The Marvellers

This summary section includes “The Greatest Show in the Skies,” Chapter 10: “Conjure Marks and Haints,” and Chapter 11: “Detention.”

Gia escapes from prison and prowls the streets of Betelmore. Eleven years earlier, Gia’s family owned the “Trivelino Troupe’s Circus & Imaginarium of Illusions” (165). Although the building is now abandoned, “all [is] just as she’d left it eleven years before the accident: the entry canal of mirrors, the waterway surrounding the big top, the walls of attractions tucked into the circular amphitheater, and the floating stages” (166). Finally free, Gia hatches a plan to wreak havoc on those who imprisoned her.

When Halloween arrives, Ella looks forward to her first Conjure Arts class with Aunt Sera. She worries that conjuring lore won’t be accepted by the Marvellers, asking her aunt,

‘You think the other students will like learning about us?’ Aunt Sera responds: ‘If they’re open-minded. Our skills aren’t so different. Not as much as they make it seem. They just don’t understand it. Label it bad without knowing anything’ (174).

After the rest of the students arrive, their contempt turns to respect when they see some of the magic that Aunt Sera can do. They are also impressed to learn that Ella’s father is the Grand High Walker, who manages the entire Underworld and all the various realms it contains. One of them is the prison world that previously housed Gia. Aunt Sera explains:

Marvellers who have committed crimes exist inside this powerful set of conjure cards. They’re made from the threads of death and act as vessels, or containers. Once sentenced, you cross into the card and are held there in perpetuity or until you’re released (179).

As November rolls around, Brigit becomes less inclined to run away. She and Ella decide to question Feste, whom they’ve kept locked in a closet since the night of their escape. When they release him, he explains that Brigit’s grandmother enchanted him to watch over Brigit when she was sent to live with a Marveller friend of her grandmother’s in New York. When Brigit asks about her family, Feste says, “I don’t know. But there are some things in your pocket-box, [a magical container with hundreds of compartments]. Your grandmother tucked them away for the right time” (187).

Ella helps Brigit magically open some of the pockets, holding “back a smile because […] Brigit [is] a little like her pocket-box. Full of secrets and hidden compartments that [take] time to open up” (188). Brigit finds an item that belonged to her unknown mother. It’s engraved with the initials of the academy. Brigit also finds a heliogram photo of her grandmother, which makes her happy. The old woman is now deceased, but Ella suspects she was hiding many secrets from her granddaughter.

The next day, Ella and Brigit serve their detention—cleaning the dung from the menagerie cages. Jason meets them there because he enjoys taking care of the animals. He discloses what he learned about the strange, restricted elevator that the trio rode several weeks earlier: “Izulu said the elevator was made by the original architect of the Arcanum. That it either takes you where you want to go or takes you where it wants you to go” (194). Ella recalls being strangely drawn to the elevator but was unsure of what it wanted her to see. Brigit shows Jason a knitted square that she made with his whole family represented on it. Jason becomes unexpectedly upset, and Brigit feels confused. Ella realizes that Brigit depicted each member of Jason’s family with a symbol only used by Conjurors.

This summary section includes “The Vault,” Chapter 12: “Smile for the News-Boxes!,” “Memories Long Forgotten,” and Chapter 13: “Blueprints.”

Back in Betelmore, Gia makes her way to the cemetery where her family is buried, wanting to retrieve something from their vault. A magical message indicates that it takes a pair to gain admittance and Gia “squeeze[s] her eyes shut. ‘Mother, what have you done?’ She punche[s] the stone. Her hand [finds] its way to a locket she always [wears]—one that held a tiny portrait of her late daughter. ‘The child is dead’” (200).

The school’s directors intercept Brigit and Ella on their way to their dorm a few days later, saying they want a word with Ella. Headmarvellers MacDonald and Rivera ask tactful, but probing questions to find out if Ella is happy at school. Warily, she agrees that she is. Photographers arrive to snap pictures of the first Conjuror student at the Arcanum. Afterward, the Headmarvellers ask if Ella has stolen an heirloom lantern from one of her former roommates. Hurt by the false accusation, Ella runs back to her room.

In Betelmore, Gia goes to a fae teahouse where she drinks a concoction that will bring back lost memories. She recalls the accident that landed her in prison. During her stage act, she engaged in a contest with a fellow magician. He taunted her during their third round, saying, “‘Women are no ringmasters. Stick to the sideshow. Your father did it better.’ Her rage bubbled up, her marvel out of control. She muttered an indefensible incant. The light burst out of her, ripping him in two” (209). Gia saw blood spatter her infant daughter, held in her grandmother’s arms, and believed she had killed the child too.

At Ella’s appointment with her mentor, Masterji takes her in the Restricted Lift to the Founder’s Room where he shows her blueprints that look like conjure maps: “‘See, my dear? You belong—' Masterji’s words [garble] and he start[s] coughing. The same terrible sound escape[s] his throat like that day at the Arcanum Cardinal” (213). Masterji passes out, and Ella summons medical help, feeling convinced that Conjurors have been at the academy before, but she needs to solve the mystery of when and how.

This summary section includes Chapter 14: “Knitting Visions,” and Chapter 15: “The Red Book.”

Brigit continues knitting images of people she doesn’t know and scenes she doesn’t understand. Her work attracts the attention of the faculty. Dr. Karlsson summons her for an appointment, assuring Brigit that they share the same gift of foresight, saying, “Don’t worry much about that. Just means that you will be a Marveller with a Paragon of Vision. My very own group. We’ll be proud to have you. The eyes are wise!” (222). Lately, Brigit has been knitting the image of an unknown woman repeatedly. When she shows the work to Karlsson, the professor says that this is the face of Gia Trivelino. Nobody can understand why Brigit would see Gia in her visions.

Winter break arrives, and Ella invites Brigit to come home with her for the holidays. The girls meet the Durands at the family farmhouse in Mississippi, where they enjoy a happy vacation. Brigit feels welcome and no longer talks about running away from the Arcanum. Ella overhears a conversation between her parents in which her mother worries about the negative influence the school might have on Ella. Her father counters this notion, saying, “Our children need to know our world and theirs. That’s the only way they’ll be truly safe. To be able to survive in both” (233).

Ella’s family plans to spend the New Year back in New Orleans. They use a magical map to transport themselves to Congo Square, where the gates to the Underworld are located. After they arrive, Ella and Brigit run into Jason, who confesses that he came to return the deathbull pup that ended up in his menagerie. Since these animals are only attracted to Conjurors, Jason finally admits that his ancestors were Jamaican Conjurors, but that the family tries to keep this heritage a secret so that the children won’t experience discrimination at the Arcanum.

Suddenly, everyone in the magical community receives an alert that the Cards of Deadly Fate have been breached, and a prisoner has escaped. The Durands speculate that the Conjurors will be blamed for allowing a criminal to get away. Later, Gia sends a message to Ella’s father, Sebastien Durand, saying, “I need a soul reaped from the Underworld. She died on June 18 at 9:22 p.m. I’ll pay the top price—name it” (246).