Red Queen

Mare enters the banquet, where the king and queen announce her identity to the waiting Silver nobles. The tension from the girls involved in the Queenstrial is thick until Maven asks for Mare’s hand in marriage. Though it’s phrased as a question, Mare knows she has no choice and pledges herself to Maven, which feels like “hammering the last nails into my coffin” (100). Next, Cal announces his choice for queen. It’s Evangeline, to no one’s surprise. He asks for her hand. Evangeline accepts and retakes her seat, gripping Mare’s harm hard enough to bruise and warning her to stay out of the way.

During dinner, Mare sits beside Maven, who apologizes for being cold to her earlier. As the second prince, he should have gotten to choose who he would wed and is sad the choice has been taken away. Mare can’t muster any pity for him and tells him he doesn’t deserve sympathy because he lives in a palace and has everything he could ever want or need. Maven agrees and watches Cal and their father laughing together with a wistful expression. For a moment, Mare feels bad but reminds herself she can’t pity any of these people because she’s “a Red girl in a sea of Silvers” (106).

At the end of the banquet, each house makes a toast. The Samos house goes last, and they toast Evangeline while Maven explains to Mare that all the guns for the war are made in the Samos mines. The royal family leaves the banquet. Maven walks Evangeline to her room while Cal takes Mare to her new chambers.

On the way, they talk about how they’re trapped in the Silver world—neither truly happy with what they must do. As she reflects on their similarities, Mare feels the electricity in her blood reaching out to the many cameras all around her. She doesn’t know how to control it, but fortunately, the feeling fades quickly. In her room, more cameras spark the same sensation. She asks Cal about them, and he’s perplexed because he doesn’t see any cameras in her room. She argues she can feel them and realizes she’s the only one—that “even among the Silvers, I’m something else” (113). Cal leaves, and feeling lost and alone, Mare closes herself in her room.

Mare’s daily schedule starts the next day: breakfast, lessons, lunch, lessons, dinner. She suffers through breakfast with Elara and Evangeline, who tell her lunch will be with the other girls from Queenstrial. Mare is surprised they are still there after not winning, and Elara explains they will stay for several weeks until a final ball. Then, they will go home, and the royal family will return to the capital. Though Mare knew this would happen, the knowledge that “this world [she] can’t understand will become [her] only reality” crushes her anew (117).

After breakfast, Mare goes to protocol lessons with Lady Blonos, which is three hours of posture correction and learning the Silver hierarchy. At lunch, two girls from Queenstrial corner Mare, pretending to be welcoming, but deliver veiled threats. One introduces her aunt, one of the best spies from the war, which makes Mare nervous. A spy could unravel all the lies and “easily find the cracks” in her story (125).