In the twenty-seventh chapter of Untold, y’all could never have prepared me for this. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Untold.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Lady of Aurimere’s Error
I refuse to apologize for how frantically I read this chapter in the videos below. This is unbearably tense by design, especially since Sarah Rees Brennan hides the result of Lillian’s decision until nearly the end of the chapter. We know she’s not afraid to take her novels and her characters to grim, dark places, so we expect the worst. AND IT STILL DOESN’T HELP BECAUSE I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED THE OUTCOME ANYWAY. Of course, throughout this entire chapter, we’ve got the terrible WRONGNESS of Ash being in Kami’s head, and can we just not?
Let’s talk about one of the few genuinely happy things here to start off:
Kami had an instant of horror when she wondered what she had done. Then she saw who was standing over Mr. Prescott, a piece of wood from their broken screen of briars and branches in his hands. It was her father. He stood staring down at her, the blood on her hand and whatever wild changed look she had on her face.
MR. GLASS YOU ARE TOO MUCH. Though, let this review stand as proof that maybe I shouldn’t have asked for the Glass family to take a larger part of the narrative because that obviously backfired, damn it. Jon’s reunion with his daughter is joyous for about all of two minutes because he reveals that Lillian went to their house. To watch Ten and Tomo. THE SAME WOMAN WHO ONCE SAID SHE DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THIS FAMILY. It’s such an awful moment, one that I actually figured out a few paragraphs before it was spelled out in the text. Yeah, so that means Lillian lied earlier, didn’t she? Did she sense there was a source in that house when Ten and Tomo came down the stairs? Am I ever going to heal from this reveal?
The whole search through the Glass house was awful. JUST AWFUL. And I hate that these sorcerers have decided that dragging literally innocent children into this crisis is a good idea. Seriously, look at Tomo’s behavior once he’s found. That kid is fucked up, and he’s going to be fucked up for a long time. It’s terrifying! But it also points to the title of the chapter. Lillian errs horribly here, initially by thinking that the Glass family would be ultimately okay with her taking Ten:
In Lillian’s desperation, because of her overwhelming arrogance, because she had good intentions, she thought it was all right to take Kami’s little brother. She thought she had the right.
Truthfully, this now seems inevitable. So much of Lillian’s characterization in this book was leading to this point, wasn’t it? Lillian spent most of Untold being unwilling to gather allies, to put aside her own pride to work with Kami and her friends to fight back against Rob and his sorcerers. But as her desperation grew, she came to accept that she had to compromise. But it was too little too late, wasn’t it?
I do love that the big emotional moment in chapter twenty-seven revolves around Jon Glass trusting his daughter. I think any parent in this situation would hesitate to send their only daughter out to get back a kidnapped son. It is in this moment that Brennan subtly parallels Lillian and Jon Glass. They are both parents who are desperate to save the ones they care about. However, Kami’s father chooses to trust her instead of directing his fright and anger into his own ego, and that’s a huge different between him and Lillian.
It’s at this point that this chapter becomes super fucked up. Kami is aware of Ash’s raw emotional energy at all times, but she is too tired and too scared to block him from her mind. With that hanging over her, she and her friends head to the Crying Pools to rescue Ten from Lillian and THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY. The second that they ran into Henry Thornton and he tells her, “Don’t look,” I felt AWFUL. That was such a specific thing to say. Don’t look. What is there to see that he doesn’t want her to see??? WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT? As he started explaining what Lillian had done, that she had brought Ten to the Crying Pools, it was the reveal that he was running away from that place that frightened me. Y’all. Y’all.
Jared had said once, about the Crying Pools, There are people down there who want me to stay with them. He had sunk beneath the water, and she had pulled him out.
Nobody had pulled out Lillian’s sorcerers.
ALL OF THEM. EVERY SINGLE SORCERER ON LILLIAN’S SIDE IS DEAD. ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. And I should have known this because that was the point of that scene with Jared. This ceremony is usually deadly. Hell, didn’t Lillian say that Rob almost died in the ceremony once? So why were all of these sorcerers going to survive?
But this isn’t the only horrible twist in this chapter. Lillian and Ten weren’t at the pools. No, they’d gone back to Aurimere, WHICH ROB HAD CLAIMED FOR HIS OWN. Rob had depended on Lillian’s desperation so that he could exploit her, and it worked. And now he’s got his midwinter equinox sacrifice, he’s got Aurimere, and he has not a single sorcerer to stop him. This is one of the most upsetting things Brennan has ever put in one of her books, so let’s allow her to hammer the final nail in the coffin of our hearts:
The sorcerers had taken back their town.
She hadn’t been able to do a thing.
I don’t even know how there are two more chapters left. Goddamn it.
Please note that the original text and the videos contain uses of the words “crazy,” and “mad.”
Part 1
Part 2
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