Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Esther remembers that she’d seen the vampire book before, when her father asked if she could destroy it. She and Nicholas attempt to do so, despite his hesitation at killing his uncle, but are unable to damage it. Nicholas posits that they need to destroy the object to which Richard had bound his life first; he’s certain it’s the bone in the portrait frame in Richard’s study. They discuss what will happen when the wards drop and realize that mirror magic will work from the outside as well, enabling objects to be passed into the mirror in Esther’s room, not just out.

The group clusters in Esther’s bedroom as the wards drop in case Maram passes something through. Esther goes downstairs to make tea and finds the note and vial of blood she received through the mirror in Antarctica. She compares the handwriting to the Gil novel to find that it matches, which confirms that Maram is Isabel. A note comes through the mirror, telling them the Library will soon be empty and to “Remember: the path provides the natural next step” (337). Esther realizes that she and Nicholas can go through the mirror into the Library.

Nicholas and Esther go through the mirror and into Maram’s bedroom and make their way to the collection. Though they worry about how they’ll read the spell, Maram has done it for them and provided a companion spell to lengthen the spell’s effects. When they arrive at the study, they find Richard, who is holding a gun, and Maram, who tells Richard she told him they would come.

Worried, Collins and Joanna wait outside. They talk, then kiss, but are interrupted when they hear a car. Cecily arrives, saying that she was thinking about Joanna and that she was surprised to realize she knew where the house was after all. When she learns the wards are down, she says that Richard will be coming. She realizes that her request to break the silencing spell she’d been under for 23 years had been granted after she sent the note through the mirror, but there’s another silencing spell in the basement she’d like to break (Maram’s).

Shocked to see Maram with Richard, Nicholas asks why she helped Esther in Auckland. Maram admits to going behind Richard’s back because he “would never have agreed to any plan that involved letting you out of the house, running around the world on your own” (358). Richard tells Nicholas to give him the book or he’ll shoot Esther. Esther asks what’s in all this for Maram, and they reveal she’s been promised an immortality spell as well. Esther watches Maram closely, looking for a resemblance. Esther notices her face change in the same way Collins’s had when they removed the NDA spell. Maram then speaks in code about the Library as her child and the need to protect it, her language suggesting the bee spell; she then quotes the Gil novel. Maram nods to Esther, who lunges toward Richard as the gun goes off.

Back in Vermont, Cecily breaks the silencing spell and tells Joanna that she actually met Abe when they lived in Mexico City, when he was still with Isabel. She tells the story of Isabel, who was more ambitious about the bookstore than her parents and who heard rumors of the Library in London. Isabel decided to attend Oxford and make herself known to Richard, to whom she realized she was attracted, and asked for a job. He gave her a trial period of seven years in which to finish her degree and act as the Library’s representative in North America. While in love with Richard, Isabel fell in love with Abe when she connected with him about buying his collection. She became pregnant and was convinced to keep the baby, despite not wanting to be a mother, in light of its potential magical ability. When Abe and Isabel broke up a year after Esther’s birth, they employed a nanny: Cecily. When Isabel’s trial period ended, she was invited to the Library full time, after which Abe and Cecily moved to Vermont and had Joanna.

Isabel arrived in Vermont two years later, having learned about Scribes from John, Nicholas’s father. Because two Scribes were required to kill Richard, he ensured that “no two Scribes ever live free at the same time” (374), using the seeking spell. Isabel tipped Richard off to John’s escape plan so that he would be killed, then activated a plan to keep Esther safe: Maram sent the life-book containing the immortality spell via mirror and had Abe and Cecily set a silencing spell on her so that she could not reveal what she has done, even if magically questioned. Cecily explains that her conflict with Abe was based on her desire to burn the wards so that Richard would locate the book and they could use it as collateral to keep Esther home, but Abe didn’t think it would work. Cecily tells the others that she has no idea of Maram’s intentions.

In Richard’s study, Maram has placed a spell on the gun, and the bullets turn to bees. Nicholas shoots the bone before he and Esther destroy the book. Richard ages and dies.

Maram has vanished, realizing she is neither best for the Library nor for Nicholas and Esther. She first ensures Nicholas has the documents he needs as the new head of the Library. While Esther and Nicholas have been traveling back and forth between London and Vermont constantly via the mirror, Joanna finally flies to England with Esther, where Collins picks them up at the airport and asks Joanna out to dinner. Esther has mailed Pearl a magical book for proof, and Pearl calls her back, delighted with the spell and open to Esther’s explanations. They arrive at the Library for Joanna to read a spell on which she’s been collaborating with Nicholas—they aim to right one of the Library’s wrongs and undo Richard’s bloodline spell.