Greymoor Academy Recap Part 7: The Rift

Greymoor Academy recap part 7 covers chapters 233–273, the latest chapters we have read. A few scenes in this range are written for adults only; we mention them without describing them.

Back under guard (chapters 233–240)

Tessa visits Maisie's room to claim the four, then hurts herself and screams for help to frame her. Maisie, deciding she may as well earn the punishment, breaks her nose. Headmistress Atlas gives them both community service and explains the new Greymoor: combat six days a week, missions, competitions with sister schools. It feels like preparation for a war.

That night a drunk, half-shifted Quinlan comes to Maisie's room and marks her again. In the morning she finds slurs painted on her locker, Mercer and Quinlan fight in the hallway, and Quinlan tells her she is a stranger who should know her place. Her friends ignore her. Someone empties a bucket of pig's entrails over her head in class.

In the bathroom, Gruer turns into a black cat to hide from Juliette Chastain, who adores him instantly. Juliette tells Maisie what the forged letter said: it turned each of the four's deepest wounds into insults. Maisie finally breaks: she never wrote it. Juliette believes her, and promises to keep the secret.

The ring (chapters 241–245)

Instructor Warren puts Maisie in the ring against Tessa in front of both Councils. If she loses, the collar works; if she wins, she is a monster. She sees pride in Soren's eyes and stays calm, until Tessa tears her shirt and the whole school sees the ash-grey scars from the fall. When Tessa mocks the baby she lost, Maisie loses control and has to be knocked out.

She slips out of the infirmary for air. The Queen's guards chase her and one of them attacks her, until a winged, many-jointed creature from the rift tears through them and pins Maisie down, hissing a name: Thorne. Soren brings it down. He asks who hurt her, gets no answer, and carries her home.

Home (chapters 246–252)

At the mansion a dozen doctors are waiting, and Maisie fights the examination. Flashback: during her nine months on the run, Soren sent her short letters. "Come home. I won't ask questions." "You've lost weight. Are you eating well?" "I'm sorry. Please come home."

At a tense dinner Soren makes his point with a thrown knife that misses on purpose. Then, for their anniversary, the four give her his mother's ring, reworked with their initials, and have it welded shut on her finger. After a nightmare in which she relives the cliff, she lashes out and hurts all four; they hold her anyway. Jericho's chapter reveals Soren's bargain: if he cannot prove Maisie innocent, he must bond with Tessa. Mercer, furious that the others once planned to let his mother fall, declares that he and Maisie are done.

Jericho (chapters 253–258)

Jericho tells her she does not have to explain herself: the Ivanovs protect their own. From her perfect test scores he works out that she came back on purpose. When Sofia Zaytsev, the Queen's watcher on the Council, walks into his office dressed to impress, Maisie claims her husband in front of her. Jericho tells Maisie he is angry with her, but loves her more than he is furious. A cold voice in her head says "Found you." Headmistress Atlas bans her from the Interschool Games, so she knocks out a Hellsgrave fighter for her uniform. Along the way Jenny finds her mate, Brody of Hellsgrave.

The Games (chapters 259–273)

In the stadium Maisie has the Queen in her sights with a single ash-tipped arrow, and lowers the bow: the Queen is expecting a child. Kisten and Bastian, now the Queen's men, take her away through a back passage. The sky turns black and rains ice. Maisie breaks free to warn everyone, but on the big screens nobody can hear her.

A dragon tears the roof off the stadium, with a swarm of creatures behind it. Quinlan shoves Maisie clear and is hit by a falling pillar. The dragon takes the shape of a beautiful man, calls her "little Thorne", and offers her everything: vengeance, children, a crown, even a way back in time. He shows her a perfect life, a coronation with her four husbands, their children and Lyon alive. Then he pulls her out of it and asks why a girl on a bridge would walk back towards death. Remembering Gruer's warning that there is always a cost, she says yes anyway.

She pulls the ruby crown off the Queen's head and it names her its queen. She opens the rift, and realises too late that it is draining her life. Mercer tells her not to dare give up. She bargains with the Moon Goddess, insisting she has already paid enough, and her Lycan takes over. It slams the rift shut, brings the dragon down, and goes after the Queen, then tells her, in front of Mercer, that the Queen was behind the loss of his child.

The last three chapters belong to the aftermath. The Queen's crown no longer answers her. Mercer catches his mother lying about the missing Munich doctor and turns on her; it takes a small army of guards to hold him. Maisie's Lycan, burned out by the rift, needs to feed. Soren offers himself: take what you need, we can take it.

What we noticed

• The dragon's riddle about the girl on the bridge is the book's thesis in miniature: fear of happiness.
• Mercer's choice in chapter 271 ends the question the whole book asked about him. See our Mercer analysis.
• What comes next? Read our Greymoor Academy predictions.

Previous: Recap Part 6: Samhain. Next: Recap Part 8: What They Saw. Start from the beginning with Recap Part 1.