58 pages • 1 hour read
B. B. AlstonAmari and the Night Brothers
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
The recruiter reveals that every legendary creature, from every legend, myth, tall tale, and otherwise, really exists in our world. The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs is responsible for maintaining a safe distance between the supernatural world and the human one. Quinton worked for the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs as a Special Agent in the Department of Supernatural Investigations. He has nominated Amari for a summer career training program at the Bureau. In the program, Amari will train for a career in one of the many departments of the Bureau; if she passes the tryouts at the end of the summer, she will earn a scholarship that will allow her to enter a career of her choosing. The recruiter tests Amari’s potential in order to assign her a badge that will indicate her projected aptitude. Amari’s potential is so high it shatters the Badge Tester.
Chapter 7 Summary
Under the impression that Amari has been accepted to a prestigious leadership camp, Mama helps Amari prepare for the summer camp. Amari is pessimistic about her chances of passing the tryouts, but Mama is confident that Amari will succeed. She drops Amari off at the Vanderbilt Hotel, where they are met by Agent Magnus, a friend and colleague of Quinton’s. He escorts Amari on her first steps into the supernatural world.
Chapter 8 Summary
Hidden within the Vanderbilt Hotel is the entrance to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is awed to see every kind of fantastical creature possible—even the elevators talk. The supernaturals choose to keep themselves hidden from the human world for safety, but despite that, the two worlds collide constantly; it’s the job of the Bureau to manage those collisions and keep the supernatural world secret. Amari presses Agent Magnus for information about her brother, but the details surrounding Quinton’s case are classified.
Amari meets her new roommate, Elsie Rodriguez. Elsie is a weredragon (a human who can change into a dragon) but hasn’t had her first “shift” yet. Weredragons were considered extinct until Elsie’s egg was found; she was adopted by a human member of the Bureau, but she is lonely as she is the last of her kind. Elsie also struggles to make friends because the other girls are afraid of her. Elsie is a gifted inventor and can read others’ emotions in the color of their auras.
Elsie fills Amari in on Quinton’s influence in the supernatural world. Quinton and his partner, Maria Van Helsing, were together known as “VanQuish” and are famous for defeating the evil magician Moreau. Moreau was one of the Night Brothers, a pair of the most dangerous magicians ever known to the supernatural world. The Bureau currently has Moreau in custody, but there are reports that his apprentices are creating human-monster hybrids to terrorize the supernatural world. Because of the havoc the Night Brothers wreaked in the past, magicians are widely hated in the supernatural world. Magicians possess a great amount of magic and have historically used that magic to wage war on the supernatural world.
The girls’ conversation turns to the badge ceremony tomorrow, when all the trainees will be awarded a badge according to their measured aptitude. When Amari tells Elsie that she broke the Badge Tester, Elsie speculates that Amari will probably be receiving a Moonstone Badge—the highest and rarest level, considered legendary. Quinton received a Moonstone Badge when he was a trainee. Elsie excitedly tells Amari that she could be a hero just like Quinton, but this angers Amari as she doesn’t feel she could ever compare to Quinton.
Chapter 9 Summary
At the Badge Ceremony, each trainee is called before the audience to receive their badge and a supernatural ability, which helps them more easily navigate the supernatural world; by touching the Crystal Ball, each trainee has one personal quality enhanced, constituting their supernatural ability. Elsie’s natural inclination for inventiveness is enhanced to “Mastermind Inventor.”
At the ceremony, Amari meets Dylan and Lara Van Helsing, the younger twin siblings of Quinton’s partner, Maria Van Helsing. The Van Helsings are one of the most powerful families in the supernatural world. The twins whisper and snicker together, giving Amari the impression that they are laughing at her. At one point during the ceremony, Amari catches Dylan staring at her, though he claims he wasn’t. Both Dylan and Lara receive gold badges, the very highest badge typically awarded to a trainee. Amari is nervous about going onstage and being handed the legendary Moonstone badge, and even more so about touching the Crystal Ball. When Amari touches the Crystal Ball, it indicates her “Dormant Magic” has been enhanced to “Active Magician (Illegal)” before exploding in a plume of black smoke.
Chapter 10 Summary
Amari is whisked away to a conference room attended by the highest-ranking officials of the Bureau. The adults measure Amari’s magic and discover that she has 100% magic, making her very existence illegal (89). Director Van Helsing, father to Maria and the twins and head of the Department of Supernatural Investigations, is hostile toward Amari and accuses her of being involved with the monster-human hybrid attacks. Luckily, Agent Magnus arrives to stick up for Amari. Agent Fiona, Agent Magnus’s partner, uses her supernatural ability to read Amari’s intentions. She announces to the other adults gathered that Amari is no threat; her only intention is to find her brother.
Many of the other adults there are in favor of locking Amari up solely because of her magic. The majority of the supernatural world believes that magicians will only use their power for evil, or that otherwise such extreme power will corrupt them; they explain how the Night Brothers, Sergei Vladimir and Raoul Moreau, gave themselves a lot of power and used the blood of innocents to attain immortality. The adults fear Amari because they don’t know anything about her magic. Director Van Helsing, in particular, is adamantly opposed to magicians and Amari.
The adults determine that she is an illusionist, at the very least, because when they inspect the Crystal Ball for damage, they find none. Amari is allowed to remain in the Bureau with the warning that she must prove that she belongs there.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
Chapters 6-10 find Amari taking her first step into the supernatural world; as she does, new conflicts are introduced, as well as key figures that develop the plot, Amari’s journey, and the mystery surrounding Quinton’s disappearance. Tension rises Amari learns more about her brother’s occupation in Chapter 6, and again when the Badge Tester breaks, hinting at Amari’s own role in the supernatural world: the fact that she is an illegal magician. In addition to the mystery of Quinton’s disappearance, the narrative introduces the mystery of Amari’s powers.
Of the newly introduced key characters, Elsie and Agent Magnus stand out as characters who accept Amari unquestionably. In addition, in Chapter 10, both Agents Magnus and Agent Fiona take Amari’s side and treat her with respect, demonstrating that not everyone will automatically react to Amari with hostility. The Van Helsing twins, introduced in Chapter 9, further expand the varied opinions of those within the supernatural world. Amari’s initial impression of them is that they are joking at her expense and do not like her; however, she later catches Dylan staring at her. This foreshadows the attraction between Dylan and Amari and drives some of the novel’s thematic arcs, including Hope in the Face of Prejudice. Dylan and Amari are foils of each other: characters who are set up to contrast each other in some way, typically to progress character arcs and enhance narrative themes. By introducing Dylan to Amari through the lens of possible prejudice, the author sets them up for reflective development.
Amari discovers that she’s a magician in Chapter 9, adding another dimension to the plot’s conflicts. However, Amari is no stranger to this particular form of judgment. Just as she dealt with racism at Jefferson Academy, in the supernatural world she must now deal with people’s preconceived hate and hostility because of her status as a magician. Some, like Director Van Helsing, are ready to throw her out without knowing anything else about her. The author uses this parallel to develop the Hope in the Face of Prejudice theme. Amari must “prove [she] belong[s]” in the supernatural world, (99) an echo of her experiences as an impoverished Black girl in the human world, attending a high-class school on scholarship and dealing with harassment regularly. While Amari’s personal strength is a large aspect of her ability to persevere against prejudice, those like Elsie and Agent Magnus support her against the forces of hatred.
With the revelation of Amari’s magic comes the history of Moreau and Vladimir. Elsie references the monster-human hybrids in Chapter 8, and in Chapter 10 the adults tell Amari more about them, establishing this as a major conflict facing the supernatural world. It also introduces a new objective for Amari: she must prove that she is a good magician, unlike the Night Brothers. Amari’s juxtaposition to the “bad” magicians suggests that resolving the threat of Moreau will ultimately fall to her and will in some ways be tied up with the resolution of her own struggle to prove her goodness as a magician.
