Thursday, December 7, 2023

Keeper of the Lost Cities #8.5 Summary and Observations

Overview of plot (beware, spoilers):

Sophie and Oralie look at the Forgotten Secret in Oralie's cache.  Sophie learns that Kenric was a Washer, and Oralie learns that Sophie no longer has Kenric's cache.

Keefe is quite disturbed at the changes in his abilities.  His empathy has strengthened, and he's now a Polyglot.  Keefe also discovers that he can give his words power that will affect other people.  Oralie suggests that Keefe's Empathy and Polyglot abilities have merged.

It is decided that Keefe will stay with Elwin.  He will be mentored by Oralie, Alina, and either Lady Cadence or Clarette.

Keefe can now sense when an elf is about to manifest and when they are talentless.

Glimmer has a starstone that leads to a Neverseen storehouse.  Sophie and her friends go with Glimmer to the storehouse.  Sophie finds the two missing caches, then she decides to burn the storehouse.

Keefe runs away so that no one knows about his new ability.

Sophie explains what she did at the storehouse to Tiergan, Grady, and everyone else.  They become alarmed and tell Sophie that her attack was unprovoked and that there will be consequences.  Everyone decides to step up security.  Sophie is told that she just turned this into a war. 

She is told that she has positioned herself as the leader, that by leaving a flying moonlark symbol that she has made herself a target.

Unlike everyone else, Mr. Forkle is surprisingly supportive of Sophie's actions.  He just lets her know that she needs to tell everyone before she makes a sudden decision like lighting a fire.  She also needs to be aware of whether the fire will spread.

Please visit the following page for a link to my previous post about this book.

Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories

On page 529, we learn that Kenric was sometimes not proud to be a Councillor.  Oralie senses disgust.  This has something to do with stellarlune and Elysian.

I don't see a problem with Sophie destroying the storehouse, but I don't understand why the Archetype was destroyed.

Page 536:   I don't know what Elysian is, or what it has to do with stellarlune, but the fear I can now remember feeling in Kenric was unlike anything I've ever experienced from him.  He was always calm and collected, even under incredibly fraught circumstances.  So for him to be that worried...

Shannon has said in an interview that Elysian is one of the Lost Cities' darkest secrets.

Page 609:   Oralie had abandoned her and betrayed her.

Page 610:   And it was even worse realizing how easily Oralie had cast her aside, as if having a daughter were just some item she'd checked off her to-do list.


This is really just Sophie lashing out in anger over what she missed by not being raised by her biological parents.  I wonder what Sophie's going to say to her father when she learns his identity.  After all, he orchestrated the entire situation.

Page 705:   "If I learned one thing from Gisela," Glimmer interrupted, "it's that there's always a choice."

There are some obvious similarities between the leaders of the Black Swan and the leaders of the Neverseen.

After Sophie burns the Neverseen's storehouse, she speaks with Mr. Forkle.  His subtle personality shift is apparent in this scene.  In the earlier books, Forkle/Leto is either grumpy or somber all of the time.  But now...

Page 730:   But she finally rolled her eyes and said, "What's interesting?"  His smile brightened.  "You kids can be so stubborn."

Page 733:   His lips curled with another smile.  "Now that's a symbol.  You should start using this."  "For what?" Sophie asked.  "You'll know when the time comes," he told her, which was such a cheating way to answer.  He laughed when she scowled.

Page 734   "For now, how about you sit back down and tell me more about destroying this storehouse?"  "Why?" Sophie asked—but she still returned to one of the ottomans.  He smiled his widest smile yet.  "Because we need to celebrate the victories."


This is not quite the same Mr. Forkle.  He's changing.

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