Thunderhead

On Thanksgiving, Citra returns home to see her family. During the visit, Citra struggles to make small talk with her father, and her mother is unable to hide her jealousy of Citra’s newfound friendship with Scythe Curie. Citra’s mother and brother bring up Rowan, and they refer to him as “that boy” who “went crazy” (80). Citra doesn’t want to talk about Rowan, and when the conversation becomes antagonistic, Citra reminds her family that she is a scythe now, and they must give her the respect that she is due. Citra realizes that her relationship with her family will never be the same. One day when she is out driving with Scythe Curie, a young man jumps out in front of their car and hits the windshield before Citra can swerve to avoid him. Citra gets out of the now-ruined car to yell at the “splatter,” who she thinks is just another thrill-seeker. However, right before the boy goes deadish, he warns Citra that the road ahead has been booby-trapped. Citra and Scythe Curie find “a thin wire stretched across the road,” and behind a nearby tree, “enough explosives to blow a crater a hundred feet wide” (84). The Thunderhead sends a flying ambudrone to retrieve the boy’s body and take him to a revival center, and Citra realizes that the boy saved their lives. Scythe Curie decides to report the incident to the scythedom.

The morning of the splatting, Greyson decides to take a publicar (a kind of public transportation) to the home of Scythe Curie to warn her about the threat on her and Scythe Anastasia’s lives. However, the publicar stops on the way to Scythe Curie’s house and tells him that it cannot drive on privately-owned roads. Greyson gets out of the publicar and notices a tripwire and the nearby explosives “seconds before he hear[s] the approaching car” (89), and he jumps in front of the vehicle without thinking. Greyson wakes up fully healed in a revival center, where a nurse informs him that Greyson has been marked unsavory as a result of the actions that left him deadish. A publicar takes Greyson to the administration building of the Nimbus Academy, where Greyson is interrogated by school officials. They demand to know how Greyson knew about the attempt to kill the scythes, and he lies and says that he overheard some agents talking when he was called to the Authority Interface office. Because Greyson warned Scythes Curie and Anastasia, he is “permanently and irrevocably expelled” (94) from the Nimbus Academy, and he can never apply to another ever again. Greyson is devastated, especially because the Thunderhead cannot talk to him as long as he is marked unsavory. Citra and Scythe Curie decide to keep moving and “go mobile” instead of staying in one place until their would-be attackers are caught. Scythe Curie believes that the attackers were after her, not Citra, and she wonders if this could be the work of Scythe Lucifer. Citra tries to defend Rowan, but Scythe Curie warns her not to let her feelings for Rowan “cloud [her] judgment” (97).

Greyson gathers his things and leaves the Nimbus Academy, and when he returns to his childhood home, he tries to message a few friends. Because of his new status as ‘unsavory,’ none of his old friends want to talk to him, but he finds his inbox flooded with requests to connect with other unsavories. His frustration mounts, and he tries to ask the Thunderhead why it made Greyson an unsavory and ruined his life, but the Thunderhead refuses to talk to him. Scythes Curie and Anastasia decide to stay in a hotel, and Citra sneaks to find the boy who saved her life, Greyson Tolliver. When she arrives at Greyson’s house, she finds that he is already being interrogated by the BladeGuard, the “elite police force that serve[s] the scythedom” (106). Citra orders the BladeGuard to stop, but Scythe Constantine arrives and reveals that he is investigating the attempt on the lives of Scythes Curie and Anastasia. Citra isn’t sure if Scythe Constantine aligns more with the new order scythes or the old guard scythes, and this makes him dangerous. Constantine assures Citra that he was never planning on hurting Greyson, and since his story didn’t change during the course of the interrogation, he is “thus convinced [Greyson] is telling the truth” (110) about what happened. Constantine and his BladeGuard leave, and Citra thanks Greyson for warning her and Scythe Curie about the explosives. She offers him immunity from gleaning for a year, but he refuses. He says the life he wanted has been taken from him, so “why live at all?” (112). Reluctantly, he admits that he didn’t tell the whole truth about what happened, and Citra correctly guesses that the Thunderhead used Greyson to warn her and Scythe Curie of the danger.

Greyson has to report to a meeting with his probation officer first thing in the morning, and he tries to look his best and hopefully “knock a day or two off of his status downgrade” (117). When he arrives at the Office of Unsavory Affairs, he is required to wait nearly an hour before anyone sees him. His intake officer explains that his savory status is for a minimum of four months. Greyson is forced to wait once again, and when he finally meets his probation officer, it is none other than Agent Traxler. Traxler explains that he was demoted, and he hints that his weekly meetings with Greyson as his probation officer will allow them a chance to meet regularly without arousing suspicion. Traxler suggests that Greyson should fully embrace his new role as an unsavory so he may “learn things” that “not even the Thunderhead knows” (121). Greyson realizes that Traxler wants him to become an undercover Nimbus operative, and although he has mixed feelings about the way the Thunderhead went about this, he decides to play the role to the best of his abilities.

Rowan stalks and permanently kills another corrupt scythe, Scythe Renoir, who has made it his mission to exclusively glean people of a particular ethnic group. Later that night, Rowan awakens to Scythe Faraday pressing a knife to his throat. Faraday is full of “smoldering anger and bitter disappointment” (126) as he looks at his old apprentice, but Rowan claims that the acts of Scythe Lucifer needed to be done. He points out that in the mortal age, surgeons would cut out cancers they couldn’t cure, and corrupt scythes are like cancers. Rowan wants to save the scythedom, and he believes his way is the only way. Faraday points out that Citra is taking a different approach and winning people to her way of thinking, and there are those who fear her because “[s]he can make the old ways new again” (130). Faraday warns Rowan that Citra is in danger, which worries him. Faraday and Rowan know that the founding scythes “planned a failsafe against a scythedom that falls to evil” (131), and Faraday decides to try to uncover this plan by looking for a place called The Land of Nod. Rowan scoffs, because he believes Nod is just part of a nursery rhyme, but Faraday is convinced that it’s a real place. That night, Rowan lies awake thinking about Citra’s safety, the future of the scythedom, and the effectiveness of his role as Scythe Lucifer.

Back in Texas, Tyger has been training with Scythe Rand. Tyger, a former thrill-seeker, is enthralled by his hand-to-hand combat sessions with Rand, and although she claims to be a Scythe, he starts to have his doubts because he notices that she never leaves to glean people or attend any of the mandatory scythe gatherings. Tyger’s body has become more muscular since he came to Texas, and he can’t believe his luck: All he has to do is train with Scythe Rand and enjoy a lavish lifestyle in her penthouse. Still, Tyger begins to wonder if he “[has] it in him to end life permanently, and do it every day” (139) as a Scythe. Tyger asks Scythe Rand if he’ll have to face the same trials Rowan faced in conclave, and Rand assures Tyger that he’ll have a scythe’s ring on his finger “without ever having to go to conclave” (141).