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Be the Serpent

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Spoiler warning!
Ahead are significant details from Be the Serpent (2022). Read at your own risk!


Be the Serpent (2022) is the sixteenth book in the October Daye series. It follows Toby dealing with the return of Titania.

“ Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. ”

–William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Synopsis[]

October Daye is finally something she never expected to be: married. All the trials and turmoils and terrors of a hero’s life have done very little to prepare her for the expectation that she will actually share her life with someone else, the good parts and the bad ones alike, not just allow them to dabble around the edges in the things she wants to share. But with an official break from hero duties from the Queen in the Mists, and her family wholly on board with this new version of “normal,” she’s doing her best to adjust.

It isn’t always easy, but she’s a hero, right? She’s done harder.

Until an old friend and ally turns out to have been an enemy in disguise for this entire time, and October’s brief respite turns into a battle for her life, her community, and everything she has ever believed to be true.

The debts of the Broken Ride are coming due, and whether she incurred them or not, she’s going to be the one who has to pay.[1]

Plot[]

Chapter 1: Toby wakes from a nightmare about the koi pond, and Tybalt comforts her before they head to Court for Rayseline’s trial.

Chapter 2: Toby’s household carpools to Muir Woods, where a full court has already gathered to watch the drama. The Luidaeg, last to arrive, allows the trial now that Simon is present to testify about the actions that led to Raysel’s mental break.

Simon explains how Eira wanted to punish Sylvester for an unsuitable marriage by removing Luna and, if possible, Rayseline, from the picture. Oberon’s geas prevented Eira from directly ordering their deaths, so Simon was able to confine them instead. He recounts seeking Blind Michael’s help in creating the skerry prison and admits that if Eira had outright ordered him to kill Toby, he wouldn’t have had the strength to resist after defying her about the Torquills.

Chapter 3: Toby publicly forgives Simon’s actions. Then she, the Lordens, and Gillian testify in favor of awakening Rayseline, all saying that her actions against them were not enough to justify one hundred years asleep given the circumstances. Arden declares that the cure should be administered, and Luna procures Raysel in her coffin. Jin is there too and has a tearful reunion with Arden while Toby administers the cure herself.

Raysel awakens and silently reminds Toby of her promise to take Raysel into her household. Toby claims offense as planned, but Luna dismisses her as a changeling. Tybalt tries next, on behalf of Gillian as his stepdaughter, and is again denied. Then Dianda makes a claim on behalf of her sons, which Arden grants, and Dianda requests Rayseline be put into Toby’s service for a year and a day with limited contact to Shadowed Hills.

Luna is furious but cannot overturn the ruling, and Raysel admits she requested that this happened so she can spend some time figuring out who she is away from her mother’s influence.

Chapter 4: The Torquills are permitted an hour to reunite privately with Raysel, and Simon says he will stop visiting Toby’s home unannounced out of respect for Raysel’s recovery.

Then Karen and Cassandra start screaming. They are Seeing something terrible that doesn’t affect the Luidaeg, so Toby realizes it must be localized to their family. Toby and Tybalt take the shadows to the Brown home where they find Andrew and Anthony, injured and frightened, hiding in the backyard playhouse. The boys say that they escaped a woman attacking them because Jessica jumped in the way. Their sister is still inside.

Toby and Tybalt enter the house to the overwhelming scent of roses. They find Jessica dead, and Toby rides her blood to try to identify her killer. Even though Jessica clearly saw the woman, no one appears in her memories.

Chapter 5: Toby coaxes the boys out of the playhouse, and they reveal that all three younger siblings had been Seeing warning signs of danger.

The rest of their allies arrive by car, both from practicality and so Arden didn’t portal into an unknown danger. Arden takes Anthony, Andrew, and Cassandra back to Muir Woods for medical attention, while Quentin and Simon join in the hunt for clues. They find the kitchen in disarray, the stove still on.

Mitch arrives home and Toby awkwardly tells him about Jessica and the boys.

Chapter 6: Toby calls Stacy, who is inexplicably at the grocery store across town. Then she calls Arden to pick up Mitch and Quentin, and Tybalt offers to bring Julie to the Brown family.

Toby and Quentin find Stacy sitting calmly in the Safeway Starbucks. She doesn’t remember why or how she went to the store, and when Toby tries to scent the air for magic it causes her to pass out.

Chapter 7: They pile into the car. When Toby tries to release her glamour, she can’t access her magic. Quentin is also blocked from his spells, and both have trouble locating the knowe when they reach Muir Woods. When Simon comes to help them find the doors, he too becomes afflicted. Stacy, on the other hand, seems unaffected and is still acting unreasonably unconcerned.

Chapter 8: The afflicted realize they can’t see Faerie at all. The Luidaeg arrives and identifies the problem as a Llangefni screen, an ancient spell that was used to block mortals from ever encountering Faerie again. She seems disturbed that the spell has resurfaced. She prepares and administers an antidote to cure Toby, Quentin, and Simon of the screen.

They enter the knowe and Stacy finally becomes distressed about her missing family. Toby tells her what happened at her home, and Stacy demands Toby seek justice for Jessica.

Chapter 9: Toby updates Arden on events. Simon assures them Eira cannot be the culprit, for he is confident she is still sleeping.

Next, Toby rages at Oberon for being so passive while his descendents tear each other apart. He explains that he is so infinitely more powerful than his descendants that trying to help them with their squabbles would be impossibly imbalanced. He also explains why he locked the doors to deeper Faerie: they require the energy of the Three to feed them, and would have collapsed on themselves with the remaining fae within them if given enough time.

Tybalt returns with Julie, and Nolan offers to escort her to the Browns. Walther joins them.

Oberon echoes the Luidaeg’s shock at the use of a Llangefni screen. Toby repeats the quote about being the serpent, and Oberon admits this situation is all his fault.

Chapter 10: Oberon recounts the early days of Faerie, when he and his queens first walked the earth. He shares that after Titania engineered the breaking of Maeve’s Ride, he bound her to live in ignorance as the lowest of fae, over and over, until she learned humility. If she failed to learn her lesson she must erase all traces of her existence - including any children she might have produced - and start the cycle again. Toby finally realizes that Stacy is Titania.

She has Tybalt spirit her to the rooms where the Browns are staying, only to find them missing. She connects numerous dots across her lifetime, from the oddity of the Brown children to her disinterest in identifying Stacy’s full lineage.

Chapter 11: She convinces the knowe to reveal the passageway to where the surviving Browns and the others are hiding. Anthony is still in bad shape, and Jin was stabbed. All were cut off from their magic.

They summon the Luidaeg, who removes the Llangefni screen in exchange for Mitch’s promise to hand over his younger children to her teachings. For Nolan, the Luidaeg extracts a promise to deny the first two times Arden someday asks him to take over the throne.

Chapter 12: Jin completes her molt, healing her injury, and then recounts what she remembers of Stacy’s arrival. They can tell that Stacy is still fighting Titania for control, but Luidaeg says that she cannot be saved at this point.

The Luidaeg identifies the knife that Oberon gave Toby at her wedding reception as made of his own horn. The Firstborn have long suspected that silver and bone together can kill one of the Three. Then Luidaeg says that she can only help Toby kill Stacy, not Titania, due to her bindings. Toby plans to save Stacy if at all possible.

Chapter 13: Next Toby petitions Oberon for help, since he caused this problem to begin with. He gives her a jar of his own blood to help her resist Titania’s influence. He tries to minimize the harm he has caused, but Toby holds fast to his culpability. He also promises that Tybalt should be free of Titania’s influence, as a descendant of Malvic.

Toby sips from Oberon’s blood and takes the Shadow Roads with Tybalt to Stacy’s home, where they find Stacy acting like everything is perfectly normal. All traces of the earlier attack are completely gone.

Stacy tries to feed them, but they don’t fall for it. Toby asks about the Brown kids all being Seers and Stacy dismisses it as childish fancy. She also curses Blind Michael as a beast, despite the slur that it is to shifters like Tybalt. Toby tells her again that Jessica is dead, and says she’s pretty sure Stacy is gone as well.

Chapter 14: Titania’s consciousness takes over and she curses Toby for not letting matters rest. Titania glamours Tybalt despite Oberon’s assurances of his safety, and Toby bites him to access his magic and shove him onto the Shadow Roads. She is alone with Titania.

Titania reveals that she and Eira manipulated Janet Carter into breaking Maeve’s Ride, telling Janet about Tam Lin and setting up the chess pieces for Maeve to be forced to sacrifice herself.

Stacy resurfaces and begs Toby to kill her, horrified at what she did to her own children. Toby attacks.

Titania takes control and holds Toby down with magical vines. She says that she cannot kill anyone of Janet’s line, bound just like Eira, except when defending herself. She says she was distantly aware within Stacy, guiding Stacy’s actions as she and Toby became childhood friends, although Toby refuses to let Titania rewrite that friendship.

Titania threatens to destroy all Toby’s loved ones if Toby doesn’t sacrifice the remaining Brown children to her. all Toby holds dear. Then she leaves.

Chapter 15: Tybalt returns and helps Toby get free of her physical bindings. They return to Muir Woods to update everyone. They are all eating, Raysel included, and Toby checks in to see how Raysel is adjusting to her new circumstances. Raysel worries that Toby will change her mind and send her back to Shadowed Hills.

Chapter 16: Arden orders Toby to catch her up, and Cassandra inexplicably tells Toby to eat as many sandwiches as possible. Cassandra also says the signs have been warning the Brown kids of danger for weeks but they didn’t know how to read the messages - probably because Seers cannot foresee the Three.

Tybalt realizes that the Court of Cats is in danger and unhappily leaves to warn them.

Toby asks Oberon to unbind Titania long enough to remove the compulsion to kill her secret children. When he tries to talk his way out of responsibility, Cassandra takes a turn yelling at him. Oberon finally admits that not only doesn’t he want to do it, he doesn’t think he could unbind and rebind her quickly enough.

The Luidaeg says Toby should have the power to pull apart Titania’s bindings, as she has unraveled so many other spells. Oberon finally agrees to help. They all plan to lay a trap to lure Titania in.

Chapter 17: Tybalt returns from the Court of Cats and Toby realizes he’s under Titania’s influence again. They fight, Tybalt reluctantly, until Toby grabs and holds him in cat form. They are trapped on the Shadow Roads, but Toby is able to use Oberon’s blood to find a path to Shadowed Hills. Melly greets her with delight and takes her to the Ames’s rooms.

Chapter 18: Sylvester finds her there, apologizes for his behavior, and offers to help. Chelsea teleports them back to Muir Woods.

Sylvester recounts Stacy’s early days in Shadowed Hills, and the oddities they never questioned. He apologizes again and explains why Luna’s personality shifted so drastically when she lost the kitsune skin and her connection to mammalian thought patterns. He tells Toby he wants to repair their relationship and will go against Luna’s wishes to do so.

Tybalt returns from checking in with the others. He is once again under Titania’s thrall but manages to relay that there is a civil war outside of those fighting for and against Titania. Toby and Sylvester flee for the orangery where the Brown children are holed up, but Tybalt catches up with them. Fighting his compulsions, Tybalt shoves Toby through the Shadows and out right in front of Titania.

Chapter 19: Titania and Toby taunt each other, and Titania orders Tybalt to attack. Toby allows it, and the harm Tybalt inflicts on Toby is echoed in Titania’s body. Tybalt comes back to himself, horrified, but Toby assures him it was Titania’s fault he injured her.

Toby drinks the last of Oberon’s blood and sees his memories of the birth of Faerie. She also sees something revelatory within herself. Then she pulls apart Titania’s bindings, continuing even when Stacy resurfaces and begs Toby to end things. Toby pulls apart what is left of Stacy, effectively killing her best friend, and the true Titania emerges.

From the corner of her eye, Toby sees Oberon try to walk away from the scene, and only at the insistence of The Luidaeg does he turn back and complete his part of the deal. He rebinds Titania.

Chapter 20: With Titania contained, the battle is over. Toby discovers that Simon is mortally wounded, so she gives him her blood to allow him to draw upon her regenerative magic.

They enter the orangery where the Browns and their protectors are hiding. Karen is the only Brown awake since she’s using her powers to give them sweet dreams, and she sends Toby into the dream to tell them what happened.

Chapter 21: Next Toby checks in with Arden and Oberon. Oberon admits to planting his memories in his blood as a security measure to keep Toby from killing Titania during the unbinding. To do so could permanently destroy the makeup of Faerie.

The Luidaeg admits to suspecting for a while that Toby was powerful enough to do this sort of unbinding. She has hoped that Toby may be able to remove the geas upon herself. Still, she tells Toby not to try now because if the Luidaeg were released, she wouldn’t be around to help in the coming conflicts.

After October berates Oberon for his inaction and his attempts to run away from his duties, he admits to intentionally losing track of Titania after the rebinding. She is somewhere out in the world, aware of who she is but not allowed to harm Toby’s loved ones, Maeve’s descendants, or Janet’s descendants.

After he and Luidaeg leave, Sylvester apologizes again to Toby and promises to do better. He tells Simon he wants to forgive him but needs more time to get past what happened to Luna and Raysel.

Chapter 22: Toby and Tybalt go home to speak in private, and Toby shares what she learned with Oberon’s blood: she is pregnant. Tybalt is shocked, scared, and then awed. The moment is interrupted by Titania, who is not allowed to harm Toby, but says she can send her to someone else who can.

Chapter 23: Toby wakes up in what seemingly looks like an illusionary version of Amandine’s tower, happily thinking her life’s purpose is to serve her older pureblood sister August, who treats her kindly despite her heritage. Her life is perfect.

Characters[]

Mentioned

Locations[]

Continuity[]

Past[]

  • Rayseline has been awakened. As Toby had promised in A Killing Frost, Toby has declared to claim offense against Raysel and have her stay at her residence for a year at her request to give her space from Sylvester and Luna in order to recover from her ordeal. Although Luna denies Toby and Tybalt due to Gillian's circumstances at the time of her first kidnapping, Dianda takes offense in Toby's place as vengeance for Dean and Peter's kidnapping.
  • It is revealed that Jessica, Andrew and Anthony are Seers. Both Karen and Cassandra were revealed to be an oneiromancer and aeromancer respectively.
  • Maeve and Titania had been established as sisters. It is revealed that they were not biologically related, but named each other sisters in order to tolerate each other easier.
  • Many of the children claimed by Maeve that had been hunted down were Seers. This included the Roane, the Adhene as revealed by a disguised Absalom Shallcross, and the Ysengrimus. Only the Kitsune, known for their foretelling abilities aside from their alchemical skills, had managed to survive and sustain their entire race.
  • Oberon had banished Titania after the loss of Maeve. It was revealed that he had also bound her the same way she bound the Luidaeg as punishment.
  • Simon confirms that Evening ordered Luna and Raysel's kidnapping in order to punish Sylvester for consorting with a perceived daughter of Maeve, alongside her goal to kill Toby.
  • Simon reveals that Raysel was never intended to have been kidnapped, and was only taken captive to spare her from Oleander murdering her.

Present[]

  • Stacy has been revealed - as suspected by the fandom - to be Titania. This makes all of the children she had as Stacy to be Firstborn.
  • October revealed to Simon and Tybalt that she's pregnant with her and Tybalt's first child.
  • Rayseline is now living with Toby, Quentin, Jazz, May and Tybalt - at least for a year. After a year has passed, she can choose to go back to Shadowed Hills on her own accord after her recovery.
  • October acknowledges Rayseline as her cousin for the first time.
  • Titania has been rebound - she is unable to harm any descendants claimed by Maeve, Toby, or any members that Toby identifies as her family.

Future[]

  • Whether Titania trapped Toby in an illusion of Amandine's tower with illusionary forms of August, Amandine and Simon, or if she had managed to actually trap them together remains unknown until Sleep No More.
  • All of Stacy's children - being Firstborn - have the potential to birth new species of Fae. This also means they are only vulnerable to a combination of iron and silver, and the hands of other Firstborn and the Big Three.
  • Stacy's children have been "claimed" by the Luidaeg as part of the bargain Mitch made with her to remove the Llangefri screen.
  • Nolan's price for the bargain of removing the Llangefri screen is that he will be denied inheriting the crown from Arden twice should she choose to abdicate.
  • Toby is able to remove the geas Titania placed on the Luidaeg. However for the moment, the Luidaeg refuses to have it removed should the need of her assistance still be required.
  • Although Malvic - Tybalt's Firstborn - is claimed by Oberon, Titania can control anyone of Malvic's line because she had raised him. This leaves Tybalt vulnerable to Titania's thrall.
  • With Oberon and Titania in the Kingdom of the Mists, Maeve still needs to be found. Though fans suspect Marcia being Maeve, her whereabouts still remain unknown.
  • The reason for the Kitsune's survival against the slaughter of the Seer Fae is revealed in Such Dangerous Seas.
  • Rayseline is now living with Toby for a year.
  • It is unclear whatever Titania had done to Toby affected her and Tybalt's unborn child. Because Titania cannot directly harm Toby, there is a chance that her attack may be illusionary in nature and present little to no threat to her child.

Quotes[]

  • "Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent beneath it." -William Shakespeare, Macbeth
    • Oberon gave these instructions when binding Titania, that she might walk unnoticed through the world. She is to appear an innocent changeling until the time comes to wipe away all evidence of her presence
    • Stacy has always been a friend and appeared harmless, but she was harboring Titania inside her.
    • "Innocent flower" references flower magic - illusions - and Titania's title as the Lady of the Flowers.

Trivia[]

  • McGuire on Twitter: "There have now been enough books in the October Daye series that I can see the narrative trends more clearly. Every third book, starting with AN ARTIFICIAL night, is an emotional pivot point. Every fourth book, on the other hand, is a WHAM. LATE ECLIPSES, WHAM, you were wrong about everything! THE WINTER LONG, WHAM, no really, everything! NIGHT AND SILENCE, we got you some more WHAM. BE THE SERPENT is going to be a goddamn PARTY, is what I'm saying here. It's the fourth WHAM in a pattern where fours hurt more."[2]
  • McGuire on Twitter: "That's Simon [Lorden] behind her [on the cover]."[3].
  • McGuire on Twitter: "...it's probably a bad sign that I'm giggling maniacally while I do the edits on this Toby book, right? My proofers are SCREAMING at me."[4]
  • Triggers warnings for Be the Serpent, per Seanan McGuire on Twitter:[5]
    • "Parental emotional abuse and control; neglectful parents; death (children); severe injury; genre-appropriate violence; mind control; blood; so much blood; seriously that is a lot of blood; TOBY BLOOD GOES ON THE INSIDE."
    • "No sexual abuse or peril, gender-based abuse, animal death, gun violence, fire, drowning, drug abuse, or common sense."
  • Audiobook release was delayed for Mary Robinette Kowal's schedule.[6]
  • The theory about Stacy being Titania was revealed to be true during the events of Be the Serpent. This makes her children - Karen, Anthony, Cassandra, Jessica and Andrew all Firstborn.
  • Despite Titania's disdain for Seers, the irony is that all the children she had as Stacy ended up becoming Seers in some shape and form.
  • Julie's disappearance toward the end was editor oversight, not Something Sinister happening.[7]

References[]

  1. ↑ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624343/be-the-serpent-by-seanan-mcguire/
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1386355616692662272
  3. ↑ https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1514288719242489857?s=21&t=VQvcvco9SdO0OtAlnFOe4w
  4. ↑ https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1463227301940785156?s=20&t=j3z3r_8k3fbPV3F62Co-Eg
  5. ↑ https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1553798046940426241?s=20&t=j3z3r_8k3fbPV3F62Co-Eg
  6. ↑ https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1551627976680230913?s=20&t=j3z3r_8k3fbPV3F62Co-Eg
  7. ↑ https://seananmcguire.com/blog/2022/08/30/discussion-post-for-be-the-serpent/
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