Chapter 38: Wales — Summary, Analysis, and Study Notes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

In 2022, in Wales, Arden finally tells the narrator the truth she has been missing for centuries: she is the devil. Not a soul cursed by dark magic, but the maker of curses. The revelation shatters her sense of self.

Arden explains the origin of their bond. In a past life, she reaped his soul in exchange for his sister's survival. But the bargain was imprecise — his sister's fever broke, only for her to choke to death the next day. Both of them botched the deal, but Arden hated her for it.

After the failed bargain, Arden spent seven days and seven nights on hot coals as punishment — the source of the nightmares that have plagued him across lifetimes. When he returned to Lundenburg and found his sister dead anyway, he hunted the narrator down and killed her. As soon as she died, he died too, and their lives reset.

They have repeated this cycle for centuries. Each time, the narrator's memory is wiped clean, while Arden retains fragments that grow more vivid with each incarnation. For the last seven or eight hundred years, Arden has deliberately hidden the truth from her, unable to bear the idea of telling her what she really is.

The narrator presses for more details. She learns she was Arden's first reap — there were no others before him. She learns that the Mother marks souls, and that those who make bargains become reapers themselves after their week on the coals. Suffering is the Mother's lifeblood, and she grows stronger with every bargain made.

Arden reveals that the only way either of them can die is by the other's hand. His suicide attempt in a Northern Song prison would never have worked — the bond simply doesn't allow it.

Then the narrator has an idea. If Arden's soul is marked to hers, and he can kill her, then perhaps her soul — marked to the Mother's — means she can kill the Mother. The very act of binding souls together might create a vulnerability, a murderous back door. She proposes they let themselves be called back to the Underrealm and destroy the Mother.

Arden resists. He suggests they simply continue living out their eighteen-year cycles, dying mutually when the time comes, forever. The narrator refuses. She argues that if they have a chance to free all the other innocent souls from the Mother's hell, they have a moral duty to try.

Arden asks why she has to be so good, why she can't be selfish just this once. She replies that he wouldn't have loved her for so long if she weren't selfless. He has no answer.

They agree to wait until they turn eighteen.

Key Events

• Arden reveals the narrator is the devil, not a curse's victim.

• The original bargain is explained: her reap of Arden's soul in exchange for his sister's survival, which failed.

• Arden's seven days on hot coals is revealed as the source of his recurring nightmares.

• The narrator learns she was Arden's first and only reap.

• The Mother's system is explained: marked souls become reapers, and suffering sustains her.

• The narrator discovers the only way either of them can die is by the other's hand.

• She proposes destroying the Mother using the soul-marking connection.

• Arden argues for continuing the eternal cycle; she insists on moral duty.

• They agree to wait until they turn eighteen.

Character Development

The narrator undergoes the most profound identity shift in the novel. She has spent lifetimes believing she was a victim of a curse, atoning through self-sacrifice. Learning she is the devil forces her to reconcile her selfless instincts with the monstrous acts she has committed — and forgotten. Her immediate instinct is to accept the burden of guilt, even as Arden tries to protect her from it. Her decision to destroy the Mother, despite the risk to herself and Arden, reinforces her martyr nature: she would sacrifice herself a thousand times over to rid the world of this evil.

Arden reveals the depth of his love and his long-held secret. He has spent centuries protecting her from the truth, not out of hatred but out of compassion. His proposal to continue the cycle forever is selfish, but it's also a plea born of love — he doesn't want to lose her, even if the alternative is eternal repetition. His pain is visible as he processes her plan, and his question —