Glass Sword

“I swing my legs over the side of the cot, almost thwacking my head on the bunk above me, and find a neatly folded set of clothing on the floor. Black pants that are too long, a dark red shirt with threadbare elbows, and boots missing laces. Nothing like the fine clothes I found in a Silver cell, but they feel right against my skin.”

Mare has woken up on the submarine after narrowly escaping Maven’s forces several hours ago. Before finding the clothes, she reflects on how she’s woken up in many different places to find unexpected surprises waiting for her, and she wonders what this awakening will hold. The clothes symbolize how Mare’s life has changed in the last few days and what she fights for. In Red Queen, she once woke in a Silver prison to find elegant clothes made from expensive material, and she noted how wearing them felt wrong because it seemed like a betrayal of Reds and because she wasn’t used to such fine fabric. By contrast, Mare feels comfortable in these threadbare clothes because they align more with the person she wants to be, even if she doesn’t feel like that person now.

“‘Go easy on him,’ I whisper, leaning into Bree’s warmth. Even in the cold autumn rain, he feels like a furnace. Long years fighting on the northern front have made him immune to wet and cold. I think back to Dad’s old saying. The war never leaves. Now I know it firsthand, though my war is very different from his.”

Mare watches Cal being shut into captivity, and this line is both a prayer that he’ll be alright and a plea that the Colonel won’t hurt him because Mare feels that Cal has been hurt enough. Bree is one of her older brothers, and he symbolizes how Mare will soon be reunited with her family for the first time in quite a while. Her observations about war call to how not all battles are the same or equal. Mare’s father fought in the trenches under Silver leadership in the land war between their country and a neighboring one. That war was about Silver power and control, and Mare’s father was little more than a disposable pawn. Mare’s war promises to be no less bloody or violent, but the battle she fights is very different. Rather than fighting for the Silvers, she fights against their oppression.

“‘And even if, if, the list is true, and the names do lead to other’—he searches for the word, not bothering to be gentle—‘things like you, then what? Do we dodge the worst agents of the kingdom, hunters better and faster than us, to find them? Do we attempt a mass exodus of the ones we can save? Do we found the Barrow School for Freaks, and spend years training them to fight? Do we ignore everything else, all the suffering, the child soldiers, the executions, for them?’”

The Colonel argues with Mare about the list of newblood names. The Colonel doesn’t want to find the newbloods because he doesn’t trust their abilities and thinks it’s a waste of time. His harsh language shows how those who should be on the same side can become enemies. Mare and the Colonel are both Reds, but Mare’s newblood status makes her a different type of Red and, to the Colonel, a danger that should not be allied with. The Colonel’s further arguments provide details of the problems Reds face and the complexities of war and rebellion. To him, the newbloods are in no more or less danger than the other Reds who are being starved, beaten, or forced into the army. The Colonel’s outlook represents how all these things can’t be dealt with at once and how members of a group weaken the whole by fighting amongst themselves.

“The Silent Stone has a strange effect on both of us. In taking away what we rely on most, our abilities, the cell forces us to become someone else. For Cal, that means being smarter, more calculating. He can’t lean on infernos, so he turns to his mind instead. Although, judging by the fainting idea, he’s not the sharpest blade in the armory.

The change in me is not so evident. After all, I lived seventeen years in silence, not knowing what power lingered within me. Now I’m remembering that girl again, the heartless, selfish girl who would do anything to save her own skin.”

Imprisoned with Cal in Barracks 1, Mare reflects on the difference between losing something one always had and losing something one recently gained. Cal was born with his fire ability, and he’s honed it into a deadly weapon. He spent time silenced in training but knew his power would return. Here, imprisoned in enemy territory and without the certainty he’ll get his power back, he is restless and worried, which affects his thinking. Normally, Cal is a brilliant tactician, but he’s just presented a scenario with almost no likelihood of success, which Mare notes is out of character. By contrast, Mare only discovered her powers recently, and without them, she reverts to who she was as a powerless Red—desperate and willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants, figuring the punishment can’t be much worse than failure.

“I’ve experienced many strange things these last few months, but nothing compares to flying. It’s a jarring contrast, feeling the immense thrust of the plane as it ascends, every tick of the engines throwing us skyward, while my own body is so powerless, so passive, so dependent on the craft around me.”

Mare’s group has just stolen the airship from the island base, and Cal pilots them into the sky. Having never flown before, Mare is amazed by the sensation, identifying it as a different type of powerlessness. As a Red, she had little say over her future or fate, but she knew this from a very young age, so it felt less like she was powerless and more like the way of things. Within the Silver court, she had her lightning, but surrounded by so many hostile people, she couldn’t use it to help either herself or the Reds. She learned to depend on her strength, so the powerless of flight and giving her fate entirely to the machine and Cal unsettles her in a new way.

“‘Don’t tell me you’re afraid of water too?’ Kilorn calls across the stream, his voice too loud and gruff. Farley only laughs in reply, grabbing my brother’s wrist. A split second later, they stand next to us, smirking and dry.”

Before this passage, Mare, Kilorn, and Cal have just crossed a river—Mare and Kilorn swimming and Cal evaporating the water with fire to walk across. Cal revealed his discomfort with water due to it countering his fire and how he was almost drowned to death in the arena at the end of Red Queen. Kilorn yells back to Shade and Diana Farley as a dig at Cal, which is when Shade teleports them across. It’s unclear why Shade didn’t offer to teleport everyone or why no one else thought of it, so it may be that Shade intentionally said nothing as a prank. This moment also foreshadows Mare’s later realization that Shade and Farley are a couple. 

“Crance is a glorified thief, a profession I know well enough. The best part about thieves is you can trust them—to do their worst. If our positions were reversed, and I was my old self escorting a fugitive into the Stilts, would I turn them over for a few tetrarchs? For a few weeks of food or electricity rations? I remember hard winters well enough, cold and hungry days that seemed to have no end. Sicknesses with easy cures, but no money to buy the medicine. Even the bitter ache of simple want, to take something beautiful or useful simply because.”

Crance is a member of the Mariners gang, and Mare understands him because they are alike. Her thoughts show the mindset of desperation and what poor living and work conditions mean for those struggling to break free of the cycle of poverty. The first few situations Mare describes call to times of necessity and stealing for survival. The last—stealing for pure want—isn’t a matter of life or death, and it illustrates the bitter anger that can result from constantly being in need.

“‘You’re lucky it’s not the Night of a Single Star,’ Cal murmurs, his eyes faraway. ‘The whole city explodes for the festival.’

I don’t have the strength or the need to respond to him. The Night is a Silver holiday, held in memory of some navy battle decades ago. It means nothing to me, but one glance at Cal and his distracted gaze tells me he doesn’t agree. He’s seen the Night in this very city, and remembers it fondly. Music and laughter and silk. Maybe fireworks over the water, and a royal feast to end the party. His father’s approving smile, jokes with Maven. Everything he’s lost.

Now it’s my turn to look faraway. That life is gone, Cal. It shouldn’t make you happy anymore.”

This exchange of Cal’s words and Mare’s thoughts highlights a few things. First, it offers a glimpse into the Silver world and the carefree nature of their lives compared to Reds. Second, it shows that Cal, despite Maven’s betrayal, misses that life and the extravagance associated with it, even though he understands how it was built on the backs of Reds. Mare’s response reveals her conflicting opinion of Cal and Silvers. On the one hand, she acknowledges that the festival is more than a memory of a better life for Cal—it’s also a memory of what he’s lost. The festival represents ignorance as bliss because Cal could just enjoy time with his family, not knowing what Maven and the queen had planned. Mare’s final thoughts are hypocritical and ironic. She doesn’t think those memories should make Cal happy, but her own memories of Red life, if less pleasant, make her yearn for the simplicity of days with her family. She also doesn’t think thoughts of Maven should make Cal emotional, yet she spends the entire book rereading Maven’s letters and wishing things were different.

“Even the faces that haunt me, the faces of the dead, have disappeared. Funny, now that I’m dying, my ghosts decide to leave.

I wish they would come back.

I wish I didn’t have to die alone.”

Mare thinks this during her first experience with the machine Maven invented to silence her power. The machine causes her unending agony, and she begs for death so she doesn’t have to endure it any longer. Her experience shows how suffering can be strong enough to make someone stop caring about anything else. Mare lives with the guilt of people she’s killed, both directly and indirectly, but under the machine’s influence, those “ghosts,” as she puts it, disappear behind the pain. Mare’s worst fear comes to her in this desperate moment: She fears being alone, and with the pain, that fear translates into dying alone.

“Once, I thought blood was the world entire, the difference between dark and light, an irrevocable, impassable divide. It made the Silvers powerful and cold and brutal, inhuman compared to my Red brethren. They were nothing like us, unable to feel pain or remorse or kindness. But people like Cal, Julian, and even Lucas have shown me how wrong I was. They are just as human, just as full of fear and hope. They are not without their sins, but neither are we. Neither am I.

If only they were the monsters Kilorn believes them to be. If only things were that simple. Quietly, in the deepest part of my heart, I envy Kilorn’s narrow anger. I wish I could share in his ignorance. But I’ve seen and suffered too much for that.”

This passage of Mare’s thoughts encompasses all the ways she’s changed since the beginning of the series. Kilorn’s anger represents who Mare was at the start of Red Queen—an angry Red who thought all Silvers were evil and terrible people. Kilorn’s perspective also represents how divides, such as racism, begin. He refuses to consider any perspective other than Silvers being evil and terrible, even as he’s witnessed Cal helping and being good to Mare. Mare acknowledges the problem with Kilorn’s thinking, even as she wishes she could think that way. Though she knows those thoughts are overly simplistic and problematic, she also knows that they would make the impending battles easier to fight. If she could just assign all Silvers as the enemy and kill indiscriminately, she wouldn’t have to think about how every Silver who fell had a life, family, and feelings.

“‘Governor Rhambos likes to hunt,’ she replies with a shrug. ‘He had an estate outside the city, and his sons filled it with strange beasts for him to kill. Bears, especially. Beautiful creatures, with black fur and keen eyes. They were peaceful enough, if left alone, or attended to by our game warden. Little Rohr, the governor’s daughter, wanted a cub for her own, but the bears were killed before any could breed.’”

Ada, one of the many newblood recruits, offers insight into the lives the newbloods left to join Mare’s cause. Ada worked as a maid for a Silver governor, and her explanation here comes after Kilorn and others have gone out to hunt. Her description of the governor’s hunting ground shows the absolute disregard some Silvers have for any living creatures that aren’t other Silvers. He had bears and other ferocious creatures brought in so he could hunt them for sport, similar to how some Silvers use Reds until they drop. The governor’s daughter’s age is unknown, but Ada’s description suggests she is very young. Her desire for a bear cub shows how Silvers learn from a young age not to fear anything. While bears are typically gentle creatures, taking one as a pet might cause it to lash out, but the girl apparently thinks she can handle any threat the bear cub might pose.

“‘You saved nothing,’ Cal says quickly, and his grip tightens. ‘Any decision could have changed what you saw. A misstep in the woods, the beating of a bird’s wings. I know how people like you see, and how wrong your predictions can become.’”

This section of Cal’s dialogue comes during the group’s encounter with Jon. Jon’s abilities are similar to that of Silvers who can see moments into the future, but Jon’s are much stronger, letting him see further ahead and with more detail. While Mare believes Jon because he knows things he shouldn’t be able to know, Cal dismisses his knowledge. Even if he can see possible futures, Cal has had enough experience with predictions gone wrong to put any faith in them. His experience of the Silver world makes him more cautious of Jon’s abilities because he understands how the tiniest, seemingly unrelated thing can alter the current path.

“‘But it was your fault. You and your stupid band of ratty red rags.’ She tosses a glare at Farley, cutting off any retort she might throw. ‘Gambling with our families, our lives, while you ran and hid in the woods. And now you think you’re some kind of hero, flying around saving everyone you think is special, who’s worth the lightning girl’s precious time. I bet you walk right through the slums and the poor villages. I bet you don’t even see what you’ve done to us.’ The blood rises with her anger, coloring her cheeks in a dark, lurid flush. I can’t do much more than stare. ‘Newbloods, silverbloods, redbloods, it’s all the same, all over again. Some who are special, some who are better than the rest, and the ones who still have nothing at all.’”

Cameron delivers this speech shortly after Mare’s group finds her. Mare has tried to impress the importance of the Scarlet Guard and the rebellion to Cameron, but Cameron isn’t interested. To her, Mare and the rebels (whether Red or newblood) are just another group making life harder for the Reds. She has experienced the changes that have gone on in Red communities since Mare’s powers were revealed and since the Scarlet Guard started their attacks, and while those things may have caused trouble for the Silvers, they’ve definitely made life worse for the Reds. Cameron’s lecture calls to how almost everyone in the story separates people by blood type, never acknowledging how much the groups are alike. To Cameron, it doesn’t matter which group is in charge. As long as the prejudices and hatred remain, life will worsen for those caught in the middle.

“I must put up my mask again, and be the lightning girl they need. Mare can wait.

Dimly, I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to be Mare again.”

Mare prepares her team to infiltrate the Silver prison. Mare fears failure and can see the fear from the other newbloods and volunteers, but she’s determined not to let her fear show. She understands that she is a leader, even if she doesn’t feel like one, and that the others will take their cue about how to feel based on what she displays. Her question about whether or not she’ll get to be Mare shows that she doesn’t currently feel like the truest version of who she is. She’s separated the different parts of herself—leader, icon, etc.—to make them easier to manage, and she hopes that someday she’ll get to live her life on her own terms instead of by the terms of whoever needs her most.

“Something flickers in her eyes. Not her usual anger. Pride. I understand that too. For girls like us, who had nothing, expected nothing, it’s intoxicating to know there is something of our own, something no one else can claim or take away.” 

Mare watches Cameron during a training session and notices how she changes. Though Cameron fears her power because she doesn’t understand it, the training finally helps her understand what she can do, showing how knowledge is both power and control. Mare and Cameron mostly come across as opposing forces of will, but here, Mare sees their similarities rather than their differences or how they’ve been adversaries. There is little mention of gender inequality in the story world, but it may be assumed that women, Red or Silver, act as if they are subservient to men, as suggested by Maven taking the throne after the king’s death instead of his mother, the queen. So, Mare’s observation here speaks less to gender inequality and more to the many ways in which people can feel powerless. The statement is also ironic because Mare’s ability is taken away, if temporarily, when she submits to Maven at the end of the book.

“‘I don’t know what will make it easier to forget him. To think that he wasn’t always this way, that his mother poisoned him. Or that he was simply born a monster.’

‘No one is born a monster.’ But I wish some people were. It would make it easier to hate them, to kill them, to forget their dead faces.”

Mare and Cal discuss the possibility of seeing Maven during the prison break the following day. Cal’s dialogue speaks to the debate of nature versus nurture, questioning whether people can be born evil or if they are made evil by their environment. Mare firmly argues that people are not born evil, which suggests she believes Maven could have turned out differently without the queen’s interference. Her thoughts betray her words. She believes people aren’t born evil, but like Kilorn’s earlier indiscriminate hatred for Silvers, knowing that someone had been born evil would make them easier to deal with and lessen the guilt of causing them harm or pain. As a whole, this mindset nods to the complexity of humanity and how people constantly seek shortcuts to understand others.

“More catwalk clangs into place, the sound like a giant hammer beating a wall of aluminum. They line the cells, creating walkways around the perimeter of the block, while more sheets twist and fold into steps to connect the levels. For a moment, I’m seized by a sense of wonder. I’ve only seen magnetrons in battle, using their abilities to kill and destroy. Never to create. It’s not hard to imagine them designing airjets and luxurious transports, curving jagged iron into smooth arcs of razor-thin beauty.”

Mare’s group enters the first cell block in the prison, and a Magnitron (metal controller) guard builds the catwalks and staircases between cells. Even after all her time in the Silver court, Mare has rarely seen Silvers using their power for anything other than combat or destruction. Here, she’s introduced to a new side of Silver abilities—how they might be used to improve lives or create art. Though she doesn’t think it here, this is another place where Mare’s idea of Silvers irrevocably changes. After her past experiences, she can no longer see Silvers only as evil, and going forward, she will always wonder how a power may be used for prosperity rather than devastation.

“She shows no signs of stopping. Not that she should. These people imprisoned her, tortured her, starved her, and would have killed her. Revenge is her right.”

Mare watches Cameron torture the Silver prison guards. Cal has told her to stop because they have the information they need, but Cameron ignores him. The guards did terrible things to her, and she is determined to exact revenge, both for her time in the prison and for Silver treatment of Reds in general. Mare says revenge is Cameron’s right, and Mare joins Cameron in dealing out punishment, suggesting that Mare agrees with Cameron’s right to revenge.

“The jab stings Kilorn, but I don’t care. He hardens, drawing back to do as I tell him. The cockpit door shuts behind him, but I barely notice. I’m preoccupied with more important things than petty insults. Who is he to question my orders? He’s no one. A fish boy with only good luck and my foolishness to protect him. Not like Shade, a teleporter, a newblood, a great man.”

Throughout the book, Mare says that the rebellion is for all the Reds, not just newbloods, and that everyone is equal, regardless of whether or not they have abilities. After Shade’s death, grief twists Mare’s thoughts, making her dismiss Kilorn as a Red without powers and exalt Shade because he was a newblood. It’s unclear if this is simply grief talking or if Mare has felt this way all along and her heightened emotions have revealed her true feelings. Either way, her thoughts call to how people see divisions even when they try not to. Mare may believe that everyone is equal regardless of powers, but she still separates Reds from newbloods, if only subconsciously until this moment.

“But still, you feel no remorse for the dead. You do whatever you can to forget them. You abandoned your family without a word. You can’t control yourself. Half the time you run away from leadership, and the other half you act like some untouchable martyr, crowned in guilt, the only person who’s really giving herself to the cause. Look around you, Mare Barrow. Shade’s not the only one who died in Corros. You are not the only one to make sacrifices. Farley betrayed her father. You forced Cameron to join us against her will, you chose to ignore everything but Julian’s list, and now you want to abandon the kids back at the Notch. For what? To step on the Colonel’s neck? To take a throne? To kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way?”

Cal delivers this speech to Mare after she and Farley nearly come to blows over Shade’s body. This lecture follows an argument where Cal tries to reason with Mare but makes little progress. Mare either is unable to listen or doesn’t want to acknowledge how she is acting, and Cal isn’t the only one to notice. A common complaint aimed at the heroines of young adult fantasy is their flip-flopping nature. This speech hints at Mare falling victim to that complaint. It also acknowledges how hard a time she’s had but doesn’t excuse her behavior because of it, showing how difficulty and grief do not give people a free pass to treat everyone around them terribly. Cal also points out that Mare delivers mixed messages, likely a result of Mare not having figured out who she is in her new world.

“No one is born evil, just like no one is born alone. They become that way, through choice and circumstance. The latter you cannot control, but the former […] Mare, I am very afraid for you. Things have been done to you, things no person should suffer. You’ve seen horrible things, done horrible things, and they will change you. I’m so afraid for what you could be, if given the wrong chance.”

When Julian finds Mare sulking alone in the infirmary, he echoes her earlier observation that no one is born evil, adding that people are not born alone and calling to Mare’s greatest fear. Julian is firmly of the opinion that one’s experiences shape them. The observation that no one ends up alone calls back to Jon’s prediction that Mare would rise alone. Mare may have taken those words to heart, which may have changed her path. She may be acting to fulfill that prophecy without realizing it, and Julian’s lecture may be a turning point that will change her future.

“Once I thought about how much of my life my older brothers missed—but I’ve done the same. They are not as I remember. They are warriors as much as I am.”

Mare thinks this after her brothers agree to help stop the child soldiers from being sent into battle. This is another moment where Mare comes to understand that something she’s learned about others also applies to herself, showing how people often miss things within themselves that they see in other people. Mare realizes here that the last several weeks of her life have been spent preparing for a war and fighting small battles. She didn’t know she was missing her life until she thought about her brothers missing life while soldiers. The realization makes her more committed to living and fighting, the decisive moment of freedom before she’s taken prisoner.

“Jon knew this would happen. Jon let it happen. A darker thought takes hold. Perhaps this is another trade, another bargain. Perhaps this was the best fate he would ever face.” 

At Shade’s funeral, Mare is angry because she believes Jon could have warned her or told her something that might have changed events enough so her brother would survive. Faced with the irreversibility of death, Mare seeks someone to blame. She’s sure Jon knew Shade’s fate, and so he provides a temporary outlet for her anger. However, toward the end of her thoughts, she sees Jon’s ability in a new light. Mare’s grief makes her wonder how she could have saved Shade, but it’s possible she could have saved him only for him to end up a prisoner of the Silvers or worse. The passage as a whole speaks to the uncertainty of the future and the power of choice. Any small change could alter the path in untold ways.