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Cursed City Chapters 45–53 Summary
This Kate Golden Cursed City chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Cursed City Chapter 45
Viv stops Deacon from going to the Windsor, noting that the site has been heavily fortified since the High Thane broke in the previous year. She realizes Reid is likely waiting for the gala the following night, when the crowd will make surveillance nearly impossible. Their only option is to find the ring and use it on Viv and Viv’s grandmother before Reid or Caspar can reach either of them.
When Viv asks Deacon to finally tell her everything, he explains that Reid had fallen in love with a nymph and planned to marry her, but their father considered the relationship a humiliation, had Reid and Thea captured, and ordered Reid to take Thea’s soul or face death.
Reid refused, so Deacon killed Thea to keep his brother alive. Their father saw the act as defiance, and Reid never forgave Deacon. Deacon was brought before their father and begged Reid for his life, but Reid told their father to do whatever he wanted. Their father exiled Deacon to the underworld.
Viv then asks Deacon about Odette, and he admits she’s his mother. His father had banished her years earlier, and Deacon tracked her down but was exiled before they could reconnect. After he escaped, he stayed hidden to avoid being sent back, and he never went looking for Odette again. Once Caspar took the throne, he found Odette and has been holding her captive ever since to keep Deacon from challenging him for power.
Deacon tells Viv that finding his mother is part of why he needs her. Viv promises that they’ll keep searching for Odette regardless of what happens with the ring, then grabs her blades and calls Sophia to meet them at Fever Dream.Viv stops Deacon from going to the Windsor, noting that the site has been heavily fortified since the High Thane broke in the previous year. She realizes Reid is likely waiting for the gala the following night, when the crowd will make surveillance nearly impossible. Their only option is to find the ring and use it on Viv and Viv’s grandmother before Reid or Caspar can reach either of them.
When Viv asks Deacon to finally tell her everything, he explains that Reid had fallen in love with a nymph and planned to marry her, but their father considered the relationship a humiliation, had Reid and Thea captured, and ordered Reid to take Thea’s soul or face death.
Reid refused, so Deacon killed Thea to keep his brother alive. Their father saw the act as defiance, and Reid never forgave Deacon. Deacon was brought before their father and begged Reid for his life, but Reid told their father to do whatever he wanted. Their father exiled Deacon to the underworld.
Viv then asks Deacon about Odette, and he admits she’s his mother. His father had banished her years earlier, and Deacon tracked her down but was exiled before they could reconnect. After he escaped, he stayed hidden to avoid being sent back, and he never went looking for Odette again. Once Caspar took the throne, he found Odette and has been holding her captive ever since to keep Deacon from challenging him for power.
Deacon tells Viv that finding his mother is part of why he needs her. Viv promises that they’ll keep searching for Odette regardless of what happens with the ring, then grabs her blades and calls Sophia to meet them at Fever Dream.
Cursed City Chapter 46
The group spends hours at Fever Dream planning a museum heist during an upcoming gala. They divide roles and work through every risk, including rival factions, Citadel hunters, Caspar, Reid, and even jail time. Sophia is the loudest skeptic, but the group eventually agrees the plan is as good as it’s going to get.
Deacon tells the group no one is going home. With Caspar knowing who Viv is and Harker shut down, the club is the safest place to stay.
Before turning in, Viv notices something between Peter and Sophia and confronts Peter privately. He admits his feelings for Sophia but fears acting on them could cost him their friendship. Viv disagrees, and they strike a deal. Once the mission is over, Peter will tell Sophia how he feels, and Viv will tell her mother that she’s a hunter.
In her room, Viv falls asleep studying the old sketch of Odette, hoping she can find some answer for Deacon.
Meanwhile, Deacon lies awake thinking about Viv on the other side of the wall.
Viv wakes from what may have been more than a dream. She’s not ready to open that door, not with everything riding on tomorrow. She promises herself that when it’s all over, she’ll ask Deacon whether he ever thinks about her.
Cursed City Chapter 47
Viv arrives at the ACFAC gala with Penny. Tension kicks in almost immediately when Caspar catches Viv’s eye from across the room and makes it clear that she won’t be leaving alive. Viv and Penny head to the bar to take the edge off, where they run into Deacon, who’s cleaned up considerably for the evening. Penny leaves to find Sophia. Viv is caught off guard by how Deacon looks, and Deacon clearly feels the same way about Viv, though neither of them does anything about it.
James interrupts the moment to greet Viv, and while she works to extract herself, she spots two unfamiliar men in the crowd. She immediately recognizes them as hunters, then sees Landon coming in right behind them. She shifts to put James between herself and Landon’s sightline, moves close to Deacon, and warns him without making a scene.
Reid shows up next, which Viv wasn’t expecting, and she improvises an explanation for why he’s there. James, unaware of what’s actually going on, makes a joke suggesting Viv has been involved with both brothers, and Deacon looks ready to hit him for it. James reads the room and leaves. Reid tries to pull Viv aside for a private conversation, but she brushes him off. Before Reid walks away, he says something that sounds less like a goodbye and more like a last word.
Cursed City Chapter 48
Sophia finds the group at the gala and tells them Baz and Elliot have what they need and are already heading out to find Ada. Viv needs to get downstairs to meet Ward, but Viv’s mother intercepts her before she can break away. Viv makes up an excuse, and while the rest of the group quietly disappears into the crowd, Viv and Penny get pulled into small talk.
Before Viv can escape, Caspar Harlock walks in with Ada on his arm. He takes the mic and delivers a speech to the room, positioning himself as a defender of the city and tying real violent incidents to South of the Chasm criminals. Viv knows Caspar’s own people were behind the violence he’s describing. The speech ends with Caspar throwing his support behind Beatrice for mayor and urging the crowd to donate to her campaign.
As the applause rises, Caspar finds Viv in the crowd and stares her down, making it clear that anyone who gets in Caspar’s way will suffer for it.
Cursed City Chapter 49
The group gathers in the Rare Gems exhibit at the Windsor and stages a fake plumbing emergency to clear out the guests. Once the room is empty, Ward shifts into werewolf form and breaks through the wall, opening a passage into the catacombs below. Penny stays behind to watch the entrance while the rest of the group heads into the catacombs.
As the group moves through the tunnels, Viv feels a pull through her skin that draws them deeper into the catacombs. Deacon goes ahead to scout and runs straight into an ogre guarding a treasure chest. The others rush in, and a fight breaks out.
Ward, Sophia, and Deacon keep the creature busy while Viv tries to get to the chest, taking a hit from the ogre along the way. Sophia eventually climbs onto the ogre and drives arrows into its eyes, and Deacon trips the creature so the ogre crashes to the ground. Viv then breaks the lock off the chest and opens it, hoping to find the ring inside.
Cursed City Chapter 50
The group realizes the Caspian Ring isn’t in the box at all. The ring has been hiding in the decorative rubies on the room’s sconces the whole time. The group pries the stones loose one by one and finds the ring tucked inside one of them.
Viv hesitates for a moment, suddenly afraid that Deacon might take the ring for himself to save his mother before Viv gets the chance to use it. Deacon senses her fear and is clearly hurt by it, but he doesn’t argue. He just takes the ring and slides it onto Viv’s finger, and it works. The ring removes the syrabraxa.
Then Reid steps out from a hidden tunnel. He followed the group the whole way, intending to let Viv lead him straight to the ring. Viv talks him down by making the case that helping the group free Ada first is actually the better deal for him. Reid seems unconvinced but doesn’t move against them.
Then Caspar walks in with Viv’s mother.
Cursed City Chapter 51
Caspar arrives in the catacombs through a separate tunnel with Viv’s mother. He tells the group he plans to open the Chasm and install his demons as an authoritarian force over the human world. Finn then enters with an army of Brood demons, and Viv’s grandmother is brought in as a hostage.
Turning his attention to Viv, Caspar demands the ring and threatens to sacrifice Ada if Viv refuses. To buy time, Viv claims she never found it, but Caspar orders Reid to expose Viv’s back and verify whether the syrabraxa is still there. Deacon steps in front of Reid, and the brothers briefly face off before Viv turns to show her back herself. The syrabraxa is already gone.
Viv then offers a trade: the ring for Ada and Beatrice. Caspar agrees, the group hands over the ring, and Viv moves her group toward the exit.
Caspar breaks the deal almost immediately. His warlock activates a censer that shields Caspar from the ring’s lethal power. His men seize Ada, and Caspar kills her with a shard of magical ice to absorb her syrabraxa. The surge of power transforms Caspar into a monstrous creature with wings, claws, horns, and scales. Holding both the charged ring and a syrabraxa, Caspar drives his claws into the ground.
Cursed City Chapter 52
The Chasm tears open, and the building above starts coming apart. Fighting breaks out in the catacombs as Viv’s group clashes with Caspar’s Brood demons. Ward gets Viv’s mother out while the rest of the group fights to hold their ground.
Caspar has Viv pinned and is about to kill her when Deacon pulls him off. Caspar fatally wounds Deacon in the struggle. Viv refuses to leave him, so Deacon uses a glamour ability he had kept hidden to push her out of the chamber against her will. Reid explains afterward that Deacon had always been capable of glamouring hunters but had never once used that ability on Viv before that moment.
Sophia then reveals she slipped Caspar a fake ring and that the real Caspian Ring is still somewhere in the collapsing room. Because of Deacon’s glamour, Viv physically can’t go back in. Peter steps up instead. He tells Sophia he loves her, kisses her, and leaves to retrieve the ring.
Peter digs through the rubble, finds the bag with the ring, and throws it into the tunnel to Viv. Before Peter can follow, Finn pulls him down from beneath the debris. Peter kills Finn, and the ceiling comes down on him.
Viv puts on the ring and uses it to seal the Chasm. The effort destroys her from the inside, and Viv collapses in the rubble, seemingly dying.
Cursed City Chapter 53
Viv is barely conscious, and her body is broken. Deacon drags himself through the wreckage to reach her, clears the rubble from her face, and does something with his bloodied thumb at Viv’s lips that pulls her back from the edge.
Heat is the first thing Viv notices when she comes to on a clifftop at night above a beach of dark sand and a sea of liquid fire. It’s nearly unbearable. Still in her ball gown, she notices the spot at her collarbone blistering and tears off her locket. She looks at her hand and finds something monstrous. It’s clawed, scaled, and dark. She focuses her will, and her hand reverts to normal.
Deacon appears, his wounds and antlers gone. Viv pieces together what he’s done. He took her soul to save her, then followed her into the Chasm, knowing it would trap him there forever. He had no obligation to do so. She had already sealed the Chasm. He could’ve walked free.
When Viv turns to look at Deacon, she sees fear and dread at what they now face together. She looks at the tattoos on his neck, and the reality of their situation settles in. The Chasm is closed. There’s no way out. They’re both trapped, with no way back.
Disclaimer: This is a Cursed City summary. The original work is the property of Kate Golden and Ace.
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