We pick up with Creon and his old rusty voice picking up Em and flying to a beach where she tells him Naxi messed him up and the binding broke. Talking’s too hard because magic can get cobwebs apparently, so he goes back to signing. And Tiddlywinks until Lyn shows up because everyone’s freaking out that Em freed a binding, and the alliance just seems pretty prone to freaking out.
Back they go to the underground where the council is all jacked up about the order in which they will be unbound, which isn’t a possibility at this point since Thysandra’s the only reference book they have to know how to identify the bindings, and she’s now a very irritated imprisoned Mother lover.
Em does tell them the Phoenixes can f off over their request that she never talk to Creon again and is surprised to be backed by Tared, who still hasn’t talked to her after telling her to go to hell, then screaming like a little girl to give Creon his unbound magic instead of his voice. He tells the council if they accept the terms of Em never talking to Creon they are setting a precedent that any clan can request any weird demand they want, like you all have to wear white socks with flipflops for the rest of your lives.
Tared disappears before Em can talk to him, so she stomps around until she finds him in the training room. They actually communicate, leading both to break out in hives. Tared didn’t realize that Em’s experience with family was so bad she was afraid he’d kick her out of the house. She stabs him and they hug it out. Tared’s cool with Creon now because when his old timey voice came back Creon looked at Em with such love that now Tared loves Creon.
Em goes back to her room for a round of Tiddlywinks with Creon.
In the morning a Tiddlywink tousled Em is given the news that the Golden Court has been attacked, is being evacuated, and here’s you dad to talk to you. And it’s like, come on, we’ve had almost entire books of just Em freaking out about her being an emotional vampire as Creon pouts, and you just had an attack and evacuation in a paragraph! Boo!
Agenor, his court being evacuated and fighting Mother lovers, somehow finds time to enter Em’s bedroom to see Creon post-Tiddlywinking dressing and waits to have a conversation with Em about her dating choices. Creon hops off to check out the Golden Court, and can we go with him? No, Em and Agenor decide this is a good time to have a long chat about Creon, and it’s like, I think they’re still evacuating your people? Maybe go help, no, you’d rather sit in your daughter’s Tiddlywinked bedroom to talk about how Creon likes to read? Sure, let’s do that.
Agenor does ask Em to just agree to tell someone if she’s ever unhappy, not to be so proud she just lives with it, which is good advice. Also good advice - go back and help your people, but honestly, I think pride is something that keeps people in relationships that are perhaps not the healthiest, so excellent request, Agenor. Em’s all yeah yeah yeah, blah blah blah, okay, fine.
And then there’s some yelling and commotion and Beyla grabs Em and they go to the Golden Court, hurray!
There’s actually a full-on battle going at the court, so I’m thinking Agenor is kind of tired of his court ruling. Mother loving faes are flying overhead, nearly blacking out the sun, so that’d be a lot. And Creon is messed up and bleeding in the center of rows and rows and rows of Mother loving faes that are scared to get too close to his knife. Ummm…hard to see this, I think literally a hundred Mother lovers could actually subdue and fly him back to the Crimson Court, but okay.
Em heals a fae named Doralis, who was unable to heal herself because of the limits to magic when around other Mother loving faes the Mother is happy with. Essentially, I think, I get a little lost, the Mother has bound magic in everyone so they can’t hurt her and in the last book they realized that bound magic extends to whomever the Mother likes, so we have no idea who’s protected or not, though probably whomever will make a fight more difficult for the Scooby gang would be a good guess.
Em yells at poor, distressed Doralis to change all the walkways to mother of pearl so she can use it to shield herself from the magic and moonwalk to Creon. So that’s what she does, though she takes a few wounds, she makes it to Creon. I was wondering where the hundreds of Mother lovers were, but no matter. Tared poofs in poofs them out.
Creon being a big boy and he accepts help to bandage him up. While he’s having his band aids applied he explains he decided to see who all is not impacted by his magic, who’s a close enough Mother lover that they need to be careful about how to kill them.
Once they’re alone, Em asks, so why did you do that when we could have come up with a plan to get the same information? I love making plans, you know that. And Creon gets mad at her and asks if she’d have preferred to have other people go die to find out who those protected Mother lovers are. Sigh. Here we go again, now Em’s all spun out about why would he snap at her? What’s really going on? Noooooooooo, I was so hopeful we wouldn’t have to deal with more internal fretting about her relationship. My bad.
They now need to get the Phoenixes on board since freedom isn’t overly appealing to them and they all agreed at lunch that no one wants to wear white socks with flipflops. Off Em and Creon go to get Thysandra to give up the location of Lyn’s bindings, but Thysandra is unimpressed, so she tells them where they can find Lord Khailan’s binding instead. I’m still not sure why, unless she just couldn’t deal with listening to Em any more.
And what timing, they hear back that the Phoenixes want an audience with Em in half an hour! Wow, that’s crazy. But she was born ready, so off she goes to Phoenix land to try to convince them that she’s a better option than the Mother lovers, really, she swears. They’re unimpressed with her composure and god sworn magic, so bam, here’s your binding, Khailan! He gets his wings back and goes kind of weird as the other birds freak out. Now we know that you’re really crazy dangerous! We’re telling the Mother all about your plans! Right now we’re going to pack some snacks and fly straight there!
Em’s like, omg omg omg! Then grabs some softness and tells them they want a bargain to help the resistance. The birds’ faces go glassy and are like, we’d like a bargain to help you, and we promise to keep all your secrets. Em says deal! Then runs off to cry to Creon for five days. Creon’s like, it’s cool, it’s war, but she wails a lot about being a monster. And I’m just a bit over it, these two. He’s all pouty and sharp and she’s all waily and spazzy.
Lyn interrupts their Tiddlywinks so they can make a plan to plan their planning, and soon they’re all in a Resistance meeting with alves, vampires, nymphs, birds, and anyone else wandering around. They agree they don’t have the numbers to take down the Mother lovers. Let’s use that crazy blood! That’d be bad! No it won’t, you’re a baby!
Eventually they all leave and the Scooby gang feels sorry for itself as Em wrestles with using her monster powers to make Thysandra tell them how to identify the bindings. Em eventually says, oh, humans! We can have them sacrifice themselves for us and Agenor’s all, they won’t want to rebel, they have no magic, and Creon finally deigns to speak by telling Agenor to f off, that he sat behind a desk while Creon was sent to deal with all the uprisings. So Em pens a letter to the White City asking for permission to come talk to them since THEY HAVE A MAGICAL WALL THAT PROTECTS THEM. Umm, wouldn’t you have thought to ask the rebelling people with a magical wall a little sooner? Maybe they have some tricks? No? Maybe the Scooby gang heard they don’t plan their plans for their upcoming planning enough, and you just can’t trust those people.
This leads to yet another Em – Creon pity party argument with each other and that’s it, they’re going on 1.7x. Eventually naked Creon and underwear hoarder Em decide Em needs to go talk to Naxi in an attempt to get Thysandra to give up the bindings.
End of pity-party, 1.2x.
Naxi is sniffling and upset because it’s hard out there for a demon, but she and Em are wailing sisters, so Em’s like, right, here’s the key to Thysandra’s cell, but if there’s any nonsense and you try to kill anyone to protect her, I’ll kill her, okay? And what’s wrong with Creon, let’s talk about that. Naxi tells her to grow up and ask him, and I’m like yea no Creon talk! Boo that we’ll get more of it soon.
Big boy words.
Em just wants some Tiddlywinks, but she finds Creon and Tared staring at the response to her letter to the White City for hopefully people willing to die while Em talks to the Labyrinth and tries to kill the Mother.
The White City would love to see her, so glad she reached out, come at sunrise and keep the others away from the magical wall. So that’s nice, but it leads to another Em and Creon talk and 1.7x.
Em tries to find where Lyn hides her closet full of underwear as they go back into what’s wrong with Creon? Nothing’s wrong with Creon! Yes there is! No there’s not! Omg, zzzzzzz…..
So off Em goes to White City where one of three consul members, Rosalind, treats her very kindly and with much curiosity. They’ll present her case to the council and get back to her, go shopping, and buy some more black dresses.
Em shops and loves life until she realizes she’s being followed by a few thugs sent after her by another consul. She spiderman’s it into a corner when they try to get her, then goes to buy a star tool for Creon when one of the men says she’s using magic, that’s not real gold! Which creates a stir, but smart Em talks her way out of it.
She goes to the full city meeting to plead her case and is doing well until the mean consul accuses her of being a fae whore who spread her legs for the Silent Death, and she’s all, yep, and? And we didn’t even get five pages of fretting about what she should say first, so that was nice.
Rosalind snaps and is all, don’t talk that way about my daughter! I’m a fae whore, too! And quits. Em and Em’s easily found mom, head out the next morning, and there’s a large crowd that Em thought was there to murder them, but they want to go with them! To war! What fun!
They go back to the war camp set up somewhere outside the White City, and, sigh, Em and Creon are reunited. Em’s all, this is me mum, and he’s like, I remember you! And it’s weird. Then Em takes Rosalind to Agenor’s tent commenting there are winged boytoys available if she needs them, and it’s like, ummm, what? And eww, that’s your mum.
Agenor and Al are reunited and it’s just awkward as they stare at each other then wander off together.
Em goes to Lyn’s war tent and learns there is news of war! Omg! Why? Ummm… So Beyla spied on the Crimson Court and was spotted, so she can’t go back. But she saw the Mother is preparing war ships! Omg! Why?
Then Edored shows up, whisks Em off to get a sword they made for her, then brings her back to the war tent, war? Omg! And she once again is with Creon. Booo. Way more interesting when she’s not with him, which says a lot about how annoying these two are together.
With war looming, war? OMG! She wakes up early waiting to hear where the Mother ships are going to attack. Not sure what else to do, she went to see if her parents played Tiddlywinks, which is affirmed when Agenor takes some time to find his pants before greeting her. They hear a noise and find the stable lady on an exhausted horse. The Mother has a message for em – give yourself up or the White City is dead!
Em now spirals into omg omg omg all my fault. Her going into the city killed the magic walls so the Mother lovers were able to invade. She decides to walk to the city when Creon stops her and is a total a**hole with hard truths and she loses it, destroying all of the land around them. I can’t take them, I had to bump it up to 2.15x. Cactus is all fine! They love each other! Let’s go kill the mother the way we can kill anyone’s mood who has to listen to us talk to each other!
They fly back to an angry camp and are around other people. 1.5x
Everyone’s omg omg omg, they probably need to attack the city to help, then Rosalind’s like, these hidden tunnels no one knows about might help! And Naxi’s back, so gong to 1.2x for Naxi.
Naxi suggests they write to the Mother an offer a bargain to give back Thysandra. The Scooby gang is all, this is weird, but she’s like, it’s fine! I want to help people! Grumpy baby monster Creon agrees to give it a chance, so they do and the Mother tells them to f off, no one cares about Thysandra. This is news to Thysandra, who sees the letter and has a mental breakdown with Creon saying, it sucks, right? And she wails and thrashes that the epitome of evil doesn’t love her.
Creon is now in his full hide-and-go-seek mode with Em, so she has to track him down to so they can have yet another talk about what’s wrong with him. Of course he won’t tell her, he just kind of crab walks away when Naxi shows up and declares that Thysandra’s given up the secrets to the binding decimal system. We have to go now! We can’t, Creon’s upset, it’s more important that I baby him than give back the army their magic! Em finally relents when Naxi promises to find Creon for her, and hopefully smack him in the head several times. Em goes to the Cobalt Court to break the bindings for hundreds of magical creatures who are risking their lives to help her. So magnanimous.
As soon as she’s back from being annoyed about giving people back magic they’ve been waiting centuries for, Em hunts down Creon, since Naxi apparently didn’t really care about this one job she had to do, and they have another discussion. &(**&*(^&*$W^ just stop you two. They don’t, and it finally comes out that Creon feels worthless because his magic is bound, and Em should go battle the Mother on her own. *(&(^%& just stop, good god. He doesn’t, and Em never throws down, should I have not given you your voice back? They just blubber at each other about love and she’ll always love him and blah blah blah. He asks her to do that feeling thing again she did outside his door when he was a giant baby in the Underground and she asks him to perform a rap about his abs. They both oblige each other on the possibly last night of their lives and I’m just like ffs can we just get to the fighting?
The next day the Resistance puts their plan into action – they are going to head-to-head fight the Mother lovers just to get Em through a door! Ummm, seems like they could have thought of an easier way to get Em into the Mother’s room since there are so many smarty strategists there, but sure, let’s do a bunch of weird, disjointed fighting. Em’s kind of crap at her magic, so that’s not really much fun, but eventually she and Creon get to the door. What happened to her fun yellow magic where she turned the ground to pillows? Weird stuff they wouldn’t expect? Sigh.
So it’s taken me about a month to come back to write how this one ends, it’s so just meh. Let’s see, so they get through the door only to find the tunnel is boobytrapped and that big dumb guy is there. The Mother Lover guy. They kill him after he offers them a deal to join up together, and it’s like huh? And they run into some dead children with glass eyes, because every story needs more of that.
When they finally make it to the cafeteria, or whatever that room is where Mother is hanging out, there are a bunch of people with potato sacks on their heads. The Mother’s all, how about we leave each other alone, Doveface? And Em’s like, you’ve got a deal! The Mother has two different colored eyes since Em blinded her in the first book, so she makes the deal with one googly eye, then she gets the second Mother’s body from the throne and threatens to kill it, forcing the two souls in the Mother to bitch at each other until one kills the other and Em kills the second googlyeye she didn’t make the deal with.
The potato sacks leave, and they were all her neighbors and parents and stuff, and for some reason her parents want to talk to her, but she tells them to f off. Then she goes off to a beach and falls asleep feeling sorry for herself until Creon shows up and announces she’s the queen since she killed the last queen, and it’s like, sigh, why is this the thing now? And he put on his tie to lobby for her so it’s unlikely anyone will try to kill her.
They fly off and Tiddlywink in the ocean castle place that they’re going to keep while Naxi and Thysandra can have the red court and the Grandparents can have the gold court. Then the book mercifully ends. I think. I’m too over it to go back and make sure.
