48 pages • 1 hour read
The Bone Season
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Chapters 11-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Of Weeping”
That night, Paige leaves the tower to meet the Overseer’s Oracle, David, who has summoned her via a psychic message. She meets him outside the library, and they walk together and discuss the Rephs’ strategy of indoctrination. David tells her of his encounter with the Emim. When he and a group of other “pink shirts” (those voyants who have passed the first of their two tests) battled the creature, at least one died, but the rest survived and were awarded their red jackets. David tells her that Nashira has been raiding the Syndicate in search of “higher order” voyants because she fears the mime-lords and wants to capture and control the more accomplished voyants for herself. From this information, Paige can see that David clearly despises the Rephaim and would love to overthrow them. Paige then asks about the rebellion from Bone Season XVIII, and David explains that a group of Rephs rose up against Nashira but were betrayed, and the rebellion was crushed, with all but two humans devoured by the Emim. (One survivor was a small girl whom they assume did not survive.)
David walks Paige back to Magdalen and hands her an envelope, saying only, “See if you can make anything of it” (166). When Paige returns to the tower, she finds that her room has been ransacked, and Reph blood is on the floor.
Chapter 12 Summary: “A Fever”
Warden lies motionless on his bed. She tries to assess his condition, but he wakes and orders her to let him die. When she sees the extent of his wounds—clearly caused by an Emim—he asks for saltwater to treat them. While bathing his torn shoulder, she tells him of her life. She was born in Dublin but forced to leave, and her father was “conscripted” by the Scion government to conduct scientific research and to “cure” voyants of their abilities. Warden asks her for a pint of her blood in order to heal his wounds. In exchange, he promises her a favor, so she cuts her wrist, and he drinks. Afterward, he asks her to keep his injuries a secret. Just then, Pleione enters with a vial of blood for Warden—Seb’s blood.
Chapter 13 Summary: “His Picture”
Chapter 13 flashes back to a time frame seven years after Paige’s first encounter with Nick. At this time, she is depicted in her “Year Eleven” at the “III-5 School for Girls of Quality” (180), when he is invited to speak at a career seminar. After his lecture, Paige meets him backstage. When she causes the school headmistress to have a nosebleed, Nick takes interest, but before they can chat, he is called away. He tells her not to enroll in university before they can speak again.
Two days later, Nick returns. He is eager to help her understand her abilities (not just to sense people but to hurt them). Over coffee, he tells her that she is a voyant like he is and introduces her to Jaxon, who explains to her the real meaning of clairvoyance and the nature of the aether, as well as Scion’s propaganda campaign against voyants. Jaxon suspects that Paige is “one of the rarest clairvoyants in the modern world” (191) and offers her a job for life.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Sun Rising”
Back in the narrative’s present day, and subsequent to the “bloodletting” that Paige performed on Warden’s behalf, she has found a small sanctuary: an enclosed archway near a library where she can read in privacy. She peruses the contents of the envelope David gave her—a worn page with faded writing, details about the Rephaim, and a blurred photographic image. Paige realizes belatedly that since Pleione brought Warden blood to treat his injuries, she must be in on his secret. Thinking of Warden, she drifts off to sleep.
Liss wakes her frantically the next morning. She has missed her curfew, and red-jackets are searching for her. They sneak back to Liss’s shack. Julian is there, wearing a pink tunic that he earned by “scrying” the location of an Irish agitator for Nashira. Liss then tells Paige that she has had a vision of a man—Nick—who is searching for her. She performs a tarot reading for Paige and predicts that “the world will change around you, and you’ll do everything in your power to resist it” (201). As she is about to draw the final card, three red-jackets burst in. A fight breaks out, and one of them throws Liss’s cards into the fire, severing her connection to the aether and rendering her catatonic. Just then, a Reph named Suhail enters the tent and tells Paige that she is going to die.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Fall of a Wall”
Suhail feeds on Paige’s aura and drags her back to Magdalen, but Warden declares her off-limits. Alone with Paige, he reiterates the importance of the curfew. He gives her food and questions her about her past in an attempt to find out who trained her before the Rephaim and provided her with her supplies, but she refuses to give up Jax or the Syndicate. Eventually, she and Warden strike a bargain: they will treat each other with mutual respect (as mentor and protégé), but she must spend one hour each night in conversation with him. She accepts, if only as a temporary survival strategy.
The following evening, Warden takes her out for training. As they walk, he feeds on her aura to heal himself further, claiming that it is his “right” to do so. At length, they come to a cold zone, a place where spirits dwell between the corporeal and aethereal worlds. Here, Warden teaches her how to use “rhabdomancy,” a voyant technique designed to locate the zone’s epicenter. He then cuts his arm and uses his blood to open a portal between worlds. It is also the door to the Netherworld, and Paige’s test is to look into it, a task that will “test the limits of [her] sanity” (219).
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Undertaking”
Warden leads Paige to open ground where they find a deer called Nuala, who is apparently tame. Although animals are illegal within the city, Warden has kept her for company, and for Paige. He explains that Nashira wants Paige’s ability for herself, that she needs Paige alive, but “will not wait forever” (223). He offers to help Paige learn to enter other minds and control them. He suggests that she start with Nuala, but Paige prefers something smaller. Warden goes to find another test subject but gives her a pendant that is primed, or “sublimed,” so that it can be used to touch the aether. She puts it on. While waiting for Warden to return, Nuala approaches. Paige tries to possess her mind but retreats when Nuala is frightened. Warden returns with a butterfly, and she enters its dreamscape easily, but the possession disorients her severely. She flies back into her own body, retching. She has passed her first test. Warden starts a fire and leaves her to sleep and rest before the next test.
Chapters 11-16 Analysis
In these chapters, Shannon employs a common genre trope by styling Paige as the stereotypical hero-in-training who is clearly meant for greater things. Such a trope demands a mentor, so Warden assumes the role, even though he is her captor and his protégé is a reluctant one. Thus, yet again, Shannon simultaneously employs and subverts the conventional patterns of the fantasy genre and deliberately imbues them with the grim tones of post-apocalyptic fiction. In a continuation of the mentor/trainee relationship, Paige’s particular training involves honing her rare latent abilities for an as-yet unspecified mission, and just as Obi-Wan trains Luke Skywalker and Merlin the young King Arthur, so too must Warden train Paige not only to push herself beyond the constricting fear of death but also to overcome her innate distrust of the Rephaim. As so often happens in these stories, the adepts possess raw ability, but the mentor role is essential to allowing them to explore and control it, and this pattern holds true in The Bone Season as well, for although Paige has killed with her mind once before, she was only able to do so when her emotions took over. Now, Warden’s training seeks to help Paige assert control over her wandering spirit, not the other way around. Throughout all of his conscientious instruction, Warden’s motives and “endgame” remain a mystery, but Shannon does offer up a few key hints. For example, his provocative question to Paige, “Would you like to [possess Rephs]?” (224), tempts her with the possibility of challenging Nashira, who, as Warden admits, covets Paige’s ability. Thus, Shannon establishes that Warden’s goals are far deeper than they appear to be, but the true extent of his motivations is yet to be revealed.
This section also allows Shannon to delve more deeply into the various psychological tactics of domination, particularly the fear of punishment for disobedience. For example, when Paige breaks curfew, Suhail threatens her with death and would likely follow have followed through if not for Warden’s intervention. Voyants—particularly the “harlies”—are also routinely beaten as a reminder of their low status. In addition to the physical punishments, however, there is also a psychological component to the Rephaim’s brutality. Voyants are addressed only by their designated numbers, a tactic designed to strip them of their most basic form of identity. Similarly, red-jackets are encouraged to betray their own kind in service to the enemy. As David, a potential ally, tells Paige, “That’s the whole point of this place: to brainwash us. To make us feel inferior” (156). A terrified and emotionally numb population is a compliant one that proves easy fodder for the Rephs’ twofold goal: to provide the Rephaim with auras on which to feed and to recruit sacrificial troops in the battle against the Emim. Both Warden’s secret support of Paige and his willingness to face the Emim himself suggest that among the Rephaim, he stands as an outlier who may turn out to be more friend than foe.
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