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Summary
Chapter 41: Not All Hallows' Eve
Macy and Grace head to the cafeteria, and as Grace passes other students she tries to guess which category of supernatural being they belong to. Her mind wanders as she tries to guess how the small amount she knows about Jaxon and the other students fits in with the enormous revelations Macy has just made. Grace admits she’s feeling nervous to Macy, who reminds her that the people around her haven’t changed, she just knows more about them. Grace says she still feels like things are more unfriendly than before, and Macy reminds her that a lot of the other students are just jealous of her relationship with Jaxon. Flint joins the pair before they sit down, and tries to apologize for Grace’s fall from the tree. Grace sees two members of the Order approaching, and decides to go and sit with Flint and his friends before they can corner her. As she walks over to their table, however, there’s a terrible wrenching sound from high above her.
Chapter 42: Good Thing Pancakes Aren’t On Today’s Menu
Grace looks up to see a colossal crystal chandelier come off its plate and fall towards her. Before it hits her, Jaxon knocks her out of the way. Grace is unharmed, but Jaxon is bleeding from several small cuts. She insists on taking care of him, but he protests that he’s fine. Macy runs over to them and hugs Grace. Grace cleans Jaxon’s wounds with a first-aid kit. Grace notices that the members of the Order have formed a circle around them, as Jaxon tells her quietly that the chandelier falling couldn’t have been an accident; someone is trying to kill her.
Chapter 43: What Doesn’t Kill You Scares The Hell Out Of You
Grace sputters in disbelief as Jaxon assures her he’s serious about the threat to her life. Grace tries to get him to explain but he refuses to say more, as her Uncle Finn is approaching. Finn apologizes profusely for all the accidents Grace has recently been involved in. Grace can’t piece together why anybody would be interested in killing her, and wonders if Jaxon has misconstrued the nature of the threat. Uncle Finn walks her to his office and sits her down. He laughingly admits he knows she knows about all the supernatural secrets, and hints that Grace’s father gave up his powers for the greater good, not just her mother. Finn as astonished that Grace isn’t in shock, and drops the bomb that he wants to send her back to San Diego.
Chapter 44: Sweet Home Alaska
Grace is horrified at the thought of leaving and tells Finn she won’t go. He guesses that she might not want to because of Jaxon, and tries to warn her that he’s bad news. Grace denies that she and Jaxon are involved, and Finn tells her about Jaxon’s bloodline. Finn then returns to the topic of Grace returning to San Diego, but when she gets upset he reassures her she can stay at Katmere. As they finish their conversation and Grace leaves, the floor shakes with another tiny earthquake.
Chapter 45: I Always Knew There Was Fire Between Us; I Just Didn’t Realize It Was Your Breath
Grace is a little disconcerted and scared by the quake, and texts Jaxon to tell him she’s okay. She heads up the stairs toward his tower, but then changes her mind and decides she should go to the library instead. She approaches the librarian, Amka Royce, and the two have a friendly conversation about Grace’s newfound knowledge. Amka reveals that she is a witch, and demonstrates her control of the four elements for Grace. Grace compliments the library, but is surprised when Amka reaches over her desk and grabs both of her hands, her eyes starting to swirl. She tells Grace not to be afraid and directs her toward a section of the stacks. When Grace follows her directions, she finds Flint sitting at a table there. Flint is reading a book in Akkadian, the same language Lia was chanting in previously. She asks him questions about being a dragon, and he toasts a marshmallow for her by breathing fire on it, and then freezes his water bottle with a breath of ice. He also magically produces a bunch of blue flowers, tucking them behind Grace’s ear. She jumps, and he reassures her that he’s not hitting on her, but he’ll make sure she knows when he is.
Analysis
Knowing what sort of creatures surround her has made Grace feel a conflicting mess of emotions. She feels more more trusting because she understands some of what's going on, but she also feels predictably less comfortable, now that she knows she is literally surrounded by fairytale monsters and witches and is the only human currently on the menu at Katmere Academy. Grace realizes that her Uncle Finn is probably the person that she needs to bring her serious questions to, but he's been difficult to pin down. She attempts to get information from Macy, who is much more forthcoming now that Grace knows that she’s a witch. In the conversation that they have in the cafeteria, she asks if there's some kind of supernatural reason that she is not allowed to date Jaxon. Macy explains that it's forbidden for people from different groups to date each other, but that she's not aware of a rule like that applying to humans, especially as vampires can actually turn humans into other vampires. When Grace asks her why people are so hostile toward her and Jaxon, there's a nice moment between the two when Macy points out that Grace is both very pretty and is still dating the most popular boy in school. Jaxon may be a vampire, but he’s also the subject of a lot of crushes, which makes Grace the subject of a lot of jealousy.
The reader is reminded here that for all that there are frightening magical events surrounding them, Katmere is a school. Some of them may be wolf-shifters and witches, but the students in it are still also just a large group of teenagers who have to coexist in an isolated building in the Alaskan wilderness.
Although Grace feels more mentally secure now that she understands some of the context for Katmere’s weirdness, she still remains as apparently accident-prone as she ever was. When she and Macy sit down with Flint and his friends, there’s a visible prickle of tension that goes around the cafeteria. Choosing to join Flint and his crew instead of joining Jaxon and the Order is a bold move. It’s also one which Grace instantly regrets, though not for the social or romantic reasons she’s expecting. When the enormous chandelier falls off the ceiling and tumbles towards her, Jaxon's quick intervention saves her. Although he seemed to guess something was wrong and was able to intervene, she's still not sure whether to believe him when he tells her that—like all of the other things that have almost hurt or killed her at Katmere— the chandelier falling was no accident. Grace is feeling overwhelmed by this point. She's received so much bad, strange and/or unsettling news recently, that she doesn't know whether she's coming or going. Jaxon keeps implying that Flint is dangerous, which would be helpful if everybody else around her weren’t also telling her that Jaxon is dangerous. None of her options seemed particularly safe. Katmere was supposed to be a fresh start for her after her incredibly painful loss, but it seems like it might be the death of her, too.
There's a startling return to what passes for normalcy in Grace’s world when her Uncle Finn takes her to his office and tells her that he thinks it's high time for her to go home. Finn is ashamed of not knowing how to tell her about her supernatural background, and also implies that there's more to it than Grace is ready to know. Grace is happy to receive the comfort that her uncle gives her, but is absolutely horrified at the idea of leaving Katmere. Even though she is homesick for San Diego, this conversation makes her realize that she has started to think of Katmere as her home. She also can't imagine going anywhere without Jaxon., and, to a lesser degree, Macy, Flint, Lia, and Uncle Finn himself. Finn only heightens Grace’s wish to stick around and learn more about the supernatural world when he lets it slip that her father only gave up his powers “for the greater good.”
There's also an interesting reversal of a stereotypical familial discussion between a father figure and a daughter about boys and sex in this section. Uncle Finn tells Grace that Jaxon is bad news. However, this is something that Grace has been hearing from almost everybody else, and it hasn't dissuaded her yet. Instead of going into Jaxon's character, grades or ambitions, Finn starts to explain the relationship between vampires, bloodlines, and the aristocracy of the world of supernatural creatures. He tells Grace that people like Jaxon who are born vampires form a kind of upper class of the vampire community. The idea that vampire aristocracy comes from a set of powerful ancient families is a direct reference to European folklore. Importantly, so is the idea that “made” bloodsuckers would be inferior to vampires who had been around for longer.
Vampires in Crave are dedicated to hierarchy, and Jaxon and his family are at the very top. In fact, Jaxon is the heir to the Vampire Throne, and his mother is the reigning Vampire Queen. Grace is more interested than frightened by this news, even when Finn points out that given this, she and Jaxon have no future. In a familiar move, Grace is already so invested in her partnership with Jaxon that she refuses to hear this advice. There's a certain situational irony in the fact that Grace was desperate to learn new information for the first part of the novel, and now that she understands what's going on around her, she’s often reluctant to take in new information about Jaxon.
Instead of finding a place to be alone and cry, as she has before, Grace gets her uncle’s assurance that she can stay at Katmere and heads to the library to find out more information. This is another step in her personal growth, and also signifies that she's moving beyond her early emotional fragility. After an unsettling interaction with the librarian, she points Grace to where Flint is reading a book in Akkadian in the back. When Grace starts to ask him questions about being a dragon, he takes it as an opportunity to flirt, toasting a marshmallow for her by breathing fire on it. When she jokes that marshmallow-toasting is not a very impressive power, he then freezes his water bottle with his breath. Finally, he tells her that he's able to fly and produces a bunch of blue flowers from thin air to impress her. By this point, Grace is very uncomfortable, as even though she and Jaxon aren't committed to one another, she feels that this flirtation is a betrayal. However, Flint confuses her even further by telling her that he isn’t flirting, and that when he is actually hitting on her, she'll be very sure about it. Flint continues to confuse and disrupt her, as his guilty expressions and the strange aura of shame that surrounds him whenever Grace has an accident fit oddly with his flirty attitude. Every time Grace takes a step forward in understanding her position at Katmere, she takes a step backward in some of her personal relationships.
