Between Two Fires Summary By Chapter | Christopher Buehlman

The feast is full of bizarre and hedonistic behavior, including the serving of roasted monkeys, and Thomas is taunted by a knight named Théobald who mocks him for being a member of the “Order of the Hare.”

Thomas engages in a night tourney against Théobald, which quickly turns surreal as Théobald reveals himself as a rotting corpse. When daylight fully breaks, the castle vanishes, revealing it was a hollow ruin and a mass grave, and the lord of the castle transforms into a lion-headed devil.

Key Moment: Thomas realizes he has been feasting with the damned in a demonic illusion.

New Information: The “lord” of the castle was a high-ranking devil in disguise.

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Part II

Chapter 9: Of the City of Paris

The travelers approach Paris, heralded by smoke from burning wheat fields and the sight of killers scavenging a calf, while Thomas experiences flashbacks to his time as a brutal brigand under Godefroy.

They enter the city through the Port du Louvre, finding the guards indifferent to anything but the plague, and Paris is a nightmare of narrow, muddy streets and carts laden with the dead.

On the Île de la Cité, they are shot at by drunken royal archers using a corpse as a target. A mannish woman cheats them out of three sous by selling them a “key” to a room that turns out to be a filthy morgue, and they are eventually taken in by a woodcarver named Jehan after Delphine sings a familiar Norman song.

Key Moment: The group enters the heart of a dying Paris and experiences the total collapse of societal order.

New Information: Delphine’s real name is revealed to her companions for the first time.

Chapter 10: Of the Battle of Crécy

Thomas tells Matthieu the story of his downfall during the Battle of Crécy, describing the devastating English longbow volleys that decimated the French knights and killed his lord, the Comte de Givras.

Thomas himself was shot in the face, with an arrow piercing his cheek and tongue, and while he was convalescing in Amiens, he learned that his rival Chrétien d’Évreux had taken his lands and his wife.

His wife had surrendered the keep to avoid a siege and subsequently entered d’Évreux’s bed, and Thomas was declared excommunicate by the Church to facilitate the theft of his holdings. Driven by revenge, he turned to a life of brigandage to one day find and kill d’Évreux.

Key Moment: Thomas recounts the betrayal and physical trauma that turned him into a lawless brigand.

New Information: Thomas’s excommunication was a political maneuver to seize his property.

Chapter 11: Of the Market on Rue Mont-Fetard

The woodcarver Jehan leads the group to a market to buy food, which is scarce and ruinously expensive, and Delphine is enchanted by the spectacle of acrobats, exotic animals, and foreign merchants.

They encounter a relic seller who claims to possess the oil used by Mary Magdalene, but a mob soon gathers to attack him, claiming he is a Jew, and the man is put in the pillory.

Delphine insists on returning at night to rescue him, and Thomas reluctantly helps her, discovering that the key sold to them by the trickster woman fits the pillory lock perfectly. Before fleeing, the man gives Delphine a hidden wooden tube containing a thin, rusted iron rod.

Key Moment: Delphine acquires a holy relic—the head of the spear that pierced Christ—from a persecuted man.

New Information: The “useless” key from the city gate was destined to free the relic-bearer.

Chapter 12: Of the Ones Who Knock by Night

The group barricades themselves in Jehan’s house as supernatural “knocking” draws closer, and Delphine inspects the relic, realizing it is a *pilum*, a Roman spearhead.

Outside, a baby’s cry lures Annette to open the door despite warnings, and a six-foot stone statue of the Virgin enters, holding a dead, plague-spotted infant that it uses as a weapon, killing Annette and Jehan.

Thomas fights the statue, but his sword only chips it until Delphine hands the holy spearhead to Matthieu, causing the statue to recoil and flee into the night. A fire breaks out in the workshop, forcing the survivors to flee Paris immediately as they pass a church where the statues of saints have come to life and scream blasphemies.

Key Moment: The group narrowly escapes a demonic massacre in Paris but loses their hosts to a sentient, murderous statue.

New Information: The living statues can project terrifying thoughts directly into human minds.

Chapter 13: Of the Rain and the Figure of Death

The travelers leave Paris in a deluge of rain, watching the city burn behind them, and after days of hunger, they find a stone barn and encounter a naked, wild-eyed man who tries to attack them with a scythe.

Thomas scares him off, and the group shelters in the barn to dry their clothes and rest, where Thomas discovers a painful injury on his leg where the statue struck him, realizing it has reopened an old wound from Crécy.

To pass the time, they tell stories, including one about a werewolf knight betrayed by his wife, and Delphine provides a more violent and satisfying ending that amuses Thomas. Matthieu tells Thomas he needs to confess what he did back in his village.

Key Moment: The group finds a moment of respite and bonding while the world literalizes the imagery of the Grim Reaper.

New Information: Thomas’s leg injury is severe and mirrors his past trauma.

Chapter 14: Of the Stained Priest and the Widow’s Revenge

Matthieu recounts his life in St. Martin-le-Preux before the plague arrived, confessing that he was in love with Michel Hébert, the reeve’s second son, and his infatuation caused him to sweat and tremble during Mass.

One night, he followed Michel and a girl to the river, eventually joining Michel in the water for a brief, illicit encounter, and they were discovered by members of the “Brotherhood of St. Martin’s Arse,” a group of local militiamen.

The men spat on the naked priest, and the subsequent scandal caused the village to abandon the church. When the plague hit, Matthieu’s isolation prevented him from helping his dying flock, and he reveals that the “Brotherhood” were the first to die after being served beer mixed with infected blood by a vengeful widow.

Key Moment: Matthieu reveals the source of his profound shame and the reason his village turned against him.

New Information: Matthieu is a sodomite, a fact he hid from Thomas for fear of being abandoned.

Chapter 15: Of the Visitation in the Barn

Matthieu admits to Thomas that “the object of his affection” in the river was a boy, not a girl, and Thomas reacts with predictable disgust but does not leave him.

That night, a monstrous entity composed of black tentacles enters the loft of the barn where they are sleeping and attempts to corrupt Thomas through a vivid, feverish dream of thirst and a forbidden pear.

Thomas wakes to find himself nearly raping the naked Delphine, his hands bleeding from phantom thorns, but he manages to stop himself just in time, realizing he was being driven by an “oily” dark influence. Delphine forgives him, stating that he “won” against the devil that tried to control him.

Key Moment: Thomas resists a demonic attempt to force him into a heinous act, proving his internal strength.

New Information: Demons are actively trying to destroy the travelers’ bonds through psychological corruption.

Chapter 16: Of the Maple Tree

Delphine walks beside the cart, reflecting on the souls revealed by the pestilence, and Thomas tries to lighten the mood by teasing her about being a “woman” now, though she ignores his vulgarity.

Matthieu feels a sense of jealousy over the growing platonic intimacy between Thomas and Delphine, and they camp by a stream, settling for a meal of bitter acorns and walnuts.

Delphine engages in a game of “pretend,” serving the men a make-believe stew of cabbage and pork, and Thomas finds the game ridiculous, but Matthieu plays along. They sleep near a tree stump, which Delphine uses as a pillow, and in the morning, they leave without noticing that the dead maple stump has spontaneously grown back into a living tree overnight.

Key Moment: A dead maple stump against which Delphine slept has spontaneously grown back into a living tree overnight.

New Information: Delphine possesses an unconscious ability to restore life and vitality to the world around her.

Chapter 17: Of St. Lazarus and the Rotten Fruit

A troop of knights and men-at-arms led by a nobleman with a griffin crest passes the cart on the road, and the leader recognizes Thomas from Crécy, offering him a spare horse if he will join their new crusade to Jerusalem.

Thomas refuses, choosing to stay with the priest and the girl, and they reach a settlement called St. Lazarus where the inhabitants have all survived the plague and formed a productive, working commune.

The travelers work for a half-day in exchange for a hearty meal, and the camp’s leader warns them that nearby Nemours is full of cannibals and “scarecrows.” As they leave, they find the body of a young squire they saw earlier, hanged with a sign labeled “RAPIST” around his neck.

Key Moment: Thomas rejects a return to his former life as a knight to remain faithful to his mission with Delphine.

New Information: People who survive the plague swelling are believed to be immune to catching it a second time.

Chapter 18: Of the Penitents, and of Auxerre

They encounter a living dwarf who has been tied to a cross as part of a ritual to appease God, but when Thomas tries to rescue him, the dwarf fights back, insisting his suffering is the only way to save his town.

They arrive in Auxerre, where a charismatic German named Rutger leads a group of flagellating Penitents and performs a “miracle” in front of the cathedral, seemingly resurrecting three dead townspeople.

Delphine recognizes the “miracle” as a demonic farce and intercedes, kissing the hands and feet of the risen dead, causing them to immediately crumble back into true death. The crowd turns into a violent mob, accusing Delphine of being a witch, and a supernatural darkness descends as several people are struck blind.

Key Moment: Delphine exposes the Penitents’ resurrection as an unholy deception, nearly costing her her life.

New Information: The “Penitents” are working for a demonic force that uses the dead to manipulate the living.

Chapter 19: Of the War Drawing Near

A massive, spinning black cloud rises from the ground in Auxerre, creating a localized storm of Revelation, and Thomas is knocked unconscious by a flying cart wheel while Matthieu hides in a tree with Delphine.

A towering, six-winged fallen seraph with twelve eyes and a mouth of fire begins tearing up the landscape to find the girl, and a smaller, moon-like angel of God descends from the clouds to intervene.

A violent battle between the celestial beings erupts in the sky, shaking the earth and raining blood, and the demons eventually drive the angel of light down into a barley field and thrust a spear into its heart. Every bird in the forest screams in a deafening cacophony as the light of the angel is extinguished.

Key Moment: A full-scale supernatural battle confirms that the war in Heaven has spilled over into the physical world.

New Information: The girl is the primary target of the most powerful fallen angels on earth.

Part III

Chapter 20: Of the Monk in White

Thomas, Delphine, and Matthieu are drunk and battered as they leave the ruins of Auxerre with a fresh cask of wine, and Delphine insists they must build a raft to reach Avignon faster via the Saône and Rhône rivers.

During a night at a grain loft, Matthieu encounters a Cistercian monk in white who claims to be from God and leads him into a dream-vision of a domestic life with a wife and children who urge him to kill Delphine.

The vision claims Delphine is a “Cathar” and a “devil” who will commit murder, and Matthieu is given a rusted sword and nearly kills the sleeping girl before he breaks the spell and refuses. The “monk” transforms into a monstrous creature and force-feeds Matthieu his own vomit as punishment.

Key Moment: Matthieu chooses his love for Delphine over a demonic temptation of a “perfect” false life.

New Information: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is portrayed as a resident of Hell who seeks to harm Delphine.

Chapter 21: Of Monsters, and of Blessings

South of Beaune, the group sees a tree hung with smoked human bodies and a preternatural hole in a hillock that smells of insects, before finding a functioning inn run by a former Franciscan monk and his wife.

There, they meet a young Tuscan merchant named Rinaldo who carries a letter from his living wife, and Delphine speaks to him in perfect, rapid Italian, warning him not to travel with them to the river.

Thomas and Rinaldo go hunting in the woods and manage to kill a massive wild boar, and the group feasts. Delphine tells Rinaldo details about his wife that she could not possibly know, including the description of an ivory angel figurine, saving his life by insisting he leave their dangerous company.

Key Moment: Delphine uses her prophetic abilities to save Rinaldo’s life by insisting he leave their dangerous company.

New Information: The “monsters” in the south are organized and predatory.

Chapter 22: Of the Fishers of Men

The trio pays for passage on a raft manned by four dangerous river pirates, led by a walleyed captain named Carolus, who are part of the “Guild of Simon Peter,” a ring of thieves who control the river Sorgues.

Thomas and Matthieu stay awake in shifts to watch the pirates, who are armed with multiple crossbows, and they witness the pirates looting a barge and harassing a boat of pilgrims fleeing to Avignon.

Thomas and one pirate, Guillaume, bond over the fact that they were both at the Battle of Crécy, but tensions rise when the captain decides to murder the passengers after discovering Thomas’s bag of gold. A bloody mutiny ensues when Guillaume sides with Thomas, and Thomas kills the captain by cutting his throat despite Delphine’s pleas for mercy.

Key Moment: The raft journey turns into a bloodbath, forcing Thomas to break his promise not to kill.

New Information: Guillaume chooses “fellowship” over the laws of his pirate guild.

Chapter 23: Of the Island of the Dead

Guillaume survives his injuries and helps the group navigate the raft for two more days, and they engage in a philosophical discussion about sin, with Delphine arguing that Adam’s sin was greater than Eve’s.

They encounter a massive dam in the river composed of headless human and animal corpses, and the raft is pulled toward the dam by glowing, jellied monsters that encase human heads and possess stinging tentacles.

Thomas and the pirates realize the monsters are vulnerable to salt, and they use their cargo to fight back, but the raft is capsized. Guillaume is stung to death and decapitated by the large central creature, and Matthieu carries Delphine through the shallow water while being repeatedly stung, finally reaching the shore in Provence but dying from the venom.

Key Moment: Matthieu sacrifices his life to carry Delphine to the safety of the shore.

New Information: The river monsters are collecting heads to create new “swimmers.”

Chapter 24: Of the Cottage, and of the Song

Thomas carries the unconscious Delphine and the dying Matthieu to a nearby cottage, and the homeowner, a sick old man who recently buried his son, reluctantly lets them in.

Matthieu is in agony, his face swollen and his breathing labored, and the old man hands a lute to Delphine, who tunes it expertly and sings a song that triggers profound memories in all three men.

Thomas remembers his wedding feast and his love for his wife, and the priest dies shortly after the song, his last thoughts on a boy he loved back in Normandy. Delphine tries to resurrect Matthieu by breathing into his mouth, but she is told by a divine voice that he must stay dead for now.

Key Moment: Matthieu passes away after hearing a heavenly performance that reconciles him with his past.

New Information: Delphine is told she is “not strong enough” yet to resurrect the dead.

Chapter 25: Of Delphine, and of the Scarecrow

Delphine leaves the sleeping Thomas and sets out alone toward Avignon, wanting to prevent more harm from coming to him, walking through the ocher-colored landscape of Provence and suffering from thirst.

She finds a farm with a well full of skeletons and eats puckered grapes in a vineyard until she vomits, then seeks shelter in a stone chapel at an abandoned convent where the nuns’ bodies are arranged in a garden.

In the pitch-black chapel, she is accosted by a whispering entity calling itself “Sister Broom” that tries to bribe and then threaten her into giving up the holy spearhead. Delphine realizes the creature can only harm her if she permits it and drives it away by unsheathing the relic.

Key Moment: Delphine survives a supernatural encounter alone, proving she has developed her own spiritual authority.

New Information: Some demons are “scarecrows” made of lies and stolen flesh.

Chapter 26: Of Thomas, and of an Oath Long Overdue

Thomas wakes up to find Delphine gone and frantically searches the road for her, passing a village where a mob of furious townspeople mistakes him for an English “routier” and drags him toward a group of fresh bodies.

The village priest intercedes, and Thomas is forced to kneel in the church and swear a knightly oath that he is a loyal knight of France and not a brigand, promising to give “God’s justice” to any routiers he finds.

The villagers accept his oath, wash his feet, and feed him chicken stew, and he continues toward the city of Orange, looking and feeling more like a knight than he has in years. He laughs when a hare—the symbol of his mockery—crosses his path.

Key Moment: Thomas formally re-enters the state of knighthood by taking a sacred oath to protect the innocent.

New Information: English routiers are pillaging the Provencal countryside.

Chapter 27: Of the Routiers

Thomas reaches the city of Orange and observes a group of English routiers at a bathhouse called the “Stews of the Arch,” spotting a drunken sentry and realizing these are the men who massacred the villagers.

He sneaks into an alley, knocks the guard unconscious, and enters the steam-filled building with his sword drawn, confronting the naked, defenseless archers in their tubs and intending to slaughter them all.

However, he hears the voices of Delphine and the dead priest in his head, urging him not to kill anyone again, and in a display of extreme self-control, he sheathes his sword and leaves the men alive. The next morning, a military procession passes him, and he spots his arch-enemy, Chrétien d’Évreux.

Key Moment: Thomas chooses mercy over revenge, sparing the lives of his enemies for the first time.

New Information: Chrétien d’Évreux is heading to Avignon for a meeting with the Pope.

Chapter 28: Of the Affair of Honor

Thomas follows Chrétien’s troop and confronts him at a stream, demanding “justice” in an affair of arms, recognizing his former squire André who is now a knight riding Thomas’s old horse.

Chrétien is forced to accept the challenge on foot, and during the duel, Thomas proves significantly stronger and more skilled, battering Chrétien and eventually knocking him onto his backside with a war axe.

Just as Thomas prepares to deliver the killing blow, English routiers launch an ambush from the woods, killing almost everyone with arrows. Thomas is knocked out but spared by the routier leader, Janus Blount, who recognizes him as the “bear” from the bathhouse, and he wakes with his head in Delphine’s lap.

Key Moment: Thomas defeats his rival but is saved by his previous act of mercy toward the English archers.

New Information: Thomas realizes he was likely the biological son of the late Comte de Givras.

Chapter 29: Of Marguerite of Péronne

This chapter provides an extended backstory of Thomas’s marriage to Marguerite de Péronne, a beautiful, educated woman who married him despite his low birth and lack of letters.

Their marriage was passionate and happy, though Marguerite suspected Thomas was the bastard son of the Comte de Givras, and Thomas reflects on his mother, a kitchen worker, and his rise from a stable boy to a trusted knight.

He realizes that Marguerite’s decision to yield their keep to d’Évreux was not a betrayal of love, but a practical choice to save their son and her own life. As Thomas’s heart softens, Delphine washes his head and feet in the stream, and his face miraculously shifts into the likeness of his dead rival so he may enter Avignon undetected.

Key Moment: Thomas attains full emotional redemption by letting go of his hatred for his wife.

New Information: Thomas’s mother was a giantess and the bastard daughter of a Spanish knight.

Part IV

Chapter 30: Of the Priest’s Brother

Robert Hanicotte, Matthieu’s younger brother, is introduced as a steward to Cardinal Pierre Cyriac in Avignon, a beautiful man who lives as the cardinal’s concubine but resents his lack of status.

He has a nightmare about Matthieu and a soldier being attacked by devils in a river, then prepares for a grand feast in the Grand Tinel of the Papal Palace, where the Pope will announce a new crusade.

Pope Clement VI addresses the gathered knights, promising they will retake Jerusalem from the Turks, and also announces a forthcoming decree that will allow Christians to murder Jews without sin. Robert feels a sense of belonging for the first time during the Pope’s speech despite his misgivings.

Key Moment: The Pope publicly shifts the Church toward a policy of holy war and internal purging.

New Information: The Pope is being influenced or replaced by a malevolent force.

Chapter 31: Of the Feast, and of the Hunt of Stags

Thomas, now disguised as the Comte d’Évreux, attends the papal feast with Delphine acting as his page, and the feast is a grotesque spectacle featuring mounds of meat and golden trees.

Thomas sees the same Moorish viol player from the haunted Norman castle, though the man does not recognize him, and the entertainment culminates in the “Hunt of Stags,” where twenty nude women in stag masks are brought out for the guests’ pleasure.

Delphine warns Thomas not to touch the wine or the women, revealing that the “stags” are actually warmed corpses filled with oil. Thomas briefly hallucinates a golden pear and feels a maggot crawling on his thigh, realizing the entire room is under a demonic glamor.

Key Moment: Thomas witnesses the depths of the Papal Palace’s corruption as the dead are used for carnal entertainment.

New Information: The “stag” girls were readied in the kitchen to mimic the warmth of the living.

Chapter 32: Of the Night Vintners

Robert encounters Delphine in the cardinal’s stables, where she tells him his brother Matthieu is dead and convinces him to ride with her to the Pope’s vineyards in Châteauneuf-du-Pape to see the “truth.”

They witness dozens of plague-dead corpses silently harvesting grapes and treading wine under the moonlight, and Robert is horrified when he accidentally bumps into a corpse with a missing jaw.

The dead swarm them, and they barely escape on Robert’s horse, Guêpe. Delphine pleads with Robert to arrange a private audience for her “master” with the Pope, and Thomas and Delphine later identify the false pope as the devil Baal’Zebuth.

Key Moment: Robert is forced to confront the physical evidence of the demonic infestation of Avignon.

New Information: The Pope’s new wine is being made by the animated dead.

Chapter 33: Of the Pope’s Garden

The Pope invites Robert to his garden, where they discuss “tansy” and the nature of dreams, and Clement VI manipulates Robert by suggesting that Delphine is a witch sent by the “Arrogant One” to ruin the Church.

Robert, seduced by the Pope’s attention and the promise of elevation, betrays Delphine and Thomas, telling the Pope that the girl is hiding as the page to the Comte d’Évreux.

Cardinal Cyriac notices that the Pope’s two lions are now sharing a single cage, with the new black-maned lion dominating the other, and the black-maned lion appears to count its teeth while staring at the cardinal, mirroring the behavior of the demons seen earlier.

Key Moment: Robert betrays his brother’s friends to a false prophet for the promise of power.

New Information: The false Pope is systematically replacing or possessing the high-ranking members of the Church.

Chapter 34: Of the Arrest

Thomas and Delphine are trapped in their room at Elysium House while English and French lords revel below, and Thomas puts his head out the window to play the part of the “sick” Chrétien.

Papal soldiers soon arrive at the door with poleaxes, demanding entry to arrest them, and Delphine experiences a vision where their window transforms into a magical escape route leading to the riverbank.

She tells Thomas to “let them take you” and rolls out the window into the protection of an unseen angel. Thomas attempts to fight the soldiers but finds the body of the comte is not as strong as his own, and he is brutally beaten and his legs are broken before being taken to the palace dungeons.

Key Moment: The group is captured, and Thomas is subjected to horrific torture while Delphine escapes into the night.

New Information: Thomas’s broken legs in the comte’s body mirror the injury he sustained at Crécy.

Chapter 35: Of the Doctor

Maître de Chauliac, the Pope’s physician, is plagued by nightmares of the suffering world, and his assistant Tristan notices that the wine in the palace smells of rot.

The doctor uses a forged papal seal to rescue Thomas from the dungeon, where he is being tortured by a blacksmith named Sournois, and Thomas is in a state of near-death, having had his shoulders dislocated and his fingernails removed.

De Chauliac wheels him to the riverbank, where they meet Delphine, and she uses the power of the river and the presence of Thomas’s original, dripping body to perform a soul-transfer. Thomas is returned to his true, scarred body, and the broken body of the comte is discarded in the Rhône.

Key Moment: Thomas is miraculously restored to his own body through Delphine’s divine intervention.

New Information: De Chauliac suspects the Pope is “changed” and no longer human.

Chapter 36: Of the Arming, and of the Vigil

Delphine convinces the chamber boy Isnard to help her steal back Thomas’s armor and horse from the Elysium House stables, and they take refuge at a Franciscan monastery where Brother Albrecht welcomes them.

Thomas dons a friar’s habit over his fine armor to infiltrate the palace during the upcoming ceremony, and Delphine takes Thomas’s sword and cuts her own hands, smearing her blood across the entire blade as a holy blessing.

She also returns the holy spearhead to him, and tells Thomas that they will not be facing men tonight, but something much worse. Thomas feels ready to die for the cause, finally at peace with his identity.

Key Moment: Thomas prepares for a suicide mission to kill the false pope, armed with a blood-blessed sword.

New Information: Delphine reveals she is “two things” but will soon become one.

Chapter 37: Of the Visitation at Villeneuve

Robert Hanicotte enjoys the hedonistic life of Avignon, choosing to ignore the rot he witnessed in the vineyards, and gets into a conflict with Cardinal Cyriac, who is jealous of Robert’s new favor with the Pope.

During a cold night in the cardinal’s garden, Robert senses a presence and finds the cardinal’s serving boy, Vincent, terrified, and investigates the cardinal’s bedroom where he sees a monstrous, pale entity possessing his master.

The creature has its arm down the cardinal’s throat and is literally stretching the man’s skin into a new shape, and the thing, now speaking with the cardinal’s voice, tells Robert to go back to bed and be “sweet.” Robert is so cowardly and desperate for his “hat” that he allows the cardinal to handle him the next morning.

Key Moment: Robert witnesses the literal demonic possession of his master but chooses to stay silent for personal gain.

New Information: The “cardinal” no longer sleeps on his stomach.

Chapter 38: Of the Rings of Lazarus, and of the Bathers

The poor of Avignon surge toward the palace for a public feast and the creation of new cardinals, and two Jews arrive, bloodied and terrified, claiming a “monster made of men” is destroying their quarter.

The false Pope dismisses them with cruel jokes, and Thomas, hidden in a friar’s hood, waits among the crowd with his hand on his sword while Delphine enters the palace wine cellars and pries open a large tun that has been sealed since August.

Inside the pitch-black wine, she finds the waxy, preserved body of the true Pope Clement VI and commands him to “Rise,” and the dead man sits up and vomits dark wine. A lengthy flashback reveals that the Pope was murdered in August by demonic “bathers” who climbed out of his bedroom frescoes.

Key Moment: Delphine resurrects the true Pope, setting the stage for the final unmasking of the demon Baal’Zebuth.

New Information: The true Pope has been dead and submerged in wine for months.

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Part V

Chapter 39: Of the Gemini, and of the Unmasking

The true Pope Clement enters the courtyard in white, accompanied by Delphine and a group of loyal soldiers, while the false Pope, Baal’Zebuth, remains seated in orange and mocks his “twin.”

Thomas launches himself across the tables, decapitating a demon-knight with his blood-blessed sword, and Jacquot, now a papal guard, accidentally shoots Thomas with a crossbow before being brutally killed by a demon-cardinal.

Thomas continues his charge, lopping off the false pope’s hand and cleaving his head, but Baal’Zebuth regrows a fly’s head and rips Thomas’s arm off, killing him instantly. Delphine throws herself in front of a spear meant for the true Pope and is fatally impaled, and the twelve-eyed demon bites her legs off and flings her aside.

Key Moment: Both Thomas and Delphine are brutally killed by the demonic host in the palace courtyard.

New Information: Baal’Zebuth is a powerful fallen prince of Hell who manifests as a fly-headed giant.

Chapter 40: Of the Coming of the Host

Robert Hanicotte watches in horror as the monster from the Jewish quarter—a skyscraper of fused human corpses—enters the palace and picks up Delphine’s ruined body to absorb her.

However, her purity is lethal to it, and the “monster made of men” collapses into a pile of released souls, and suddenly a pillar of blinding light erupts from Delphine’s body as it splits open.

A host of angels, led by Zephon, Uriel, and the Archangel Michael, is birthed into the world through her sacrifice, and the angels engage the demons in a battle of light, systematically purging the city of darkness. Robert is crushed to death by a falling wall when Michael drives a demon into the palace chapel.

Key Moment: The death of Delphine acts as a gateway for the heavenly host to return to earth.

New Information: The war in Heaven turned because of the presence of “two things” in Delphine.

Chapter 41: Of the Knight’s Death, and of the Judgment

Thomas experiences his own death, feeling his body void itself as he drifts into darkness, and finds himself in a small, dim room facing a deformed “clerk” with holes for eyes and mouths in its chest.

The clerk informs Thomas that he is being damned, despite his late-life heroics, because he died before the angels could rescue the souls in Avignon, and Thomas is transformed into his young son and repeatedly “eaten” by the clerk in an agonizing loop.

He learns that the worst part of Hell is the loss of dignity and the knowledge that your damnation might be a mistake, and eventually Thomas stops fighting and accepts the judgment as his name is read aloud for the thousandth time.

Key Moment: Thomas is subjected to a bureaucratic and visceral version of Hell designed to break his will.

New Information: Hell is populated by clerks who were once sympathetic humans in life.

Chapter 42: Of the Harrowing

Thomas undergoes countless ages of torture, ranging from being skinned alive to being forced to cannibalize his loved ones, losing his name and his humor.

Eventually, he finds himself back on the Île de la Cité in Paris, riddled with English arrows that burn like fire, and a great light approaches as he sees Delphine driving a cart surrounded by a golden dome of daylight.

She pulls the arrows from his mouth and gut, and he weeps with the ecstasy of relief, as Delphine reveals herself as a manifestation of the divine, telling Thomas that he was “the last one” she could save. She offers him a choice to remember their journey, warning that “love is always harder,” and Thomas says yes.

Key Moment: Thomas is rescued from Hell by the divine presence of Delphine in a “Harrowing” of his soul.

New Information: The divine being chose Thomas to be the last soul saved before the gates were closed.

Chapter 43: Of October’s End, and of November

Thomas wakes up in a cart full of corpses in the real Avignon, his arm miraculously reattached, and is found by Isnard who tells him that an “earthquake” destroyed half the city and the palace.

Thomas searches the ruins for Delphine but finds no trace of her, and everyone who remembers her has a blurred or fading memory, as the supernatural events have been overwritten in the world’s memory as a natural disaster.

He eventually wanders north as the plague leaves France for England and reaches his old barn in Normandy, finding it wild and silent. He encounters a young girl—the original Delphine—who does not know him but asks for help burying her father, and Thomas cries as he helps her, given a second chance to live a life of goodness.

Key Moment: Thomas is returned to the exact moment he first met Delphine, given a second chance to live a life of goodness.

New Information: The supernatural events have been overwritten in the world’s memory as a natural disaster.

Epilogue

Years later, an old friar who was once the knight Thomas returns to the castle of Arpentel to visit his blind wife, Marguerite.

They recognize each other through a secret code of taps, confirming that they have both lived long lives and that their daughter, Delphine, serves safely as a nun in Amiens.

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