It’s the penultimate chapter of House of Night: Untamed! Don’t be misled because the word “ultimate” was technically in there. Do not raise your expectations.
House of Night: Untamed Chapter 32
The last chapter ended with Zoey’s surprise reveal of Stevie Rae and the other recently dead students as red fledglings, which they seemingly just calmly talked about for a few pages while the students and staff of the House of Night just sort of stood their patiently.
Naturally all hell broke loose then.
Oh, I was wondering about that.
Sons of Erebus shouted and started forward toward our circle. Vampyres were crying out in shock, and I swear some girl started screaming.
“Most people were doing one thing, and this might sound totally crazy, but believe me, the narrator, when I say that ONE PERSON in that crowd was doing something NOT THAT DIFFERENT.” Oh, House of Night. I’m going to miss you when we’re done with this book.
Zoey decides to hurry up and conclude the circle while the levels of chaos are remaining largely reasonable.
I lifted the goblet, and Stevie Rae took a big gulp. I frowned a little at her.
“What?” she whispered. “Erik’s yummy.”
Well, this isn’t weird at-
Stevie Rae had a point, Erik was yummy, but then I already knew that.
…let’s just move on to the part where Zoey explains to the vampyre world, nah, the dead coming back to life that she secretly knew about all this time are totally cool.
“Stevie Rae did not die. She went through another kind of a Change. It was hard for her, and it almost cost Stevie Rae her humanity, but she made it through, and now she is a new kind of vampyre. […] Nyx never abandoned her, though. As you can see, she still has her affinity for earth, a gift given to her, and then given to her again by Nyx.” […]
“I found I’d Changed into a different kind of vampyre,” [Stevie Rae] pointed to her beautiful red tattoo. […]
“When Stevie Rae Changed, I did, too.” Aphrodite lifted her hand and with a quick swipe, she wiped off the blue crescent that had been outlined there. I heard several gasps as she continued. “Nyx Changed me into a human”
So just to recap, the students of House of Night see friends they saw die come back to life as a type of creature they’ve never heard of before and just kinda don’t react for a few pages, but they see that Aphrodite is a human again and it’s immediate gasps. Not that the latter isn’t surprising, but surely the former merited a bit more than a few pages of no reaction?
Aphrodite explains that she still has her gift for visions, even though she’s no longer a vampyre. And Zoey explains (again) that Stevie Rae is a new type of fledgling. Neferet suddenly shows up, not having any of it.
“Lies!” [Neferet] looked like an avenging goddess […] “You ask us to accept a perversion of nature as something the Goddess made? […] Those creatures were dead. They should be dead again.”
The anger that spiked within me shattered her magnetism. “You should know […] It was you who kept them as prisoners until through us Nyx healed and then freed them.”
Her eyes widened in a perfect look of surprise. “You blame me for these monstrosities?”
“Hey, me and my friends aren’t monstrosities!” came Stevie Rae’s voice
Shekinah is still around somewhere, I guess, but the leader of all vampyres probably doesn’t have much to do in a situation like this. I suppose that’s the lesson about vampyres we have to take away from this.
The gang lob some more accusations at Neferet that nobody witnessing this scene particularly reacts to. I don’t even fucking care that all these kids are about to get killed by raven-people or whatever. They weren’t even here to begin with.
Aphrodite spoke from beside me. “Hey, Neferet. Where’s your Goddess insignia?”
Neferet looked from Damien to Aphrodite, and her eyes narrowed in anger. But everyone was now looking at Neferet and noticing what Aphrodite had said— that Neferet’s exquisite black dress had no badge of Nyx over her breast. […] Dangling from a golden chain around her neck were wings – big, black, raven wings carved from onyx. […]
“[They’re] the wings of Erebus, Nyx’s consort.”
“Um, excuse me, but, no, they’re not,” Damien said.
Why did Neferet decide to wear the symbol of an evil god tonight? Why is she upset that she got found out doing this very obvious thing? Why does no one care that this is really, really suspicious?
Neferet has just the convenient plot twist to counter these accusations that nobody is apparently reacting to.
Neferet turned so that her gaze swept the stunned crowd. “Tonight I discovered another of the creatures Zoey and her people were raising from the dead.” [She revealed] the nanny cam monitor and the camera itself […] “Do you deny that Zoey made you plant this in the morgue […] so that she could watch to see when her wicked spells would resurrect [James Stark]?”
Stark’s back! …who remembers anything about Stark?
“Zzzzoey . . .” He said my name in something like a hiss, but it gave me an instant of hope. I took a stumbling step toward him.
“Yes, Stark, it’s me,” I said, trying hard not to cry.
“Ssssaid I’d come back to you,” he murmured.
Oh. Suddenly I remember everything about Stark.
Shekinah finally decides to do something.
Shekinah’s voice came from the other side of the circle. “What has been done to this child is quite horrible. Zoey, I must insist that you close this ritual for this evening. We shall take the fledglings inside, and contact the Council of Nyx to come and judge these events.”
No, Shekinah says nothing about how everyone noticed Neferet is wearing what’s roughly a vampyre swastika out in the open. Shekinah’s got this, you guys.
Nyx tells Zoey not to end the ritual, so Zoey must do so, as that’s the only reason this narrative ever shambles forward. Neferet commands Stark to “aim for the true mark – the one that will make the earth bleed”. Stark pulls a bow and arrow and shoots Stevie Rae in the chest. Shekinah is still apparently pretty cool with all this.
Neferet commanded him. I saw him pause, as if he was fighting against himself. “Do as I command, and I will give you your heart’s desire.” […] Stark’s eyes blazed red and with the swiftness of a striking snake, he lifted the bow I hadn’t noticed he was holding at his side, sighted an arrow, and shot. Slicing the air in a deadly line, it struck Stevie Rae in the center of her chest […] Blood was pouring from her chest […] soaking the ground around her, which was lumpy from the roots of the big oak. […] It looked like the earth at the base of the great oak was bleeding.
Shekinah is still not reacting to literally any of this.
Neferet declares that she’s the Queen Tsi Sgili. Although it’s kind of unclear to whom.
My name is no longer Neferet. From this night on call me Queen Tsi Sgili. The words were spoken in my mind just as plainly as if Neferet had been standing beside me whispering them in my ear.
But you know what? I have to give House of Night props for ending the second-last chapter with the bluntest – and therefore greatest – sentence possible.
“No!” I cried, and then the night exploded.
Boom.