58 pages • 1 hour read
Mary E. PearsonVow of Thieves
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Kazi”
King Montegue and his soldiers leave Kazi alone for two days. She struggles to accept Jase’s death and devises a plan to free Lydia and Nash.
When she is next summoned by the king, Kazi finds him in full military regalia, stating he has trained in swordsmanship under Banques for years. King Montegue escorts her to the plaza, where Nash and Lydia happily rush to him. Kazi is distressed when she notices the town’s damage and the strong military presence. She notices nearly a dozen hanged corpses behind a platform; Montegue explains they were Ballenger sympathizers.
Kazi reads out a statement prepared by Banques to a crowd gathered at the plaza. It declares that Jase has been executed and King Montegue is the rightful ruler of Hell’s Mouth. The crowd calls Kazi a murderer, and someone hits her with a rock. Soldiers disperse the crowd.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Jase”
Caemus, Kerry, and the other people of the Vendan settlement help Jase during his convalescence. Jase struggles with the knowledge that Paxton and Truko now control the arena and worries about Kazi.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Kazi”
King Montegue holds a feast to celebrate Kazi’s announcement’s success. As Kazi plans to free Lydia and Nash, she compliments Montegue’s choice of meal to win his favor.
Montegue questions Kazi about the Ballenger family vault. She answers carefully, using prevarication and omission to avoid giving any details. She lies when asked about her relationship with Jase, claiming she was only using him. She also implies that she cannot return to Venda after failing to bring Jase back safely.
Montegue flirts with Kazi, suggesting that he is a better catch than Jase. Sensing a trap, Kazi avoids his kiss. Montegue admires her but warns her against lying, saying that he knows her dinner compliments were false. He then forces Kazi to make another announcement: She will stay in Hell’s Mouth to help the town.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Jase”
Jase prepares to find Kazi despite the fact that his wound hasn’t fully healed. Caemus warns him to be careful.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Kazi”
A group that includes Kazi, Montegue, Banques, Lydia, and Nash rides to Tor’s Watch. Kazi overhears Montegue talking to Paxton and Truko and wonders why he needs to increase the arena’s revenue.
Nash and Lydia fight over an eyestone, and Kazi offers to help them find another. Accompanied by guards, she takes the pair away from the group to look for a stone. For the first time, they speak to her, apologizing and explaining that they hate the king but feel compelled to go along with him.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Jase”
The Vendan settlers disguise Jase as a Kbaaki, which is a northern ethnic group known for their distinctive facial designs.
Before Jase can hide, riders approach the village, and Wren attacks him in anger. Wren and Synové question Jase about Kazi, and Synové shares her dream about Kazi’s imprisonment.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Kazi”
Montegue’s soldiers march Kazi to the vault, but all their attempts to break into it yield no response.
Kazi then realizes that Montegue orchestrated the weapons and betrayals that are attributed to Beaufort. Montegue explains that he collaborated with Phineas, who theorized that remnants of a fallen star caused species to grow exponentially. He shows Kazi the stardust, claiming it can increase the power of everything, even making soldiers inhuman. Montegue needs Phineas’s papers to find more stardust and orders Kazi to search Tor’s Watch for them.
Despite a thorough search, Kazi returns empty-handed. She questions Banques and learns he is Beaufort Illarion’s brother. He sends Kazi to search the main house. When she gets there, she is shocked by the devastation. In her grief and rage, she attacks her escort, Paxton, who reveals Jase is alive and that Paxton took him to Caemus. Paxton explains that he stole Jase’s signet ring to provide proof of death to Montegue; he also discloses that he was the one who gave Kazi medicine in prison. He says he is “playing traitor” to help the family, specifically Lydia and Nash.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Jase”
Wren and Synové join Jase in searching for Kazi, disguised as his wives.
They discuss their gifts: The Queen receives premonitions of danger, Synové sees the future in dreams, and Kazi sees Death.
Six scouts approach their camp and realize Jase’s group is not what they seem. Jase, Wren, and Synové kill all but one scout, Hagur, whom Jase knows from the arena. Jase questions Hagur about Kazi’s whereabouts, but Hagur provides little information.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Kazi”
Paxton reveals to Kazi that Montegue orchestrated all the attacks on Hell’s Mouth, using Rybart as a scapegoat. Montegue spent months infiltrating various groups in Hell’s Mouth, sowing discord by offering rewards for reports of disloyalty. Now, Montegue is desperate for funds to pay off mercenaries. Kazi realizes Montegue hid munitions in olive and wine casks. Paxton and Kazi speculate that Montegue will charge other kingdoms exorbitant fees, using his weapons as blackmail.
Kazi shares her plan to free Lydia and Nash, and Paxton offers two of his men to help.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Jase”
Jase, Synové, and Wren reach the arena and encounter Sheridan, a familiar face. Jase convinces Sheridan to take them to a stall, where he questions him and discovers that Sheridan is a plant. They force Sheridan into an underground storage unit, learning that King Montegue has seized control of the Ballengers’ holdings. Sheridan tries to escape, but they manage to lock him back underground.
Chapters 16-25 Analysis
While many characters in this section illustrate the theme of Secrets and Deceptions, Montegue’s deceptions trump even Kazi’s. He is a patient and cunning antagonist whose plans to take over Hell’s Mouth and the arena resulted from months, if not years, of meticulous planning. In the previous book of the duology, Dance of Thieves, Montegue comes across as a bumbling, incompetent king, more a farmer than a ruler. However, Vow of Thieves reveals that he deliberately manipulated others’ perceptions of him. Even Kazi, who is typically a good judge of character, is fooled by his performance. When she realizes her error, she thinks: “He was far from the bumbling, clueless king I had once thought him to be” (122). Paxton is similarly shocked by Montegue’s true nature, stating, “Bumbling…None of us could have been more wrong about him. Our biggest mistake was underestimating him” (181). Montegue’s deception is so effective that Jase does not even consider him a suspect in the takeover of Hell’s Mouth.
Montegue is a master manipulator, using various methods to alter how others perceive him. He spends considerable effort portraying himself as the savior of Hell’s Mouth, painting Rybart, a merchant with a history of trying to control the arena, as the villain. However, the attacks on Hell’s Mouth occurred after Rybart was already dead, killed by one of Montegue’s soldiers. Kazi is impressed against her will when she learns of this, thinking, “The depth and breadth of Montegue’s conniving made me marvel. He was shrewd, patient, smart. He knew how to deceive and play people. He understood misdirection as well as I did” (180).
Montegue also engages in a propaganda campaign, twisting the truth into a story where he is the hero and the Ballengers—and even Kazi—are the villains. He cleverly forces Kazi to deceive the people of Hell’s Mouth about Jase’s death. Instead of admitting the presumed truth of Jase’s death, he blackmails Kazi, using Lydia and Nash as leverage, to state that the Vendan Queen had Jase executed. In doing so, he shifts any anger the townspeople might have about Jase’s death onto Kazi’s shoulders, ensuring that his own reputation and popularity is untarnished. Montegue also pushes the narrative that he and his soldiers saved the town from the greedy Ballengers; in reality, they invaded and took over Hell’s Mouth.
Even as Montegue works at deceiving others, he also ends up deceiving himself, especially regarding his popularity and likeableness. He genuinely believes that Lydia and Nash are fond of him, thinking: “They’ve become very fond of me. I give them attention, presents. More than [Jase] ever did” (129). In truth, Nash hates the king, and Lydia plans to kill him. The youngest Ballenger siblings engage in their own deception, pretending to be fond of him while they wait for the right moment to strike. Since they are in a situation where they are forced to fake their fondness for Montegue, they immediately recognize Kazi’s announcement as another lie, realizing that she, too, is being forced to make this announcement against her will. This concept that deceivers can more easily identify other deceivers appears several times throughout the work.
Montegue also deludes himself into believing that the people of Hell’s Mouth will forget the Ballengers easily, thinking: “They’re forgetting the Patrei…Moving forward. Soon they’ll only remember me, as it should have been all along” (123). Kazi speculates that Montegue covets the love Jase received and thus targets those who loved Jase, like Lydia, Nash, and Kazi. Although Montegue is sly and clever, his jealousy toward Jase is a weakness that Kazi manipulates. She implies that she never loved Jase, and Montegue wants to believe this despite all the evidence on the contrary, “the same way he refused to hear murderer murmured through the crowd, but heard long live the king instead” (131). While Montegue skillfully deceives others, he deceives himself just as often, determined to believe in his own popularity and triumph over Jase.
Montegue’s ability to manipulate and deceive is central to his character and the plot. His complex deceptions and self-delusions highlight the theme of Secrets and Deceptions and the consequences of underestimating his enemies.
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