Chapter Thirteen
Jost is at the door and Adelice nervously wonders whether he knows about the kiss she shared with Erik. He takes her into the bathroom where the rushing water of the faucet can cover the sound of their voices before explaining why he’s come. As he treats Adelice, Jost begins to tell her about his past. At sixteen, he married a girl named Rozenn from Saxun, his home village. After marrying, he took over his father’s boat and his brother received a border pass to work elsewhere. Rozenn’s brother Parrick, a little-liked and cold person, wasn’t happy with his assignment and began skipping work. Worried, Rozenn asked Jost to speak to Parrick to help him reform his behavior. Instead, Jost started following him and discovered that Parrick was part of a revolutionary group. Jost considered reporting them to officials but decided against it when he heard about what the Guild had done to their families. Though he never reported them, the Guild detected the anti-Guild sentiment in the tapestry (when people are disloyal their threads change color). As punishment to the entire village the Guild ripped all the women from it, including Jost’s wife and three-month old baby girl. He saw them fade away while they waited on the dock for him to arrive. As Jost recounts his story, Adelice cries along with him. She is admittedly a bit jealous of the wife he knew and loved before meeting her, but she also mourns the great loss he endured. At the end of the story he admits that he came to the Coventry because it is the last place anyone would think to look for the start of an anti-Guild revolution- a revolution he intends to start.
Chapter Fourteen
Adelice has a dream about her loved ones in which they are all suffering but she is powerless to help. She feels incredible guilt for being a part of the very system that tore Jost’s family apart. While her hands heal, Jost comes to administer treatment each day but nobody else visits, not even Enora. When they can, Jost and Adelice escape to the bathroom where they can speak freely with the sound of the water to mask their voices. However, they can’t spend much time in there without rousing suspicion. In the open the two discuss their pasts—Adelice tells Jost about Beth, her bullying neighbor and Jost tells Adelice about his brother who is only ten months older than him. They also try to develop code words to discuss Jost’s plans for revolution without being detected but that doesn’t work for long. When Adelice finds out that there is only audio surveillance in her room but not video, she designs a better way for them to speak in confidence. Manipulating the golden time strands, Adelice weaves another moment on top of reality, where she and Jost can speak without being discovered. She theorizes that while in the newly constructed moment, the reality around her is frozen but she can’t be sure. Jost is amazed by her handiwork and remarks that he knew all along she was Loricel’s successor. When she asks him not to tell anyone he promises not to but cautions that the Guild likely already knows what she’s capable of doing.
The next time Enora visits, she is cold and distant, nothing like the caring maternal person Adelice knows. She tells Adelice that the Guild decided to map every Spinster and that she will be mapped on Friday. Remembering the statements at the State of the Guild about remapping, Adelice worries that she will be remapped, but Enora mockingly replies that remapping a Spinster would impair her weaving skills. Her assurance does not comfort Adelice who remembers Ambassador Patton describing the almost perfected ability to precisely clean and splice individual threads. Adelice asks again whether Enora is well since she behaves so differently. Enora tells Adelice that she had “unnatural” urges but the Guild doctors cured her (231). Jost enters with Adelice’s food and Enora exits. Adelice quickly weaves a new moment. Adelice isn’t the only one to notice Enora’s radically different demeanor, Jost remarks on the difference as well. While in their moment, Jost also tells Adelice that there is another person at the Coventry who knows he is there to avenge Rozenn but he won’t tell her who knows or share his plan for revolution. He admits that he never really had a plan but became recommitted once she arrived. While reminiscing about their time together in the cell, Jost catches Adelice’s face and pulls it to his. The kiss is different than the one she shared with Erik but Adelice feels the same excitement and the two embrace in a moment of their own.
Chapter Fifteen
Adelice imagines spending the rest of her life in that moment with Jost when he gets up and offers Adelice some food. She tells him that she’s scheduled for mind-mapping on Friday and he seems shocked that they’d permit such a procedure to be administered to Spinsters. Adelice reassures him that she’ll be on her guard.
The next day, Adelice reports to the upper studios for training with Loricel. She feels like an intruder when she enters and finds Loricel serenely sitting with a pet cat in her lap. Adelice remembers from school that pets were banned twenty years ago but isn’t surprised that Loricel, of all people, would be able to break the rules. Loricel shows Adelice that the weaves that make up their entire lives are each a façade, layered on top of a more brilliant reality: Earth. Loricel explains that in order to create Arras, they take matter and time from Earth, an uninhabited planet, and weave another reality on top of it. She cautions that it’s very dangerous to mention Earth outside the studio, as the Guild would prefer nobody remember its existence. The few that do know about Earth are motivated to keep lying about it. Loricel explains that if people knew Earth existed, they would leave. She tells Adelice how Earth was destroyed; a great war occurred and one man developed a weapon to wipe out all of mankind. Another scientist proposed instead that they use machines to manipulate the elements of earth in ways that suited their interests. He named this process ‘Crewel work.’ Loricel suspects that while men complete the original Crewel work, the Guild later decided to exclusively groom women for the work since they are more easily controlled. Adelice asks Loricel why she continues to do the work when she knows the depth of the Guild’s lies. Loricel answers that she’d rather comply than risk another war and threaten the lives of innocent people. The Guild of Twelve Nations is composed of men from twelve separate nations on earth who opted to follow the scientist’s proposal. The remaining men remained on Earth to fight their war the old-fashioned way, with bombs and weapons. When Adelice asks if Loricel has ever seen Earth she quickly replies that she hasn’t. Adelice questions how she can be so sure that Earth is uninhabited and Loricel replies that she doesn’t see why her mentor would lie to her about that. But Adelice knows that lies are everywhere in Arras and considers the possibility that there is still life on Earth.
Chapter Sixteen
The day arrives for Adelice to undergo mind-mapping. Nurse Renni and Dr. Ellys administer the procedure. During the mapping they ask Adelice a series of questions about her family and home sector. Dr. Ellys announces that they are finished but then comes back and announces that he has a few extra questions for Adelice. He asks whether Adelice accepted any gifts while at the Coventry and whether she’s been approached sexually by any of the other Spinsters. Adelice doesn’t tell the doctor about the digifile and expresses confusion when he asks about other Spinsters approaching her. After the procedure Nurse Renni takes Adelice to Observation where they monitor her to make sure there are no side effects from the procedure. Shortly afterward, the nurse brings Pryana into the observation room as well. While Adelice’s procedure took two hours, Pryana’s only took thirty minutes. In conversation, Adelice learns that the doctor also asked Pryana about being hit on by other Spinsters. Neither of the girls understands why the doctors asked them this. As they leave the clinic, Adelice surreptitiously looks around to see if she can spot any clues. For the most part, the clinic is quiet, but Adelice sees one medic working on a digifile in a wing labeled ‘Research’ and begins planning a way to get back into that wing.
Pryana and Adelice board the same elevator where Adelice discovers that while she lives in the high tower on the fifteenth floor, Pryana is relegated to the lower quarters on the fourth floor. Unwilling to give up the opportunity to see the upper level, Pryana rides up to the fifteenth floor with Adelice. Adelice immediately regrets bringing her when they arrive and find Valery and Enora in a romantic embrace. Acting quickly, Adelice pushes Pryna back into the elevator and presses the button to close the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Enora quickly runs down the hall and flees into the stairwell. Valery begins to explain but doesn’t. Adelice asks Valery if their relationship is the reason why Enora has been acting so different lately but Valery thinks it has more to do with the two sessions of mind mapping Enora completed. After hearing that Enora was mapped twice, Adelice shares with Valery that she thinks the Guild remapped her. At first Valery is incredulous (they don’t remap Spinsters!) but then Adelice tells her about the new technology. Throughout the course of their conversation, Valery concludes that Adelice is to blame for bringing so much attention to the their relationship. She leaves Adelice alone in her room and doesn’t return to dress her for dinner.
Enora is absent from dinner and Jost is serving. Adelice tells him the light on her fireplace is broken so he knows to visit later. When she returns from dinner, Jost is already there. She weaves a new moment and jumps into his arms. The two discuss their concerns about Enora. Jost explains how threatened the Guild is by the idea of a woman who doesn’t need a husband. Enora and Valery aren’t the only one’s to have feelings for the same sex, but usually people who feel the same way keep a low profile or else they are ripped. Even Spinsters who begin relationships with Officials are unacceptable. When it happens, the Guild either remaps the official or rips him if he’s not important. Adelice realizes that if she and Jost are ever discovered, he’ll be the one ripped.
Adelice won’t sleep until she confirms that Enora is okay so she and Jost walk down to her quarters. The room seems empty but Adelice decides to check the bathroom before they leave. Jost sees her first. Enora is in a tub full of water and blood, with several cuts across her wrists. She is deathly pale. Adelice sits in shock and anger while Jost calls the guards. Maela arrives and then Loricel who dismisses Maela abruptly. Adelice leaves Enora’s room and Jost meets her in the stairwell. Shaken by the series of lives destroyed because of their relationship to her, Adelice pushes Jost away. She won’t allow him to be the next life the Guild takes away in order to keep her in her place.
Analysis
In this section, Adelice finally contemplates revolution. Up until this point she’d been trying to navigate the Coventry politics and rules, mainly in order to protect her sister. However, in this section Adelice receives new motivation and a new ally: Josten Bell. Though accustomed to the Guild’s harsh treatment towards citizens who resist its control, Adelice is unprepared for the tragic story Jost tells about how the Guild murdered his family and punished the people of Saxun. The weight of losing her family made Adelice skeptical of the Guild, the killings in Cypress made her loathe Maela, but Jost’s story is the one that finally inspires her to consider revolting.
Though inspired by Jost’s story, Adelice does not take immediate steps to combat the Guild. Instead, she and Jost discuss his plans and the information he’s gathered so far. Adelice looks to Jost for answers but it seems clear that in many ways her presence is the closest he’s come to actually revolting since beginning work at the Coventry. Adelice doesn’t yet see herself as the potential leader of the revolution though Jost piques her interest in it. She spends the remainder of the section gathering clues that may be useful in their escape.
Primed with revolutionary ideas, Adelice finally receives her first Crewel training session. The truth Loricel reveals during the session is eye opening: there is an entire other planet that exists outside of Arras and outside the clutches of the Guild—Earth. Of course, the Guild keeps Earth secret from its citizens because they don’t want anybody fleeing Arras. This new knowledge combined with Adelice’s growing interest in revolt, will be important in the final section when Adelice finally chooses whether to accept or reject her role as Creweler.
Two new conflicts emerge in this section. The first is the threat that Adelice will be remapped. The Guild begins mapping each Spinster to see whether they’ll need remapping. Unsurprisingly, Adelice’s process lasts much longer than that of the other Spinster’s, a good indication that the Guild will attempt to remap her brain. Determined to have an escape plan in place before the Guild is able to alter her brain, Adelice uses her mapping experience to gain intel on the secret wings in the medical lab.
The second conflict that emerges in this section concerns Enora, Adelice’s mentor. Adelice learns that Enora and Valery are in love. The Guild, which looks down on same-sex relationships, remaps Enora supposedly in order to rid her of her “unnatural” urges (231). Yet the procedure causes Enora to behave strangely and eventually to take her own life. Enora’s death is one death too many for Adelice and she becomes even more determined to fight the Guild after losing her mentor.
At the beginning of the section, Adelice is merely curious about revolution. After the Guild kills yet another of her loved ones, she is ready to lead the charge. But she will do it alone—she can’t afford for anyone else, especially not Jost, to die as a consequence of being close to her.
