Jump to Chapter Recap of Cursed City: 1–9 | 18–26 | 27–35 | 36–44 | 45–53 // Harker Academy Book 1 Summary
Cursed City Chapters 10–17 Summary
This Kate Golden Cursed City chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Cursed City Chapter 10
Viv and Deacon are creeping through a back corridor when a mortal employee spots Viv and reaches for his phone. Deacon grabs the employee and breaks his finger to pressure him, then reads the employee’s eye movements to locate where Reid is being held. When the employee refuses to cooperate further, Deacon kills him by drinking his soul while Viv watches in horror.
When Viv and Deacon reach the room where Reid was being held, they find it empty. All that remains are broken chains and a large pool of blood that Deacon confirms belongs to Reid. Viv becomes convinced they’re too late and that Reid is dead.
Then two Brood demons wander in arguing, and their bickering reveals that Reid tricked them and escaped. Finn arrives moments later, furious, and kills both demons on the spot for letting Reid go. In his rage, Finn reveals that he’d been torturing Reid to force Viv’s true name out of him. Reid never gave up the information. Finn storms off to resume the hunt.
Once Finn is gone, Viv can no longer hold back the bloodlust that’s been building all night. One of the demons Finn attacked is still barely alive, and Viv kills the demon. The relief is immediate, though it unsettles her deeply. She and Deacon leave the Manor. The one thing keeping Viv going is knowing that Reid is out there somewhere, alive and free.
Cursed City Chapter 11
The semester ends under a cloud after the dean’s death, which Viv can’t bring herself to grieve the way everyone else seems to. Winter break becomes a research marathon as Viv and her friends tear through the school library and archives for any way to remove the syrabraxa from her back. The group also searches the city for Reid but turns up nothing.
Once classes resume, Viv tells Peter that the syrabraxa nearly made her lose control on a mission and pushed her toward a compulsive need to kill. Peter’s research has shown that the spell destroys the mental stability of anyone who carries it long enough, and Viv is probably only months away from that point. This confirms something Deacon had told her before, though the full weight of that warning hadn’t sunk in until now.
The conversation reminds Viv of a woman she once met at Shiloh Asylum whom Viv suspects carries the same spell. Before Viv can act on that suspicion, the group has its first class with Landon Prak, a no-nonsense replacement combat instructor who makes his expectations clear when he fires an arrow through a bubble Sophia blows mid-conversation and pins the gum to the wall. Viv and Sophia are sent to run laps.
After class, Viv pitches a trip to Shiloh. Elliot sits it out for lacrosse, but Peter and Sophia agree to come along.
Cursed City Chapter 12
Viv, Peter, and Sophia travel to Shiloh Asylum to track down the strange elderly woman Viv had encountered there months before. When they find the room, it’s completely bare, and a nurse at the front desk says she’s worked at Shiloh for nearly three decades and has no memory of any patient matching the elderly woman’s description. Viv is left shaken, wondering if the woman ever existed.
On the way back, a werewolf ambushes Viv, Peter, and Sophia. When the creature goes for Peter, Viv snaps and tears it apart well past the point of death. Peter and Sophia drag her away. When Viv comes back to herself, she sees fear in their eyes, not just concern.
Finn arrives moments later with a group of Brood and finds what’s left of the werewolf. Viv, Peter, and Sophia hide nearby as Finn orders his men to search the area and post more of his crew closer to Windsor. Peter goes quiet and says he recognizes Finn as the demon who killed Peter’s mother.
Back at Harker, Peter blames himself for freezing during the fight and walks off alone. A gnome then delivers an unmarked package to Viv. Inside is a silver 35mm camera, the same kind Viv had once described to Reid on a subway ride months ago. She immediately knows it’s from Reid and that he’s still alive.
Cursed City Chapter 13
Viv pulls Sophia aside before class to share her theory that the silver 35mm camera she received was sent by Reid and that the full roll of film already inside the camera might hold a message from him. She already sent Elliot to get the film developed in the city.
Then, during the lesson, Viv realizes witches can track deviants through an enchanted map using blood, and Reid’s demon brother Deacon is a living source of that blood. She shares the realization with Sophia after class.
Over lunch, the group pushes back, especially Penny, but Viv holds firm. It’s the only real lead they have. The bigger obstacle is finding someone to perform the spell, since Harker has no witches or warlocks on staff. Peter solves the problem almost by accident, mentioning offhand that the groundskeeper is a warlock. Most students never knew because they were too intimidated to talk to him.
The group goes to Fever Dream to find Deacon, who turns them down at first. Viv appeals to the possibility that Finn will find Reid before they do and kill him. Deacon agrees, but on one condition. If his blood is involved, he’s going to be in the room. He also shuts down Viv’s assumption that he couldn’t enter Harker. Deacon reveals that he’s been on campus before and has some kind of arrangement with the Elders. He holds up a copper lymantrian coin, the key to getting past the wards.
Deacon falls in step with the group as they head toward Harker.
Cursed City Chapter 14
The group uses a magical coin to travel through a kiosk, but instead of arriving at Windsor, they end up deep in the Fickle Thicket forest. They make their way onto Harker’s campus, and Deacon passes through undetected despite being a demon. Before entering the groundskeeper’s cottage, Deacon warns the group not to reveal what he really is.
Inside, Viv deliberately knocks a prized orchid off a shelf. The groundskeeper instinctively levitates the orchid before it can shatter, exposing himself as a warlock. She quickly reassures him they have no intention of turning him in, explains that Reid has gone missing, and asks if he can cast a tracking spell. Since the group doesn’t have Reid’s blood, they use his brother Deacon’s as an imperfect substitute.
The groundskeeper performs the spell over a world map. The blood settles on a single location. It points to Harker itself. Reid has been on Harker’s campus the whole time.
Deacon slips out the moment the spell ends. Viv follows and finds him bitter, convinced Reid is hiding deliberately and has no interest in being found. She pushes back, telling Deacon that she trusts Reid completely and will keep looking no matter what. Deacon returns her blood-soaked coat and warns her that Reid is too full of hatred and misery to love anyone the way she hopes he does.
Cursed City Chapter 15
Viv dreams her way through fragmented visions of Reid, ending on a scene in a grimy bar where she watches him brush off any mention of “the aeon girl” with complete indifference. She wakes up at the Windsor in the middle of a shift, where she’s been trying to finalize a gala seating chart.
Afterward, Viv talks Fiona into letting her attend a fundraising luncheon at the Pine family home. Her reasons are practical enough. She needs to patch things up with her mother, and waiting around for the camera film to be developed has her crawling out of her skin. Weeks of searching Harker’s campus for Reid have turned up nothing, and the spell on her back is a constant reminder that her time is running out.
The luncheon is exactly the kind of polished, overstuffed event Viv hates, but she gets through the pleasantries with her mother Beatrice Abbot, her sister Nora, Stan Pine, and Caspar Harlock. Then Caspar introduces his nephew, and Viv looks up to find Deacon. That’s unsettling enough on its own.
But the real blow lands a beat later when Viv finally connects the dots about Caspar himself. Caspar’s been right there the whole time as her mother’s suitor, a familiar face at Penny’s dinner table, and a Windsor board member. He’s also the High Thane of the Brood.
Cursed City Chapter 16
Viv realizes that Caspar, the man her mother has been spending time with, is the High Thane of the Brood and Deacon’s uncle. Viv and Deacon are both shocked by the discovery, but they keep their connection hidden from Caspar.
Being near the High Thane triggers a painful bloodlust episode through the syrabraxa curse, and Viv has to get away before she loses control. Deacon spots her, deflects her ex-boyfriend James, and gets her alone in a bathroom, where he offers himself up so she can stab him. Stabbing Deacon breaks through the worst of the episode.
Deacon then tells Viv the Elders already know Caspar’s identity and have left him in place deliberately, so going to them would be more dangerous than useful. He also explains that demons want to take over the human world rather than destroy it, which sheds light on why Caspar has been cozying up to Viv’s mother, a politically powerful woman on the rise.
The conversation shifts when Deacon suggests that Viv’s need for family approval runs deeper than insecurity about her relationships and that the only thing she and Reid truly shared was that wound, not any real understanding. Viv is rattled but pushes it aside. Now that she knows who the High Thane is, she needs to find Fiona.
Cursed City Chapter 17
Viv nearly loses control at the luncheon, so she and Fiona slip out before things get worse. On the drive back, Fiona decides their only option is to bring their information about Caspar Harlock to the Elders, even though the Elders can sense both lies and dark magic. That makes Viv’s presence extremely dangerous because of what she is and what she’s carrying.
Fiona’s solution is to take Viv to Professor Dawnmere’s cottage first. Dawnmere is hesitant but agrees to help, using a piece of her own fairy wing to mask the syrabraxa on Viv’s back. The effect only lasts about an hour, so Dawnmere sends Viv off with a spare fragment as a backup.
Viv and Fiona make their way to the Citadel, a castle fortress tucked inside the Fickle Thicket, where Citadel hunters escort them to the Elders’ chamber. Their goal is straightforward. They need to reveal Caspar’s identity and leave before anyone figures out what Viv really is.
It doesn’t go according to plan. The moment Viv gets close enough to the five Elders on their thrones, her scar starts reacting the same way it does around deviants. She suddenly realizes that the Elders are deviants themselves.