56 pages • 1 hour read
Victoria AveyardGlass Sword
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Over breakfast, Mare’s family explains how Shade got them out of the kingdom and to the base, sneaking them past the patrols and hiding in a cargo ship. The meal reminds her of her last in the Silver court at Maven’s side when she thought they were allies in a coming revolution, and she berates herself for being so wrong about Cal’s brother. After breakfast, Kilorn leads Mare to the infirmary, where Farley occupies the bed beside Shade’s. She starts to tell Mare why the Colonel had Cal taken away, but the Colonel arrives, making a strange quiet descend “on the infirmary, the nurses, my heart, and Farley’s words” (77).
The Colonel reveals Farley’s real name is Diana, and he strips her of her rank for her failures in the kingdom. Mare makes her case to search for the newbloods, and the Colonel reveals that Julian Jacos, who gave Mare the list of newblood names, is still alive, meaning he might be in league with Maven. The Colonel leaves with a warning for Mare to stay in line if she wants Cal to survive, and when he’s gone, Farley gives Mare a key and directions to Barracks 1, saying, “You’ll find I’m remarkably good at giving orders, and particularly awful at following them” (82).
Chapter 7 Summary
Mare and Kilorn argue about the base. Where Kilorn sees a united force, Mare sees more enemies, evidenced by how people look at her like she’s “some kind of bomb about to go off” (84). Kilorn implores Mare to trust him, even if she doesn’t trust anyone else, and he is angered by the idea that Mare trusts him less because he doesn’t have abilities. Overwhelmed, Mare apologizes, smoothing tensions for the moment, and they make a plan to visit Cal.
Barracks 1 is underwater, and there is a secret entrance under the dock. After a tense few moments of sneaking and diving to the door, Mare and Kilorn emerge into the Colonel’s office, where a photo on the wall reveals Farley is his daughter. They find Cal pounding one bloody fist against his glass-walled cell, and Kilorn uses the key Farley gave them to unlock the door just as footsteps approach. Kilorn shoves Mare into the cell and slams the door, locking her and Cal inside. The Colonel arrives, and Mare realizes the setup was a trap to imprison her. The cell is outfitted with Silent Stone to dull their abilities, and Mare joins Cal in pounding the cell wall, her red blood mixing with his silver and “joining into something darker” (98).
Chapter 8 Summary
Alone, Cal and Mare argue about how their trust and feelings got them into their current mess, finally agreeing not to let each other get in the way of making good choices anymore. Mare explains that the Scarlet Guard has been receiving shipments from various places, and despite themselves, they smile because the guard’s resources mean they will be a significant challenge to Maven.
The next day, the Colonel makes a show of having Kilorn inject Farley with drugs to knock her out so he can lock her in the cell across from Mare and Cal’s. After Kilorn and the Colonel enter Mare and Cal’s cell, the Colonel informs them Maven has offered a deal—Cal in exchange for raising the Red conscription age back to 18 after it was lowered to 15 a few weeks earlier. Kilorn pretends to break the remaining syringes before plunging one into the Colonel’s neck, knocking him out cold. Shade appears in the hall outside the cell and takes out the guards before releasing Cal, Mare, and Kilorn. Farley is fine, and Shade teleports the group out of the prison. Though Mare doesn’t know if she can trust any of them, she trusts in the powers she, Cal, and Shade possess, thinking, “While we are together, I will never suffer a prison again” (114).
Chapter 9 Summary
Shade teleports the group to the hangar, where they steal an airship. Mare uses her power to jumpstart the ship’s batteries, and Cal pilots them away. With Mare’s power, they could stay aloft for at least another two years, and Mare imagines all the things they could see before reminding herself of her mission. Much as tasting freedom appeals to her, she has newbloods to save and “a kingly score to settle” (125). The Scarlet Guard has repaved old roads to use as landing strips near Red towns all around the country, and Kilorn stole the list of newbloods from the Colonel. Mare finds a man on the list who lives near the closest landing strip, and she resolves to get to him before Maven because “I won’t carry the weight of any more gravestones” (128).
Chapter 10 Summary
Watching Shade rebandage his leg, Mare realizes she forgot about her family in the hurry of the escape. She panics, and Cal calms her before she can cause a lightning storm that would destroy the ship. Her biggest fear is that she’s alone, and while the presence of Cal and the others shows she isn’t, she can’t help but feel that “while they stand with me, there’s no one beside me” (131). As Mare starts to feel better, Cal gets quiet and stalks to the back of the ship, where he puts on a flight uniform from a crate, ripping away the badge on its front depicting his family’s crown.
To get past a military base, Cal calls in an old code, and the voice at the other end of the radio responds, sounding bored and disinterested. They reach the landing strip and touch down without incident. Farley and Shade go to scout, and Cal arms himself to start his hunt for Maven. Desperate, Mare convinces him to stay, appealing to the power newbloods could offer and her understanding of how betrayed he feels. After a few tense moments, Cal decides to stay, and Mare ends the chapter thinking, “But for how much longer, I don’t know” (144).
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
As a whole, these chapters show how little Mare is told about plans and events. Starting with Cal’s imprisonment in Chapter 5, Farley, Shade, and Kilorn make a plan to get themselves, Cal, and Mare off the island because they know the Colonel won’t listen to them about the importance of newbloods and because he intends to lock Mare up as well. Farley giving Mare the key and directions to Barracks 1 puts the plan into motion, and when Kilorn locks Mare in the cell, Mare thinks she was betrayed, only to learn later it was part of the plan. Both Cal and Mare are enraged when Mare is imprisoned because she has done nothing to deserve it and because it is yet another betrayal. The mixing of their blood into something darker symbolizes the darkness a war between Silvers and newbloods could bring on the world. It also shows how Cal and Mare are united in anger and take Kilorn’s perceived betrayal more harshly after what Maven did. Even though Farley, Shade, and Kilorn all prove to be allies, their keeping Mare out of the loop hints at The Line Between an Enemy and an Ally and how difficult it is to trust anyone in the narrative.
Chapter 8 is the first time Cal and Mare acknowledge their feelings for one another. Both believe those feelings are what got them into trouble in the past, either not realizing or refusing to consider that they could have found the same fate without those emotions. Part of the story Maven told the world about Cal involved Mare seducing him into killing the king, and Maven provided video of Cal and Mare dancing and kissing to corroborate his tale. While this makes it seem to Cal and Mare that their emotions caused their problems, it is likely that Maven could have fabricated evidence, as shown by how the Silvers fabricated the entire story about Mare being a long-lost Silver in Red Queen. Emotions are a convenient scapegoat for Cal and Mare so they don’t have to face the reality that Maven tricked them so completely.
The end of Chapter 8 symbolizes how things aren’t always as they appear. In Chapter 6, Farley appears distraught over the Colonel’s anger, even as she gives Mare the key and directions. In Chapter 8, Farley pretends to be drugged, and Kilorn appears to be in league with the Colonel, all of which is proved false as soon as Shade arrives. Mare’s final words of Chapter 8 are both false bravado and foreshadowing. She believes that the powers of newbloods and Silvers are enough to keep her safe, and while the powers do give the group an advantage, they face plenty of adversity. In addition, their powers are identifying characteristics, meaning they cannot use them where people might see them as it would lead Maven straight to them. This limitation changes power from something to rely on into something that could betray them, but Mare doesn’t want to consider this because she is tired of being betrayed. The line also foreshadows Shade’s death and how Mare is captured at the end of the book. While she, Cal, and Shade are alive, she stays free, but after Shade’s death, she is imprisoned again.
Chapter 10 shows Mare and Cal dealing with the aftermath of what’s happened to them. Mare has been in survival mode for so long that she has pushed thoughts of her family aside to focus on staying alive. She feels guilty about this because her family was her entire world until her power was revealed, and she fears forgetting them because she thinks it means she’s becoming a monster. Her anxiety at the beginning of Chapter 10 is yet another way power can be dangerous. While Mare’s lightning can protect her in most situations, an uncontrolled storm could short out the airship’s batteries or strike them out of the sky. Mare must control her anxiety to protect those around her. Cal ripping the badge of the flight uniform shows his rage and his first steps toward casting aside his Silver status. Like Mare, he traps himself in his thoughts—guilt for letting himself be controlled and anger at Maven for betraying him. Cal’s desire to go after Maven shows he isn’t thinking clearly. He likely knows that getting past Maven’s security and killing his brother is an impossible task, but he is too consumed by rage to care. As when he calmed Mare on the ship, Mare tempers his anger by explaining how his mission would be more successful with an army of newbloods behind him. These incidents show how much Mare and Cal rely on each other, even as they try not to.
Related Titles
By Victoria Aveyard
