Overview of plot (beware, spoilers):
Sophie speaks to Ro to find out why Keefe has run away. It has something to do with Keefe detecting and possibly triggering abilities. Sophie then visits Lord Cassius for a list of Forbidden Cities that Keefe might visit.
Sophie learns that Cassius' Black Swan assignment has to do with the stalled treaty with the trolls. Also, Keefe has completed two of Lady Gisela's three steps to stellarlune. Gisela seems to be hoping that Keefe will be able to influence emotions. It is revealed that Lady Gisela is a conjurer.
Amy tells Sophie that three islands sank recently after several tsunamis. Amy wonders if the disappearing islands are connected to the elves.
Sophie, Ro, and Edaline wonder why Lady Gisela has kept her conjuring a secret. She may plan to use conjuring at a pivotal moment when surprise is necessary.
Sophie's friends are upset that she burned the Neverseen's storehouse and that she acted alone. Glimmer reveals that her name is Rayni Aria and that she set Lady Gisela free at Loamnore because she owed her. Rayni suggests setting up a meeting with the Neverseen's guster, Trix.
Sophie, Oralie, and Dex look at the secrets in Kenric's cache.
Sophie becomes angry when she sees a map for Elysian in Kenric's cache. She realizes that Forkle put another version of the map in her brain and confronts Forkle about it. Forkle thinks the map is a plan for a human sanctuary, but Sophie thinks it is for the location of Elysian. To prove her theory, Sophie attempts to teleport to Elysian along with Grady, Mr. Forkle, Ro, and Sander. Sophie finds that she's blocked, like Elysian has a force field.
Sophie realizes that the Neverseen know a bunch of ancient Council secrets. Sophie wants to search through all of the Councillors' caches to find out what they need to know.
Mr. Forkle informs Ro that Cadfael is planning to overthrow her father. Ro refuses to believe Mr. Forkle, but he finally gets through to her. As Ro prepares to leave to warn her father, Ro instructs Sophie on what she needs to do to prepare for a final showdown with Lady Gisela. Sophie must get used to using weapons. Ro also tells Sophie that Keefe cares about her.
The Neverseen retaliate for the storehouse fire by destroying Brumevale. Mr. Forkle believes that the Black Swan has a leak, which led to the Neverseen learning of Brumevale's location.
Foxfire reopens so that the elves have a semblance of normalcy. Tiergan guides Sophie and Fitz on how they can salvage their Cognate connection.
Rayni, Sophie, Tam, Maruca, and Wylie meet with Trix. Vespera shows up as well. Vespera tells Sophie about Elysian.
Page 542: "[The] Ancient Council... chose to hold back our species by blocking access to certain vital sources of power... Elysian is a place... with a rare kind of stone... [that] has the capacity to contain the power of a seventh element."
Page 543: "The element also does not have a name... it is believed to be a manifestation of the three Prime Sources: sunlight, moonlight, and starlight—and not just any starlight. The light from a sixth unmapped star—a star that can only appear when the other five unmapped stars align during something the Ancient Council called Nightfall."
Vespera says that Nightfall is in 10 days. The light from the sixth unmapped star is shining on the rocks at Elysian, which are absorbing the power of the Prime Sources. The stones must be removed before Nightfall ends or the power will flow back into the earth. Lady Gisela wants the power from those stones.
Vespera admits that she has been to Elysian and that she created the illusions hiding the quarry. She did so at the orders of the Ancient Council. She was not told why. Vespera also reveals that Gisela has been to Elysian but was unable to find the quarry. Gisela found crystal remnants from the last Nightfall and used them to set off an explosion. Sophie realizes that the crystal was used to destroy Brumevale.
The starstone that Gisela commissioned from Cyrah leads to Elysian, but the starstone is missing. Vespera also reveals that Gisela has the means to find Keefe and that he cannot hide from her.
Trix reveals that Umber slipped shadowflux into Keefe's meals and then guided the shadowflux to Keefe's heart. Gisela has a modified Spyball that tracks the ripple from the shadowflux. Tam has the ability to pull the shadowflux out of Keefe's heart.
Dex modifies Sophie's Spyball to find Keefe. They locate him in London and remove the shadowflux. Keefe decides to return to the Lost Cities since Sophie won't promise to destroy the Elysian power source when she locates it.
Sophie doesn't know how to tell Keefe that she likes him. She's also puzzled that Keefe doesn't say anything about sensing her emotions like he usually does. Finally, she gets up the courage to tell Keefe how much she likes him. Sophie and Keefe kiss.
Fitz arrives and tells Sophie that they need to finish the Cognate Inquisition so that they can probe Wylie's brain. During the Inquisition, Sophie tells Fitz about Keefe.
Now that Sophie and Fitz have overcome their trust issue, they probe Wylie's mind. They find a memory of Cyrah, telling them that she hid the starstone in one of her designs and sent it someplace safe.
Biana recognizes the hair comb and finds it at Everglen. One of the stones flashes blue.
Sophie and her friends use the starstone to go to Elysian but are unable to find anything. After their return, Vespera visits Sophie. She promises to show Sophie the real Elysian if Sophie and a few of her friends will go with her.
Vespera, Sophie, Fitz, Keefe, Marella, and Maruca use the starstone to go to Elysian. Vespera removes the illusion, revealing the rocks and the Noxflares covering them.
Marella burns the Noxflares like Fintan did in a Forgotten Secret. Thousands of stained glass panels are revealed. Sophie uses Dex's Illusion Breaker in the flames to reveal a massive dome. Lady Gisela arrives and kills Vespera. Everyone begins to battle, and then Elysian reveals herself, turning off their abilities.
Please visit the following page for a link to my previous post about this book.
Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories
Many fans have said that this book is boring. I don't find it boring at all; I find nearly all of it to be very interesting. This is why I hate it when people ask me what the best book in a series is. All I can do is state what I thought of a book, but that doesn't mean that the other person will like it. Reading is a very personal experience, and each of us will view the same book differently.
I think most readers were just looking for the climax of the SoKeefe situation and were disappointed about how long it took for Sophie and Keefe to kiss and how brief it was. Other readers were looking for lots of action, and this book is low on action.
This book is high on new information that begins to resolve the overarching plot of the series. The story is building towards the series climax.
I had forgotten most everything in this book about Elysian, which is weird considering that I had already read the book twice this year. I think it's just that these books are so long and nothing is mentioned about Elysian until Book 8.5.
It's apparent in the early books that there is a secret surrounding Cyrah. I had forgotten that the secret is that Cyrah made a starstone for Lady Gisela, and that the starstone leads to Elysian. I don't know what, if anything, this has to do with Prentice calling swan song. It's mighty interesting that the Black Swan's Keeper was the husband of the woman who made the Elysian starstone for the Neverseen.
It appears that Elysian is both a person and a place. Elysian is imprisoned in Elysian.
I wonder how much Forkle knows. He appears to be clueless about Elysian. He may have washed all of his memories of Elysian, but then he might have retained some of them and is playing dumb. We know that Forkle lies.
Page 290: "What's Elysian?" Grady asked. "And who told you about it?" Mr. Forkle added.
To me, Forkle is just asking how Sophie knows and not what it is. I think he knows something about it.
Page 291: "But Elysian is crucial." "What makes you so certain?" he asked. "Because it's connected to stellarlune!" "Stellarlune," Mr. Forkle repeated, dragging out each syllable. "You'll have to forgive me—sometimes the abundance of strange terms gets the better of me. Stellarlune is one of Lady Gisela's projects, isn't it?"
Mr. Forkle is definitely playing dumb by dragging out the syllables in "stellarlune." He's heard of it.
The paperback edition has a Marella short story. Shannon has said that the story might contain something important that is relevant later.
"You never figured out what was missing—did you?"
Fintan blinked and met her gaze. "Noxflares are full of possibility. But they need to burn."
Marella tells him that he didn't answer her question, and Fintan mentions context not being part of their agreement. Fintan later says that Marella is quite resourceful, especially when she is with her friends.
Fintan's breath fogged the ice, obscuring his face as he whispered, "All I ask is that if you ever find out what's missing from the Noxflares, you share it with me."
In return, Fintan would give Marella all of the memories in his cache and would tell her what really happened to her mother. It's apparent that Marella will tell Fintan what he wants if she finds out what is missing.
I wonder if the "something missing" has to do with the crystals at Elysian. If so, Marella might already have the answer.
The Black Swan doesn't have a leak, at least in the sense of what Mr. Forkle suspects. I believe that the weak link once again is Keefe. Vespera says that Lady Gisela has a way to find Keefe. I thought that this was the shadowflux that Tam removes, but there must be something else. Lady Gisela shows up at Elysian right after everyone else does. She must be using some means of tracking Keefe other than the shadowflux.
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