Incarceron

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron’s Warden. She is nearly 18 and lives outside the prison on a fancy estate. The Warden is usually away on business but visits home every few months. Claudia has mostly been raised by her nurse, Alys; her tutor, Jared; and other servants. Everyone on the estate fears the Warden, who is now returning home.

The Warden has brought a guest: Lord Evian, Queen Sia’s Chancellor. Claudia is betrothed to Queen Sia’s son, Caspar. The wedding has been moved to next week because Caspar was expelled from his school due to fomenting violence, using drugs, and impregnating people. Claudia hates Caspar, but her father says that she must marry him and become queen. Claudia thought she had more time to finagle her way out of this scenario, but now, she panics.

The Comitatus live in a part of Incarceron that contains few other inhabitants. The prison itself can often see and hear them, but it does not usually interfere with their activities, even when they engage in violence and robbery. Incarceron doesn’t seem to care about correcting inmate behavior, only about preventing escape.

The leader of the Comitatus is Jormanric, the “Winglord.” The Comitatus do not normally take hostages, so Finn dreads explaining why he chose to kidnap Maestra. Now, Finn slips into a vision or “fit” and sees flashes of memories that may or may not be real. He believes that he was born outside Incarceron and was transported here with his memory mostly wiped. However, others tell him that he is Incarceron’s son and was born inside the prison as an adolescent instead of a baby. His most prominent memory is a cake from his seventh birthday party, which happened at a place outside, with a lake and stars.

Finn’s oathbrother, Keiro, accompanies Finn to explain Maestra to Jormanric. Jormanric has several bodyguards, many of whom are “halfmen,” meaning that their bodies are made of both organic material and metal. (Incarceron recycles dead bodies and sometimes adds metal to create halfmen.) Many people regard halfmen as abominations, but Keiro especially hates them. Jormanric forces an enslaved person to taste all his food and drink to make sure it isn’t poisoned.

Keiro argues that Finn deserves a hostage because he is the one who risked his life as bait in the raid. Jormanric has seven rings with skulls on them, each representing a life he has taken. He believes that each one gives him an extra life to live. Jormanric says that Finn should kill Maestra and give her life to him because he is the Winglord, but Finn suggests holding her for ransom instead. An older man named Gildas enters and supports Finn and Keiro’s argument. Gildas is a Sapienti, part of a group of wise, learned men. Over a century ago, the Sapienti created Incarceron, believing that it would become a utopia. The Sapienti are still highly respected even though their experiment has failed. Now, Keiro convinces Jormanric that Maestra’s life would not be as good as a man’s. Finn leads Maestra away, but she is furious.

The narrative explains that after the Sapienti created Incarceron, dozens of them volunteered to enter the prison and ensure its smooth running. However, things did not go as planned.

Beyond Incarceron, the kingdom’s laws dictate that everything must be modeled after an antiquated era. Accordingly, modern technological devices, medicines, and ideas are outlawed. However, many people still use them anyway, especially wealthy people. The Warden has a secret study that nobody else is allowed inside, not even his trusted secretary, Medlicote. Claudia isn’t sure whether her father loves her, for although he is not cruel, he shows little affection and seems to view her as a tool in his plot to gain greater power.

Claudia visits her tutor, Jared, in his tower, where he has lots of illegal devices. They discuss Claudia’s previous engagement to the deceased King’s son, Giles, who was also Queen Sia’s stepson. Claudia liked Giles and wanted to marry him. She remembers his seventh birthday party. However, he died when he fell from a horse at age 15, and then Claudia become engaged to Caspar.

On a forbidden screen, Jared shows Claudia an excerpt of a letter from Queen Sia to her father. The letter implies that Giles’s death wasn’t an accident and that Sia planned his murder. Presumably, Sia wanted her own son to be heir, not Giles. However, the excerpt is only a fragment and does not fully prove anything. Also, doctors have confirmed that the fall was the cause of Giles’s death. He has since been cremated, so they cannot check again. Suddenly, one of Jared’s alarms indicates that a listening device is nearby, so they cut their conversation short. Jared has a grave illness that has been troubling him more than usual lately.

Finn gains Maestra’s interest when he tells her that he woke up in a cell one day around age 15, with no real memory of his past. Children born to the prison are called “cell-born” and are believed to have magical or psychic abilities. However, they often die young or suffer severe mental and physical health problems, so it is rare to meet lucid cell-born adults. Finn does not believe that he is cell-born, but everyone else seems to. He woke up in a cell with the name “Finn” printed on his clothes and a red eye watching him. Eventually, the cell door opened. He crawled down a tunnel for a few days until he encountered the Comitatus. Gildas and Keiro convinced the gang not to kill Finn, and they let him become Keiro’s oathbrother instead. Finn and Keiro are meant to protect each other; they are also sworn to seek revenge if the other is killed. Gildas believes that Finn’s flashes of “memory” from the Outside are not real memories, but visions sent by Sapphique, an inmate who, according to legend, is the only person to have ever escaped Incarceron.

If the Civicry refuse to pay Maestra’s ransom, she will be enslaved. Jormanric wants treasure equivalent to Maestra’s weight. Finn also wants the crystal that resembles his tattoo. If the Civicry oblige, Finn promises Maestra that she will be safe.

Only the Warden knows where Incarceron is. When it was created, criminals were sent there, but then the gates were sealed so that supposedly nobody could leave or enter again. Therefore, children born inside are imprisoned forever, and no new outsiders are committed. The prison was supposed to become a utopia with free education and healthcare. The Warden claims that it is indeed a utopia and is functioning as planned. However, the world within Incarceron is actually a dystopia. Approximately 150 years have passed since its inception, and the job of Warden is still passed down. Each new Warden maintains the lie about the true state of the prison.

Now, the Warden says that Claudia won’t need a tutor after the wedding, but Lord Evian convinces the Warden to continue employing Jared. The Warden and Evian go out, and Claudia implements her plan to sneak into her father’s study. Jared projects a hologram of her in his tower so that anyone watching will believe that she is in there studying. Meanwhile, Claudia uses a device of Jared’s to break into the study without setting off an alarm. Upon entering, she feels a strange shift. The room is larger than it seems from outside, and the window that appears from outside isn’t there. There are devices, screens, red lights, a desk, and a chair. She opens the desk drawer and sees an elaborate key with an eagle, which is the sign of the Havaarna Dynasty (to which Giles and his father belonged). She believes that this might be the key to Incarceron, so she picks it up, but her action trips an alarm. Jared messages her on a device to warn her that her father is coming back.

Gildas believes that Finn’s visions are from Sapphique and will eventually lead them to escape, even though many others have failed in this endeavor. Gildas and Finn never mention their plans of escape to Jormanric or the other Comitatus because they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the group freely. Finn isn’t sure whether he believes the stories about Sapphique, especially because each person tells the story differently. Also, Incarceron is so extensive that Finn believes it would take several lifetimes to journey through it.

The Civicry arrive with their ransom for Maestra, along with Finn’s crystal. They have enough treasure for the ransom, but to Finn’s dismay, the Comitatus kill Maestra anyway, letting her fall through a massive crack in the ground. Finn recognizes that the “crystal” is actually a key. Most inmates in Incarceron have never seen a key and would not understand what it is, which is why Maestra referred to it as a “crystal.” Finn believes that his knowledge of keys is further proof that he was born Outside.