Chapters 15-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Ann visits the Morgan Library for the first time, an elite private space where Patrick’s panel will be held as part of a larger symposium on divination. Ann recognizes many of the attendees as academics who rejected her from prior applications. While there, she runs into a fellow student, Laure, from her old college. When Rachel meets Laure, there is instant tension between them.
Ann and Rachel sit apart, together, and watch a lecture on tarot, in which an older male scholar states that tarot was only used for divination in relatively recent times. Ann and Rachel share the knowledge that he’s mistaken. After the lecture, Laure visits with Ann and asks about her relationship with Rachel. Laure invites Ann to brunch later on. Ann spends some time talking to Aruna, who feels worn out by academic events. Aruna cautions Ann against becoming too buried in her work and forgetting to live in the present.
Chapter 16 Summary
Ann and Rachel grow closer, to Patrick’s discomfort. In the Cloisters’ gardens, Ann reflects on how the city is changing her. She meets Leo, who leads her into the garden shed and offers her cut flowers. They begin kissing until Rachel interrupts them. Once Ann joins her, Rachel becomes possessive and defensive, thinking Ann is prioritizing Leo over her.
A few days later, Patrick asks them both to stay late after work. That evening, Leo offers them hallucinogenic herbs, which Patrick believes will make them more open to the effects of the tarot cards. With ingredients like belladonna and henbane, Leo assures them the quantities are safe amounts. Ann, Patrick, and Rachel begin a tarot reading as the drugs take effect. Ann loses consciousness and wakes to Leo helping her outside. Rachel and Patrick remain in the library.
Chapter 17 Summary
Ann wakes at Leo’s apartment and leaves for work. When she arrives, she discovers Patrick dead in his office and Rachel trying to revive him with chest compressions. Ann calls an ambulance and tells them about the dead body. While they wait, Rachel begins going through Patrick’s things. They find his tarot card set just as Moira arrives. Soon after, Patrick is taken away and the police ask everyone questions. Ann and Rachel consider what to do next. That evening, they remove all the false fronts from the card deck and examine the true cards. The deck is complete except for one. Ann questions Rachel about the previous night, but Rachel claims not to remember anything. She suggests Patrick’s death was bad luck, but Ann disagrees.
The Cloisters remains open and active, though they’re searching for a replacement for Patrick’s job. The coroner announces that Patrick’s death was by belladonna, and not a heart attack as originally thought. An officer named Detective Murphy comes to speak with everyone. When questioned, Ann echoes Rachel’s sentiment that it may just be bad luck. Ann begins to suspect Patrick may have sought out more herbs for himself. She doesn’t share any more information with the detective.
Chapter 18 Summary
Ann, Rachel, and several others from the museum attend the memorial service. Several noted scholars are in attendance, and Ann wonders which will be Patrick’s replacement. Tension grows between Aruna and Rachel.
After she leaves, Rachel asks Ann about her plans for the future, and Ann is uncertain. When Rachel goes to join the party, Ann joins Leo in private. He warns her about Rachel and theorizes that Rachel killed Patrick. When Rachel returns to collect Ann, Ann decides to go home with Leo instead.
Chapter 19 Summary
Ann meets Laure for brunch. Laure offers her condolences, and Ann resents her sudden solidarity after her absence after college. Laure asks about Rachel. She tells Ann that Rachel has a worrisome history, and that her college roommate fell to her death. Laure believes Rachel was responsible. Rachel has also created complications for other students and teachers.
Ann becomes defensive of her friendship with Rachel. Laure presses her belief that Rachel killed Patrick. Ann gets angry and leaves. At the Cloisters, she discovers Rachel and Leo arguing. Rachel comes to join Ann and warns her to be cautious of Leo. In the library, Ann consults the tarot cards about Rachel.
Chapter 20 Summary
Ann spends the day with Leo. As they prepare to go out, Ann discovers a carved ivory figure in Leo’s closet. Leo tells Ann it belonged to his grandmother. He takes Ann around the city, showing her his favorite places. Detective Murphy phones Leo and arranges to come see him at the Cloisters. Leo and Ann discuss their interviews, and tension grows between them.
At the end of the afternoon, Ann returns to Rachel’s. The apartment is empty and Ann explores. There are clear signs of wealth and a few photographs of Rachel’s parents. Ann searches Rachel’s room for proof that she should heed Laure and Leo’s caution about Rachel. Ann receives a call from her mother, who wants her to leave New York and come home.
Chapter 21 Summary
The investigation into Patrick’s death continues as Rachel and Ann prepare their breakout article on their discovery. Ann’s research takes her into the Cloisters’ storage, where thousands of miscellaneous items are held indefinitely. She finds an empty space where an ivory figure should be that matches the one she saw in Leo’s apartment. Upon further investigation, Ann sees that the storage is missing many such items. Detective Murphy arrives to speak with both Ann and Rachel, but Rachel insists they’ll only speak with a lawyer. Afterwards, Ann tells Rachel about Leo’s thefts. Ann suggests Leo may have murdered Patrick.
Chapter 22 Summary
Ann and Rachel catch up with Detective Murphy and tell her about Leo’s thefts. Ann reflects on her growing trust in the messages of the cards. She notices that Rachel seems relieved by the news about Leo. At the end of the day, they meet Leo and confront him about his thefts. He admits to stealing in order to fund his career as a playwright. Rachel accuses him of killing Patrick, and Ann admits she’s spoken with the detective. He’s adamant that he was not responsible for Patrick’s death, and Ann believes him. Regardless, Ann comes to understand that she needs to look out for herself.
Chapters 15-22 Analysis
The occult symposium is Ann’s first experience with the upper echelons of the academic world; the scene is an entryway for both her and the reader into the structure of this society. The tarot lecture by the older male scholar, which contrasts with Ann and Rachel’s belief about their discovery, creates a greater sense of divide between the two women and the academic community. However, despite age and gender disparity, Ann and Rachel don’t feel negatively about the divide; rather, they feel a sense of superiority over those present.
Immediately following is the novel’s hinge, or midpoint—the tarot reading that leads to the dramatic upheaval of Ann’s work at the Cloisters. With Patrick’s death, her place in the museum and future are called into question. Patrick was the saving influence that kept Ann from being sent home at the start of the novel, and his death forces Ann to transcend her personal limitations and become her own savior.
After Patrick’s death, the plot begins moving quickly. Both Ann and Rachel are forced into action. Ann is initially perturbed by Rachel’s lack of compassion, but ultimately throws herself into her work as well. Police involvement adds urgency and tension as the two women work toward their goal of completing their article. Through external forces like Leo, Aruna, and Laure, Rachel’s influence on Ann begins to come loose, and Ann begins the trajectory that will eventually take her above and beyond her friendship with Rachel. The novel introduces Laure late, and doesn’t explore their shared past earlier in the narrative. Thus, Laure serves as a plot device.
Ann’s growing unease about Rachel is derailed by the discovery of Leo’s thefts, which provides Rachel with an easy way to deflect suspicion off herself and close the case permanently. When they confront Leo, Ann is forced to recognize that she doesn’t truly believe he was involved in Patrick’s murder. In recognizing this, she is forced to make a choice about her future—she prioritizes career growth over those she cares about, moving toward the next stage of her character arc, that of self-corruption.
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