Summary
At dinner after the mass gleaning at Magnetic Propulsion Laboratory, Rowan notices that—unlike Goddard, Rand, and Chomsky—Scythe Volta isn’t eating. Scythe Goddard laments the quotas—they killed 263 today, so they’ll have to glean fewer next time, which he claims “hobbles us all! If it weren’t for the quota, every day could be like today.” Rowan, eager to escape, says he has plans to play cards with Esme (a lie, but she goes along with it). They chat; Rowan learns that Esme doesn’t have immunity—Goddard could glean her any time, but doesn’t, which she says makes her even more special. As Rowan leaves the game room, he passes Scythe Volta’s room, where he hears sobbing. He enters, dodging thrown items and Volta’s shouts, and he tells Volta he can tell he doesn’t like killing. Rowan says that Goddard is a killer, like Jack the Ripper or Charlie Manson, but the post-mortal age doesn’t know how to recognize him. Though Volta agrees, he hopes that Rowan will grow to love killing—it will make his future so much easier.
Citra’s life is quite different from Rowan’s—she prepares quiet dinners for bereaved families, studies poisons, trains in Bokator, and secretly researches Scythe Faraday’s final hours. She can’t wait to see Rowan at the Harvest Conclave and share her discoveries. Scythe Curie warns her against trusting Rowan, since “Goddard is as corrosive as acid hurled in the eye,” but Citra doesn’t know what to think.
When the Harvest Conclave comes in September, there is an enormous crowd around the Capitol Building, including news crews. Scythe Goddard and his company arrive in a sparkling blue limo; Citra and Scythe Curie enter via a side street and push through the crowd. Curie observes that there are more and more scythes who think like Goddard. Citra sees Rowan surrounded by young admirers and is offended that he didn’t even try to look at her. From Rowan’s POV, we learn that he did search for her, but he was surrounded by other novices who want to talk about Goddard. Citra approaches him just as another girl grabs his arm, and she’s even more offended, but he chases her to apologize. She uses the moment to show him hologram footage of Scythe Faraday—he supposedly threw himself in front of a train, but the public cameras were "vandalized," and witnesses were mysteriously given immunity. Though they both suspect Scythe Goddard gleaned Scythe Faraday, Rowan says it’s not the only possible explanation and that they need to let it sit for now.
The rituals are the same as at Vernal Conclave, starting with the Tolling of the Names. An anonymous accusation is leveled against Scythe Goddard again, this time for granting immunity too freely, and High Blade Xenocrates dismisses any support for the accusation. At lunch, Scythe Curie introduces Citra to “old-guard” scythes, who lament Goddard’s (and Rowan’s) popularity as a sign of troubling times. Citra and Rowan are given their apprentice test by Scythe Cervantes—a Bokator competition. Though Rowan tries to lose, Citra realizes what he’s doing and also starts trying to lose. In a desperate attempt to change the narrative so Citra will win the competition and glean him at the next conclave, Rowan snaps her neck, killing her and disqualifying himself. He hopes that Citra never forgives him.
While she’s deadish, Citra hears a mysterious voice calling to her. She wakes up in a neck brace after speedhealing for two days. Scythe Curie explains that she and Rowan both are considered losers in Bokator, so they’re zero for two at conclave tests. Though Scythe Curie is against him, Citra still doesn't know how to feel about Rowan: he’s clearly not the boy she remembers, but she can’t figure out what he’s up to.
Though Rowan expects to be disciplined, Scythe Goddard is extremely proud of Rowan’s performance, and he toasts him and announces another bacchanal in his honor. At Scythe Volta’s urging, Rowan gives up his plan to throw the scythehood and let Citra win—he’ll try his best, and if he wins fair and square, he’ll glean himself before he has to glean her.
On the third day of the wild party, Rowan has been sucked into the decadence. High Blade Xenocrates himself arrives, and Rowan is also surprised to see Tyger there—Tyger's parents surrendered him to the Thunderhead, and he’s become a professional partygoer. He asks Rowan to get him into his training sessions as a live subject, since it pays really well, and he already goes deadish all the time as a splatter.
In a section from Scythe Volta’s POV, we learn that he feels lucky to be in Goddard’s inner circle—mostly. He considers himself a balancing force, between Chomsky’s brainless brawn and Rand’s wild nature. He observes Goddard and Xenocrates’s meeting, in which they exchange vague threats. Volta learns that Goddard was Xenocrates’s apprentice, and Xenocrates considers it his greatest mistake. He also hears that within the week, Citra will “cease to be an issue.” Goddard calls Esme over to meet Xenocrates, and he secretly holds a knife to her throat as he commands Xenocrates to jump in the pool. Xenocrates, cursing Goddard, jumps into the pool, gold adornments and all.
Rowan notices Xenocrates jumping in the pool but doesn’t understand why. He and Tyger jump in, saving the High Blade by pulling off his heavy gold robes. (If Xenocrates had drowned, it would’ve been considered self-gleaning.) Xenocrates leaves in his underwear, and the party ends soon after. Goddard asks Rowan about Tyger, and Rowan tells him people think Scythe Faraday was gleaned by another scythe. Goddard is angry, but as he walks away, he says that if he did glean Faraday, he’d hardly admit it to Rowan. Later, over a game of pool, Volta indicates to Rowan that Esme is Xenocrates’s illegitimate daughter—it would destroy him if that indiscretion came out, especially if she were gleaned, so Goddard has absolute control over the High Blade.
The pre-chapter journal entry before chapter 29 is unique: At first, Rowan writes that Goddard is a monster, and he can feel himself becoming one as well. He then rips that page out and burns it, since Goddard always reads his journal (unlike Faraday). He writes a new entry: Today he killed 12 running people with only 12 bullets; he’s grateful to Goddard and hopes one day he can repay him for all his help.
On her first day back at Falling Water after speedhealing, Citra admits to Scythe Curie that she’s been secretly investigating Scythe Faraday’s death. Curie doesn’t discipline her, but commands her to stop—Curie will talk to the witnesses. Scythe Curie goes to the market the next day, and while she’s gone, Citra is taken into custody by the BladeGuard for the ancient crime of murder against Honorable Scythe Michael Faraday.
In High Blade Xenocrates’s skyscraper cabin, he and Scythe Mandela question her, showing Faraday’s gleaning journal, in which he writes that he never should have taken an apprentice—“I am concerned she may mean to end me… Should my life be brought to an unexpected end, it will be her hand, not mine, that bears the blame.” The witnesses to his gleaning were bribed with immunity using Scythe Faraday’s own ring. On this evidence, they demand she sign a confession, or they’ll use the Age of Mortality idea of “tor-turé” (torture) and “incarceration facilities” (prison). Citra fights her way out while handcuffed and throws herself off the skyscraper, splatting to escape.
From Xenocrates’s point of view, we learn that he’s irritated by this minor delay, but it doesn’t really change anything. However, by the time he gets to the ground floor, Citra’s body is surrounded by Nimbus agents of the Thunderhead, who won’t cede Citra to the BladeGuard. All revival falls under the Thunderhead, including revival of scythes, so the Nimbus agents take Citra away from Xenocrates, even though he threatens to glean them. Xenocrates screams.
Analysis
As things get worse for Citra in this section, things begin to look a little better for Rowan. Rowan and Scythe Volta bond over a dislike of mass gleanings, but Scythe Volta truly believes that Scythe Goddard's new order is the future. The novel gives very little indication that Rowan feels the same way about Scythe Goddard's influence on the future of the Scythedom, or whether he ponders the future of the Scythedom much at all during this period. His struggle is much more internal, focused on himself and Citra, not really the Scythedom's future—which makes sense, since he doesn't plan on living more than a few months more anyway.
As Scythe Goddard's apprentice, Rowan no longer has trouble writing in his journal. The journal excerpt before Chapter 29 demonstrates that he writes fake entries—or at least veiled entries—to produce something Scythe Goddard will be happy to read. When his journal was for his own use, Rowan had trouble sorting his thoughts, choosing to not write rather than write something poorly. Now he writes his own fears (though he burns them), and then full entries besides. Because Rowan is an excellent judge of what people want, perhaps he finds it easier to create something for someone, rather than journaling for himself. (Of course, he also has a very practical incentive to write what Scythe Goddard wants to hear, so he can avoid punishment—his pain-killing nanites are still turned off, after all.)
This section reveals that Scythe Goddard is blackmailing High Blade Xenocrates using his secret daughter, Esme. Presumably, Esme was conceived out of wedlock, but the ninth scythe commandment is to "have neither spouse nor spawn," so Esme's existence alone is a violation of the commandments. Scythe Faraday and Scythe Curie bent the same commandment by becoming partners, not spouses, and in exchange they got one death for every year of their relationship, plus 70 years of not speaking; one can only imagine that High Blade Xenocrates breaking that commandment would warrant an even harsher punishment. Scythe Goddard using Esme as blackmail is doubly powerful, because Xenocrates fears punishment and also loves his daughter. When Scythe Goddard threatens Esme with a knife, High Blade Xenocrates is ready to risk his own self-gleaning. Goddard holding Esme at his estate prevents Xenocrates from any kind of independent action, for fear of punishment and of losing his daughter.
Citra dies twice in this section, and both deaths are for tactical reasons. The first death is tactical on Rowan's part, ensuring they both fail their second apprentice test. The second tactical death is Citra's own decision, though the decision to splat puts the situation out of her control. After she splats, she's not even in the Scythedom's jurisdiction, and her status is unknown to everyone (including the reader), with the sole exception of the Thunderhead, as the Nimbus agents take her away. It's unclear exactly why Xenocrates screams in response—Shusterman writes that he "screamed primal rage into the woman's face," so clearly he's enraged. "Primal" is interesting in the context of Scythe Goddard's killing-is-natural philosophy, indicating that rage is innate. Regardless, Xenocrates wants to scream and scream and scream, presumably for a variety of reasons beyond rage: fear of Goddard, frustration at being defied, and overall repressed emotion and confusion.
Before her first death, Citra brings Rowan into the investigation of Scythe Faraday's self-gleaning. Before her second, she brings Scythe Curie into the investigation. Her arrest happens so soon after, first, Rowan and Scythe Goddard's discussion of Citra's search, and, second, Citra telling Scythe Curie what she's been doing, that there are only two possible options for who has brought these charges against her: Goddard or Curie. Scythe Goddard is the more obvious culprit, and it would be reasonable to assume that Goddard ordered Citra's arrest to cover up his crime (killing Scythe Faraday). However, while he almost definitely ordered Citra's arrest, this would have happened before Rowan mentioned Scythe Faraday; before he jumps in the pool, High Blade Xenocrates promises that Citra will no longer be a problem. Scythe Goddard ordering Citra's arrest (if, indeed, he did) is not to cover up his crimes, though the narrative implies that this might be the case. The reader's suspicion of Scythe Goddard in Faraday's death is maintained in a few ways (including his being a bad person), particularly through the proximity of these events and the very few people who know about Citra's investigation. These narrative tools lead us to suspect either Scythe Goddard or Scythe Curie. This is important to recognize because proximity and limited actors are important devices in mysteries—and because, in mysteries, the obvious culprit is rarely the perpetrator.
