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Summary
Chapter 31: Big Girls Don’t Cry (Unless They Want To)
In gym class Macy excitedly tells Grace about her dance team solo at the upcoming pep rally, and the two also discuss all of the recent earthquakes. Grace receives text after worried text from Jaxon. Just after class she’s hit with a sudden, unexpected wave of grief as she hears a student practicing the song “Autumn Leaves” on a saxophone. It was her father’s favorite, and she bursts into tears and looks for somewhere to be alone. She finds an alcove in a deserted tower and curls up in a reading nook to cry.
Chapter 32: It’s Not a Coincidence That Denali and Denial Use All the Same Letters
Grace is initially embarrassed by her crying, but Jaxon comforts her. They reconcile, and Jaxon asks her how it feels to be able to release her emotions in the way he’s just seen. He brings Grace to his room, where she’s surprised by their similar taste in art, particularly the real Klimt sketch he has framed. Jaxon opens a window and tells Grace to follow him. Although she feels like it’s a bad idea, Grace follows him out onto the parapet.
Chapter 33: Madonna’s Not the Only One with a Lucky Star
Jaxon wraps Grace in a blanket, and the two watch a stunning meteor shower together on the parapet outside his room. Grace asks him why he’s being so kind to her, and Jaxon implies he’s just doing his duty. She’s immediately skeptical and annoyed, and Jaxon suggests they return inside. He swings himself up through the window, and Grace is startled when he effortlessly pulls her up after him. When her feet touch the floor, she’s suddenly intensely aware of how close together they are.
Chapter 34: All’s Fair in Love and Earthquakes
There’s a long moment where Grace and Jaxon stand almost touching, where Grace describes the air between them as “loaded, heavy, electric.” Grace feels herself falling for him, suddenly and irrevocably, and steps forward to kiss him. After a second or two of this, Jaxon’s mood abruptly changes. An earthquake begins, and Grace blacks out.
Chapter 35: Baked Alaska Is More than Just a Yummy Dessert
Grace wakes up injured in her bedroom, where she learns that Jaxon saved her from severe blood loss during the earthquake. Finn apologizes for all of the trouble and injuries Grace has undergone since arriving at Katmere, but she reassures him that she doesn’t mind. The school nurse, Marise, informs Grace that she won’t have any scars from her accident, aside from one on her neck. Grace is baffled that she doesn’t have stitches, as she knows she tore an artery, but Marise dodges the question. Macy comes in, and Grace is astonished to find that her bed is instantly made as soon as she stands up and turns around. Grace gets back into bed, and Jaxon visits her while she’s sleeping. She runs out of the infirmary to try and find him when she wakes.
Analysis
In this section, Jaxon finally begins to make gestures that demonstrate clearly that he’s romantically interested in Grace. When he invites her to his room, the two bond over the laundry list of things they have in common. This is followed by an incredibly romantic period spent watching a meteor shower from the side of the castle. When they return inside, Jaxon and Grace finally disrupt the unbearable sexual energy between them by kissing after Grace shatters the psychological tension by revealing that even though it looks easy, it’s actually very overwhelming for her to release her emotions. Wolff really spins out the interaction, as both characters gently edge toward each other for a full two pages before Jaxon finally seals the kiss. Their embrace is brief, however, because as soon as they begin kissing with some energy, an earthquake begins and Jaxon shoves Grace away. She’s horrified, as she doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he screams at her to get out. She tries to but doesn’t remember leaving the room before she passes out.
We start to see the theme of blood being explored in a literal sense in this section. When Grace wakes up from her accident and notices that her injuries seem to be healing abnormally fast, she’s very perplexed. She begs for someone to explain what happened, but as usual, Macy, her Uncle Finn, and even the school nurses Anka and Marise are evasive and fuzzy on the details of events. She’s happy to learn that Jaxon is unharmed and grateful that he saved her, but is still frustrated at not being able to recall a single thing after they leave the room. Marise tells her that there won’t be any scarring after the accident, but Grace is less worried about that than she is concerned about how it came about. Everybody tells Grace in this chapter that she has lost a lot of blood. It’s thematically important that this information is repeated to her by only living blood relatives, Uncle Finn, and Macy. Grace wonders why she doesn’t see any blood anywhere, as the room and her bandages are incredibly sterile. It’s as if her blood is so important that it’s been hidden away, or deliberately concealed. Macy, in particular, is obviously concealing something big, but refuses to provide Grace with any useful information whatsoever. This makes Grace feel betrayed, as do the last events she can remember involving Jaxon.
Every time Jaxon and Grace have an intimate moment something seems to go wrong. Lately, their romantic encounters have been dramatically underscored by the recurring earthquakes. These incidents actually have a supernatural origin, as the reader is soon to discover. However, even before the reader learns their cause, they also serve as metaphors for the unstable and often perilous path that Grace is navigating in her new environment. The unpredictable nature of the earthquakes and the way they disrupt important moments for her mirrors the uncertainties and challenges that she faces following her parents’ deaths. She is quite literally on shaky ground, even though she is beginning to build some more solid relationships in Alaska.
