Serpent & Dove

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019

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Part 3, Chapters 30-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3

Part 3, Chapter 30 Summary: “Secrets Revealed: Lou”

The witches converge. The actress playing Fate reaches Lou, but the Archbishop slays her with his Balisarda. Another approaches and is killed by Reid, who reunites with Lou. The Archbishop tells the couple to go into the Tower. Reid, Ansel, and Jean Luc barricade the doors to the church while Ansel wonders aloud if the play is true. Jean Luc suggests that it might have only been a diversion.

As Jean Luc fights the invaders downstairs, Reid barricades Lou in their bedroom. He demands Lou tell him the truth so he can protect her. She’s about to do so when Ansel screams out a warning and a witch breaks through the window. The witch magically flings Ansel across the room and then smashes Reid into the ceiling. She calls Lou a witch killer and a betrayer of her kindred. She suggests that if Lou accepts her birthright, Morgane might forgive her and spare her soul.

Reid regains consciousness and the witch turns to give him a death blow, but Lou pushes him away with her magic. The witch still manages to reach him and puts a blade to his throat, telling Lou to submit or she’ll kill Reid. Lou complies, and the witch stabs her with a syringe. As she slips into unconsciousness, Lou sees that Reid understands that she’s a witch and hates her. She tells him she loves him anyway before blacking out.

Part 3, Chapter 31 Summary: “Oblivion: Lou”

Lou wakes in Ansel’s arms. He has given her an antidote, but he did not have enough for a full dose. He begs her to help Reid, who is losing to the witch. Lou tries to use magic but is exhausted. Lou doesn’t think she can beat the witch, but Reid offers himself as a weapon. Lou uses magic to pull Reid into a vulnerable position with his throat exposed, and the witch’s body follows. Ansel hands Lou Reid’s Balisarda, and she kills the witch.

Resentful that Lou didn’t tell him the truth, Reid harshly wonders if she’s even capable of love. He feels doubly betrayed as he thinks back on the forced marriage and the Archbishop’s interest in Lou. He tells Lou he no longer considers her his wife. Lou runs from the church, evading Ansel’s attempt to stop her. Heartbroken, she heads toward Soleil et Lune. She doesn’t make it: Morgane steps from the darkness and renders her unconscious.

Part 3, Chapter 32 Summary: “Beating a Dead Witch: Reid”

Downstairs, a furious Ansel confronts Reid, reminding him that Morgane desires to reclaim her homeland, which will involve killing Lou. Reid claims he’s no longer responsible for Lou, but Ansel reminds him of the Chasseur’s code to “protect the innocent and helpless” (389). Reid tries not to cry over a dead dove he sees on the cathedral steps. Jean Luc returns to the church and says he saw Lou fleeing in tears. He implies that he knows Lou is a witch, and Reid realizes that the Chasseurs will hunt Lou and burn her at the stake. He begins fighting Jean Luc as Ansel tries to stop him. The Archbishop intercedes, demanding to know where Lou is. He tells Reid the Chasseurs must search for her, as the witches plan to use her to bring down the kingdom.

Reid realizes that the play’s implication was true: Lou is the Archbishop’s daughter, but he doesn’t care about her at all. Disgusted by the Archbishop’s selfishness and hypocrisy, Reid refuses to help him, so Jean Luc is entrusted to lead the other Chasseurs, who conclude that the witches were lying about the Archbishop fathering a child. Ansel points out that while Reid’s disappointment that Lou didn’t trust him is understandable, Reid should trust in their mutual love. Ansel warns Reid that if they do nothing, Lou will die. Reid agrees to go find her.

Part 3, Chapters 30-32 Analysis

Lou’s worst fears come true as Reid rejects her for being a witch—that she exposed herself to save his life makes the betrayal cut even deeper. Lou feels that everything that has grown between them has been erased: She has lost the new life she desperately wanted by refusing to accept the past. Ansel offers a partial antidote, both literally and with his friendship, but it is not enough. When Reid cruelly tells Lou she is no longer his wife because she is a witch, Lou runs away—straight into her mother’s arms. In the narrative, this is the moment when evil appears to win. Metaphorically, it shows that Lou has been haunted by the trauma of her past and must now confront it once and for all (significantly, one of the witches who attacks Lou during the performance, setting off the entire chain of events, is playing “Fate”).

Reid, feeling betrayed, falls back into what he knows: the Archbishop’s dogma. However, Ansel’s fierce prodding reminds Reid that he doesn’t have to do things the way he has learned (and that he will even be a hypocrite if he does). Love should win, Ansel insists, or at the very least, the oath to protect should. Initially, Reid ignores Ansel, believing that love, like the dove on the church steps, is dead. However, once Reid sees the Archbishop trying to distract everyone from his transgression with Morgane by insisting they hunt Lou, he resigns his position. Ansel’s Loyalty Within Friendship becomes clearer juxtaposed against Jean Luc, who breaks with Reid and assumes leadership of the Chasseurs. Reid assembles a rescue team, Resisting Dogma and making it clear that personal love is more important than institutional compliance.

The witches’ use of the paralyzing agent that the priests developed highlights their unscrupulousness: They will use weapons designed for their own persecution if doing so advances their goals. In adopting the Church’s tactics, Morgane underscores the similarities between the two dogmatic institutions.