From Blood and Ash

Penellaphe sneaks into the Atheneum to steal Miss Willa Colyns’s Diary. Miss Colyns is a “promiscuous” woman whose diary, which is now considered a historical document, depicts all of her sexual encounters in great detail. Penellaphe is convinced that there must be a section dedicated to Hawke. Dreading her room at the castle, she sits in a side office to read. She notices a liquor cabinet, something odd to find in a library, and suddenly hears the Duke’s voice. Startled, she climbs out the window onto an icy ledge.

Penellaphe overhears a meeting between the Duke and a Royal Guard. The guard has just come from torturing the blond boy from the ceremony, Lev Barron. The guard relays that the boy is not an Atlantian and that his behavior was quite unexpected. During the interrogation, Lev threatened to expose the truth about where the third and fourth sons and daughters are, stating that he knows they are not “servicing the gods” (252). Penellaphe then learns that Lev is a member of death with dignity and that the Duke is aware of the organization. The Duke states that the guard is free to go, and that he will take care of the Descenter.