Chapter 27: The Princess's Quest for Her Prince
⚠️ 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
Eight months after arriving at the knights' compound—which Devon privately calls Camelot—she is finally released into the human world. Ramsey drives her and Cai to Oxford station in a Volkswagen people-carrier, the first time Devon has seen him drive anything other than a motorbike. He hands her a messenger bag stuffed with cash, a knight-issued phone, and a set of rules she has already been made to eat. The terms are stark: she must call in every fourteen days, and if she is more than twenty-four hours late, Ramsey will detonate an explosive device hidden in her bag—a device wired to Cai. She is forbidden from contacting other Families or human law enforcement, and if she sees knights in a city, she must move locations immediately.
The most painful development is Cai himself. Over the eight months at the compound, the knights fed him from their dwindling Redemption supplies, but those are now gone. To make him travel-ready, Ramsey procured a human stranger for Cai to feed on. The result is that Cai now speaks only Polish, believes he is someone else, and no longer recognises his own body. Ramsey dismisses Devon's distress, telling her this is common for mind eaters without Redemption, and casually recommends she feed Cai small children—they are less overwhelming and easier to catch. Devon feels sick at the suggestion and suspects Ramsey deliberately gave Cai an awkward feed to force her into hunting someone new.
Left alone on the station forecourt, Devon is overwhelmed by the human world. She has never seen more than a handful of humans at once, and the noise, smell, and chaos of Oxford station are almost unbearable. Cai clings to her, whimpering in Polish. She tries German, but he does not respond. She realises she has no idea how to soothe a mind eater child in distress—her milk has dried up, he is too old to nurse, and she was never meant to parent him past infancy.
Searching her bag for cash, Devon finds not only the money but also her three fairy tale books and Jarrow's Game Boy. She shows Cai how to play Mario, explaining that the princess has been kidnapped and the player must rescue her. She tells him that when you die, you come back and can keep trying forever until you win—a fantasy she wishes applied to her own life. Cai, whose fed memories are from someone older than three, takes to the game immediately and calms down. Devon carries him into the station, buys train tickets with fifty-pound notes (she cannot yet count change), and boards a train heading south.
They arrive in Reading, which Devon keeps mispronouncing as reeding. She books a hotel room across the street and spends a week trying to adapt. She discovers she is physically superior to humans—her first handshake nearly injures a stranger—and her book memory is vast, but she is culturally inadequate. Major historical events and politics are just bullet points in her head, divorced from emotional context. She cannot navigate shops, does not understand current affairs, and feels like a stranger in a strange land.
After a week, Devon devises a plan to contact Jarrow. She buys a copy of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation from a video game shop, pays the cashier to write her phone number in Morse code on a scrap of paper, and slips it inside the game case. She then visits a post office, claiming injured hands, and asks the clerk to address the package to Jarrow Easterbrook at Gladstone Manor in London. The clerk reluctantly looks up the post code and writes it out. Devon hopes the Morse code will identify her as the sender without tipping anyone else off.
She gives herself three months to wait for Jarrow to make contact, knowing it has been over three years since she last saw him—he was shuffled away by angry Winterfields after Cai's birth and Matley's attack. She cannot be certain he will respond; he has Vic now, and that might be enough for him. But she believes he will seek her out if he can. In the meantime, she has Ravenscars to find.
Key Events
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Devon is released into the human world after eight months of training at the knights' compound, with Ramsey as her handler.
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Ramsey lays down the rules of surveillance: fourteen-day check-ins, a bomb on Cai if she is late, and a ban on contacting Families or law enforcement.
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Cai has been fed a human stranger and now speaks only Polish, believing he is someone else; Ramsey suggests feeding him small children.
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Devon discovers Jarrow's Game Boy in her bag and uses it to calm Cai with Mario.
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Devon travels to Reading and spends a week struggling to adapt to human society.
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Devon sends Jarrow a covert message: a Tomb Raider game containing her phone number written in Morse code, addressed to Gladstone Manor.
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Devon sets a three-month deadline for Jarrow to make contact and resolves to search for the Ravenscars in the meantime.
Character Development
Devon undergoes a profound shift in this chapter. She moves from being a captive in the knights' compound to being a free agent in a world she does not understand—but her freedom is heavily qualified. She is still under Ramsey's surveillance, still bound by the bomb on Cai, and still unable to protect her son from the consequences of his feeding. Her internal monologue reveals a woman who has been stripped of her fairy tale expectations and forced to improvise. She admits she does not know how to be a mother, that her book knowledge is useless in practical situations, and that she is culturally illiterate. Yet she also shows resourcefulness: she finds the Game Boy, uses it to calm Cai, devises a covert communication method, and sets a realistic timeline for Jarrow's response. She is learning to operate in a world where her old rules no longer apply.
Cai is barely recognisable as the infant Devon once nursed. His feeding has erased his English, his sense of self, and his connection to his own body. He is terrified, confused, and clinging to Devon as the only stable presence. The Game Boy becomes a lifeline—not just a distraction but a way to give him a sense of agency in a world he cannot understand. His Polish phrases, which Devon cannot translate, underscore the tragedy of his condition: he is a child trapped in a body and mind that are not entirely his own.
Ramsey is revealed as a more sinister figure than his earlier appearances suggested. He is efficient, cold, and casually cruel—recommending that Devon feed Cai small children as if discussing a practical logistics problem. His threat to detonate the bomb on Cai is delivered without emotion, and Devon suspects he deliberately chose a difficult feed for Cai to force her hand. He is a model of the knights' ideology: control through coercion, with no regard for the human cost.
Jarrow is absent but central. Devon's plan to contact him shows how much she still trusts him, despite the three years since they last met. She hopes he will help her as he promised, but she also acknowledges the possibility that he has moved on. The chapter leaves his response—and his fate—open.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Mind-eating and identity erasure are the chapter's central horror. Cai's feeding has not just changed his language; it has overwritten his sense of self. He believes he is someone else, does not recognise his own body, and cannot communicate with his mother. The novel uses this to explore what happens when identity is consumed by another—a theme that resonates with Devon's own situation, as she has been fed books her whole life and now struggles to separate her knowledge from her lived experience.
Knowledge versus lived experience is dramatised in Devon's week in Reading. She has eaten thousands of books, but she cannot count change, does not know current events, and cannot navigate a shop. Her book memory is a repository of facts divorced from context. The chapter argues that knowledge without experience is hollow—a lesson Devon learns painfully.
Motherhood and maternal inadequacy run throughout. Devon was raised to hand her children over to aunts after infancy, and she was never trained to parent a child in distress. She cannot soothe Cai with words, cannot feed him in the way he needs, and cannot protect him from the consequences of his feeding. Her admission that she does not know how to be a mother is one of the chapter's most painful moments.
Surveillance and coercive control are embodied in Ramsey's rules and the bomb on Cai. Devon's freedom is an illusion; she is still tethered to the knights by a device that can kill her son. The chapter shows how control can persist even after physical captivity ends.
Fairy tales as inadequate preparation is signalled by the chapter's epigraph from Princess Furball and Devon's reflection that her fairy tales did not prepare her for marriage—or for this. The princess in the tale walks out into the snowy darkness, but Devon's journey is messier, dirtier, and far less romantic.
Games as escapism and second chances is embodied in the Game Boy. Mario offers Cai a world where death is temporary and failure can be undone. Devon explicitly wishes her own life had a reset button. The game is also a covert communication tool—the Tomb Raider game carries her phone number to Jarrow, turning a symbol of escapism into a tool of resistance.
Covert communication is central to Devon's plan. Morse code, a video game case, a post office clerk who does not know what he is writing—these are the tools of a woman who cannot speak openly. The chapter shows how the oppressed find ways to signal each other in plain sight.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 27 is a turning point in Devon's arc. It marks the end of her captivity and the beginning of her independent—though still constrained—life in the human world. It also establishes the stakes for the rest of the novel: Cai's condition is deteriorating, the bomb is a constant threat, and Devon must find the Ravenscars while evading the knights. The chapter introduces the covert communication method that will likely connect her to Jarrow, and it deepens the novel's exploration of identity, motherhood, and the gap between knowledge and experience. It is also a chapter of quiet horror—the image of a child who no longer knows his own name, and a mother who cannot help him, is one of the book's most affecting.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Devon describe her fairy tales as inadequate preparation for her current situation?
Devon reflects that her fairy tales did not prepare her for marriage, and by extension, they have not prepared her for the human world either. The stories she ate as a child taught her about princesses and quests, but not about counting change, navigating train stations, or understanding politics. The chapter argues that stories—even ones that seem to be about adventure—cannot substitute for lived experience. Devon's fairy tales gave her a framework for heroism but not for the mundane, messy reality of survival.
2. What does the Game Boy symbolise for Devon and Cai?
For Cai, the Game Boy is a lifeline—a familiar, structured activity that calms him when his fed memories overwhelm him. For Devon, it symbolises both her connection to Jarrow and her longing for a world where mistakes can be undone. She explicitly wishes her life had a reset button, and the game's promise of infinite retries is a fantasy she cannot access. The Game Boy also becomes a tool of covert communication when Devon uses a video game to smuggle her phone number to Jarrow.
3. How does Ramsey's treatment of Cai reveal the knights' ideology?
Ramsey treats Cai as a logistical problem rather than a child. He recommends feeding Cai small children because they are easier to catch and less overwhelming, with no apparent concern for the moral or emotional cost. His willingness to wire Cai with an explosive and his casual dismissal of Devon's distress show that the knights value control and efficiency over human life. Ramsey is a product of the same system that raised Devon—a system that treats people as resources to be managed.