very rash.  He points out their fight after capture the flag and that it is best they aren’t both going.  Percy calls his mom with an Iris message and sees her with a guy.  When the strange man goes to the bathroom, Percy gets his mom’s attention.  She explains the man is in her writing class.  Percy tells her everything that is going on.  She tells him to follow his heart and she understands if he decides to go after Annabeth.  That night, Percy has another dream about Annabeth.  Artemis takes the weight of the boulder from her, but Luke has to convince the General not to kill her.  Blackjack (Pegasus from Luke’s ship) comes to tell Percy the Hippocampi need his help.  Percy grabs Riptide and Annabeth’s hat.

They follow the van downtown and land on the Chrysler Building.  Mr. D starts wrapping them up in vines.  Percy asks why he hates heroes.  Mr. D explains his wife, Ariadne, was abandoned by Theseus after giving up everything for him.  He says Zoe also has a reason to hate heroes.  Mr. D Decides to let Percy continue following them in hopes he will be the one to die.  Percy and Blackjack follow the van to DC.  When they land, Percy sends the exhausted pegasus home.  He watches the questers go into the Smithsonian and then sees Dr. Thorn come out of a car that was following them.  Percy dons the invisibility cap and follows him into the Museum of Natural History.  Dr. Thorn informs the General the heroes are falling into their trap.  Luke is there with them.  They plant teeth in the ground and pour blood over them.  Kittens rise the first time, but the second attempt reaps T-rex/human hybrid soldiers.  The General plans to give them the Hunter’s scent to kill them all, but Percy snatches the scarf away.  One gets a piece of his shirt and passes the scent to the others.  Luke is positive it is Percy causing the issues.  Percy is just able to sneak out the doors before they slam shut.

Percy runs across the Mall to the Air and Space Museum.  He finds the others and tells them what he saw and that a monster is coming for them.  As Thalia and Zoe argue over whether or not Percy should escape with them, the Nemean Lion appears.  It’s fur is too tough for any of them to pierce, but Percy realizes it’s mouth is vulnerable.  He has Thalia keep it distracted while he goes to the gift shop for space food.  He gets the lion’s attention and throws packets of the food into it’s mouth.  IT chokes and gags on it giving Zoe and Bianca a chance to shoot it in the mouth and kill it.  The monster starts melting away and leaves just it’s fur behind.  Zoe insists it is Percy’s spoil of war.  He picks it up and it becomes a duster jacket.  Grover’s confusion spell on the guards is about to war off.  Zoe rushes them all out admitting Percy is now part of their quest.

They aren’t in the van very long before the General’s mercenaries are following them in a helicopter.  Bianca tells Zoe to pulling into a parking lot.  They find the underground train station to loose them.  Bianca says she saw the station when she and Nico passed through DC previously, but the subway wasn’t there when she lived in DC when she was younger.  The others wonder how that is possible.  At the end of the line, they find a homeless man with a fire.  He points out a train hulling cars west and they sneak onto it.  Percy sits in a car with Thalia and she tells him Zoe asked her to join the Hunt.  She couldn’t leave Luke behind and Zoe said he would’ only let her down.  Percy points out she may have to kill Luke.  Thalia asks Percy to leave her car and tells him Annabeth was also thinking about joining the Hunt.  Apollo appears to Percy.  He has helped because of his sister, but doesn’t have much more information, except to seek out Nereus.  Percy falls asleep and dreams about running from a monster called Ladon with a girl that turns out to be Zoe.  She gives him her hairpin and it turns into Riptide, Percy’s sword.  Grover wakes up Percy when the train stops and they get off in the mountains.

The group finds themselves in Cloudcraft, New Mexico, which doesn’t have good transportation schedules.  Percy talks to Bianca while the others are off.  She is grateful there are people like Percy at Camp Half Blood so she can trust leaving her brother there.  They were told their parents are dead and lawyers moved them around until they ended up at Westover.  Percy asks about her conversation with Zoe about the General.  Bianca realizes he used Annabeth’s hat to hear them.  He tries to explain but Zoe and Grover return with food.  Thalia comes running up from checking out the stores.  Grover starts to collapse as fake and printed animals come to life.  They start to leave town, but the skeletal soldiers appear.  They fight, but only Bianca is able to kill one with a dagger to the chest.  The Erymanthian Boar appears and knocks the soldiers apart.  Percy and Thalia lead it out of town and over a cliff.  They sled down the mountain on Thalia’s shield.  Percy realizes Thalia is afraid of heights.  The others join them.  Grover points out the giant boar is their ride from the Wild to head west.  Zoe explains she felt Pan’s presence when the boar arrived.  They all get on it’s back before it frees itself.

The boar stops in Arizona to eat and they sneak away from it while it is distracted.  Grover tosses out some acorns an points in the direction of their next challenge.  They see a junkyard and decide to camp until morning and search it in daylight.  Zoe suggests they head to Las Vegas, but Bianca doesn’t want to because she was there before.  Percy asks if she stayed at the Lotus Casino.  Bianca confirms and Percy explains the trap.  Bianca doesn’t want to believe show s stuck in the casino for seventy years.  Percy asks who the lawyer was that got them out, but a white limo pulls up.  Ares steps out and says the person inside only wants to talk to Percy.  He agrees and gets in to find Aphrodite.  He is stunned by her beauty at first, but when Ares laughs at him, his anger clears his mind.  She says she has been helping him because his quest is to find Annabeth rather than Artemis.  She warns him not to touch anything in her husband’s domain before she leaves.  They are left in front of the junk yard and make their way through.  At the end, they come to a set of giant metal toes and decide to go around.  When they try to leave, they find out the toes are connected to Talos.  They try to get away, but it’s size prevents their escape.  Percy sees Bianca looking guilty and asks what she took.  Eventually, she admits she stole a figurine for Nico from his game.  She tries to drop it, but Talos still comes after them.  Percy sees a hatch on the bottom of Talos’ foot.  Bianca goes for it when Percy gets him to lift his foot.  Talks starts hitting himself and crumbles to pieces.  They search for Bianca until morning, but Grover points out the prophecy said they would loose one in the land without rain.

They find an operational tow truck and hit the road. When they come to a dead end, they get out of the truck and it breaks down.  Grover wants to go down a cliff on a goat path to get to the river, but Percy knows Thalia will have trouble, so he insists they go up stream.  They find a closed canoe rental shop.  Percy leaves a few gold drachmas and takes two canoes.  Thalia asks him to ride with Zoe and he agrees.  Once in the boats, Percy asks for a couple of Naiads to help them upstream.  Zoe gives Percy a piece of her story.  She has been leading the Hunt for two thousand years.  She lived in a garden with her four sister that was guarded by the dragon, Ladon.  She was exiled for helping a hero by telling him how to trick her father and get the golden fruit.  They reach the Hoover Dam and get nostalgic about Annabeth’s love for architecture.  They find a path that takes them up and they get to the top of the dam.  They are on their way to the snack bar when Percy hears a cow.  He sends the others ahead and looks over the side to see Bessie.  He says he can’t go with her and she disappears into the water.  Percy looks up to see skeleton warriors coming after him.  He tries to get to his friends, but ends up in an elevator going 700 feet down to the turbines.  The tour guide shows him her grey eyes and tells him there is always a way.  Percy gets to the other side as quickly as possible but hears something behind him.  He slashes his sword through a girl, but it doesn’t hurt her.  Rachel Elizabeth Dare starts asking a bunch of questions.  Percy says he is in trouble and in a hurry, and she hides him in the bathroom while she sends the skeletons in the wrong direction.  Percy leaves her behind saying it is best if she forgets it all.  Percy makes it to his friends in the cafeteria, but they are surrounded  by skeletons.  Grover starts a food fight to get them out, but they don’t make it very far before they are trapped again.  Percy sees the angel statues (people run the toes for luck) dedicated to Zeus and tells Thalia to pray to her father.  After several protests, she does and the statues come to life.  They defend them and then take off into the sky with them.

The angel statues are happy to take them to San Francisco and start planning to meet up with other statues they have partied with previously.  Once they are dropped off, Zoe takes them to a clothes donation bin, and they dress Percy like a homeless person.  She says he will know Nereus because he will smell different than the other hobos.  Percy makes his way down the pier and finds an old man that smells like rotting fish and seaweed.  Percy grabs onto him and Nereus jumps into the water.  He changes into several different sea creatures trying to shake the hero, but he eventually gives up and agrees to answer one question.  Percy wants to ask about Annabeth but instead asks about monster.  Nereus points to Bessie and then disappears.  The others are shocked to see the Ophiotaurus.  They tell him if one were to throw the bull serpent’s entrails into a fire, that person would be granted the power to overthrow Olympus.  Suddenly, Dr. Thorn arrives with his mercenaries.  He wants Thalia to kill Bessie and join the Titan’s.  Percy tells the Ophiotaurus to get deep into the water and then drags Thalia up the pier to a souvenir stand.  HE uses his sword to break apart a water fountain.  IT sprays Thalia and gets her out of her daze.  Percy uses the water to send an iris message to camp.  Mr. D answers because Chiron isn’t there.  Dr. Thorn catches up with them and they are surrounded.  Percy swallows his pride and asks Mr. D for help.  The mercenaries go crazy and Thorn is swallowed by grape leaves.  Mr. D tells them Zee knows where to go and they have to make it by sundown.

They start heading to the garden of Zoe’s sisters (the Naiads of sunset), but they are moving too slow.  Grover agrees to take Bessie back to camp.  Percy offers the Lion coat to his father for their safe passage across the water.  He realizes Hercules was the hero that hurt  Zoe and he doesn’t want to be like him anymore.  Thalia remembers Annabeth’s dad lives in San Francisco and pulls his address out of her bag.  They find him working on and distracted with writing a paper about a battle.  They tell him about Annabeth and ask to borrow his car.  They start heading for Mount Tamalpais, the Mountain of Despair, and see Luke’s ship in the water nearby.  Thalia yells for Zoe to stop the car.  She slams on the breaks and they slide to a stop.  Thalia gets Percy out just before a bolt of lightning destroys the car.  Percy tells her he thinks Kronos did it to get her to turn against her father, Zeus.  They go into the garden at sunset and meet Zoe’s sisters.  They don’t acknowledge her as family and threaten to wake the dragon.  Zoe does it herself and distracts Ladon to let Percy and Thalia get past.  Zoe joins them knowing the dragon won’t stray too far from the tree it guards.  They go up the mountain to find Artemis holding the sky up.  Luke has Annabeth.  The General, Atlas, is Zoe’s father.

Luke tries to convince Thalia to join them.  Percy has to keep himself from thinking about Bessie to keep him from appearing in a nearby pool of water Luke points out.  He notices Annabeth’s hair is streaked with gray.  Thalia starts fighting Luke; Percy attacks Atlas.  Percy quickly realizes he doesn’t have a chance and takes the weight of the sky from Artemis so she can fight him.  The goddess fights the Titan and is eventually able to throw Atlas at Percy. Percy gets out of the way and lets the sky fall onto Atlas’ back.  Atlas is suck again.  Annabeth tries to convince Thalia not to kill Luke, but she pushes him and he falls off the cliff, landing among his army that is storming up the mountain.  Artemis is holding Zoe, who is dying from a poisonous scrape from the dragon.  Mr. Chase, Annabeth’s dad, comes along in his antique fighter plane and shoots Luke’s army with bullets made of celestial bronze.  Artemis gathers them all into a sleigh pulled by deer and they take off into the sky with Mr. Chase following behind.

They land and Percy suggests Artemis try to heal Zoe, but the Hunter is ready to die.  Artemis makes her into a constellation and then takes off for Olympus.  Annabeth says goodbye to her dad as three Pegasi appear.  Blackjack greets Percy and they take off.  Thalia sleeps.  Annabeth says she knows Luke isn’t dead (like Percy knew she wasn’t dead).  He is mad she has any feelings for Luke when he should have died instead of Bianca or Zoe.  Thalia wakes up and points out Olympus.

The heroes walk into Olympus together and find Grover already there with Bessie.  The gods start to argue over whether or not they can let Thalia and Percy live.  Artemis quickly talks to Zeus and then offers Thalia to join the hunt as her new lieutenant.  Thalia accepts and now will never turn sixteen.  Percy is voted to be allowed to live and Poseidon vouches for him.  He convinces them to keep Bessie safe in a tank on Olympus rather than kill him.  They celebrate with a party.  Poseidon tells Percy he better not be disappointed in him.  Percy promises not to let him down.  Athena tells Percy she thinks it is unwise they let him live.  She doesn’t like that he and Annabeth are friends.  She worries his fatal flow (personal loyalty to his friends) will be a danger to them all.  Percy asks Annabeth to dance; she accepts.

Percy calls his mom and brother to let them know what happened.  HE tells his mom to be happy with Paul.  Tyson plans to spend the summer at camp.  Clarisse has returned from her quest with bad news.  Nico comes to ask about his sister.  Percy takes him for a walk and explains everything.  Nico hates him.  Four skeleton-zombies attack, and Nico opens a crevice in the ground to swallow them.  Percy realizes Nico’s father is Hades (fathered them before the pact, but the Lotus Casino kept Bianca and Nico from aging).  Grover and Annabeth agree not to tell Chiron because Percy doesn’t want Nico in trouble with the gods.  While Annabeth and Percy are saying their goodbyes until summer, Grover comes to tell them Pan told him he is waiting for him.

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Bane Chronicles

3/4/2016

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The Bane Chronicles
Cassandra Clare

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN PERU
1791 - Magnus comes down from his room to hear two women talking about a sea monster.  He knows they must be referring to Ragnor Fell’s green skin and goes to join his friend.  Magnus starts to show Ragnor around Lima.  Ranger makes him promise he will not leave him somewhere unable to understand the Spanish speaking locals or else he will have a llama urinate over all of Magnus’ clothes.  While on a guided tour of the rain forest, Ragnor is miserable.  Magnus tries to get him to lighten up because they are on holiday, but Ragnor points out Magnus has been on holiday for 30 years since his lover died (the first one he lived with until death).  Magnus is approached by a howler monkey and remembers the guide said to stand his ground.  When that doesn’t work, he throws a fig and backs up into a tree.  He throws another fig, but the monkey isn’t interested.  Magnus runs until he runs into Ragnor.  Back in the city, Magnus talks to a man about escorting a ship of bird droppings to Europe.  He accepts the job,but doesn’t tell Ragnor what the cargo is.  Ranger gets sick on the ship, but Magnus still talks to him about acting like pirates.  Magnus convinces him to swing through the air to the hold, but someone left the cargo door open and they land in it.  Magnus admits it is bird droppings.  Ranger’s tantrum sinks the ship and Magnus doesn’t get paid.

1885 - Magnus started taking magical jobs when he was still young enough to age.  He started lying about his age to make himself seem more experienced, but he often gets trapped in his own lies.  Back in Peru with Ragnor and Catarina (blue skin and white hair), they help a woman recover the riches of her ancestors from a temple.  Catarina insists they stay in Peru after for adventures.  Ranger reluctantly agrees because he doesn’t want Magnus to get her into too much trouble.  Later, they find out they are wanted for desecrating the temple.

1890 - When he returns to Peru with Ragnor and Catarina, Magnus tries to learn how to play a lute-like instrument called a charango to be close to a man named Imasu Morales.  Magnus is so bad he goes into the mountains to practice until he improves so as he doesn’t disturb anyone anymore.  When he comes back to show Imasu his improvement, Imasu begs him to give up the instrument.  Magnus complies and they are lovers for a while.  Magnus is about to start showing Imasu magic, but Imasu breaks up with him.  He says Magnus doesn’t feel permanent enough to be in his life.  Magnus gets extremely drunk that night.  He wakes up somewhere on his way to a quiet town called Moquegua.  Catarina tells him about the drunken night.  Magnus had enchanted a stolen carpet to fly.  They followed him on foot.  Magnus enchanted a girl to dance in flames with him, fed his friends guinea pigs (Ragnor smashed a plate over Magnus’ head for it), and omitted all over the Naxzca Lines.  Catarina takes Magnus to a mundane doctor for his hangover and he has a guinea pig rubbed all over him.  Magnus later went back to the Naxzca Lines and felt a connection with them.  Magnus assures his friends he no longer wants to become a cactus and live in the desert.  Catarina doesn’t want him to give up on human love.  She tells him how her mother loved her and hid her away to keep her safe despite coming from a demon.  Magnus thinks of how his own mother died when she found out what he was.  He is reminded by Moquegua that he must always keep moving.

1962 - Magnus is in Cuzco when he hears a man speaking English.  The man is complaining about not having a bus or interesting people to take pictures of.  Then he spots Magnus.  The warlock speaks in Spanish and the man’s companion, Kitty, apologizes for him.  Magnus poses for pictures with her and asks her to run away with him.  She agrees and they take off.  They hide from the police in an alley and she shows him what she stole from the English man.  Magnus shows her his magic and makes them invisible from the approaching police.  She is impressed and they commit to stealing from annoying people and blowing the money on useless things.  It only lasts a summer, but Magnus ends up wanted in several countries.  However, none of these are why the Peruvian warlocks banned him from their country.  They still refuse to give him a reason despite his inquiries.

THE RUNAWAY QUEEN (1791)
Magnus rides through the streets of Paris in his fashionable clothes during the French Revolution.  Usually he fit in well with the aristocrats, but it is a difficult time to be seen with them.  He is on his way to take a ride in a hot air balloon, but the weather won’t allow them to fly.  Magnus starts wondering around the garden.  Marcel Saint Cloud’s subjugate Henri invites Magnus to Saint Cloud’s party.  Magnus is not terribly excited to go to the vampires’ party, but agrees to go to avoid social suicide.  

Later at home, Magnus soaks in a bath until his servant, Claude, comes to tell him a man is there to see him.  Magnus makes himself presentable and has the man let in.  He introduces himself as Count Axel von Fersen.  Magnus is excited about his looks as well as his title.  The count has come to Magnus because of his reputation.  He wants the warlock to save the royal family.  He has given up everything to help the family since they were run out of Versailles.  Magnus knows it is a horrible idea to help Axel, but he agrees to do it.  They agree to discussing the plan over dinner before Axel leaves.

When Axel returns, Magnus has already sent his servants away, went through his entire wardrobe, and sent out for dinner.  They are completely alone.  Axel jumps right into talking about his plan.  The royal family members will sneak out one by one to his carriage.  Marie Antoinette will be the one that needs to be glamoured because she is recognizable and will leave last.  Magnus is disappointed with how interested Axel seems to be with the queen.  He says he doesn’t need payment, just a promise they will meet again after the whole ordeal is over.  Axel vows to be close friends with Magnus.  

The day of the escape arrives and Magnus wakes up to find he acquired a monkey in the night and names it Ragnor.  Claude goes to take care of the monkey and leaves Magnus a note.  Axel writes to tell him the escape is being pushed back a day.  This will put it on the same night as Saint Cloud’s party, but Magnus thinks the schedule should still work out.  Monday night, Magnus sets off for the palace.  He waits for the princess and dauphin to exit the palace in their disguises and are taken to Axel waiting by a carriage.  Magnus is impressed with Axel’s disgust as a Parisian driver and how he handles the children.  Magnus goes back to the palace and uses his magic so that anyone looking would only see a large cat entering an already open door.  The further he gets, the cleaner the palace becomes.  He has to distract a guard and use two keys to get to Queen Marie.  He tells her she notices nothing and changes her appearance to make her look more like a young Russian nobel woman.  He then sneaks out to go to the vampire party.

Magnus arrives at Saint Cloud’s mansion and is greeted by Henri, who seems overly enamored with his giddy sister, Brigitte.  He makes his way inside and greets the host.  Suddenly, there is a commotion.  Magnus follows Saint Cloud to the source and sees a vampire has brought Queen Marie.  During her escape, she made a wrong turn and got lost.  The vampires are able to see through the disguise.  Magnus clicks his fingers to make her pass out and says she is a girl he has been working on for a client to be exactly like the queen.  He says the unfinished woman, Josette, still needs some work.  Saint Cloud offers to double the price to buy yer.  Magnus suggests he take her home to finish and add his signature overnight and return her the next day.  Saint Cloud insists he finish in an empty room upstairs.  Magnus is locked inside with the queen unconscious on the bed.  He looks at the only exit, the window, and has an idea.  He uses his magic to inflate and bring the hot air balloon to them.  He is too exhausted to lift the queen, so he wakes her up.  He tries to tell her there is an invisible balloon for their escape, but she is freaking out.  Magnus mentions Axel and she stops.  He pushes her out the window and she scrambles to get herself fully into the invisible basket.  Magnus gets in himself and allows the balloon to take off on its own.  He is not particularly happy with the rocky ride as the balloon sinks and they eventually land in the Seine.  Magnus swims while pulling the queen to shore.  He goes off a little ways and shoots blue sparks to signal Axel.  He arrives a few minutes later in a grand carriage the king and queen insisted on.  He kisses Magnus to show his gratitude, but Magnus sends him away to safety.  He knows he cannot go home until dawn because of the vampires, so he stays with a recent lover.  

When he goes home, Henri is waiting for him.  The vampires took his servants, Claude and Marie, as a meal.  Henri demands Magnus returns with him to talk to Saint Cloud when he wakes up that night.  Magnus declines the darkling’s command and promises to close the matter by leaving Paris.  After showing Henri out, Magnus gets the items he hid in the wall (including the Grey Book).  Ranger the monkey comes out from under the bed and they leave together.  Magnus spends the next few weeks in the Alps with Ragnor (the monkey).  A Parisian nobel comes along and tells him the king and queen were captured and are being held prisoners in Paris.  Magnus writes to Axel’s home in Paris.  A reply comes form Axel’s sister, Sophie, in Sweden begin Magnus to go to Vienna to stop Axel from returning to Paris for another rescue attempt.  Magnus can’t understand the mundane world and burns the note.

VAMPIRES, SCONES, and EDMUND HERONDALE (1857)
Magnus finds himself at the Shadowhunter’s London Institute.  A young werewolf, Ralf Scott (Woolsey’s older brother), has gathered them all to talk about the advantages of the Accords for Downworlders.  The fey refused to attend.  Magnus notices Camille and they start flirting.  The Shadowhunter that has been speaking, Roderick Morgenstern, points out their interruption.  Stark weather makes a comment about killing Downworlders.  Amalia Morgenstern interrupts the argument to ask if anyone would like refreshments, and Magnus asks for scones.  She suggests Roderick finish his speech while they send away for some.   Magnus becomes distracted again when a group of young Shadowhunters tumble into the room.  One, who professes his love for Amalie (despite the age difference), catches his eye.  Roderick calls out to Magnus, but the warlock admits he was distracted.  The young Shadowhunters are shooed out of the room, including the head of the London Institute’s daughter, Charlotte.  Camille shares Magnus' interest in the young Shadowhunter boy and asks if he wants to share him.  Magnus makes a joke about not eating him.

On his way home, Magnus is thinking of an excuse to see Camille again.  Suddenly, the young Shadowhunter he was admiring falls from the sky and introduces himself as Edmund Herondale.  Several of his elders told him to stay away from Magnus, so he sought him out for a night of fun.  Magnus agrees to take him to a club since he never turns down adventures.  Magnus points out mundane clubs probably won’t let Edmund in with so many weapons.  Edmund thinks he is lightly armed.  He takes Edmund into White’s club and introduces him to the atmosphere.  They get on the subject of love and Edmund doesn’t know if he believes in marriage or love.  He thinks about a fellow Shadowhunter, Benedict Lightwood (rumored to have a demon fetish), that just got married and how miserable the entire ordeal seemed to be.  Edmund thinks his new bride, Barbara, married him hastily out of heartache (it is implied Edmund broke her heart).  Magnus notes Edmund has never known the loss of love.  Edmund gets a little too drunk and starts gambling.  Magnus eventually convinces him to go for a walk.

As they walk down the street, they see an Eidolon demon trying to rip a woman out of her carriage while her abigail, Anghared, tries to hit it away with her bonnet.  Edmund attacks the demon with his whips.  Magnus moves the carriage out of the way using his magic.  The woman, Linette Owens, comes out insisting to help Edmund, but Magnus stops the mundane from getting involved while Edmund kills the demon.  Magnus introduces himself and Linette wonders if they are fairies (she is from Wales where the people still believe in them).  Edmund tries to use his normal charm, but Linette is not impressed and turns back to Magnus.  He learns she is an heiress come to London for love in her suitor because the men in Wales were not what she was looking for, though she only says she has come from her estate to season in London with a distant relative.  Edmund asks to call on her and she gives him the address.  She asks Magnus to visit as well.  Magnus helps her into the carriage and uses his magic to send her home.

After a while of arguing about a meeting place, the Downworlders once again come to the old servant’s quarters (not on consecrated ground like the rest of the Institute) to meet with the Shadowhunters about their treaty.  The Nephilim insist they have more rules but refuse to listen to the Downworlders who want to stop being killed off by them.  They all end up arguing relentlessly and Magnus steps away.  He goes to find a dark corner, but instead finds Edmund Herondale.  He is now engaged to Linette and has decided to give up being a Shadowhunter to be with her.  He doesn’t want her to risk her life to Ascend.  Edmund holds the pyxis that contains the first demon he slew.  He knows what he was meant to do with his life.  Magnus knows it will be rough for him to adjust to life in Wales without a purpose.  Edmund bids him farewell.

After more arguing, the Downworlders decide to leave because they know they will not reach an agreement with the Accords and the sun is coming up.  Magnus walks out with Camille on his arm.  The Downworlders are attacked by Achaieral demons.  Ralf Scott turns into a wolf and attacks.  Several other Downworlders also start fighting them off, and soon the Nephilim come to help.  Camille goes to help Ralf, but is thrown by a demon when she panics (was told her death would be unexpected).  Magnus goes to her.  Once the demons are dead, Magnus hopes the battle will help their relationship, but then Ralf accuses the Shadowhunters of setting up the demon ambush.  As Fairchild denies it, Magnus knows it isn’t likely.  However the fairy queen was interested in the details of the meeting.  Ralf gives up the argument and his attempt to court Camille and leaves.  Magnus and Camille are thinly two Downworlders invited back to the Institute.  They can hear Edmund scream as he is stripped of his marks.  Magnus only agrees to the invitation to see Camille.  They are both offered protection for occasional assistance.  Afterwards, Magnus tells Camille he is leaving.  He tells her to be with Ralf while he is alive and to love him.  He promises to return and gives her a gift.  He sold his house and bought her a ruby that will let her know when demons are near.  He leaves the town on a steamship.


THE MIDNIGHT HEIR
After living in New York City for a while, Magnus returns to London (25 years after the events of Clockwork Princess).  He goes into a club and sees a boy shooting the lights off a chandelier.  The boy looks familiar, so Magnus asks him for his name.  James Herondale introduces himself and points out Ragnor Fell, who bet him to do the shooting.  James knows Magnus from his parent’s (Will and Tessa) stories about him helping them.  He is determined that he doesn’t need protection and leaves to continue winning the bets he has made.  Ranger tries to stop Magnus from following, but Magnus turns down his offer of a drink.  Outside, James takes a policeman’s hat from his head by turning himself into a shadow.  Magnus inquires about who bet him to do that, but James draws his gun and tells Magnus to worry about his next bet.  Magnus asks if he is cursed.  James says he is damned.

Magnus chases James around the rest of the night until he passes out in a river and says “Grace.”  He takes the young Shadowhunter to the Institute and asks Brigid to get Will.  Tessa and Will both appear and are happy to see Magnus.  They wrote him many letters over the years, but they were never delivered to Magnus by the Shadowhunters asked to pass them along.  He says he is in town to do business with Tatiana Blackthorn (maiden name Lightwood) who doesn’t talk to any of the Institute Shadowhunters or her brothers because she till thinks they unjustly murdered her father.  He tells them about James’ adventures through the night.  They apologize for the trouble and explain they don’t know what is going on with him.  He grew up a good kid surrounded by love and even has a parabotai named Mathew.  They lay the boy down on a couch and Brother Zachariah (Jem) arrives.  The three of them seem just as they always have, but only Will has aged.  Magnus doesn’t want to intrude, so he excuses himself.  Tessa is walking him out when she tells Jem his violin is still in the music room.  Magnus tells Tessa to call him when she needs him and he will arrive to help her.  She knows he means when Will dies and agrees to do so.  Magnus leaves hearing the violin and thinking about Will waving goodbye to him so many Christmas’ ago.

Magnus arrives at the abandoned Lightwood estate out in the country.  The carriage driver can’t take him all the way to the door because the gate is closed and locked.  Magnus gets out and opens the gate with an unlocking spell.  He walks through the dead gardens and knocks on the door.  Tatiana welcomes him in.  Her ward, Grace, depends the stairs and is introduced.  Magnus sees why James Herondale is so taken with her.  Tatiana leads him upstairs.  She tells him about her son, how he was sick and the Shadowhunters still insisted on giving him the marks.  They ended up killing him when he was 16.  She asks Magnus to kill five Nephilim for her.  He declines the offer and starts to leave quickly.  Grace comes after him and pulls a blade on him.  She warns him not to tell anyone about their meeting.  Magnus offers to get Grace away from Tatiana, but she thinks of the woman as her mother.  She does pause when Magnus mentions James, but she acts like she doesn’t care about him.  Magnus decides he will warn Downworlders not to deal with Tatiana, but he is ready to go home to New York.

THE RISE OF THE HOTEL DUMORT
September 1929 - Magnus owns a speakeasy, Mr. Dry’s, in Prohibition New York City with a wig store as a front.  One night he sees a vampire girl, Dolly, dancing among his mundane clientele.  He leaves his drunk friend, Alfie (works in money and banking), with the bartender, Max, to approach her.  He offers her a private drink and takes her to the back room.  As he gives her cheap champagne (in an expensive brand’s bottle) she talks about how classy his place is.  He warns her about not eating in his bar.  She says she was sent by one of her own kind to find out about him.   They have some ominous idea about mundane money ending the world by raising a demon.  Suddenly, there is a raid.  The lights are shut off and Magnus makes it look like a tea party when they are turned back on.  The police are ready to arrest them all, so Magnus reveals several escape paths hidden behind the wall panels.  He drops the tea party facade, makes himself invisible, and leaves.  Magnus’ clients gather on the street and they hail taxis to continue the party at his place.  Dolly gives him a final warning to watch the money before she leaves.  Magnus wakes up in his hotel room the next morning surrounded by sleeping people and car tires.  He finds his way around them and sees Alfie sitting on the couch.  Angie tells his story of loosing the love of his life, Louise.  He asks Magnus to use his voodoo to either help him get her back or make him forget her.  Magnus, trying to keep his disguise of a showman in tact, tells Alfie memories are important.  He orders room service for everyone and goes to take a bath.  As he is leaving for the day, a few guests say the tires they left for him are from a police car.

When Magnus arrives at his bar, the High Warlock of Brooklyn, Aldous, is waiting for him.  He gives Magnus a warning similar to what Dolly told him the night before.  Magnus doesn’t take him seriously and Aldous says to come talk to him when he is ready.  He wonders if the rumor from Dolly was started by Aldous.  Magnus starts cleaning up the mundane way, but eventually finishes with magic.  Magnus goes to the Institute to tell the Shadowhunters what he has learned.  The head of the Institute, Edgar Greymark, dismisses the ramblings of Aldous Nix and sends Magnus away.  Magnus stops by the address Aldous gave him. He sits outside the hotel in Harlem and watches a group of rich mundanes pull up and enter.  They all leave an hour later.  He wonders what Aldous is doing with them.  Magnus goes hime.

October 1929 - As the stock market situation gets worse, Magnus finds himself wanting more privacy.  Rather than kicking everyone out of his room, he gets a second room at the Plaza and keeps his bar closed down.  He starts to go out one day, but the chaos of the mundane world sends him back to his solitary room.  A man comes to tell him Alfie is about to jump out his window.  Magnus goes to his first hotel room and kicks everyone out.  He goes to the bedroom to talk to Alfie and agrees to alter his memory.  After sending Alfie on his way with a vague memory of a woman named Louise and no memory of his brief fortune, Magnus looks out the window to see a cone of light focusing over the Dumont Hotel where Aldous is staying.  

Magnus goes to see what is going on.  He breaks into the abandoned hotel to find the dead bodies of Aldous’ rich mundane friends scattered all over the ballroom. Edgar Greymark appears.  He sends his Shadowhunters to kill the demons that killed the mundanes and to fetch Aldous.  When the High Warlock of Brooklyn arrives, he says he will only talk to Magnus.  The Nephilim leave.  Alders says he doesn’t feel like he belongs in this world, so he is going to the Void, Pandemonium.  He had the mundanes build him the hotel to be the perfect portal.  Aldous invites Magnus to go with him or get out while he still can.  A Shadowhunter appears and shoots an arrow through Aldous’ chest.  His blood activates the portal.  Magnus runs to the Shadowhunter, grabs him, and gets them both out of the building.  They are followed by blazing fire.  He goes back in to find a floating slab of the marble floor and thinks he can close the portal using his own blood.  He takes a knife from a Shadowhunter and cuts his hand.  He puts the blood on an arrow and sends it into the portal.  A demon claiming to be his dad tries to convince him to join them in the Void.  Magnus guides the arrow to the portal and says every spell he knows to close it.  The floating slab falls and breaks.  Dolly finds Magnus when he gets back to the Plaza hotel.  She is glad he got her message and lets slip that he boss is a woman.  After she is gone, Magnus races to beat her to the street.  He sees her get into a car with Camille




SAVING RAFAEL SANTIAGO (1953)
As soon as Magnus decides to be a detective and get paid to help people, he has a case.  Guadalupe explains children have gone missing and one was returned drained.  Raphael, her son, joined up with a few older boys to go fight the vampires and keep their street safe.  She says if any of the boys survived, it would be Raphael.  She wants Magnus to find her son.  Magnus agrees and she tells him about the small gold cross necklace she gave Raphael so he can identify him.

Magnus goes to a nightclub to talk to Aeval, a fairy disguised as a dancer who exchanges information with him.  She tells him an old vampires, Louis Karnstein, has been welcomed by Camille.  He was chased out of his last home in Hungary by mundanes that were furious about their missing children; they found the bodies in his house.  Magnus doesn’t want to go to the Hotel Dumont, but he knows thins will worsen if the Shadowhunters get involved.  Inside the abandoned hotel, a vampire girl stops Magnus.  She lets him through after he asks if he should come back whit eh Nephilim.  She directs him to the blue room upstairs.  Magnus finds the room littered with young bodies and a hole in the ceiling bringing in sunlight.  He pulls a boy away from a vampire and the boy dies in his arms.  When Magnus says he is looking for Raphael Santiago, the vampire admits he is Raphael.  All of his friends were killed and so was Karnstein.  Raphael tries to jump into the sunlight, but Magnus stops him and holds him down.  On the way back to Magnus’ place, he stops at a payphone to tell his girlfriend, Etta, not to come over for a while.  While he is distracted, Raphael ends up biting a man.  Magnus stops him and gets him the rest of the way home.  He gives Raphael the cross necklace he found on the floor of the Dumont.  He tells him he will teach him to trick his mom into never knowing he is a vampire.  Raphael grips the cross and lets it burn his skin.

Magnus current lover, Etta, has been with him for fifteen years.  She and Raphael avoid each other when she comes over after her nights of signing in the club.  Magnus dances with her.  He asks if she would want immortality.  She says she doesn’t.  She wants more time with him, but wouldn’t give up her mortality for it.  Raphael mopes around, his main concern being how long he can hold the cross.  He wonders if warlocks have a soul.  He envies Magnus because he was born the way he is rather than suddenly changing.  Raphael says he would have been sixteen by then had he lived.  Magnus jokes about throwing him a party, but Raphael is not interested.  Magnus vows to get a cat and always throw it birthday parties.

Once Raphael is able to wear his cross necklace through the night, he has Magnus  take him to a cemetery where he had the ground consecrated.  Raphael runs through the graveyard ten times.  Magnus thinks he is ready to go see his mom, but Raphael knows he isn’t.  He has been working to be able to say, “Dios” (god) over and over until it sounds natural.  He is determined God won’t stop him from seeing his family.  Later that night, Magnus wakes up to hear Raphael reciting the names that are sacred to him yet won’t burn him and make him bleed: his family and friends.  Ranger comes into town because some Nephilim hired him for a spell, and Magnus was to mouthy and unavailable.  Raphael comes to see who is at the door.  Ranger is appalled thinking the young boy is Magnus’ new lover.  Magnus explains.  Ranger and Raphael become fast friends with their mutual disapproval of Magnus’ behavior.  When Ragnor leaves, they intend to keep in touch.

Raphael doesn’t eat for days to continue his training in self control.  Later, he finds four vampires sucking blood from a young girl.  HE gives them a long lecture on how irresponsible they are being.  They tell him Camille lets them do whatever they want, and he counters that Camille doesn’t have time to babysit them.  Mundane hunters or Nephilim will start coming after them if they aren’t careful.  Raphael works an encanto on the your mundane to forget what happened.  Lily, one of the vampires, likes how Raphael takes charge like a leader.

On the way to Raphael’s home, he tells Magnus he will join Camille’s clan.  They stand at Guadeloupe’s door for a while until Magnus knocks.  Guadalupe answers and started at her oldest son.  Magnus says he made him into a warlock to save him.  She doesn’t believe the story until Raphael pulls the cross out from under his shirt.  She welcomes him inside and Raphael is swarmed by his siblings.  Magnus leaves and Guadeloupe chases him down the street to pay him.  He refuses her money and says Raphael saved himself.  Magnus sees the young vampire a few months later.  He is Camille’s second in command.  Magnus notices his own relations with the New York City vampires improves with this connection.

THE FALL OF THE HOTEL DUMORT (1977)
Magnus left New York and spent a few years traveling.  He finds himself on a plane back to NYC from London.  The woman next to him keeps going to the bathroom to snort cocaine.  She leaves him a couple of passes for a club she runs called Electrica.  When they land, Magnus gets in a can to go to his apartment.  The drive tells him about a series killer, Son of Same, that has been shooting couples on lover’s lane.  Magnus arrives home and tries to open his door, but finds it blocked.  He removes the obstacles to find a mess and four sickly looking vampires squatters.  They don’t seem to care that Magnus has come back to claim his apartment.  They reluctantly leave after he threatens to send them away through a portal.  Magnus magics their mess to the Hotel Dumont.  Still on London time, Magnus is unable to sleep.  He goes to a diner across the street and is joined by a werewolf friend named Greg who tells him how bad the vampires have gotten.  He is worried the Shadowhunters will come after all the Downworlders because of it.  When he leaves to continue his patrol down the street, Magnus decides to go with him.  The walk to the end of Greg’s section and then they jog back to the the werewolf pack’s headquarters at the old police station that now looks like a Chinese restaurant.  Magnus goes inside with Greg so he can report their was nothing in his area.  Another wolf says he found a body with nite marks and had to slit the throat to cover it up.  Lincoln, the pack leader, takes Magnus aside and asks him to talk to Camille about stoping the vampires from all the killing.  HE knows it will be bad if the werewolves have to get involved.

Magnus gets dressed up in a suit and goes to the El Dorado apartment building to see Camille.  The doorman lets him in, but when he gets to Camille’s door, Dolly is blocking his way.  She takes the passes to Electrica out of his pocket.  He tells her to keep them and waits patiently while she check if Camille will see him.  Dolly comes back to lead him through the trashed apartment to Camille’s room.   There is a girl lying on the floor near death.  Camille is high - drinks the blood of the mundane girl she feeds the cocaine to.  She asks Magnus to let her show him a good time, but he only want her to reign in her vampires.  Camille is done with the conversation and calls for Dolly to come take him away.  When Magnus gets home, Lincoln is waiting for him on the steps.  They share a glass of wine while Magnus explains what is going on.  Lincoln says they will have to take care of it.  Magnus spends the next few days hiding in his apartment.  He decides that he doesn’t like being alone and goes about his life.  One night, a lighting strike causes the power in the city to go out.  The Village starts throwing a party, but the rest of NYC is in chaos with fires and looting.  Greg comes to get Magnus and takes him to Electrica.  Vampires have killed nine people that were working to open up the club for the night.  Magnus recognizes the girl from the plane.  Lincoln plans to find all involved Vampires and burn them in the building with the bodies.  Magnus asks for hour to straighten Camille out, but Lincoln has already sent men.  Magnus gets ready to make a portal, but Camille comes stumbling into the alley to find him.  He tells her she needs to summon her vampires.  She says she can’t but tells him where the grave dirt is in Brooklyn.  He opens the portal, grabs her, and tells her to think of the place.  He is forced to trust her concentration to get them there.

They end up in the graveyard and Camille leads them to a vault.  She doesn’t have the key, so Magnus opens it himself.  There are vials of graveyard dirt fora ll the NYC vampires.  Magnus breaks them all with one shot of magic and then portals Camille toe the Hotel Dumont.  She insists on being responsible for her vampires.  Magnus locks them in the hotel for three days.  He goes in and finds Camille in the ballroom (where Aldous crated his portal).  She asks for help walking and Magnus takes her up to the top floor while Lincoln releases vampires that were not addicted to the drug.  Camille explains she didn’t know the vampires could get addicted.  She promises the situation will never happen again.  Magnus tells her she will have to talk to Lincoln and the Praetor Lupus.  Raphael tried to stop the vampires from the start, but left when Camille tried to get him to drink the tainted blood.  He returned to help heal them.  He dismisses Magnus and starts to restore order.

Back at home, Magnus calls Catarina.  She comes over and is most surprised that he has been back in NYC for two weeks and didn’t call her. He asks her to perform a spell he has detailed in writing to erase the past century of Camille from his memory.  She does it and then they go out for pizza.  Magnus only has a vague feeling about Camille and asks about her.  Catarina says she hasn’t seen her.

WHAT TO BY THE SHADOWHUNTER WHO HAS EVERYTHING
Magnus wakes up in his bed on Alec’s birthday and hopes to smell coffee being made.  Alec sometimes stays on his couch or comes over early, but not this day.  Someone comes to the door and Magnus is annoyed with his client coming early.  He lets Carline Connor come in.  She sticks up her nose at him and asks him to hurry the process because she has another meting.  Magnus shoos her out after signing a contract and says he will raise the cecelia demon (human-shaped head and torso with short tentacles) for her while she is gone.  When she is gone, Magnus prepares everything and summons Elyaas.  The demon remembers Magnus from when he summoned him for Will Herondale and jogs the warlock’s memory.  They reminisce until Magnus gets a call from Catarina.  He tells her his dilemma about getting Alec a gift when he doesn’t value possessions, his parents don’t know he’s gay, and they when they have only been together a little while.  Catarina, a nurse, hangs up on him because she has lives to save.  Elias suggests a mixed tape.  Magnus decides to call Ragnor, who has already heard that Magnus is dating a Shadowhunter.  Raphael call him monthly to keep in touch and this was one of their topics.  Magnus makes fun of Ragnor for his strange closeness to the vampire.  He then asks about what to get Alec.  Ranger pretends the line is disconnected due to bad reception and hangs up.  Elias suggests a scented candle.

Magnus remembers going to Taki’s with Alec for the first time.  Raphael walked in with his loyal followers lily and Elliot.  Elliot makes a comment about Alec’s parents’s disapproval and Magnus threatens him with a spoon.  Raphael says he doesn’t want to know about it or get involved, so the vampires leave.  A peri and a werewolf get into a territory fight and Alec jumps up with a knife and grabs another weapon as he stands between them and Magnus to protect him.  The peri and werewolf go to opposite corners of the restaurant.  Magnus takes Alec outside and gives him his first kiss.  Alec kisses him back passionately.

Isabelle Lightwood stops by and Magnus buzzes her in.  She tells him she knows about him an dAlec and she is fine with it.  She just wants Alec to be happy.  Magnus is impressed with her defiance and loyalty.  He asks her for her whip and she gives it to him.  She pours a potion over it to give it an extra kick.  When Isabelle asks why, he says she is important to Alec, so protecting her is the best gift he can give him.  She gives Magnus her phone number.  He assumes it is in exchange for his help.  She explains it is in case he ever needs a Shadowhunter’s help or to talk about Alec.  He realizes she would be the best way to know if something ever happened to Alec and thanks her.

Magnus lies on the couch and realizes he is in love with Alec and wonders if Alec loves him or if he is just experimenting.  Caroline Connors returns and asks Elyaas to curse the mermaids of New York because they have been pulling staring people off their tour ship.  Magnus tells her he can take care of it rather than having a messy curse put on all the mermaids.  She agrees and a new contract is made and signed.  Magnus dismisses Elyaas back to his own realm.  Magnus gets a call from Alec and he is suspicious of why.  Alec, knowing Magnus is busy, dejectedly starts to say goodbye.  Magnus says he just expected Alec to be with his family.  Alec explains he is at Magnus’ door.  Magnus lets him in and they kiss.  Alec thanks him for remembering his birthday.

THE LAST STAND OF THE NEW YORK INSTITUTE (1989)
Magnus waits outside of a clinic for Catarina to get out of work.  A man passes him and calls him a freak.  Magnus provokes him further and the man pulls a knife on the warlock.  Magnus sends him flying back with magic.  The man accidentally hits his head on a fire hydrant.  Catarina comes out and checks on the mundane, but the man shoves her away and stumbles down the street.  Catarina asks why Magnus is there.  He can tell she is exhausted and walks her to get food.  HE has been worried about her safety since the Circle started making trips to other Institutes and Downworlders started dying.  As it started happening more and more, Magnus went to Marian Whitelaw, head of the New York Institute.  She wasn’t very concerned and seemed positive the Circle’s killings were justified.   The NYC Downworlders have started banding together for safety.  Magnus insists Catarina goes home to get some rest.  She is concerned about an attack and Magnus not having any backup because Ragnor is in Peru.  After walking Catarina home, Magnus goes to his own apartment.  He contemplates leaving NYC, but he knows he can’ leave his friends to the Circle.  So he sits and waits.

One night, Magnus sees a young werewolf boy out his window. He calls out to him and the boy asks if he is Magnus Bane.  The warlock invites him up and the wolf tells him nine of his pack mates are trapped in the safe house by the crazy Shadowhunters.  Magnus sends the boy to Catarina for safety and sends a note to Marian Whitelaw.  Magnus finds the warehouse and flings open the double doors to reveal a large group of Shadowhunters bearing down on the werewolves.  Magnus doesn’t see anyone that meets Valentine’s description.  Lucian Greymark says he tracked these wolves from the pack that killed Valentine’s parents.  Recognizing one Shadowhunter, Magnus asks for his name.  Stephen Herondale is disgusted that Magnus knew his ancestors.   He twos a knife at one of the werewolves, but Magnus knocks it out of the air.  HE kills all the lights.  Stephen throws a dagger at him, but Rachel Whitelaw jumps in front of Magnus to take it in her shoulder.

Magnus is about to kill Stephen when he realizes he wouldn’t be able to face Tessa again if he did.  The Circle members realize they are fighting Shadowhunters.  Marian Whitelaw pronounces she stands with the Downworlders because there is no proof they broke the law. She intends to uphold the Accords.  Chaos ensues.  Robert Lightwood runs through Rachel Whitelaw with his blade.  The Whitelaws become even more enraged and start fighting more ferociously.  Magnus goes to the werewolves and asks why they aren’t fighting.  A woman says Valentine has her daughter in the other room.  Magnus makes his way to the door.

He gets into the back room and finds Valentine torturing a long werewolf girl for information about where her brother went.  Magnus flings him agains the wall and rushes to the girl.  He takes the silver coins off her now blind eyes and says he will take her to her brother.  Valentine stops him through the chest.  They continue to fight.  As Magnus starts running out of magic, Marian steps in front of him to face Valentine, who cuts her in half.  Lucian coms into the room and is furious to see the tortured girl.  He carries her back out to her mother.  Magnus closes his wounds and follows.  Maryse is in shock over the dead Whitelaws.  Valentine’s Circle crawls to him to know what happens next.  Lucian tells Valentine they will leave the werewolves and go after the part of the pack that is the real threat that night.  Valentine instead invites Lucian over because Jocelyn has something to tell him.  Magnus can see Valentine’s hatred for Lucian taking over.  After they are gone, Magnus finds Adam Whitelaw still slightly alive.  He tries to ease his pain, but Adam tells him to save his strength and then dies.

The Circle doesn’t come back to NYC.  Magnus is not surprised when Lucian goes missing.  Ranger tells him about the werewolf that was once a Shadowhunter who helped thwart Valentine’s Uprising during the resigning of the Accords.  He was glad the Shadowhunters of Idris didn’t side with the Circle.  The Lightwoods were sent to the New York Institute, but Magnus wasn’t in any rush to befriend them.  Raphael said they were being fair with Downworlders and that was good enough for him.  

1993 - Magnus and Tessa are in his apartment watching Pride and Prejudice while waiting on their Chinese food to be delivered.  Suddenly, Jocelyn appears at his door with Clary in her arms.  Tessa tells him to let her in.  She tells Jocelyn she knew Henry and Charlotte.  Tessa mentions her husband and children.  Jocelyn says she was friends with Stephen Herondale.  Tessa tells her she is heartbroken and ashamed that is how her and Will’s line ends, but she is glad Jocelyn help stop the Uprising.  Jocelyn says her best friend is a Downworlder.  Clary quickly accepts Tessa when she normally won’t go to strangers at all.  Magnus contemplates why he should help her.  Jocelyn wants Clary to grow up away from the Shadow world  and live her own mundane life.  Magnus agrees to help her to spite Valentine’s memory (as he is thought to be dead).  He suggests she change her name.  Jocelyn decides on a combination of Fairchild and Grey to make Fray.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE (AND FIRST DATES)
Magnus is determined that Alec has stood him up for their date.  He was surprised when the Shadowhunter came to thank him for saving his life and even more surprised when he asked him out.  Magnus tries not to get his hopes up because he knows this is Alec’s first experience dating and is still hung up on his friend Jace.  He has gotten Catarina to agree to call him with an “emergency” if he texts her.  When the the apartment’s buzzer goes off, he is shocked.  He allows Alec to come in and does his best to seem like he didn’t care that Alec was late.  Alec apologizes and says he had trouble getting away from training with Jace.  Magnus forgives him and offers him his drink.  Alec accidentally drops it and Magnus uses magic to clean it up.  He goes to his closet and gets the most boring shirt he can find from his closet to replace Alec’s that has been drench in the drink.  They head out for dinner.

They are both nervous and quiet on the subway.  There are a couple of boys rapping a horrible song and Magnus has to keep himself from laughing at its crudeness.  When they get to their stop, a man tries to pick Magnus’ pocket.  Alec automatically grabs they guy and flips him to the ground.  A girl comes up to Magnus and gives him her card while saying he should be an actor.  Magnus grabs his biting wallet and steers Alec away from the scene.

When they reach the restaurant, Magnus instantly regrets choosing the place he usually takes mundane dates.  Everyone turns to stare at Alec and aren’t shy about voicing their worries about having a Shadowhunter present.  They are seated in a booth close the the kitchen and Magnus orders for them.  He is impressed when Alec is versed enough to know to eat Indonesian food with his hands rather than silverware.  When he gets to the penne, it is too spicy for him and Magnus has to send it back.  He starts wondering how to let Alec off the hook without embarrassing him.  He sends a text to Catarina and she calls him.  She tells him their really is an emergency and that he is needed at the Beauty Bar where a young werewolf though she could handle herself during the full moon.  She tells him to take the Shadowhunter with him.  Magnus tells Alec there is an emergency, and Alec thinks it is an excuse to leave.  Magnus explains the situation and asks him to go with him.  Alec lights up and is happy to go.

When they get to the bar, people are lined up outside trying to see the action from the safety of the street.  Magnus and Alec go in and a girl rushes up to them to beg Magnus not to let Alec hurt her friend, Marcy.  Alec immediately goes to distract the werewolf, Marcy, while Magnus heals a deep scratch on the girl’s arm and sends her to vacate the rest of the bar.  Magnus aids Alec with his magic and his is able to get Marcy tied up until she calms down and transforms back into her human form.  Magnus gives the Marcy her coat and her friend comes back in and kisses her.  Magnus tells her to get Marcy out of there.

On the walk back to Magnus’ apartment, Alec admits he thought he was messing up their date at first.  Magnus says he thought Alec was miserable.  Alec tells Magnus he has no idea what he is doing, but he is impressed with the warlock.  They bond more over thinking the horrible rap song in the subway was hilarious.  When they get to Magnus’ door, Alec kisses him.  After a while, they make their way into the apartment and onto the couch.  Magnus stops him and tells him to take a minute to decide what he really wants to do.  Neither of them want Alec to leave, but he knows he should.  Their goodbye kiss lasts a while before he actually does leave.  He comes back to ask Magnus for a second date and Magnus accepts.  Magnus hopes Alec doesn’t break his heart.

THE VOICEMAIL OF MAGNUS BANE
Voicemails from Magnus’ cell phone were retrieved after Magnus breaks up with Alec.  Most are from Isabelle trying to convince Magnus to get back with her brother.  She tries to persuade him sweetly, threaten him, knock down his door, and eventually points out how much they love each other.  Isabelle also convinces several other people to call on Alec’s behalf including Maryse, Simon, and Raphael.  Clary calls as well to check in on Magnus.  There are a few voicemails from Alec as well asking Magnus to talk.  Lastly, there are several messages about the delivery of horned toads to Hadrian Industries that Magnus apparently fails to show up for.

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The Reckoning

3/3/2016

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The Reckoning
Kelley Armstrong

Tori, Simon, Derek, and Chloe are in the old, Victorian safe house.  Chloe is woken in the middle of the night by a ghost.  He says he knows about the Edison group.  Chloe wants to know more, so she follows him.  She is sure to make noise when she passes by Simon and Derek’s room and hopes Derek will hear her.  The ghost leads her through a door and she is on the roof.  He closes the door behind him and says he is a Volo (dead demon with telekenetic powers).

Chloe decides she can’t let the ghost know she is worried about the predicament she is in.  She starts asking questions about the Edison Group, but the ghost wants his own questions answered.  He asks about her relationship with Simon, but she tells him being on the run doesn’t leave much time for romance.  She asks about the Edison Group, but changes all the names and titles around.  The ghost agrees with her and she knows he doesn’t have any useful information for her.  When she points that out, he starts attacking her with whatever objects he finds lying around.  Chloe almost flies off the roof when he hits her with a board, but she steadies herself against a railing.  She remembers she can use her powers against ghosts and concentrates on pushing him away.  Derek comes out to get her.

Seeing that the roof is rotting, Derek takes off his shirt and knots the end to have Chloe pull herself onto the solid part of the roof.  She is surprised when he doesn’t yell at her for going after the ghost.  His mind is turning, questioning Tori’s story about her escape.  Chloe assures him Tori wasn’t against them when they first escaped.  Derek is unsure after this last escape from the Edison group.  Simon comes out and sits with them.  Chloe tells the story and notices Derek is bothered by something.  He asks why Chloe followed the ghost.  She tells him the Volo demon is the ghost of an Edison Group experiment kid who died in the house.  Simon wants to ask Andrew about it, but Derek insists they find out on their own.

They all go inside and downstairs.  Derek goes to the kitchen while Chloe and Derek look around the maze of rooms and hallways.  Chloe finds Derek checking on some expired looking food and tells him to warn her if he thinks something is wrong.  He agrees.  Simon and Andrew join them and tell them breakfast is on the way.  The members of Andrew’s group arrive: Margaret (business woman that is a necromancer), Gwen (young witch), and Russel (old shaman paramedic that used to work for Edison Group).  There are more of them spread out through the state and country, but they don’t want to draw too much attention to themselves, so they sent who they thought could be the most useful in this instance.  They tell them their story, but Margaret and Russel are skeptical.  Each of the genetically modified kids gives their firm opinion that Rae and Aunt Lauren are in immediate danger.  They treat them like little kids and tell them to check out the rooms upstairs so they can discuss whether or not they are going to help them.  Derek flat out asks if they want them out of the room and Andrew says it would be easier.  

Chloe goes to shower while Derek goes to the kitchen to eavesdrop.  Tori gives Chloe tips for washing out the temporary black dye from her hair, but Simon convinces her she should keep it in case they need to leave in a hurry.  He promises to ask Andrew for another color.  When she gets out of the shower, Chloe runs into Derek.  Simon joins them.  The group is planning to do some reconnocense in Buffalo before they make any decisions, so the kids are going to have to wait it out a bit.  They go to join Tori out back and Simon starts showing the girls some self-defense moves.  Andrew calls them in shortly after for dinner.  He explains that while they wait, Margaret and Gwen will be helping Chloe and Tori understand their powers.  He is also bringing in Tomas, a man that used to handle the werewolves when they were still experiments, but left the Edison Group because of the way they were treated.

There isn’t much else they can do, so Andrew leaves the kids to their own devices.  Tori asks Gwen to talk before she leaves for the night.  Chloe heads upstairs.  Derek gets her attention and is about to ask her something when Simon appears and asks what they are all doing because he doesn’t want to miss out on another adventure.  Derek retreats into the boys’ room and Simon goes to talk to him.  Tori comes upstairs and joins Chloe in their room.  Simon tells them Derek is searching the house for clues and Chloe realizes he was trying to ask her to go with him.  Simon suggests they continue their self defense training, but Chloe wants to try to summon her Aunt Lauren and Liz.  Simon and Tori agree to stay with her in case the other ghost shows up.

Chloe switches back and forth between trying to summon Liz and her Aunt Lauren.  When she doesn’t get any response, Tori suggests she take off her amulet.  Suddenly there is a female voice, calling her baby, and telling her to leave the necklace on.  She is trying to warn Chloe about a man that could appear if she takes it off.  Chloe starts to take it off to be able to hear her better, but Derek comes in and pulls it back down. She explains what they were doing and how they were being as careful as possible.  He agrees to let her try again and if she can hear the woman, he will let her take off the amulet.  There are no more signs of ghosts.  He suggests they go for a walk and try again further away from the house.  Tori says she will go with them and shows her fireball.  She accidentally throws it at the wall and leaves scorch marks on the wallpaper.  Derek warns them they need to keep the level of their powers secret from Andrew’s group before they want to lock them up too.  Andrew comes up the stairs and they leave the room.  He gives Chloe a sleep aid and Derek encourages her to take it.

After taking the sleeping pill, Chloe wakes up once through the night.  She wakes up again in the very early morning and sees a boy in Tori’s bed dripping blood onto the floor in a pool.  She realizes it is just a ghostly image, but she starts hearing crying and laughing (ghost images don’t have sound).  She goes to the boys room and tries to wake Derek up without intruding.  She opens the door to see his bed is already empty.  She goes downstairs and sees evidence that he has already eaten.  The backdoor is unlocked, so she goes out back and calls quietly for Derek.  He is upset when he sees her until she tells him what is going on and she came out to find him for backup.  He tells her he couldn’t sleep and was on the roof when he saw a light in the woods.  He has been looking for it since.  Chloe offers to leave him to his task, but he tells her to stay if she wants to.  Andrew comes out and has a worried expression on his face seeing the two of them in the backyard together.  They all go inside.  Derek goes to shower and Andrew asks Chloe to help with breakfast.  While they are working, he warns her that Derek is half wolf and very dangerous.  Chloe is frustrated that people keep warning her about Derek when Tori and her uncontrolled spells and temper have hurt her more than Derek ever has.  

Gwen comes by to start Tori’s lessons, but is called into work before Tori is even awake.  Before she leaves, she asks Simon if he noticed that she was a witch before she told him.  He said he couldn’t tell.  Gwen says the Edison Group wanted to genetically take out the ability to detect a witch or sorcerer by sight to keep the groups from prejudice against each other.  She starts to talk about what happens when the two mix genetically, but stops and changes the subject.  When the others leave the room, Chloe goes to ask more about it.  Gwen already knows Tori is potential the child of a witch and a sorcerer.  The rumors say it is Simon’s dad, Kit, but Chloe finds that to be unlucky as Tori doesn’t have any Asian features.  Chloe tells her that she overheard this in a lab and Tori doesn’t know.  They agree to keep it a secret from her.

Margaret insists on taking Chloe out for her training.  Tori wants to go with them and Chloe lies and says it will make her less nervous.  As Margaret is driving, Chloe asks how to block out Residuals (ghostly images).  Margaret says she will not see them for a few years and should just walk away from them.  Chloe asks how to tell them apart from a real person.  Margaret points out they don’t make sound and you can’t interact with them.  Chloe is frustrated that she is only being told things she already knows.  The arrive at a cemetery.  Tori tells Margaret she can’t take Chloe in there because she could accidentally raise the dead.  Margaret says it would be impossible for her to do because she doesn’t have the power or right tools.  They tell her about Chloe doing it before, but she claims it was the Edison Group messing with her.  Tori pulls Chloe aside and points out Margaret is jealous of Chloe’s power and to lay low with them.

They make their way to the back of the cemetery and find the grave of a woman named Edith that died in 1859.  Chloe asks about her amulet, but Margaret says it is just a superstition that it dulls a necromancer’s glow (what ghosts are attracted to).  Margaret tells Chloe to ask the dead woman to talk to her while she prepares the ritual to summon her.  Edith appears instantly after Chloe asks for her.  She is excited to see two necromancers as she has only heard some friends talk about them before.  She says Chloe has a much brighter glow than Margaret and assumes it is because she is younger.  Chloe asks to test her necklace and Edith agrees.  Chloe takes off her necklace and hands it to Tori.  Suddenly, ghosts start appearing everywhere and Margaret grabs the necklace and has Chloe put it back on.  Ghosts start fighting amongst themselves to get to Chloe.  Margaret says she can help them and then uses vervain to banish them.  On old man pleads to give Chloe his message first and she agrees.  Tori supplies paper and pen to write down his information to send to his wife.  Once he is gone, Margaret tells Chloe she can’t send the message or else she will have ghosts coming to her all the time asking for favors.  

Margaret takes Chloe to a few more graves until she finds a ghost that is reluctant to be summoned.  She then has Chloe slowly ramp up her power to summon him.  Chloe stops when her internal alarms starts telling her enough.  Margaret encourages her to keep going.  Chloe tries a little more until she sees a dead squirrel come back to life.  She stops, but Margaret points out she needs to finish pulling the ghost through because he is stuck between their world and limbo.  Chloe wants to push him back, but Margaret says that is a terrible thing to do because you don’t know where you are sending the ghost.  She pressures Chloe to pull the ghost through quickly, and Chloe gives it her all.  The ground splits open and they can hear the zombies scratching at their coffins.  The pallbearers at a nearby funeral drop the casket when they hear the body inside is alive.  Chloe concentrates as hard as she can until they are all released.  Tori lets her know when it is all done.  Margaret sends them to the car without her.  On their way, a man stops them.  

The man and a woman want to make sure Chloe and Tori are alright.  They blame the “earthquake” for the earth opening up and the pallbearers dropping the casket.  They send them on their way.  ON the way back to the house, Margaret thinks Chloe raised the dead just to prove a point.  Chloe tells her she would never force a soul back into its rotting body just to prove she is right.  Back at the house, Chloe and Tori listen into Margaret telling Andrew what happened and that the kids are too dangerous and will have to be under observation for the rest of their lives.  Tori marches in and tells Andrew the entire situation was Margaret’s fault.  They are shooed out of the room.  Chloe realizes Derek was right and that she made a huge mistake by showing her power.

When Chloe and Tori decide they have heard enough, they start to go upstairs.  Derek finds them and starts telling Chloe how wrong she was to use her powers when she knew she shouldn’t.  He tells her she has to say no and stick to it.  Tori sticks up for Chloe and Derek starts ripping into her about how he doesn’t trust her.  Simon sees this and signals for Chloe to get away with him while Derek is distracted.  They go outside and sit on a garden bench.  Simon asks Chloe to go to a gas station that had a sign for ice-cream as their first date.  She accepts, but after she gets back in the house, she starts feeling wrong about dating a guy she is on the run with.  Margaret is gone, but Russel is there and watching over the kids like a hawk.  Chloe spends the afternoon in her room saying she is napping.  When Derek comes to the door, she plans to wait a few minutes to open it so she can talk to him, but he is gone by the time she gets there.

Tori is surprised when she comes up to their room after her new job of housekeeping and sees Chloe is still there.  She gives Chloe the leftover paper from the cemetery and tells Chloe she can probably get the ghost’s information from the impressions left on them. They agree that Andrew doesn’t have the backbone to stick up for them.  Simon finds Chloe so they can keep watch inconspicuously while Derek is checking out the basement.  Andrew comes into the room they are in and explains the house’s previous owner, Todd Banks (first experiments on supernaturals) had a son, Austin (the dead boy in Tori’s bed), and his nephew, Royce (the half demon ghost), living with him in the house.  Andrew thinks the kids went to live with other relatives after Todd died.  After Andrew comes up, he says he found boxes with the last inhabitant’s names on them.  He plans to keep looking.  Simon tells him Andrew approved his and Chloe’s date for that night.  Derek seems surprised and leaves them alone.  Simon gives Chloe and Tori another self-defense lesson.  After dinner, Chloe gets ready for the date.  Simon comes to her door and she is excited about her first date when she sees him.  

On their way to the store through the woods, Simon tells Chloe about the difference between sorcerers and witches.  Each is only one gender and breeds that gender to pass down their power.  sorcerers use greek, latin, and hebrew with hand gestures to do offensives spells.  Witches don’t have the hand gestures and do defensive spells.  When they arrive at the store, Simon goes in to get the ice-cream.  Simon shows her some spells afterwards and they start heading back.  Simon goes to kiss Chloe and she jerks back at first.  The next attempt, she tries to kiss him back, but it is awkward and doesn’t feel right.  Simon guesses there is someone else and knows it is Derek.  She tries to tell him it isn’t like that between her and Derek, but Simon knows better.  He gives her the completed picture he drew of her and leaves her standing at the edge of the woods.  

Derek comes out to find Chloe standing alone and he notices she has been crying.  He asks about Simon.  She points towards the woods and tries to get around him to get to the house.  He asks what happened, but Chloe doesn’t want to talk about it, so she tells him to ask Simon.  He continues to push the subject until Chloe tells him Simon thinks she likes Derek.  She says it isn’t true, and he replies that it better not be.  He won’t let her past, so she decides to go to the woods.  When he finally lets her go, he follows her until she gives up and goes in the house.  She notices he is sweating and his eyes are feverish.  He says he isn’t changing yet and goes to get Simon.

Up in their room, Chloe tells Tori the date didn’t go well.  Tori automatically assumes it was Simon’s fault.  Chloe tells her she froze up when Simon kissed her, but doesn’t want to say why she doesn’t want to continue dating Simon.  Chloe decides to go sleep in the next room over so she can be miserable by herself.  Derek wakes her up in the middle of the night to ask her to go outside with him while he changes.  She refuses and tells him how awful she has made her feel about that morning in the cemetery and Simon even though she admitted she messed up and already felt bad about it.  He begs her and eventually she agrees to go because she sees how panicked he is.

On the way out to the clearing in the woods, Derek tries to get Chloe to talk to him.  He tries to talk to her about what happened at the cemetery.  He says they should experiment more with her amulet.  He tells her he gets frustrated easily when the change is close.  Chloe tells him they aren’t going to be friends because he apologized.  His continued behavior is something she can’t put up with.  He starts to double over in pain, but has something he insists on telling her before he changes.  Chloe points out there isn’t time after several attempts.  He gets on the ground and Chloe comforts him as his body transforms.  This time, he becomes the wolf.

Chloe suddenly realizes that she is in the woods alone with a wolf that might be wild.  She waits until Derek, who is completely exhausted, signals that it is still him inside the wolf body.  She is relieved and starts to go to give him his space, but he tugs at her to get her to stay with him.  She ends up falling asleep next to him.  When he wakes her up, she apologizes for using him as a pillow.  He starts working on how to move around as a wolf.  Chloe starts to tease him and tell him he needs to stop thinking about it and just do it.  They start goofing off and Derek realizes she is right.  Derek hears something.  The silence is followed by a howl, and he knocks his head against Chloe’s leg to tell her to run.  When she tries to move slower and quieter, he bumps her again to keep her going fast.  They hear a whistle and both stop to wonder who it came from.  He motions her to keep running.

It isn’t long before their pursuer starts gaining on them.  Derek pushes Chloe into a thicket of bushes and follows as far as he can.  Suddenly, they see another wolf in the clearing and Chloe recognizes the fresh scars on him: Ramon.  Derek goes out to fight him, but Ramon keeps acting like he is going to go after Chloe.  She climbs up a nearby tree until she is high enough to avoid him.  Derek sees her out of harms way and fully attacks.  Chloe sees a nearby cliff and shouts it out to Derek.  Derek is eventually able to push Ramon off.  Liam is still coming after them in human form.  They put some distance between them and Ramon, but Liam is nearby enough for them to hear him call for them.  They hide in another patch of bushes, but Derek starts changing back into his human form.  Chloe encourages him but knows Liam has heard him.  She pulls out her knife and goes to distract Liam until Derek is done with the transformation.

Chloe finds Liam and plans to lead him away from Derek.  Liam’s phone rings and he says they are tracking the kids.  He is supposed to separate them and only bring the caller Derek.  They know Chloe by name, so she assumes it is the Edison Group.  Once he hangs up the phone, he starts asking Chloe where Derek is.  Since Derek is still changing, Liam can hear his painful cries.  Chloe follows him with her switchblade, but Liam realizes it is a bad idea to have her behind him.  While walking in front of him, she dives for his cane.  He throws her to the side and she starts summoning anything dead around her into its body for help.  She manages to get a rabbit and then a dog.  They both attack Liam at her command.  Liam realizes she is the one controlling them and goes after her.  Suddenly, Derek is there in human form to fight Liam.  Chloe starts releasing the animals.  There is a loud snap and Liam goes still in shock.

Derek realizes that he accidentally broke Liam’s neck.  Chloe tries to keep him calm by saying it wasn’t his fault and Liam would have killed them both if he hadn’t.  She takes the cell phone out of Liam’s pocket.  When his ghost arrives, Chloe starts asking questions.  He is determined not to tell her anything, so she starts putting his ghost back in his body.  He says he will talk, but disappears before they get any useful information out of them.  Ramon stumbles up and says he doesn’t want to fight.  He just wants to take Liam’s body to the pack to clear everything up.  Ramon was never really involved in the politics, he just did what Liam told him.  He warns Derek to get as far away as possible because people will continue to come after him.  Humans generally don’t like other predators and they will pounce on him as soon as he makes any mistake.  Derek helps Ramon get Liam’s body over his shoulder.  Ramon leaves them in the woods.

Chloe takes the phone and sends a text to the last number called saying they have the kids cornered, but could lose them if they try to bring them in alive.  The reply text confirms Derek and Chloe should be killed.  The number is saved as RSS and they think it could possibly be Russel.  They try to work out the timeline of events to see if it makes sense.  They go back to find Derek’s clothes from his first transformation and then to the house.  They tell Andrew what happened and he is furious after confirming the number is Russel’s.  He calls Margaret and Gwen to get them out there as soon as possible.  Derek and Chloe go to wake up and fill in Simon and Tori respectively.  They leave out that Derek fully changed and killed Liam.  Derek and Chloe are both anxious to get away, but they both know they can’t leave yet.

While Chloe is in the shower, Simon leaves her a pictogram message asking her to forgive him.  He tells her he is okay with just being friends and she agrees that is what she wants.  They are left out of the adult discussion again, and Andrew leaves without telling them why.  Simon is ready to leave, but Derek points out the Edison Group would probably be on them as soon as they left.  Chloe wants to try to summon Royce.  They have Tori keep Margaret occupied and go to the basement.  Chloe tries summoning, but doesn’t get anyone.  Simon says her eyes twitch when she tries, so she keeps trying.  She gets Derek to agree to let her slowly take her necklace off, but the woman’s voice returns telling her not to.  She realizes it is her mom.

Chloe continues to summon her mom even though she tells her to stop because it isn’t safe.  Derek tells Chloe he has heard that necromancers usually can’t summon their own family members.  Her mom tells her to run and their is no where safe.  Her mom disappears and Chloe tries again, but she brings back Royce instead.  He tells Chloe there is a secret room in the workshop, but she knows he just wants to use the tools inside to hurt them.  He starts going through a box of his things and throwing them at them.  Derek tells Simon to get upstairs and he eventually goes.  Chloe works on pushing him back.  She almost completes the task while Derek protects her, but someone comes up behind them and demands to know what she did.

Dr. Banks is there and tries to warn Chloe.  Derek urges her to let him go, but she keeps trying.  He starts to coach her and tells her that she needs to stop pulling and instead welcome him.  She does what he says and he starts to possess her.  She is suddenly outside of her body and can see Dr. Banks controlling it.  Derek puts the necklace back over her head and she is thrown back into her body.  Dr. Banks tells her he is going to use her body to track down all the experiments and destroy them before they go crazy like Royce.  He will then kill her friends and her.  She sends him away with one furious push and tells Derek they need to leave.  Andrew returns and tells them Russell was already gone when he got to his apartment.  They decide they have to get the kids to Kit and Aunt Lauren.  Chloe does her best to describe the layout of the Edison Group headquarters before falling asleep in a chair.  Derek is watching over her when she wakes up.  He asks her if she wants to talk about what happened in the basement.  When their eyes meet, she accidentally drops her water glass.  Derek moves to catch it before it hits the floor and they find themselves face to face when Simon comes into the room.  They both jump up in guilt and Chloe goes to change her water soaked jeans.  Derek calls after her, but neither of them can think of an excuse to be alone together, so he just asks her if she wants him to grab her something from the kitchen.

Chloe dries her jeans with a hair dryer and then takes her time getting back to the boys.  She follows a vacuum cord to find Tori dusting the library.  Chloe quickly realizes there is a computer in the room and that Tori was most likely on it.  She doesn’t believe Tori’s story that she was trying to email friends.  Tori shows Chloe some deleted emails that were not cleared completely off the hard drive.  She has been suspicious since she was let go so easily when she was captured at Andrew’s house.  They go through a few that show all of Andrew’s group has been conspiring against them.  His friend Tomas gives instructions on how to hand Derek over to the Pack.  There are even a few that prove Andrew is in on the scheme.  One was from the day Liam and Ramon first attacked Chloe and Derek; a day that Andrew was supposed to be in the Edison Group’s custody.

Tori keeps going through Margaret’s laptop for informaiton.  Derek comes to ask Chloe if she wants to look through files in the attic with him to learn more about Dr. Banks.  She tells them what they have learned and Tori shows him the proof.  He tries to think of what they need to do.  Tori wants to leave immediately, but Derek isn’t ready to bolt without having all the information.  Chloe offers to get Andrew’s laptop and Derek agrees that she should.  Derek goes to get Simon away from Andrew.

Chloe asks to read the manuscript on Andrew’s computer he had offered previously.  He tells her his laptop is in the library and to have at it.  She takes Tori with her and they start going through the emails.  Tori continues to go through while Chloe goes to get Derek and Simon.  She finds Derek first and asks about Simon, but quickly decides she should show him first.  She takes him to the laptop and Tori goes to get Simon.  When Chloe shows him the first email, she hugs him in excitement.  She pulls back quickly, but he holds her.  He puts her on his knee while they go through the rest of the emails.  The read that Andrew has been sending Kit all over looking for the boys when he knew exactly where they were.  Chloe jots down the latest email and phone number and gives it to Derek.  He puts her arms around his neck in another hug.  They jump away from each other when Simon approaches.  They let him read the emails and then decide they are leaving right away.  

They split up so that two of them are packing while two of them are talking like normal teenagers.  Andrew stays in the kitchen and when they are ready to go, Derek decides he will stay behind to distract him.  Tori and Simon point out it would be better to use a binding spell and then tie him up so that he has a harder time following.  Suddenly, Margaret arrives.  Derek sends Simon and Tori to take care of her first and assigns Chloe to move their bags to the closet.  Derek goes to distract Andrew.  When Simon and Tori appear, they are not only with Margaret, but two other members of the group, Gordon and Roxanne.  Since they don’t know their particular powers, they agree it is too risky to attempt escape right then.  Tori asks if they can go get ice-cream after dinner, but Andrew says they have to stay in the house since they are leaving for Buffalo the next day.  After dinner while the adults are all gathered, Derek sneaks a cell phone and Simon tries to call their dad while Derek and Chloe talk to cover it up.  He gets a hold of him, but the call doesn’t last long enough to tell Kit exactly what is going on before the call is disconnected.  They decide they will try again on the pay phone at the service station on their way out of town that night.  Derek erases the record of the call before replacing the cell phone.

Tori wakes Chloe up from a deep sleep when the alarm on the watch Derek gave her goes off at 2:00 am.  Simon comes in to tell them he can’t wake up Derek.  They all go in and see that Derek is still sleeping.  Tori starts to check his vitals when he wakes up.  He still feels groggy and Chloe realizes Andrew drugged him.  Chloe and Tori each carry two bags while Simon helps Derek move around.  They start to make their way out of the house and are suspicious when there isn’t any sign of Andrew.  They get to the door, but it is locked by a spell.  Andrew is there with a spell for an energy bolt just one word away from completion.  He tells them he wanted Derek to go with the pack so that he could learn to control his power.  He had nothing to do with Russell telling the other werewolves to kill them.  He tries to tell them his group is not necessarily all his friends.  He didn’t want to tell Kit where his sons are because that takes away the immediate danger inspiring his group to attack the Edison Group.  They knew the kids were going to run because it has been their pattern.  Derek lunges to knock Chloe to the floor, and Andrew hits him with a spell.  Derek falls on top of Chloe and tells her it is okay.  Tori uses a binding spell and Simon goes to pull Andrew’s hands behind his back.  Derek gives the orders to tie him up.

Andrew admits that his group set up the supposed Edison Group attack at his cottage.  They wonder what else he has been lying about.  They can’t agree on a plan to see if the house really is surrounded by his group.  Derek and Simon go to question Andrew more while Tori and Chloe search his laptop again.  A few minutes later, Simon appears and asks if Derek is with them.  Chloe agrees to help him look and ends up finding Derek on the roof.  She begs him to come down before he gets shot, but he doesn’t move.  He says they need to talk and she says they can do that inside.  She leaves him on the roof and comes up with her own plan.  

Chloe makes her way out the back door and heads for the woods.  She decides she will try to make it to the service station and back as a test.  She has a flashlight, but keeps her hand over the lens to keep from drawing attention.  She hears laughter behind her and she keeps going.  Royce appears and asks her if she wants to hear about his pretty girl or the curse of necromancy.  He tells her he didn’t go crazy, he always like to hurt things.  Chloe starts to run, but Royce throws things at her until she falls down.  She starts to fight back and he hits her in the head.  She sends him flying back and suddenly Liz is there to distract him.  She keeps him occupied until Chloe is able to send him away completely.

With the immediate threat out of the way, Chloe and Liz greet each other as best they can.  Chloe explains what is going on and Liz says there are people out in the woods making sure they don’t run away.  Liz hears someone coming and goes to check it out.  Suddenly, Derek is there and Liz hits him in the back with a large stick until she recognizes him.  Simon and Tori are with him.  Derek starts to scold Chloe for coming out in to the woods, but she points out that there are people with guns and spells out there.  They get back to the house and Derek restarts his speech about how stupid it was for Chloe to go out alone.  He thinks he did it because she was angry at him.  She explains that since he wouldn’t come off the roof, she was the next best choice because she didn’t have any powers that would threaten the people watching them.  Chloe puts an end to the discussion quickly and decides they need to come up with a plan.

The kids decide they don’t have a chance of escaping until the people outside let their guard down when the others arrive during the day.  They let Andrew go, but keep him in the basement, knowing they will have to convince him they want to go with them to take down the Edison Group.  Derek and Simon stay with him while Tori works on his laptop.  Chloe doesn’t have anything to do, so she grabs some paper to work on a scene for a movie out of their latest experience.  Derek comes in shortly after and tries to get her to sit with him.  When she refuses, he tries to apologize for getting angry when he is worried about her.  She tells him the issue is that they are not allowed to worry about him because he doesn’t think he is worth it.  She tells him she thinks he is and kisses him.  Simon approaches, so they jump apart.  Andrew has to go to the bathroom, so Derek goes to take him.  When he asks Chloe to join him, she says she has to talk to Simon.

Chloe explains that if the adults think Derek is gone they may relax their guard.  He agrees it is a good idea.  Tori arrives and then Derek.  They all agree to the plan and Derek goes to the attic to hide.  Chloe asks Liz to look after him.  They let Andrew out of the basement and tell him Derek ran into the woods to wait for an opportunity to get away.  Margaret arrives and the kids are all jumpy.  When Gwen arrives with muffins, they are all suspicious.  She says she wasn’t able to answer or return Andrew’s calls because of work, but Andrew is the only one who doesn’t think that is unlikely.  Chloe sends Liz out to see if they have any exits yet.

Simon folds up a piece of paper and asks Chloe to get it to Derek in the attic.  Suddenly, Margaret is looking for both of them.  Chloe hides in a room and Simon answers her.  She tells him she needs their help bringing up chairs from the basement.  Simon leaves and Margaret calls for Gwen.  Chloe locks the door of the room she is in as quietly as she can and tries to hide.  She hears Gwen and Margaret talking and then there is a thump after they part ways.  Suddenly, Chloe can hear Gwen in the room she is in and then see her.  Chloe realizes Gwen is dead.  Gwen tells her she needs to warn Simon and Tori.  Chloe starts making her way to the basement, but Margaret and Russell are blocking her way.  She goes into a room and sees Andrew, but Margaret is about to answer.  Andrew waves her over to hide behind a table, but Chloe slips on something and lands on the table.  Margaret finds her and injects her with something.  The last thing she sees is Andrew’s dead eyes.  

Chloe wakes up in a van to hear Margaret and Russell talking about keeping Simon sedated messing up his diabetes.  When she wakes up again, they are at the Edison Group headquarters and Dr. Davidoff is there to great them.  Chloe and Tori are strapped to wheel chairs and pushed through the halls.  He shows them Simon being given fluids because he was dehydrated from throwing up.  He points out the doctor helping Simon is Aunt Lauren.  Chloe asks to see Rae and Dr. Davidoff says they will, but she has been transferred.  Tori becomes upset and starts yelling at him.  She frees herself and tells him they have seen Liz and Brady’s ghosts.  He admits there was an accident with Liz, but he says Brady is with Rae and Amber at a special school for supernatural children.  Tori demands a video conference with them to prove they are still alive.  Her mother, Diane, comes in and calls her outburst a tantrum.  Dr. Davidoff wants to deal with her without medication, but Diane keeps pushing her.  Tori frees herself and starts making a ball of energy.  While Tori is distracted, Diane creeps behind her and uses a spell to stop one of the guards from breathing.  She blames Tori.  Chloe saw Diane cast the spell and says so, but an invisible force slaps her across the face.  She blames that on Tori as well.  She uses a binding spell to freeze Tori so they can restrain her while Dr. Davidoff takes Chloe to her room.

Once Dr. Davidoff drops Chloe off in her room and leaves, she starts weighing her options.  She summons the demi-demon and promises to free her if she helps get her and her friends out.  The demi-demon agrees and tells Chloe her plan.  Chloe refuses to kill anyone for the plan (the demi-demon requests Diane) so she summons the recently killed guard to her room.  He uses his card to enter and is furious with Chloe.  At the demi-demon’s suggestion, Chloe takes his gun.  She does her best to have his spirit move on.  The demi-demon takes over his body and tells Chloe to keep the gun on her just in case.  She tucks it into her waistband and they start to go.

Chloe and the demi-demon make their way to the security room.  The guard there recognizes the dead guard.  The demi-demon says that the shaman was brought in to heal him and tells the guard he needs to go to the doors.  As he walks by the dead guard’s body, he smells the burning.  The demi-demon knocks him out and calls Chloe into the room.  The Edison Group is meeting in a room and debating about something.  Chloe finds Aunt Lauren locked up in her own cell and the demi-demon says her aunt tried to escape as soon as she was brought back.  Aunt Lauren is added to the list of people to rescue.  They find their way down to the cells and find Tori first.  She is not surprised to see the dead guard’s body.  Next, they get Simon.  Chloe tells him everything and they both agree they need to be careful.  

Tori says she wants to get to Dr. Davidoff’s computer to get information about their other experiments.  Once they are out, she wants to warn others like them.  Simon wants to find a phone to cal his dad.  Chloe agrees both of those are good suggestions and they head the other way.  The demi-demon leads Chloe towards her Aunt Lauren, but an alarm starts to go off.  They hide as best they can in a closet and the demi-demon drops the dead guards body to go see what is going on.  When she comes back, she tells Chloe that the Edison Group is looking for her and think she has already left the building.  She points out they will need a distraction, which she could provide with her magic if Chloe frees her.  Not seeing any other options, Chloe asks what she needs to do.

Once the demi-demon is free, the entire building starts to shake and pieces of ceiling and wall fall on Chloe.  The demi-demon leads her out of the closet and into the room.  She continues to tell her to get out and to the hallway, but there are invisible hands grabbing at her.  The demi-demon explains that the ritual opened a tear to a demon world and there are a few pesky demon spirits that are trying to get out.  She points out they can’t do anything unless they have a dead body.  They suddenly both remember the guards dead body.  She tells Chloe to put her back in him, but it is too late.  The closet door opens and the lights go out.

Chloe can hear the body approaching her in the dark.  She starts trying to release it like she would a ghost, but keeps trying to get away from it.  She hits her head, reopening her wound and bloods starts to drip down her neck.  She decides to stop trying to get away so that she can send the demon spirit away.  It crawls over her and starts licking the blood from her head.  She gets away and falls over a chair.  When the lights come back on, she sees the distorted guards body licking her blood off the floor.  The demi-demon returns to distract it while Chloe releases it.  When the body finally falls to the ground, Chloe feels hot air like a furnace and the demi-demon tells her to hurry.

Suddenly, the guards body stands up and looks human again.  The new possessor says to stop and Chloe does.  Diriel, the demi-demon, calls him master and he is not happy that she has been away so long and not answering his summons.  She tells him she will explain after she completes her contract, but the demon sees Chloe and says she is powerful enough to not need a demi-demon.  He and Diriel disappear.  The door starts to open and Chloe gets the gun ready.  Aunt Lauren comes in and takes the gun from Chloe, who doesn’t tell her aunt about the demons that just left.  They start making their way towards Tori and Simon, but they run into a guard.  Aunt Lauren tells him to go back int the room he came from, but Diane shoots him from behind and uses a binding spell on Aunt Lauren.  Suddenly, Derek arrives in wolf and attacks Diane.  Liz is with him and explains she helped him get there.  Once Diane is knocked out, Chloe runs up and hugs Derek.  She tells them they need to find Simon and Tori and asks Liz to scout the way.  Aunt Lauren is shocked.  Chloe tells her she is okay and they start moving.  

They run into Simon and Tori , who where on their way to find Chloe.  Aunt Lauren leads them to an unused wing of the building and they start making their way through using the dead guards key card.  Derek tenses up as he sees room where he grew up with his three brothers.  Liz comes to tell them someone is coming and they use the card again to get into a locked room.  They all split up to find a hiding space and Derek and Chloe stay by each other.  They find a spot among towers of boxes and get the others to join them.  They hear men outside their door talking about using the empty wing as the base of their operations.  They need to catch two out of four of the kids before Mr. St. Cloud arrives.  Diane eventually shows up and says she wants Derek dead.  Chloe asks Liz how they got there.  She explains that Derek drove and she communicated by paper.  He got stressed out when they got the guard station and then he changed.  Derek starts to change back.  Chloe tells everyone to give him some room.  He tugs on her sleeve to get her to stay with him.  She tells the others to leave if they get the chance before Derek is done changing.  They all eventually agree, hoping it won’t come to that

Derek changes back quicker than before and Chloe gives him time to recover.  Simon brings him some hospital scrubs Aunt Lauren found.  He tells Chloe to give Derek the note.  Derek looks at the picture and gets dressed.  He talks to Simon for a moment and then comes back to Chloe.  They are about to kiss when Tori comes around the corner and expresses her surprise.  Chloe goes to let everyone know Derek is ready to go.  Aunt Lauren asks to speak to Derek for a moment and he complies.  When he returns to Chloe she knows her aunt told him to stay away.  When they hear one of the men say there was a break in a perimeter spell, Aunt Lauren runs out yelling for Chloe like she is looking for her.  She tries to go after her, but Derek hold her back and she realizes this is what she was talking to him about.  Diane uses a binding spell on Aunt Lauren and takes her gun.  She points it at Aunt Lauren, but Kit shows up and announces himself.

Simon immediately stops moving and heads towards his dad.  Chloe, tells Derek to go fight.  She tries to stay out of the way so she doesn’t get anyone hurt.  Tori starts casting spells against her mother and makes the entire building shake.  Part of the ceiling comes down and Derek tackles Chloe to keep her safe.  When the dust settles, Diane is dead, but Dr. Davidoff has a gun pointed at Aunt Lauren.  He uses a board to knock out Tori.  Liz is about to use the same board on him, but he points the gun at Tori and tells her to hold it so he can see her.  Chloe puts Diane’s ghost back in her body and makes her shoot Dr. Davidoff.  They hear the Cabal SWAT team coming for them, so they get out as quickly as they can with Derek carrying Tori.  They make it over the security wall and on their way before the team makes it through the debris to get to them.

Kit has a van not to far away and they all pile in and drive until they are far away.  They get a couple of hotel rooms and Chloe ends up in one with Aunt Lauren, who wants to tell her Dr. Davidoff’s death wasn’t her fault.  Chloe knows she indirectly killed him, and Derek will be the one to help her to deal with it.  She demands they let her dad know she is okay.  Chloe goes outback of the motel to find Tori.  They sit next to each other and Tori leans agains her and cries over the loss of her mom.  Derek comes out a while later and Tori leaves them to be alone.  They both hope their groups will stay together.  Kit comes to gather them all together.  They all agree it will be fore the best that they stay together and on the run.  It will be a while before the Cabal will come after them, so they will have some time to warn the others on the lists Tori got off the computers.  Kit has a few ideas on where they can all go.  After dinner, Chloe and Derek go out for a walk to spend some time alone.  They finally get to really kiss and she decides she is happy with her new life.

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    About the Blogger

    My name is Michelle, and I like to read... a lot.  As I read a book, I take notes after each chapter.  When I finish the book, I type out a summary and post it in this blog.

    It has taken me a while to find a process that really works.  Some of my older summaries  will be short and just summarize the overall plot. 

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