Serpent & Dove

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019

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Part 2, Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2

Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary: “The Escape: Lou”

Reid angrily bursts into the room while Lou bathes and then is immediately embarrassed. As he watches her wash her hair, Reid asks Lou about her scars. She avoids telling him the truth. Reid reports that the Chasseurs failed to catch Andre and Grue but have successfully apprehended Bastien St. Pierre for killing one of Tremblay’s guards. Lou panics when she learns the sentence will be hanging. She knows she must use magic to help Bas escape.

Reid leaves on business. Burning a candle to mask her smell, Lou magically puts Ansel into a trance so he’ll take her to Bas’s cell. Trading her pleasant memories of Bas, she knocks the guards unconscious. Then she takes Bas’s memories of herself and Coco. He collapses, and she puts the keys to the cell next to him. She wipes Ansel’s memories of what has happened and then collapses from the effort. When she wakes, Bas is gone. She moves a groggy Ansel into the nearby library, and makes it look as if they are engaged in Bible study as she hears the Chasseurs discover their prisoner is missing.

Reid and Jean Luc burst into the room, where Reid smells magic. Lou thinks she’s doomed, but Coco saves the day by showing up to report that Lou and Ansel didn’t properly wash themselves after their visit to the infirmary. Reid chastises Ansel for disobeying him, but Lou rushes to the boy’s defense. Teary-eyed, Ansel is stunned Lou defended him. After everyone leaves, Reid tells Lou they found out that Alexandra is a pseudonym for Cosette Monvoison. He tries to make Lou see that witches are dangerous, but she tells him Chasseurs are too. He asks if Bas and she were lovers and if that’s why she let him escape, but she says they weren’t. He tells her that he knows she’s lying.

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “Lord Have Mercy: Lou”

Lou and Reid attend evening mass, where the Archbishop pontificates. He brags that he hit the bull’s-eye the first time he ever participated in archery, which the old bishop called “an act of God” (188). As the music begins, Lou sings the words to “Big Titty Liddy,” to Reid’s chagrin. During the call and response, Lou mutters that the Archbishop is a hypocrite: Reid is duly embarrassed, much to Jean Luc’s delight. As the service continues, Reid and Jean Luc joke around as they did when they were boys. Lou wonders silently whether there’s mercy for witches as she contemplates a verse about how actions reflect a person’s beliefs. Lou grows increasingly upset with those who speak about mercy but ask for the blood of witches in the same breath. Reid turns to apologize for shouting at Lou in the library, and when Lou pretends everything is okay, she feels like the biggest hypocrite of all.

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “Madame Labelle: Reid”

Lou is frustrated by her lack of reading material. The library mainly consists of religious guides or manuals for witch-hunting. Reid reveals he’s got a novel hidden in his room: La Vie Éphémère, or The Fleeting Life. It’s a story of star-crossed lovers who die trying to save the world. Lou is skeptical, which hurts Reid, who cherishes the book. He notes that he finds the end hopeful, but Lou claims death is never hopeful. She still wants to read the book.

Hélène comes to see Lou and speak to her alone, which surprises and frightens Lou. The Archbishop arrives too, and it’s obvious he and Hélène do not like one another. He tells her that she can’t talk to Lou because the cathedral doors are closing soon. Hélène remarks that church doors should never be closed. The guards are told to escort Hélène out, but she lunges forward, grabs Lou, and whispers in her ear that Lou’s mother is coming for her. Reid sweeps Lou out as the guards pull the older woman away despite Lou’s protests.

Part 2, Chapters 13-15 Analysis

These chapters show that Lou is willing to break rules at great risk to herself to protect others. Lou goes out of her way to rescue Bas, stand up for Ansel, and protect Hélène. Lou gives up not only her physical health but cherished memories to perform magic and ensure that Bas does not die or expose Coco. This selflessness draws Ansel to Lou and solidifies their friendship. However, Lou’s need to lie to protect herself and others keeps Reid distant, as he realizes she gave the Chasseurs false information about Coco.

Lou’s observations of the Archbishop confirm her understanding of him as driven by vanity; he brags that even his most trivial victories (hitting a bull’s-eye) show God favors him. Surrounded as she now is by religion, Lou is increasingly aware of a gap between what the Church claims to believe and what it does in the world. Lou doesn’t understand how the congregation can pray for witches’ torment while pretending to act out of charity and love. Despite the confusion it causes, Lou’s recognition of the Church’s hypocrisy is an important development in Resisting Dogma: Lou recognizes that the core teachings of Christianity are not themselves evil, breaking with her mother’s ideology and creating the possibility of common ground. She has also become more self-critical and reflective, recognizing that she is also guilty of hypocrisy in disguising herself as a Chasseur’s wife and attending mass.

Lou’s assistance in Bas’s escape and Jean Luc’s growing suspicion of her heighten the possibility that she will be exposed as a witch. Reid discovering that she lied about Coco makes him think she has divided loyalties. Morgane’s approach poses a different but equally serious threat to Lou’s safety. These plot developments increase the tension and show that it is necessary for Lou to confront her past as well as reveal the truth.