Greymoor Academy Recap Part 4: Court of Lies

Greymoor Academy recap part 4 covers chapters 133–174. A few scenes in the club and at Court are dark; we mention them without describing them.

The club in France (chapters 133–140)

The last stop in France is Quinlan's exclusive club, L'Ange Déchu. There Maisie meets Charlene, Quinlan's ex and now his friend, a woman Tessa once hurt badly. Charlene is warm and bold and delighted that the four did not choose Tessa. Sent to a private booth, Maisie finds one of the Queen's intended consorts, who attacks her and lets slip that the Queen has been eager to get her hands on "the lost heirs of House Hunt". Quinlan stops him for good.

What follows is one of the most criticised stretches of the book. Shaken and furious, the four turn on Maisie in the club, and she is left alone and humiliated. We will not recap it in detail; it matters mostly for how readers judge the four afterwards.

The Queen's court (chapters 141–146)

Back at the castle, the court hisses at Maisie. The Queen tries to break into her mind and hits a wall older than Maisie knew she had. Then she reads Mercer instead and learns what happened in France. Alpha Dante, it turns out, sold Maisie out in exchange for freeing Cole from the bond.

In chapter 143 the Queen tells the court her version of the past. Silas Thorne was the favourite of Margaret Hunt, the Exiled Queen, and according to Lysandra he was the one who ended Soren's mother. Soren is declared unfit for the throne. Quinlan loses his title and is sentenced to a brutal public punishment, which he endures laughing. To Maisie, the Queen offers one future: bear heirs, give up every claim, and disappear.

In the infirmary Tessa tells Maisie something she did not want to hear: the four only married her because the alternative was far worse for her. A tour of the castle introduces the ruby crown, which is sentient and resizes to fit whoever the Goddess chooses, and the abandoned house of the Hunts, which pulls at Maisie.

The Hunt (chapters 147–153)

On the night of the Annual Hunt, Soren locks Maisie in for her own safety. She jumps from the balcony anyway, shifts, and learns that the Exiles are already in the woods and that the Queen is happy to sacrifice innocents to deal with them. Tessa lures her into a ravine and wounds a young Exile girl. Badly hurt, the girl says Maisie looks just like her mom, before a huge Lycan with red eyes takes her away. That Lycan is Margaret Hunt, Maisie's birth mother, and her first words to her daughter are cold ones. Then the hunters find Maisie alone at the scene, marked by the girl's injuries, and she realises she is the Queen's surprise prey.

Jericho and Mercer drive the hunters off. Mercer shouts, then apologises. Hurt himself, he still carries her home, and she treats his wound while he talks her through it. The raid, he realises, was a rescue: the girl was Margaret's daughter.

Fire and promises (chapters 154–162)

Mercer's onion speech in chapter 154 is his best moment: people have layers, some worth the tears, and she gets to choose how deep to dig. He wants all of her, or he wants her to leave while he can still let her go. She tells him to kiss her.

Tessa's chapter shows a woman raised on ambition instead of dreams, terrified of losing the Queen's favour. It does not stop Maisie. She soaks Tessa's room in liquor, gives her the balcony as a way out, and drops the lighter. Soren becomes her alibi, calmly asks the furious Grahams for evidence, and then gives Maisie the only thing of his mother's the Queen never took: her ring, on a chain. She should wear it only when she decides to stay.

The secret beneath the castle (chapters 163–174)

Chapter 163 changes the book. The Queen slips into a ruined temple and bleeds on the ruby, which calls her a false queen. Beneath it, chained in the dark, is her sister, Soren's mother, turned into something undead by Lysandra's jealousy. Its prophecy: as long as the girl lives, the Queen will die on Samhain, a year from now, at the hands of a brown-haired hunter. It also tells her how to cut one person out of a bond.

Back at school, Mrs. Belarus teaches Phillip Gruer's research on bonds, and asks whether a bonded choice can ever be free. Ryder Hunt tells Maisie there is always another side to the story. Margaret Hunt offers Soren an alliance against the Queen. The Queen's physician starts bringing Maisie daily fertility tonics, and Soren insists on tasting the first one himself.

What we noticed

• The Queen's account in chapter 143 and the prophecy in chapter 163 cannot both make her innocent. Our Queen Lysandra explained lays out the evidence.
• The Queen's "start over" to Quinlan echoes Cole's words in chapter 1.
• Mrs. Belarus's lesson is the book's central question. We answer it in our mate bond essay.

Previous: Recap Part 3. Next: Recap Part 5: The Keeper.