The Knight and the Moth Quiz

Plot & Sequence Questions (8)

Q1. Why does Six perform a divination in Chapter One? A. The abbess orders a routine reading. B. She draws the short straw in a game. C. King Castor demands a prophecy. D. A gargoyle insists on a secret ritual.

Q2. What object does Rory use to phase through walls in Chapter Nine? A. The Diviner’s hammer B. The Ardent Oarsman’s oar C. The Artful Brigand’s coin D. The Faithful Forester’s chime

Q3. Where do the Diviners first travel after leaving Aisling Cathedral? A. The Fervent Peaks B. Coulson Faire C. The Seacht D. The Chiming Wood

Q4. How does the Harried Scribe die? A. He drowns in his own ink. B. Rory, Maude, and King Castor kill him. C. Six smashes his inkwell with her hammer. D. He turns to stone and crumbles.

Q5. What makes the Ardent Oarsman reveal himself in Chapter Sixteen? A. Benji’s prostration ritual B. A lure of Aisling spring water C. The gargoyle’s taunting D. Maude’s challenge of vigor

Q6. During the fight with the Ardent Oarsman, what happens to Six? A. She drowns in the lake. B. She is saved by the gargoyle. C. She drives her chisel into his heart. D. She teleports away with Rory’s coin.

Q7. What does the Heartsore Weaver reveal about the Abbey before dying? A. She is the sixth Omen. B. She killed the missing Diviners. C. She married King Castor. D. She created the gargoyles from dead foundlings.

Q8. How does the book’s final confrontation end? A. Benji kills the abbess. B. Six drowns the abbess in the spring and destroys her stone heart. C. Rory uses the coin to banish the abbess. D. The gargoyle absorbs the abbess’s power.

Character Motivation Questions (5)

Q9. Why does Six blackmail Rory in Chapter Four? A. She wants his coin. B. She needs an escort to leave Aisling. C. She suspects he is an Omen. D. She wants revenge for his insult.

Q10. Why does Rory agree to a divination with the gargoyle in Chapter Seven? A. He is forced by King Castor. B. He is genuinely curious. C. He sees it as a way to undermine Aisling’s authority. D. He wants to help Six.

Q11. What drives Maude to remain loyal to Benji even after his betrayal? A. She is in love with him. B. She promised the first King Castor to protect him. C. She believes in the Omens. D. She fears the abbess.

Q12. Why does Six refuse to vow total loyalty when Benji knights her in Chapter Twenty-Four? A. She does not trust the monarchy. B. She refuses to bind herself further. C. She wants to protect her own knighthood. D. She is secretly plotting against him.

Q13. What prompts Sybil to give Rory her true name in Chapter Twenty-One? A. He saves her life. B. She is overwhelmed by grief and wants a personal connection. C. The gargoyle insists. D. She needs a witness for a blood oath.

Theme & Symbol Questions (4)

Q14. What does the moth in Sybil’s dream represent throughout the novel? A. Death and rebirth B. The freedom of the Diviners C. The voice of the true Omen D. A messenger of the abbess

Q15. The shroud Sybil wears is a symbol of: A. Her blindness to the outside world B. The protection of the abbess C. Her separation from her true identity D. The power of the Diviners

Q16. How do the stone objects (coin, inkwell, oar, chime, loom stone) function thematically? A. They represent the five hamlets of Traum. B. They are tools the Omens use to control the Divination. C. They symbolize the crafts that the Omens originally practiced. D. They grant immortality to whoever holds them.

Q17. The “art of Divination” in the book critiques: A. Religious manipulation and false prophecy B. The value of dreams C. The role of fate in medieval society D. The importance of spring water

Synthesis Questions (3)

Q18. How does Sybil’s arc change the structure of power in Traum by the novel’s end? (Short answer – write 1–3 sentences.)

Q19. If the gargoyle Bartholomew could speak to the abbess after her defeat, what central lie would he refute from the founding myth? (Short answer – write 1–3 sentences.)

Q20. What does the phrase “Swords and armor are nothing to stone” (spoken in the moth dream) ultimately mean in the context of the entire story? (Short answer – write 1–3 sentences.)

Answer Key

Q1. B. Six draws the short straw in the straw game among the six maidens, compelling her to perform the spring Divination. (Chapter One)

Q2. C. Rory uses the Artful Brigand’s coin to phase through walls and destroy the gargoyles during their escape. (Chapter Nine)

Q3. B. The Diviners attend Coulson Faire after smoking idleweed and meeting their knight escorts. (Chapter Five)

Q4. B. Rory, Maude, and King Castor kill the Harried Scribe after the contest. (Chapter Eleven)

Q5. B. Six and Rory set a lure of Aisling spring water; the Ardent Oarsman drinks it and is exposed as a mortal. (Chapter Sixteen)

Q6. C. Six drives her chisel into the Ardent Oarsman’s heart during their fight. (Chapter Twenty)

Q7. A. The Heartsore Weaver reveals that the abbess (Aisling) is the sixth Omen, the Moth. (Chapter Twenty-Eight)

Q8. B. Six drowns the abbess in the spring, then destroys her stone heart, ending the last Omen. (Chapter Thirty)

Q9. B. Six needs someone to escort the six Diviners off the tor, so she blackmails Rory with his theft of spring water. (Chapter Four)

Q10. C. Rory sees the unauthorized divination as a way to challenge Aisling’s authority and learn the truth. He allows the gargoyle to perform it. (Chapter Seven)

Q11. B. Maude was a knight under the first King Castor and threw the first stone at his execution; she has since cared for Benji out of loyalty to that oath. (Chapter Fifteen)

Q12. B. After years of being bound by Aisling, Sybil refuses to swear a vow that would give Benji total control over her. (Chapter Twenty-Four)

Q13. B. Overcome by grief after learning her tenure is a death sentence, Sybil gives Rory her true name in a blood ritual to share her identity. (Chapter Twenty-One)

Q14. C. The moth is the form of the sixth Omen, which appears in Sybil’s dream to reveal the truth of the Omens and Aisling’s deception. (Chapter Seven)

Q15. C. The shroud separates Sybil from her own face and identity, symbolizing how the abbess has hidden her true self and the truth about the Diviners. (recurring motif)

Q16. C. The Omens were originally mortal craftsmen (Brigand, Scribe, Oarsman, Forester, Weaver) who gained eternal life by drinking from the spring, and their stone objects represent their former crafts. (Chapter Thirteen)

Q17. A. The Divination process is a tool used by the abbess to control the kingdom through manufactured prophecies, critiquing how religious institutions can manipulate faith for power. (throughout)

Q18. Sybil exposes the abbess as a false god and destroys her, frees the Diviners from servitude, and rejects the entire system of Divination. Power shifts from the cathedral to the people of Traum, but Benji’s betrayal shows that the cycle of manipulation may not be fully broken.

Q19. Bartholomew would refute the original myth that the foundling dreamed of six gods; he, as the first Diviner, knows that the abbess created the Omens from dead craftsmen herself and used the spring to fake prophecies.

Q20. The phrase means that the Omens’ stone objects—constructed from the abbess’s magic—are more powerful than any knight’s sword or armor. It foreshadows that Sybil must reject weapons and rely on her hammer and chisel (and later, the coin’s power) to defeat the stone-based constructs.