past the point of no return
CHARACTER NAME: Gemma Doyle.
FANDOM: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray.
CHRONOLOGY: Post The Sweet Far Thing.
no going back now
At the beginning of "A Great And Terrible Beauty", Gemma's mother, Virginia Doyle, received news of a secret enemy that was close at hand and was murdered, leaving Gemma with a necklace in the shape of the crescent eye. Upon receiving the necklace, the redheaded girl starts having mysterious and cryptic visions that have a tendency of coming true. After seeing her mother’s death, she was sent to Spence Academy in London, a finishing school for young women. She meets Kartik, and he tells her that she is a member of the Order, just like her mother. She ignores his warnings and continues to have her visions, eventually ending up in a world of fantasy called the realms. In the realms, anything is possible; a person can fly, turn flowers to gold, and pretty much do anything they can think of. The home of the corrupt souls, the Winterlands, is avoided at all costs by those still pure of heart. This alternate dimension is entered through a door of light, which only members of the Order can create. Among those few are Gemma and her enemy Circe, a woman of the Order who became corrupt in the Winterlands after she started to lose her powers.
At Spence, she becomes friends with Ann Bradshaw, a bland-looking scholarship student who is “poor as a church mouse,” and just as shy; Felicity Worthington, the witty and wealthy daughter of an unfaithful Parisian woman and a sexually abusive admiral; and Pippa Cross, the shallow and beautiful best friend of Felicity. These three girls draw Gemma into their inner circle, exploiting her power over the realms for their own benefit. Pippa is drawn so far into her dreams of grandeur that she is forever trapped in the fantasy world, resulting in her death in the real world, the cause of which was declared to be an epileptic fit.
Throughout the book, Gemma's main conflict is that with herself, and understanding the powers she has been given. She does not know anything about them, and is not sure whether they are a blessing or a curse. Even at the end of the first book, after smashing the Runes that kept the magic of the realms in check and thereby setting it loose, she does not know much about them. She defeats a dark spirit who had taken on the guise of her mother, Virginia, and essentially sets her mother's soul free. However, this is just the beginning of her adventures in the realms.
In "Rebel Angels", Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are charged with the task of locating the Temple in the realms and binding the magic. The story takes place over Christmas Break at Spence, so the girls are not able to access the realms as easily. After getting off the train, Gemma sees that she is being followed and runs to a random person for help. The young man she meets is Simon Middleton, a young aristocrat. He is immediately smitten with the redhead, and invites her family to dinner, thus beginning their courtship.
While on the way to her new London home, Gemma sees her old teacher, Miss Moore, who was previously sacked from Spence for false charges of teaching the girls witchery. Her replacement is Miss McCleethy, the woman whom Gemma suspects is Circe. The redhead takes a trip to Bethlam Royal Hospital to meet with Nell Hawkins, a girl who says she is part of the Order and has driven herself mad to escape the clutches of Circe. The evidence that Miss McCleethy is Circe is overwhelming, but the girls cannot prove it.
While Gemma is at home for the holidays, Kartik has taken up the position of her family's coachman. He finds her one night and tells her that her father has become addicted to opium and has not left the drug den since early the previous morning. Dressed in her brother's clothes, Gemma goes with him and drags her father from the hovel, returning home with him in worse shape than he'd been in while he was addicted to laudanum.
While looking into Nell's mind, Gemma discovers that Miss Moore is really Circe, and that she used the name "McCleethy" while she taught at St. Victoria's, Nell's old school. Nell is taken to the realms by Miss Moore to be used as a sacrifice, but Gemma arrives in time to pierce the insane girl through the throat with an arrow, thus rendering her useless as a sacrifice and ending her worldly life. Gemma and Circe fall into the Well of Eternity, the center of magic in the realms, in a battle for control over the magic. Gemma forces her way out of the well and binds the magic to herself, resulting in Circe being trapped in the well forever more.
And this is a rather unconventional summary of the third book, since I was very tired when I wrote it. Enjoy.
After all that, all her magic was back in the realms (a.k.a. magical world where anything is possible), and she couldn't open the Door of Light to get there. Moving on.
Couldn't get to the realms-that really pissed off her friends. So she sneaks out of school one night and, lo and behold, there's a sort of back door that she opens and she, Ann, and Felicity go tromping around the realms once more. Gemma also happens to get the magic back, so she can use it both inside and outside the realms-I promise, this is important later. So the trio reunited with Pippa, who's dead, and who also happened to collect a little posse of factory-workers who believe she's some sort of goddess. She's aiming to make them all ladies, but really, she's not doing too good of a job because-gasp!-she's slowly dying (again) from lack of magic. After all, she's a creature of the realms now, since she ate some magical berries in AGATB.
So anyways, Pippa decides she wants to go to heaven, or wherever the other side of the mystical river leads, and asks Gemma to help her. But oh, wait, she can't because she has eaten those magical berries and they've bound her to the land. Thus begins the Amazing Guilt-Trip, in which Pippa suckers Gemma into giving her shots of magic to keep her alive. In all honesty, it's sort of like a heroin boost, but we won't get into that.
Moving on. Kartik-a.k.a. Mr. Dark, Mysterious, and Arrogant Lover-Boy-sees Gemma at a fair and tells her that he's leaving for good this time and oh, would she mind not telling anybody that he's fleeing the country? After all, he's got a price on his head, so there's a good girl. But Gemma realizes that she's in love with him and silently prays he won't leave. Well, he does. But not before arranging a meeting with the Rakshana, the brotherhood that wants her to be magical for them and then more or less kill herself. And they want Kartik dead too, so he decides to go to the meeting, just in case anything goes wrong. Which it does. Of course.
Gemma meets with the Rakshana because they've been stalking her brother, Tom. And as much as she loathes Thomas, she doesn't want these jerks all up in his business. But of course one of their loyal servants, Fowlson, has to ruin the whole shebang and make Gemma reveal that she does indeed have magic, which she lied about earlier. Whoops. Thus begins one of the greatest Bitch Fits in history, where they try to kill her and she just kicks their asses to next Tuesday.
Of course, while all of this has been going on, Gemma has been having visions about a Mysterious Young Woman-who will from now on be referred to as MYW-who keeps referring to the Tree of All Souls. This repeatedly frustrates Gemma, because she has no idea what the hell the Tree of All Souls is. Yet. In case you were wondering, yes, that was foreshadowing, so remember it for later. So she gets really pissed and drags Fee, Ann, and Pippa into the Winterlands-a.k.a. the Place Where No One Is Ever Supposed to Go-and they find this tree. They think. So they all touch it, and everything gets really trippy for a few pages in the book. This tree? Yea, it's like cocaine. Which also comes into play later. Later. So in the middle of this Insanity Induced By The Tree, Gemma meets the founder of the Order, who tells her that MYW has a dagger that could potentially end the world as they know it. Because what sort of story would this be without a world-ending weapon that's hardly six inches long? A boring one, that's what.
MYW also had an addiction to cocaine, and shoots some into Gemma's system during a vision. Because you can do that when you're a member of a magical cult. See, I told you the cocaine would come into play.
There's a masquerade somewhere in this general area, but it's relatively unimportant; the most interesting thing is that Gemma meets up with Simon, her old boyfriend, they flirt, and then Kartik throws rocks again because he's Really Fucking Jealous. Then Gemma finds out Simon is practically engaged. To an American. How scandalous.
So in her pursuit of MYW, Gemma meets a creepy old illusionist who not only tries to pick her pocket, but has a bad habit of leering. A lot. This is also when Gemma finds out that Kartik is a double agent of some kind, and that he's been doing the dirty work for both the Order and the Rakshana. Bitch. So she gets pissed at him, but she takes him to the realms anyways because they're supposed to be in love and she can't ditch him before the book is done. Stupid scripts.
So with her new ally, Fowlson, and Kartik-who, by the way, is apparently in love with her too and couldn't force himself to leave for good. Of course. So those two get together, and she takes him to the realms-which men have been forbidden from-in which they put their hands on this nifty carving in a wall of the Cave of Sighs-a.k.a. the Order and Rakshana's love nest-and are bonded. In more ways than one I'm sure, though the book never goes into detail. Screw you, Libba Bray. Screw you.
After all that happens, Kartik, Fowlson, and Gemma go down to the docks where all the hookers and gamblers hang out to find this Dagger of Might and Magic. Of course, Gemma is dressed like a man, which she seems to be developing a habit of doing. The trio gets to this old, abandoned house, and when Gemma touches a wall, she falls into a trance. She once again meets MYW, who was apparently mute. So now Gemma knows where the dagger is so Kartik, love, grab that chalk slate over there and open it. Old Slate reveals Old Dagger. Huzzah. Also in this general area, Gemma punches her brother in the face to knock him out so he won’t freak out about her using her magic to dissuade the Rakshana from following her-apparently, she’s got a really great right hook.
Anyways, Kartik Mysteriously Disappears, and Gemma gets depressed again. So she goes wandering in the night. But oh, the veil between the realms and the real world has gotten so thin that things can come and go without even trying. So Gemma is attacked by Mystical Creatures, who try to rape her. The gargoyles that live on top of the school come to life and save her, but by that time, she has driven herself literally insane with fear. So she lies in bed for a few days sulking and regaining her sanity. Kartik comes back, finds her, wonders what the fuck happened, but is too whipped to ask. Gemma decides it's high time to end this what-the-fuckery and gathers her troops to start the Final Battle. Meanwhile, all the girls at Spence are locked in the church because creatures have broken through to the real world-this is where the majority of them stay for the rest of the book, so we won't pay attention to them. But I will point out that Mother Elena, the Crazy Old Gypsy Lady starts painting the doorframes and windowpanes with lamb blood and ashes to "keep out the evil." Then she dies. Yeah. Anyways.
Our Heroes get together for the Final Battle in the realms against the Tree of All Souls, which has been evil the entire time, along with the old and dead leader of the Order who's plotting to kill everyone. Go figure. They stop by Pippa's first, though, only to find that she's gone insane and her group of misfits have started sacrificing each other in her honor. They also sacrifice Miss McCleethy, who went into the realms with Gemma, acting as backup and a meat shield. Anyway, as Pippa is now a power-hungry fiend, the castle she's been living in decides it's had enough and falls on top of her, effectively ending her existence for good. Really this time, I swear. Felicity cries, because apparently, she and Pippa were lesbian lovers the entire time. No one saw that coming, right? Right. This also makes Gemma question her own sexuality, but she takes one look at Kartik and is completely sure that she’s straight.
They leave Pippa there to, well, die again I guess, and head on over to the Winterlands. Final Battle takes place, Gemma gets sucked into the Tree. Wonky things happen, as per usual. Kartik gets pissed and starts killing things, including the Tree, which spits Gemma out. But oh, she's cut her side, and you're not supposed to drop blood near the Tree because it'll suck you up. But whoops, Gemma does, and starts being eaten by roots once more. Kartik, being the Tragic Hero that he is, has to step in and sacrifice himself in her stead. So now her boytoy is dead, the group she thought was going to help her is a total sham, and, in addition, she's bleeding. She's not a happy girl, as you can imagine. So she flips her shit completely, drains the magic from her body back into the realms itself, and leaves, taking all humans with her.
Cut to a week or two later-her French teacher is getting married to a police captain we met in RA. Happy, happy wedding time commences, and then we cut to the end of the school year. Ann leaves Spence-by the way, she had run away to become an actress earlier in the book, but that's not really relevant-and Fee follows soon after. Gemma makes her debut-this means she is, by definition, a woman in British society. Ah, the glory of a season, with its balls and tea and gossip. But Gemma's no ordinary girl, and wants to skip all that and get straight to business. So she gets daddy to agree to let her move to-where else-America. New York City, specifically. Fee is off to Paris to find more lesbians and make women in trousers the new fad, and wishes Gemma luck. Ann sends a telegram saying she's joined some traveling acting troupe and she hopes Fee and Gemma have a nice life. Our heroine boards a ship and makes her merry way over to New York.
our passion play has now at last begun
Gemma is headstrong girl who lacks those immaculate Victorian manners and the ability to dance without tripping over her own feet. She is a girl who doesn't do what's expected of her-either by her school, family, or friends. She is pretty, but not dainty as a proper British lady should be. She is rather tall for being eighteen years old, with long limbs and a wild mane of curly, red-gold hair. She has glass-green eyes, inherited from her mother, and has spent most of her life in India, rather than her native land of England. Even though she is not as quick-witted as Felicity, she is more than capable of coming up with more-or-less convincing lies if the need arises, and of charming her way out of trouble.
She was once pursued romantically by Simon Middleton, the rich son of one of her grandmother's friends, but broke things off after he asked for her hand in marriage. She was in love with Kartik, a handsome member of the Rakshana who was assigned to protect her, but has tried to move on since his death. She has seen the dark side of life: child-abusing and addicted fathers, ignorant mothers, siblings blinded by society. However, she knows that all things are not separated into good and evil, that there is a lot of grey to work with. She understands this more than anything, and tries to lean more towards the “good” side of everything though, as a nineteenth-century woman, she isn’t used to having many choices of her own.
She is used to being shown off, treated as nothing more than an item for sale. Her entire perspective of the world, while altered because of the realms, is more or less that women are below men in society because of their physical stature and mental capacity. The idea that women are for raising children and tending to the home has been deeply embedded into her mind since she was a child. That was the way she was raised, and it's not easy to abandon beliefs without question. However, she isn't so willing to believe this now that she has experienced what it's like to have power, but she'll still curtsy and call a male "sir" or "mister" out of habit. As a proper British lady, her marriage was expected to be arranged, but she made the decision-backed by her father-to move to New York City and pursue her own interests.
Mary “Virginia Doyle” Dowd, Gemma’s mother, is still an enigma to her daughter. She never revealed to Gemma that she was a member of the Order, and for that, Gemma resented her for a long time. Gemma feels inadequate at times because she has had no formal training from the Order, while her mother received the best; she knows that while she may be more powerful than any member before her, she is still inexperienced and untrained. She knows none of the Order’s secrets, ones she feels her mother could have shared during their short time in the realms together. But because her mother never taught her anything, Gemma was eventually forced to speak with Circe, the betrayer, which led her down a dark road which she almost did not escape. Gemma eventually forgave her mother (for killing Carolina, for not telling her about the magic, for committing suicide), but can never forget the heartbreak she endured when she found out about Mary’s past. Before discovering the magic inside her, Gemma was also livid that for sixteen years, her mother refused to send her to England so she could attend a proper finishing school; she feels that since she hasn’t had the same schooling as the other girls that she is an outcast, separate from their society and gossip, which a small part of her would love to be a part of, just to fit in. She has been shown to be awkward in certain social situations (especially dinner parties and balls), and unsure of what to say or do in some cases. She has only really received one year of formal schooling, and never attended any balls while in India. Until she moved to England, she had also never seen snow.
Gemma has always been her father’s favorite. Both her grandmother and older brother have told her so, and even though she would never admit it, she knows it is true. Finding out that she had unintentionally helped encourage his laudanum addiction sent her into a fit of guilt and denial that lasted for many weeks. Once he became addicted to pure opium and she was forced to save him (with the aid of Kartik), she could no longer handle the shame of his vice and tried to use the magic to heal him. However, the magic does not work in such a way; he fell into a fit, and was severely weakened by her efforts. She can never forgive herself for hurting him that day. She hates the fact that he could not accept that his wife killed herself, and that he turned to drugs for solace instead of his family. When she discovered that he had even bartered his wedding ring for opium, she completely broke down crying in front of Kartik, something she had promised to never do. She often wonders why she was not enough to keep him happy, why he simply could not mourn his wife in peace like the rest of the family.
Her visions usually cause her mental and emotional pain. These visions were first brought on by a necklace presented to her by her mother, but are fundamentally connected to the magic sealed within her. They are very rarely wrong, and have the habit of coming at the most inconvenient times. If she concentrates she can bring one on willingly, but not very often. The inhabitants of the Winterlands used to send their assassin after Gemma in an attempt to permanently silence her, though this hasn't happened in a good while, a fact for which she is rather thankful.
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FANDOM: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray.
CHRONOLOGY: Post The Sweet Far Thing.
no going back now
At the beginning of "A Great And Terrible Beauty", Gemma's mother, Virginia Doyle, received news of a secret enemy that was close at hand and was murdered, leaving Gemma with a necklace in the shape of the crescent eye. Upon receiving the necklace, the redheaded girl starts having mysterious and cryptic visions that have a tendency of coming true. After seeing her mother’s death, she was sent to Spence Academy in London, a finishing school for young women. She meets Kartik, and he tells her that she is a member of the Order, just like her mother. She ignores his warnings and continues to have her visions, eventually ending up in a world of fantasy called the realms. In the realms, anything is possible; a person can fly, turn flowers to gold, and pretty much do anything they can think of. The home of the corrupt souls, the Winterlands, is avoided at all costs by those still pure of heart. This alternate dimension is entered through a door of light, which only members of the Order can create. Among those few are Gemma and her enemy Circe, a woman of the Order who became corrupt in the Winterlands after she started to lose her powers.
At Spence, she becomes friends with Ann Bradshaw, a bland-looking scholarship student who is “poor as a church mouse,” and just as shy; Felicity Worthington, the witty and wealthy daughter of an unfaithful Parisian woman and a sexually abusive admiral; and Pippa Cross, the shallow and beautiful best friend of Felicity. These three girls draw Gemma into their inner circle, exploiting her power over the realms for their own benefit. Pippa is drawn so far into her dreams of grandeur that she is forever trapped in the fantasy world, resulting in her death in the real world, the cause of which was declared to be an epileptic fit.
Throughout the book, Gemma's main conflict is that with herself, and understanding the powers she has been given. She does not know anything about them, and is not sure whether they are a blessing or a curse. Even at the end of the first book, after smashing the Runes that kept the magic of the realms in check and thereby setting it loose, she does not know much about them. She defeats a dark spirit who had taken on the guise of her mother, Virginia, and essentially sets her mother's soul free. However, this is just the beginning of her adventures in the realms.
In "Rebel Angels", Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are charged with the task of locating the Temple in the realms and binding the magic. The story takes place over Christmas Break at Spence, so the girls are not able to access the realms as easily. After getting off the train, Gemma sees that she is being followed and runs to a random person for help. The young man she meets is Simon Middleton, a young aristocrat. He is immediately smitten with the redhead, and invites her family to dinner, thus beginning their courtship.
While on the way to her new London home, Gemma sees her old teacher, Miss Moore, who was previously sacked from Spence for false charges of teaching the girls witchery. Her replacement is Miss McCleethy, the woman whom Gemma suspects is Circe. The redhead takes a trip to Bethlam Royal Hospital to meet with Nell Hawkins, a girl who says she is part of the Order and has driven herself mad to escape the clutches of Circe. The evidence that Miss McCleethy is Circe is overwhelming, but the girls cannot prove it.
While Gemma is at home for the holidays, Kartik has taken up the position of her family's coachman. He finds her one night and tells her that her father has become addicted to opium and has not left the drug den since early the previous morning. Dressed in her brother's clothes, Gemma goes with him and drags her father from the hovel, returning home with him in worse shape than he'd been in while he was addicted to laudanum.
While looking into Nell's mind, Gemma discovers that Miss Moore is really Circe, and that she used the name "McCleethy" while she taught at St. Victoria's, Nell's old school. Nell is taken to the realms by Miss Moore to be used as a sacrifice, but Gemma arrives in time to pierce the insane girl through the throat with an arrow, thus rendering her useless as a sacrifice and ending her worldly life. Gemma and Circe fall into the Well of Eternity, the center of magic in the realms, in a battle for control over the magic. Gemma forces her way out of the well and binds the magic to herself, resulting in Circe being trapped in the well forever more.
And this is a rather unconventional summary of the third book, since I was very tired when I wrote it. Enjoy.
After all that, all her magic was back in the realms (a.k.a. magical world where anything is possible), and she couldn't open the Door of Light to get there. Moving on.
Couldn't get to the realms-that really pissed off her friends. So she sneaks out of school one night and, lo and behold, there's a sort of back door that she opens and she, Ann, and Felicity go tromping around the realms once more. Gemma also happens to get the magic back, so she can use it both inside and outside the realms-I promise, this is important later. So the trio reunited with Pippa, who's dead, and who also happened to collect a little posse of factory-workers who believe she's some sort of goddess. She's aiming to make them all ladies, but really, she's not doing too good of a job because-gasp!-she's slowly dying (again) from lack of magic. After all, she's a creature of the realms now, since she ate some magical berries in AGATB.
So anyways, Pippa decides she wants to go to heaven, or wherever the other side of the mystical river leads, and asks Gemma to help her. But oh, wait, she can't because she has eaten those magical berries and they've bound her to the land. Thus begins the Amazing Guilt-Trip, in which Pippa suckers Gemma into giving her shots of magic to keep her alive. In all honesty, it's sort of like a heroin boost, but we won't get into that.
Moving on. Kartik-a.k.a. Mr. Dark, Mysterious, and Arrogant Lover-Boy-sees Gemma at a fair and tells her that he's leaving for good this time and oh, would she mind not telling anybody that he's fleeing the country? After all, he's got a price on his head, so there's a good girl. But Gemma realizes that she's in love with him and silently prays he won't leave. Well, he does. But not before arranging a meeting with the Rakshana, the brotherhood that wants her to be magical for them and then more or less kill herself. And they want Kartik dead too, so he decides to go to the meeting, just in case anything goes wrong. Which it does. Of course.
Gemma meets with the Rakshana because they've been stalking her brother, Tom. And as much as she loathes Thomas, she doesn't want these jerks all up in his business. But of course one of their loyal servants, Fowlson, has to ruin the whole shebang and make Gemma reveal that she does indeed have magic, which she lied about earlier. Whoops. Thus begins one of the greatest Bitch Fits in history, where they try to kill her and she just kicks their asses to next Tuesday.
Of course, while all of this has been going on, Gemma has been having visions about a Mysterious Young Woman-who will from now on be referred to as MYW-who keeps referring to the Tree of All Souls. This repeatedly frustrates Gemma, because she has no idea what the hell the Tree of All Souls is. Yet. In case you were wondering, yes, that was foreshadowing, so remember it for later. So she gets really pissed and drags Fee, Ann, and Pippa into the Winterlands-a.k.a. the Place Where No One Is Ever Supposed to Go-and they find this tree. They think. So they all touch it, and everything gets really trippy for a few pages in the book. This tree? Yea, it's like cocaine. Which also comes into play later. Later. So in the middle of this Insanity Induced By The Tree, Gemma meets the founder of the Order, who tells her that MYW has a dagger that could potentially end the world as they know it. Because what sort of story would this be without a world-ending weapon that's hardly six inches long? A boring one, that's what.
MYW also had an addiction to cocaine, and shoots some into Gemma's system during a vision. Because you can do that when you're a member of a magical cult. See, I told you the cocaine would come into play.
There's a masquerade somewhere in this general area, but it's relatively unimportant; the most interesting thing is that Gemma meets up with Simon, her old boyfriend, they flirt, and then Kartik throws rocks again because he's Really Fucking Jealous. Then Gemma finds out Simon is practically engaged. To an American. How scandalous.
So in her pursuit of MYW, Gemma meets a creepy old illusionist who not only tries to pick her pocket, but has a bad habit of leering. A lot. This is also when Gemma finds out that Kartik is a double agent of some kind, and that he's been doing the dirty work for both the Order and the Rakshana. Bitch. So she gets pissed at him, but she takes him to the realms anyways because they're supposed to be in love and she can't ditch him before the book is done. Stupid scripts.
So with her new ally, Fowlson, and Kartik-who, by the way, is apparently in love with her too and couldn't force himself to leave for good. Of course. So those two get together, and she takes him to the realms-which men have been forbidden from-in which they put their hands on this nifty carving in a wall of the Cave of Sighs-a.k.a. the Order and Rakshana's love nest-and are bonded. In more ways than one I'm sure, though the book never goes into detail. Screw you, Libba Bray. Screw you.
After all that happens, Kartik, Fowlson, and Gemma go down to the docks where all the hookers and gamblers hang out to find this Dagger of Might and Magic. Of course, Gemma is dressed like a man, which she seems to be developing a habit of doing. The trio gets to this old, abandoned house, and when Gemma touches a wall, she falls into a trance. She once again meets MYW, who was apparently mute. So now Gemma knows where the dagger is so Kartik, love, grab that chalk slate over there and open it. Old Slate reveals Old Dagger. Huzzah. Also in this general area, Gemma punches her brother in the face to knock him out so he won’t freak out about her using her magic to dissuade the Rakshana from following her-apparently, she’s got a really great right hook.
Anyways, Kartik Mysteriously Disappears, and Gemma gets depressed again. So she goes wandering in the night. But oh, the veil between the realms and the real world has gotten so thin that things can come and go without even trying. So Gemma is attacked by Mystical Creatures, who try to rape her. The gargoyles that live on top of the school come to life and save her, but by that time, she has driven herself literally insane with fear. So she lies in bed for a few days sulking and regaining her sanity. Kartik comes back, finds her, wonders what the fuck happened, but is too whipped to ask. Gemma decides it's high time to end this what-the-fuckery and gathers her troops to start the Final Battle. Meanwhile, all the girls at Spence are locked in the church because creatures have broken through to the real world-this is where the majority of them stay for the rest of the book, so we won't pay attention to them. But I will point out that Mother Elena, the Crazy Old Gypsy Lady starts painting the doorframes and windowpanes with lamb blood and ashes to "keep out the evil." Then she dies. Yeah. Anyways.
Our Heroes get together for the Final Battle in the realms against the Tree of All Souls, which has been evil the entire time, along with the old and dead leader of the Order who's plotting to kill everyone. Go figure. They stop by Pippa's first, though, only to find that she's gone insane and her group of misfits have started sacrificing each other in her honor. They also sacrifice Miss McCleethy, who went into the realms with Gemma, acting as backup and a meat shield. Anyway, as Pippa is now a power-hungry fiend, the castle she's been living in decides it's had enough and falls on top of her, effectively ending her existence for good. Really this time, I swear. Felicity cries, because apparently, she and Pippa were lesbian lovers the entire time. No one saw that coming, right? Right. This also makes Gemma question her own sexuality, but she takes one look at Kartik and is completely sure that she’s straight.
They leave Pippa there to, well, die again I guess, and head on over to the Winterlands. Final Battle takes place, Gemma gets sucked into the Tree. Wonky things happen, as per usual. Kartik gets pissed and starts killing things, including the Tree, which spits Gemma out. But oh, she's cut her side, and you're not supposed to drop blood near the Tree because it'll suck you up. But whoops, Gemma does, and starts being eaten by roots once more. Kartik, being the Tragic Hero that he is, has to step in and sacrifice himself in her stead. So now her boytoy is dead, the group she thought was going to help her is a total sham, and, in addition, she's bleeding. She's not a happy girl, as you can imagine. So she flips her shit completely, drains the magic from her body back into the realms itself, and leaves, taking all humans with her.
Cut to a week or two later-her French teacher is getting married to a police captain we met in RA. Happy, happy wedding time commences, and then we cut to the end of the school year. Ann leaves Spence-by the way, she had run away to become an actress earlier in the book, but that's not really relevant-and Fee follows soon after. Gemma makes her debut-this means she is, by definition, a woman in British society. Ah, the glory of a season, with its balls and tea and gossip. But Gemma's no ordinary girl, and wants to skip all that and get straight to business. So she gets daddy to agree to let her move to-where else-America. New York City, specifically. Fee is off to Paris to find more lesbians and make women in trousers the new fad, and wishes Gemma luck. Ann sends a telegram saying she's joined some traveling acting troupe and she hopes Fee and Gemma have a nice life. Our heroine boards a ship and makes her merry way over to New York.
our passion play has now at last begun
Gemma is headstrong girl who lacks those immaculate Victorian manners and the ability to dance without tripping over her own feet. She is a girl who doesn't do what's expected of her-either by her school, family, or friends. She is pretty, but not dainty as a proper British lady should be. She is rather tall for being eighteen years old, with long limbs and a wild mane of curly, red-gold hair. She has glass-green eyes, inherited from her mother, and has spent most of her life in India, rather than her native land of England. Even though she is not as quick-witted as Felicity, she is more than capable of coming up with more-or-less convincing lies if the need arises, and of charming her way out of trouble.
She was once pursued romantically by Simon Middleton, the rich son of one of her grandmother's friends, but broke things off after he asked for her hand in marriage. She was in love with Kartik, a handsome member of the Rakshana who was assigned to protect her, but has tried to move on since his death. She has seen the dark side of life: child-abusing and addicted fathers, ignorant mothers, siblings blinded by society. However, she knows that all things are not separated into good and evil, that there is a lot of grey to work with. She understands this more than anything, and tries to lean more towards the “good” side of everything though, as a nineteenth-century woman, she isn’t used to having many choices of her own.
She is used to being shown off, treated as nothing more than an item for sale. Her entire perspective of the world, while altered because of the realms, is more or less that women are below men in society because of their physical stature and mental capacity. The idea that women are for raising children and tending to the home has been deeply embedded into her mind since she was a child. That was the way she was raised, and it's not easy to abandon beliefs without question. However, she isn't so willing to believe this now that she has experienced what it's like to have power, but she'll still curtsy and call a male "sir" or "mister" out of habit. As a proper British lady, her marriage was expected to be arranged, but she made the decision-backed by her father-to move to New York City and pursue her own interests.
Mary “Virginia Doyle” Dowd, Gemma’s mother, is still an enigma to her daughter. She never revealed to Gemma that she was a member of the Order, and for that, Gemma resented her for a long time. Gemma feels inadequate at times because she has had no formal training from the Order, while her mother received the best; she knows that while she may be more powerful than any member before her, she is still inexperienced and untrained. She knows none of the Order’s secrets, ones she feels her mother could have shared during their short time in the realms together. But because her mother never taught her anything, Gemma was eventually forced to speak with Circe, the betrayer, which led her down a dark road which she almost did not escape. Gemma eventually forgave her mother (for killing Carolina, for not telling her about the magic, for committing suicide), but can never forget the heartbreak she endured when she found out about Mary’s past. Before discovering the magic inside her, Gemma was also livid that for sixteen years, her mother refused to send her to England so she could attend a proper finishing school; she feels that since she hasn’t had the same schooling as the other girls that she is an outcast, separate from their society and gossip, which a small part of her would love to be a part of, just to fit in. She has been shown to be awkward in certain social situations (especially dinner parties and balls), and unsure of what to say or do in some cases. She has only really received one year of formal schooling, and never attended any balls while in India. Until she moved to England, she had also never seen snow.
Gemma has always been her father’s favorite. Both her grandmother and older brother have told her so, and even though she would never admit it, she knows it is true. Finding out that she had unintentionally helped encourage his laudanum addiction sent her into a fit of guilt and denial that lasted for many weeks. Once he became addicted to pure opium and she was forced to save him (with the aid of Kartik), she could no longer handle the shame of his vice and tried to use the magic to heal him. However, the magic does not work in such a way; he fell into a fit, and was severely weakened by her efforts. She can never forgive herself for hurting him that day. She hates the fact that he could not accept that his wife killed herself, and that he turned to drugs for solace instead of his family. When she discovered that he had even bartered his wedding ring for opium, she completely broke down crying in front of Kartik, something she had promised to never do. She often wonders why she was not enough to keep him happy, why he simply could not mourn his wife in peace like the rest of the family.
Her visions usually cause her mental and emotional pain. These visions were first brought on by a necklace presented to her by her mother, but are fundamentally connected to the magic sealed within her. They are very rarely wrong, and have the habit of coming at the most inconvenient times. If she concentrates she can bring one on willingly, but not very often. The inhabitants of the Winterlands used to send their assassin after Gemma in an attempt to permanently silence her, though this hasn't happened in a good while, a fact for which she is rather thankful.
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