Last time on Gemma, turns out Felicity’s the one to go evil because who would have expected the ambitious girl to go evil????????

They step into the garden and all’s well.

“You see?” Felicity says, eyes shining in triumph. “There’s nothing amiss. I told you she only wanted the power for herself.”

Hello plot hole. Gemma never bothered explaining there was something wrong. But the author knows so all the characters know.

There’s a weird smell, though.

“Wait! Felicity, please listen, I think we should go back.”
“Go back? We just got here,” she says, mocking me.
Ann’s face is a stone. “We’re not going back without the power to cross over by ourselves.”

See? The only reason the girls are behaving like this is because of how far they had to go to get there. If Gemma wasn’t threatening to cut their access off over an unexplained whim, they wouldn’t be so adamant they needed the power to travel on their own or that it needed to happen this trip. It’s only because they know that otherwise this will be their last trip that they’ve acting this way.

The huntress appears and wipes a bit of blood off Felicity’s face to taste, even though it should be completely dry by now. Felicity asks if she’ll give them the power.

“Didn’t I promise that I would?” She smiles but there’s no warmth in it. “Follow me.”

Another interesting thing to consider is that there are only two human manifestations in the realm, the perfect boy knight and the evil huntress. FEMINISM once again.

I grab Felicity by the arm. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t go,” I whisper.
“No, something’s finally right,” she says,

And she’s right in a fashion. There’s nothing particularly right about Gemma being the only one able to visit this place. We don’t even get the usual halfhearted excuse that it’s a personality thing, that only someone who’s especially pure or whatever can be allowed direct access. Not only does Gemma not have any personality beyond occasionally snarky, but even on the book’s terms it’s never made any effort to play up any personality traits or hers.

The breeze shifts. The smell is back. Underneath the memories is something pungent, like meat rotting in the sun. Does no one else smell it?

I have a great idea, Gemma, why don’t you just keep not mentioning it at all. That’ll sure help.

“What do we do now?” Pippa asks.
“Use the magic to take me through to the other side,” the huntress says.
“If we join hands and take you through, you’ll give us the power we need, to come and go as we please?”
“Not me. My mistress. She will give you what you deserve.”

Why complicate things here? Just say yes. It’s obviously not bound to be truthful. The only point here is to make the whole deal seem even more ominous.

The huntress seems to grow taller. Her eyes go black; her voice becomes a hiss.
“Come to me, my pretty ones.”
The sky opens into a churning sea of dark clouds. Quick as rain, she rises before us, a towering, screeching wraith, carrying the souls of the damned inside her unfurling black cape. Felicity can’t break away, can’t stop staring at that skeletal face, the eyes rimmed in red with swirling black ovals for centers, the sharp, jagged teeth. The thing clamps a hand onto her arm. Felicity’s mouth stretches into a ghastly O. Like ink, the black floats across her eyes, till they’re bottomless.

And why the fuck this? What’s the point of luring them this far by pretending to be good, then suddenly snapping and turning into an evil monster?

Gemma tackles Felicity, breaking her loose. Pippa runs off, and Ann and Gemma try to find her, dragging along Felicity. Luckily she comes out of it pretty quick and starts running on her own power. They reach the river and Ann freezes up because her reflection shows her as hideous. Oh come on.

She’s covered in hideous boils.
Her hair falls out in thick clumps and sores bubble up on her scalp. It’s as if her skin is melting from her bones.
“Stop looking at yourself, Ann! Stop!” I scream.
“I can’t! I can’t!”

Look, author, if you wanted her to have to face something like this and be caught by it you should have given her something a bit more than just appearance. Gemma can’t budge her but Felicity manages to wrench her backward, freeing her.

“Help me!” Pippa’s scream tears through us. When we stumble across the brittle grass, we see her. She has taken a large boat, a bier, onto the river

Pippa, congrats. There have been many, many contenders this book, but you have finally won the idiot competition.

The shadow monster is between them and the river, not that it much matters because there’s only one boat and even if there wasn’t it’s clear that both the river current and the wind are under the control of the shadow, so they’d still be kept apart. All she is now is bait.

Gemma is scared and just wants to run. She justifies this as saying that she doesn’t want the shadow to get them, but oddly there’s nothing about the monster closing in or anything. It’s just waiting for them to come to it, so they could try to plan instead.

But the problem solves itself. Terrified they’ll leave her, Pippa goes to the edge of the boat and then falls in.

She jumps into the river and it closes over her grasping hands like ice, entombing everything but her watery, strangled cry.

The water closes over her hands like ice. Really. And somehow she can still scream underwater.

See what I mean about how badly the writing’s gone downhill. Christ.

The shadow is pissed off by this and lunges for the kids, so Gemma yanks them through the door.

We’re all here, safe and accounted for, it seems. But on the floor, Pippa’s body has gone rigid. It seizes uncontrollably.

That’s an interesting definition of safe you’ve got there, Gemma. Seriously, here be the shit writing. It should be something like “at first glance but” or “we’re all here in body, but” or “there’s no physical harm, but”. Anything but what we actually get here.

Felicity is sobbing. “You left her there! You did it!”

Yep. Royally fucked now.

Gemma has alienated her allies. Though I expect it won’t matter, since this is clearly the story of how Gemma is very special, and they were never meant to be helping her out or anything, but four magic users should have had a better chance than one against the shadow, plus four people plotting means a better chance of stumbling on the answer.

But let’s consider what Felicity could do. The affair seems to have shown that the shadow can’t be trusted, but she took the diary to be a sign that this was a valid option, so I wouldn’t bet on that. And the diary does show a completed shadow deal, one person for another. If she was willing to try something the diary only showed failing, why not that? And Felicity was willing to kill Kartik before. Offer his life for Pippa’s. Or her Gypsy boy, or another student, or anyone’s. If Felicity is supposed to be corrupted, that’d actually show it, not killing a deer. And if Gemma’s blamed and shunned, she won’t be in any position to talk Felicity out of it.

Then there’s Ann. She hasn’t done much, but what might she do at this point? She’s kind of a cipher, and that’s never a good sign when things have gone bad like this.

Then on to the next chapter.

“YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME!”
I’m a wild-eyed thing standing outside Kartik’s tent. He doesn’t argue with me, doesn’t say a word, not even when I tell him what’s happened. He hoists Pippa over his shoulder and carries her through the woods all the way to Spence.

Yes, when things really go pear shaped, all they can do is ask the boy for help.

Kartik singlehandedly carries Pippa, because god forbid the THREE OTHER PEOPLE do it, they are just frail little girls and can’t possibly. They get Pippa back in bed without anyone noticing, then Gemma goes to the headmistress. I hope she warned Kartik because he’s got to get out first.

“What on earth? Miss Doyle, what are you doing in your clothes? Why aren’t you in bed?”

Oops. Not going to criticize Gemma for this mistake, it’s very understandable, but they just went through all the trouble of getting Pippa back in bed, yet both of them are fully dressed (and presumably have muddy shoes, plus still smeared in blood.

Nightwing, of course, is a good person, so all Gemma has to do is gasp out Pippa’s name and this is all backburnered in favor of calling for a doctor and rushing off.

A lantern moves across the lawn. Kartik. The light bobs and shakes in its metal cage. I have to strain to see him. He’s carrying a shovel, and I know that he’s going back to what he couldn’t ignore in the ravine. He’s going to bury the deer.

Why? Perfectly good venison.

But whether he’s doing it to protect me or himself, I cannot know.

Either way you can remove a body just fine by eating it. It’s not like the deer is tainted or anything. It’s just a dead animal. Felicity meant to summon the shadow, but it didn’t work.

Gemma sits up all night until she decides she has to go back and try to rescue Pippa.

“Keep this,” I say, crumpling the crescent eye amulet into Felicity’s hands.

Oh my god how can you be so dumb.

Felicity’s the one who was willing to kill a random boy. More, the diary claimed that being in the grasp of the shadow – you know, precisely what you saw happen to Felicity – permanently warped Sarah into a servant whose first action was to try to open the doors again. (You could argue that maybe Sarah was already like that, but that’s not how it was presented.) Plus you were told that’s not just a symbol, it’s a protection charm.

“It will be up to you to come after me.” I pause. “Or close the realms for good. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Promise you’ll come back.”

But you know, it’s not like coherency or plot has been an issue thus far, and I really want non-evil Felicity, so fine, okay. Nothing leading up to this works, but in isolation this is a good exchange. I like them caring about each other, I like Gemma trusting her friend, I like that we aren’t resorting to Kartik being in charge.

Well. Onward to the end.