The Brightest Fell is the eleventh novel in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. It recounts Toby's quest to find her lost half-sister, August Torquill, after their mother Amandine blackmails her by forcibly transforming Jazz and Tybalt into their animal forms and holding them hostage.
It is the first book in the series whose print edition was made available exclusively in hardcover format at first printing. It is also available as an e-book in various formats.
The paperback edition includes the novella Of Things Unknown.
| “ | Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. | ” |
–William Shakespeare, Macbeth | ||
Synopsis[]
Author's Description[]
The Brightest Fell (September 5th 2017, DAW) brings Toby face to face with possibly the most dangerous opponent of them all: her mother. When Amandine asks Toby to do a job for her, Toby's first impulse is to refuse. Unfortunately, Amandine doesn't know how to take "no" for an answer. With Tybalt and Jazz as hostages to her good behavior, Toby must team up with an unlikely ally and travel into the deeper realms of Faerie with a single goal. Bring her sister home...or risk losing everything.
Back Cover[]
October "Toby" Daye is hearing wedding bells in her future --or she would be, if her mother, Amandine the Liar, hadn't just walked back into her life with an ultimatum: Find her missing sister, August, or suffer the consequences. To ensure Toby's obedience, Amandine has taken hostages: Toby's fiance Tybalt, the local King of Cats, and Jazz, the Raven-maid girlfriend of Toby's Fetch.
With no first-hand knowledge of her sister--who has been missing since 1906--Toby must do the unthinkable, and consult the one person who knew August best: August's father, Simon Torquill. The man who once ruined Toby's mortal life by transforming her into a fish is now the only one who can save her.
Trusting an enemy-turned-ally like Simon is out of the question, but without his help, finding August may be impossible...and without August, there's no way Toby is ever bringing her own family home. Together, Toby and Simon will have to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the Mists--and they must do it quickly. Amandine's patience is short, and Toby's world hands in the balance.
She's never had so much to lose.
Plot[]
Chapter 1: Toby's friends hold her bachelorette party at a karaoke bar, and Toby has fun despite herself. Tybalt uses the evening to teach Raj about kingship, away from the festivities, since he plans to abdicate once he and Toby marry.
Chapter 2-3: At home, a make-out session with Tybalt is interrupted by Amandine, who demands Toby find her long-missing sister August. Amandine takes Tybalt and Jazz hostage as collateral, forcibly shifting both of them into their animal forms and locking them in enchanted thorn cages.
Chapter 4: Toby strategizes with her allies, overwhelmed by the scope of a task Simon Torquill failed at for the better part of a century. She calls the Luidaeg for guidance, and the Luidaeg explains August's quest to find Oberon, guided by the light of a Babylon candle, which the Luidaeg had tried to discourage her from embarking on.
Chapter 5-7: Toby convinces Sylvester to wake Simon from his elf-shot slumber so Simon can help track down August. In exchange, she agrees to talk to Arden about pardoning Rayseline for Connor's death, thus lifting her elf-shot punishment. Sylvester awakens Simon but also puts a geas on him to prevent Simon from doing Toby harm. Toby stops Sylvester from compelling Simon's actual help in the search; from her own experience, she thinks Simon will be more effective if he helps willingly. May will stay in Shadowed Hills to anchor Toby in case she gets lost on the quest.
Chapter 8: Simon, Toby, and Quentin begin by visiting Amandine's tower; Amandine is present but dismissive of them all. Simon helps Toby pick up August's scent in a bedroom Toby hadn't known existed, trying to ignore Amandine's casual insults. They follow the trail through the Summerlands while Simon tells them more about the August he raised.
Chapter 9: While they are in pixie territory, Toby triggers a trap that knocks them all out. She awakens in the custody of the local pixie colony and finds herself shrunk to pixie size. She escapes her bindings easily but is held up at spearpoint when she tries to escape. When she gives her name, the pixies recognize her as a friend: her guard was one of the pixies Toby freed when she and Connor were searching Muir Woods for Gillian and the Lorden boys. The pixies remember seeing August come through with her candle long ago. They allow Toby to free Quentin and Simon from their bonds.
Chapter 10-11: The pixies now recognize Simon, who is a hero to the flock for helping them migrate to their current home in the Summerlands and creating a hidden passageway for them to the mortal world.They greet Simon and return the three visitors to their normal size, but the pixie magic and the elf-shot antidote still in Simon's system react poorly. He passes out.
They contact Walther who says Simon isn't in danger, just essentially stoned, and needs to sleep it off. Toby asks Poppy to shrink Simon again so he's easier to transport. Poppy agrees, but in equal exchange the magic makes her human sized. She decides to come with them since Simon now holds her magic.
Chapter 12: August's trail leads them to the Luidaeg's backdoor. Toby asks the Luidaeg to wake Simon up, but the Luidaeg won't let her go any deeper into debt without working some of it off first. Toby refuses to let Quentin indebt over Simon. Then Poppy offers to pay the price since her colony owes Simon for their lives and home. The Luidaeg uses all of Poppy's pixie magic to wake Simon up, leaving Poppy an Aes Sidhe.
That settled, Toby asks the Luidaeg more about August's quest and learns that Amandine's line was responsible for the big three's disappearance. Supposedly, only Amandine's line can set it right as well. August wanted the Babylon candle to steal a powerful Tuatha de Dannan changeling from Blind Michael so she could portal into the deeper realms of faerie. In exchange, she gave up her way home until her quest is complete. The Luidaeg says she set such a steep price in order to dissuade August, but was not allowed to refuse August's request when August agreed to pay.
Toby bargains for a fresh candle to follow August. The price: They have a fortnight to find and return with August, or all three of them will be bound to the Luidaeg's service for a full year.The Luidaeg makes the candle from Simon's blood.
Chapter 13: Although they take the Babylon Road, they are not transformed into children this time; Toby suspects Blind Michael's death negated that requirement. They find Acacia and the Wild Hunt in Blind Michael's Realm, and Acacia remembers when August passed through to steal the changeling child. Acacia is amazed to learn Amandine is interacting with people again and has two living children.
Chapter 14: Acacia takes them to the stables where the changeling boy was kept. Toby picks up August's scent despite the hundred years that have passed. She picks up the trail, and as they walk Simon tells her more about his own quest to find his daughter. He says that Evening only took an interest in destroying Toby when Toby proved a powerful enough player to potentially fulfill the prophecy of Amandine's line. Evening realized the best way to destroy Toby was to take away her allies, which means Luna and Raysel's kidnapping was intended to make Sylvester useless to Toby. He describes the tiny shallowing he made to hold them captive, and Toby yells at him for the damage he caused Raysel.
Chapter 15-17: The candle and trail lead them to Annwn, where they find Duchess Riordan and her people prospering. Simon appeals to Riordan directly, claiming hospitality for all three of them but letting Riordan think the geas is forcing him to help Toby.Toby recognizes August's scent in the castle and realizes she'd picked it up on her last visit without realizing its importance. August was here before Riordan, trapped in Annwn for decades and inhabiting the castle Riordan now claims. They give Riordan the slip and follow August's trail, passing a cell holding Officer Thornton. Toby can't bring herself to abandon Thornton so she brings him along with them. They return to the mortal realm. Toby sends Thornton, accompanied by Quentin, to the Luidaeg for safekeeping.
Chapter 18: Toby and Simon follow August's trail to Borderlands Books and Cafe, and Toby remembers seeing a silvery-red haired woman the day she had found Arden here. she and Simon question Madden, who acts oddly enough for Toby to realize he is under a geas. She breaks it and Madden says August has been hiding here since Arden ascended the throne, letting the store staff think she was an employee all along.
Chapter 19: They go to the basement, where August immediately attacks, grabbing Toby and shifting her blood toward human.Simon interrupts the attack before the fae is fully drained from Toby's blood. August doesn't recognize him as her father no matter how much he peas, although she scents his magic and knows her father is somewhere nearby. Alan the bookstore owner comes to see what all the noise is and Simon throws a don't-look-here over all three of them, so suddenly that the geas reads is as an attack against Toby and retaliates against him. August doesn't trust Toby's pleas and escapes while Toby is trying to save Simon. Toby makes a marshwater charm with Madden's help to release Simon from the geas.
Chapter 20: The geas is blood magic, so Toby is pulled into a vision with Simon. He cannot understand why she would undo a geas that protects her, but she says that his actions on this quest have led her to trust him; that she still needs his help to get August home in exchange for her loved ones; and that, having lost her own father, she wants to see August and Simon reunited. She releases the geas, and when she awakens she learns the price of the blood magic is losing even more of her fae nature. She is the thinnest blooded she has ever been.
Chapter 21-22: Now too weak to scent August's magic, Toby has Simon guide her by the Babylon candle. He is still shocked that she trusts him so much. She checks her messages and learns they have been gone for days by mortal time, and Quentin is frantic. The candle leads them to Toby's house, where August has taken up residence. Toby knocks August out with her baseball bat and they tie her up. When August awakens, she proves to be prejudiced, haughty, and spoiled. They learn that she has been keeping Quentin tied up in his own room and Toby frees him; May is still at Shadowed Hills serving as Toby's anchor. Simon pleads for August's recognition but she only threatens him.
Chapter 23-24: They take August, still bound, to the Luidaeg. The Luidaeg's rules prevent her from simply negating August's bargain, so Simon, as August's father, takes on her debts. The two have a brief reunion before Simon must pay her price, losing his own way home. For him, that is more than the place or the people; he instantly converts back to his worst self, the person he was around Evening and Oleander. Simon flees while Toby tries to reason with August.
Chapter 25-26: August is difficult at first, thinking Toby as a changeling is beneath her attention, but agrees to go with Toby and Quentin if it means seeing Amandine. August and Amandine reunite. At first, Amandine doesn't want to release her hostages but August takes Toby's side and convinces her to let them go. Toby finds Tybalt and Jazz in the root cellar, gone feral with terror. She and Quentin take them, still caged, to Shadowed Hills.
Chapter 27: Toby's nearly-mortal body has hit its limit, and she passes out; when she wakes, she realizes Amandine must have poisoned the cages. While she was out, Jin restored Jazz to her human form but Tybalt remains feral. Toby approaches him carefully, then uses the memory of his blood to remind him of the feel of his own magic. He shifts to human.
Chapter 28: Everyone is traumatized from the adventure, Jazz and Tybalt especially. August visits and asks Toby to find Simon for her; Toby agrees, but not until her family heals.
Characters[]
Major[]
Allies[]
- October Daye: Dochas Sidhe changeling, knight of Shadowed Hills, Hero in the Mists
- May Daye: Toby's Fetch, sister, and housemate
- Jazz: Raven-maid, May's live-in girlfriend
- Tybalt: King of Cats, Toby's fiance
- Quentin Sollys: Daoine Sidhe, Toby's squire, Crown Prince of the Westlands
- Luidaeg: Firstborn, sea witch, Toby's aunt and ally
- Sylvester Torquill: Daoine Sidhe, Duke of Shadowed Hills, Toby's estranged father-figure
- Simon Torquill: Daoine Sidhe, Sylvester's twin brother, Amandine's husband
Antagonists[]
- Amandine: Firstborn, Toby's mother
- August Torquill: Dochas Sidhe, Amandine and Simon's daughter
Minor[]
- Stacy Brown: changeling, Toby's longtime friend
- Cassandra Brown: Stacy's adult daughter
- Danny MacReady: Bridge Troll, cab driver, Toby's ally
- Dianda Lorden: Merrow Duchess of Saltmist
- Kerry: changeling, Toby's longtime friend
- Dean Lorden: Merrow/Daoine Sidhe, Count of Goldengreen, Dianda's son and Quentin's boyfriend
- Raj: Prince of Cats, Tybalt's heir, Quentin's best friend
- Arden Windermere: Tuatha de Dannan, Queen in the Mists
- Etienne: Tuatha de Dannan, Shadowed Hills's seneschal and knight
- Bridget Ames: human, Etienne's lover
- Marcia: thinblooded changeling, Goldengreen's seneschal
- Madden: Cu Sidhe, Kingdom of the Mists's seneschal
- Walther Davies: Tylwyth Teg, alchemist and chemistry professor
- Grianne: Candela, knight of Shadowed Hills
- Jin: Ellyllon, healer of Shadowed Hills
- Poppy: Pixie, now Aes Sidhe
- Lilac: Pixie
- Acacia: Firstborn, Blind Michael's wife, now ruler of his realm
- Treasa Riordan: Daoine Sidhe, official Duchess of Dreamer's Glass, living in Annwn
- Officer Thornton: human police officer
- Z'ev: human, Borderlands employee
- Alan: human, Borderlands owner
Mentioned[]
- Patrick Lorden: Daoine Sidhe, Duke of Saltmist
- Oberon, Titania, and Maeve: the missing Creators of Faerie
- Nolan Windermere: Arden's brother, recently woken from eighty years elf-shot
- Luna Torquill: Blodynbryd, Duchess of Shadowed HIlls
- Evening Winterrose: also called Eira Rosnhwyr, Firstborn of the Daoine Sidhe
- Karen Brown: Stacy's daughter, oneiromancer
- Rayseline Torquill: Daoine Sidhe, elf-shot
- Melly: Hob of Shadowed Hills
- Oleander de Merelands (deceased): Peri/Tuatha de Dannan, many-times enemy
- Blind Michael (deceased): Firstborn
- Chelsea Ames: Tuatha de Dannan, Etienne's and Bridget's daughter
- Gillian Marks: human, Toby's daughter
- A Tuatha de Dannan changeling: rumored to have punched holes between realms
Places[]
- Kingdom in the Mists, ruled by Arden Windermere
- Duchy of Shadowed Hills, ruled by Sylvester Torquill
- San Francisco
- Toby's home
- Luidaeg's home
- Borderlands
- Duchy of Dreamer's Glass (mentioned), previously ruled by Treasa Riordan
- Faerie
- Summerlands
- Amandine's tower
- Pixie's forest
- Annwn
- Summerlands
Continuity[]
Debts[]
- In exchange for waking up Simon, Toby agrees to speak to Arden on Rayseline's behalf
- Toby's kindness to pixies, especially freeing them from lanterns in Muir Woods, has made them indebted and loyal to her
- The pixies are indebted to Simon for migrating them to their current home
- Toby promises to pay the pixies a social visit once her quest is over
- In exchange for re-awakening Simon, Poppy gives up her pixie magic
- In exchange for a Babylon candle, August gave up her way home
- In exchange for a Babylon candle, Simon, Toby, and Quentin agree to bring August back within fourteen days or be the Luidaeg's servants for a year
- They accomplish their quest and do not need to pay the price.
- The Luidaeg won't let Toby make any more blank-check bargains until she pays off the ones she's already made.
- This suggests that the growing debt has been understood between them even when Toby doesn't explicitly bargain for the Luidaeg's help. Toby doesn't care - she'll give anything to saved her loved ones, and they are in mortal danger quite often.
- Simon is forever indebted to Toby for removing the geas Sylvester put on him not to harm Toby
- Arden lets Toby use the hope chest without seeking anything in exchange, likely in gratitude for releasing Madden from his geas--and because Toby's in that bad of shape
Current Book[]
- In addition to losing her coffee addiction, Toby's shift toward fae makes it really hard for her to get drunk. Blame the Dochas Sidhe metabolism.
- Toby always forgets to take her sword out of the car!
- Etienne has mellowed out a lot since Chelsea came into his life, standing less on ceremony and rigidness.
- September and Malcolm considered creating a home in what became the pixies' forest, but returned to Londinium instead
- The three Torquill siblings had access to the deeper realms of Faerie when they were younger
- They were all born in Londinium, among the first to live in the Summerlands so closely adjacent to the mortal world
- September visited Mag Mell once.
- Rose goblins are created from the cut hair of Blodynbrd
- Acacia says that Titania, her mother, turned her other children against Acacia and Blind Michael and would have killed both them and their children for what Blind Michael did and became.
- Quentin likes Dean a lot, but he doesn't love him or think they'll be forever.
- Quentin prefers hockey over Disney World. It's too humid in Florida, too.
- The Luidaeg is annoyed that Toby keeps sending "misfit toys" for their own protection - thus far, Poppy and Thornton. She keeps accepting them, though.
- Toby is pretty sure August can't turn her fully human without her consent
- Quentin is territorial about his home and hates uninvited guests.
- Toby's cats are getting old.
- The only time the Luidaeg can refuse--or at least tweak--a bargain is when it interferes with a previous bargain.
Previous Books[]
- When Toby sees Simon's memories of August, the forest August travels seems familiar...because it is Blind Michael's Realm.
- "Kissing Tybalt is an activity I used to fantasize about, back when repression and denial were my only bedfellows."
- Toby is pretty sure she died the first time she was elf-shot, and Amandine brought her back.[1]
- Amandine knows that Toby and Connor dated, though it is unclear if she's referring to when Toby was a teenager or more recently.[3]
- August escaped Annwn while Toby was there saving Chelsea[2]
- Toby scented her in the castle at the time but hadn't recognized the signature of another Dochas Sidhe
- August made a cameo the first time Toby visited Borderlands.[4]
- Tybalt proposed almost a year ago. Wedding plans are finally starting to fall into place.[5]
- Toby notes that her first Babylon candle required saltwater, which the Luidaeg says was kinder than how she forcibly shaped Simon's from his own dripping blood.[6]
- Last time, she also had to be transformed into a child to travel the road. Blind Michael's death has presumably changed the rules.
- Toby's procrastination is coming back to bite her: she could have gone to find Amandine, she could have fixed her relationship with Sylvester;[5] she could have checked in with Acacia about the fates of the Riders;[6] she could have looked for Officer Thornton.[2]
- Toby was afraid to touch Gillian as a newborn, her very body remembering the pain Amandine put Toby through when she would shift her blood.
- The merlins "brought a thousand towers down"[7]
Future Books[]
- Tybalt plans to step down as King of Cats when he and Toby marry in order to prevent conflicts of interest that would force him to choose between loyalty to her or his Court.
- However, he will not officially be able to do this until Raj reaches his majority.[8]
- Sylvester warns that Luna will not allow Toby in Shadowed Hills after freeing Simon and letting him escape.
- Quentin also appears to be banished by association.[9]
- When Toby, Simon and Quentin set out on the Babylon road to follow August, the Luidaeg's apartment is obscured in a fog that smelled of blood, ashes, and cinnamon. The blood and ashes have been associated with previous trips on this road, but cinnamon has not. This may be a nod to Simon's magic returning to mulled cider, but may also be foreshadowing, as the false queen's herald, Dugan (whose magic smells of cinnamon & cardamom), reappears in the next book.
- Amandine's line is responsible for the loss of the Three Creators of Faerie. Amandine's line is said to be the ones who will "set right what they made wrong."
Trivia[]
- "The Brightest Fell" was originally intended as the title for book five. Then book seven. We got there eventually![10]
Quotes[]
Cultural References[]
- "Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell." -William Shakespeare, Macbeth
- In Macbeth, Malcolm is trying to determine if a man is on his side or his enemy's and recognizes that even the purest-appearing person may be evil.[11]
- August had great potential to become a hero of Faerie as her mother's heir and first of the Dochas Sidhe. Instead, she got lost on a fool's mission that eventually caused destruction to Simon, Toby, and the people of Shadowed Hills.
- Conversely, Simon has more good in him than Toby first believed, having sacrificed his morals out of desperation to rescue his daughter.
- The titular Macbeth is consumed by his ambition to become king, inspired by both a prophecy and his wife's urging.
- August follows her own ambition to become a hero of Faerie, following the prophecy that Amandine's line will bring back Oberon. Perhaps someone was whispering in her ear, giving her the idea...?
- In Macbeth, Malcolm is trying to determine if a man is on his side or his enemy's and recognizes that even the purest-appearing person may be evil.[11]
- "He that have the tiny little with, hey ho the wind and the rain" -King Lear, quoted by Toby to dispel her house's wards
- King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters and is offended when the youngest does not fawn over him in thanks.
- Similarly, August adores Amandine and her legacy as a Dochas Sidhe, while Toby is much less appreciative.
- The fool sings this song, essentially saying a stupid man should take what he can get since misfortune will never stop coming[12]
- Toby unhappily recognizes that her life is a series of emergencies.
- King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters and is offended when the youngest does not fawn over him in thanks.
- Disney World, Hamlet
- The island of misfit toys
Concerning Toby[]
- "Being your friend is like trying to get up close and personal with a natural disaster. Sure, we have some good times, but we spend half of them covered in blood. We just want to spend an evening making you as uncomfortable as you keep making the rest of us." -Stacy
- “I’ve always been better at being strong for other people than I am at being strong for myself. Maybe it’s the way I was raised—or maybe it’s the way I was made.”
- “Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to have a normal family. Not that anyone I know actually has one.”
- “I was splitting hairs. I knew it. That didn’t matter. Sometimes splitting hairs is what keeps the world from falling down.”
Miscellaneous[]
- [August] hasn't learned the most important lesson of being a hero: she hadn't learned that sometimes it was less about what you could do, and more about who could help you do it." -Toby
- “Some wounds never really heal. They just scab over enough to let you keep on going."
- “And who knows what’s going to go wrong next? The Luidaeg, probably. But she’s not telling.”
- “I had a great deal of respect for his straightforward nature, and for his willingness to pick people up by the throat. It seemed efficient.”
- “Language is an invasive species. Let it take root in new soil, and you’ll never beat it out, no matter how hard you try.”
- “In Faerie, heroes do the things they do because, on some primal level, they have no choice. Once the heroism has them, they can’t refuse. No matter how much they try, the weight of it will always fall upon their shoulders.”
- “You’re fools, all of you. Fools and heroes, and I don’t know if there’s a difference.”
- “They seem a little bit animal in human form. Tybalt's tendency to curl his tongue when he yawns, for example, or the way he sometimes looks at me through sleepy, half-closed eyes, utterly feline, utterly content.”
- “And his voice was ice, his voice was a killing frost sweeping across the land.”
- “but that’s the thing about parents: they’re never simple. They’re never straightforward. And try as we might, we can never quite be free of the shadows they cast over us.”
- “Magic can be reversed. Trauma isn’t that simple.”
[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Late Eclipses
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ashes of Honor
- ↑ One Salt Sea
- ↑ Chimes at Midnight
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Winter Long
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 An Artificial Night
- ↑ The Fixed Stars
- ↑ When Sorrows Come
- ↑ A Killing Frost
- ↑ https://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/278158.html
- ↑ https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/act-4-scene-3-143359
- ↑ https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/lear/page_152/