Book Five: Save Yourself — 11.

At Tana’s apartment, Gwen cooks while the group finishes recounting recent events: Jayne’s death, the pursuit by dangerous forces, the BA 238 disaster, and Arthur’s quest to Tintagel. Robin then adds her return to Slaughterbridge searching for Stuart Finger. The meal steadies Allie, though she is raw from tears.

Tana bluntly asks who the dragon will kill this year, and Gwen reveals King Sorrow has selected her. Robin, agitated, links this to her earlier suggestion that Colin might have killed Arthur; Allie confirms Colin did, while insisting Donna wasn’t complicit and believes Colin’s cave-in story.

Allie explains Colin has further poisoned Donna’s mind, convincing her that Gwen used King Sorrow’s tears to murder elderly victims, recasting Gwen as the villain and relieving Donna of guilt over Black Cricket. Gwen recognizes how Donna embraces a target for her resentment.

Seeking a defense, Gwen mentions a lost weapon once in Stuart Finger’s cave but doubts she can retrieve it. Allie proposes another option from Colin’s ongoing Cabinet of Curiosities: a vast, foul-smelling blanket of human hair that resisted burning—what Gwen identifies as the martyr’s robe, which protects against hellfire and the eyes of the wicked.

They agree the robe could shield Gwen, but Allie warns the Cabinet is sealed with an otherworldly alloy lock that induces vertigo and can only be handled with its key. The key, Allie says, is with Donna. The chapter ends with the group confronting the need to obtain the robe despite Donna’s hostility and Colin’s protections.