Chapter 25: Camelot, Inc. — Summary and Analysis

⚠️ 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

The chapter opens in the immediate aftermath of Matley's death. Knights strip Devon of her ruined clothes and dress her in a man's suit that fits her surprisingly well. She is then brought back to the gore-strewn room where Matley died, where his safe has been broken open. Ramsey hands her a messenger bag and instructs her to fill it with cash—roughly twenty thousand pounds' worth—so the scene will look like she attacked Matley, robbed him, and fled. Ramsey is blunt about the staging: this is not a pretense but a narrative Devon will now live. He tells her Matley bled out internally, though it remains unclear whether the knights finished him off or simply let him die. Devon understands that every action she takes is writing her own death sentence; the Families will blame her for her husband's death, the theft, and the killing of his men.

The knights fit a poorly painted dragon helmet over her head, and Devon realizes the suit and helmet are a disguise. She walks through Easterbrook Manor unrecognized—dragons, she reflects, have a kind of invisibility—while Ramsey tells her the household believes she murdered Matley and fled with Cai. He adds that the knights are disbanding and will not help hunt her down, a statement delivered with venom. They leave on motorcycles in the dead of night, Devon riding behind Ramsey, Cai unconscious on another bike.

They arrive at dawn at a fortified concrete compound in Oxford's commercial district, marked with a sign reading CAMELOT INCORPORATED. Devon finds the name darkly funny. Ramsey explains that until two months ago, every Family paid the knights a tithe to arrange and facilitate marriages, and that they had a special arrangement with the Ravenscars. Now they live off savings. Devon points out that the knights were supposed to have no agenda of their own, but Ramsey insists they have more freedom and power than any patriarch. He frames their purpose as protection, not service.

Inside the compound, Devon is shown a corridor of white sensory-deprivation cells. Each is a small, soundproofed white room with a white table, chair, and bed, lit by blinding white lights. Ramsey calls it depersonalization therapy, used to keep dragons' cravings at bay. A young dragon presses his face to the viewing panel, miserable and crying. Devon is horrified, especially when she learns these are the dragons' personal rooms. Ramsey dismisses her reaction as a typical princess mentality, noting that the dragons' current lives are an improvement over seventy years ago, when they would simply be dead.

Ramsey then leads Devon to a raised viewing gallery overlooking an operating theater. On the table is Cai. Devon slams against the glass in panic. Ramsey explains that Cai is being fitted with a surgically implanted explosive device that Ramsey can detonate remotely via satellite signals—a harsher version of a technique once used against resistant brides. If Devon steps out of line, the trigger gets pressed; if she tries to remove the device herself, it will detonate.

Ramsey reveals his plan: Devon will pose as a fugitive on the run for Matley's murder. The knights will pretend to pursue her. When the Ravenscars find her, they will believe she is genuine—especially because Cai is now guilty of patricide, a kinship marker the Ravenscars share. Devon will track the Ravenscars to their hiding place, and the knights will descend, capture them, seize their drug supply, and wring information from them about how to make Redemption. Ramsey frames Devon as perfect for the role: authentic, desperate, trapped, a good thinker on her feet.

Devon recognizes the trap. If she disobeys, the knights will turn her over to the Families or kill Cai remotely. If she refuses, neither of them leaves the building alive. If she obeys dutifully, she will end up in a shallow grave, scapegoated for the knights' crimes while her children are fed to the mill. Every option ends in death and failure.

And then Devon smiles. The certainty of death cuts the chain of fear that has anchored her. If she cannot win, she has nothing left to lose. Ramsey has stacked the deck against her, but in taking away her options, he has set her free. She resolves to play with everything she has and figure out a plan of her own.

Key Events

The knights stage Matley's death scene to implicate Devon, having her fill a messenger bag with cash from his broken safe.
Devon is disguised in a suit and dragon helmet and smuggled out of Easterbrook Manor on the back of Ramsey's motorcycle.
The group arrives at Camelot Incorporated, a fortified compound in Oxford, at dawn.
Ramsey explains the knights' former funding: tithes from Families for arranging marriages, plus a special arrangement with the Ravenscars.
Devon is shown the white sensory-deprivation cells used as dragons' personal rooms.
Ramsey reveals that Cai is undergoing surgery to receive an implanted explosive device that Ramsey can detonate remotely.
Ramsey outlines his plan for Devon to infiltrate the Ravenscars as a fugitive so the knights can capture them and seize their drug supply.
Devon realizes all her options lead to death, and this certainty frees her to begin forming her own plan.

Character Development

Devon reaches a pivotal internal shift in this chapter. Throughout the novel she has been defined by constraint—her role as a princess, her marriage, her obligations. Here, the knights strip away even the illusion of choice. Yet instead of breaking her, the total removal of hope produces something unexpected: lightness. The chapter's final image—Devon smiling in the darkened gallery—marks a transformation from passive victim to active strategist. She is no longer playing to survive; she is playing because she has nothing left to lose.

Ramsey is fully revealed as an antagonist. His flippant cruelty—mocking Matley's death, describing the explosive device as routine, dismissing the white cells as therapy—shows a man who has rationalized institutional violence. His nostalgia for the knights' former power and his refusal to accept their decline paint him as a figure clinging to fading authority. His line about the knights existing to protect, not serve, encapsulates his self-justifying worldview.

Cai remains unconscious throughout the chapter, but his role is significant: he is the leverage that controls Devon. His body becomes a site of coercion, and his patricide—committed in the previous chapter—is what makes him valuable to Ramsey's plan.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Scapegoating and false narratives. The knights construct a story in which Devon is a murderer and thief, and they force her to live inside that story. The chapter demonstrates how institutions manufacture narratives to protect themselves and dispose of inconvenient people.

Institutional decline and abuse of power. Camelot Incorporated is a hollow fortress—bare concrete, empty corridors, few people. The knights are a dying order, and Ramsey's response to decline is not reform but escalation: coercion, torture, and exploitation. The chapter draws a direct line between institutional decay and cruelty.

White torture and sensory deprivation. The white cells are presented as therapy but function as psychological violence. The contrast between Ramsey's clinical language and the dragon's visible misery underscores how institutions sanitize abuse.

Freedom through hopelessness. Devon's liberation comes not from escape but from the certainty of death. The chapter reframes despair as a kind of freedom: when all options are closed, the pressure to choose correctly disappears.

Card game and gambling metaphors. The chapter's epigraph—