Book Five: Save Yourself — 16.

Three days after Allie’s theft at The Briars, Gwen and Robin wait in Rackham College’s chapel as the AA meeting ends. Allie and Tana arrive, and Gwen lays out artifacts: the martyr’s robe, the Russian mirror, a green thermos, a small projector, and Arthur’s notebooks.

Gwen summarizes Arthur’s teachings: dragons can be banished by true names, trickery, riddles, or slain by soulful, mythic blades. Arthur believed such blades are literal souls, and he had realized the sword he needed was out of reach while alive—his own soul.

Gwen proposes a séance to draw Arthur’s soul from the Long Dark using the mirror as a window and a projected video to anchor him, making Arthur himself the sword. The robe would conceal Gwen from King Sorrow, allowing a close strike. She chooses the Brooks Library, dear to Arthur, as the site.

Gwen insists on going alone, crediting each friend’s contributions but refusing their aid to avoid their deaths. Allie counters that together they could summon a weaker, earlier King Sorrow via her mark and even call Van as a second sword, gaining better odds.

Gwen rejects the accelerated plan, revealing the thermos holds dragon tears that could let her breathe fire—potentially killing or blinding the dragon but likely killing her. Allie realizes Gwen is prepared to die; Gwen frames the tears as an emergency to deny Sorrow her life.

Robin asks for time to reconsider leaving Gwen solo. Gwen believes there is time until Easter, but the narration closes by stating she is wrong, foreshadowing an imminent escalation.