77 pages • 2 hours read
Rebecca RoanhorseTrail of Lightning
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 28-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
When Kai and Maggie enter the Shalimar, Maggie realizes that it is a night club. A bouncer at the door asks for their identification, which they provide in the form of their first two clans. Maggie asks the bouncer if he knows Mósí, but he says that Mósí is unavailable. Inside the Shalimar, which defies the laws of physics, Kai’s paint allows Maggie to see the club’s guests stripped of their illusions of normalcy, their clan characteristics showing clearly through. Maggie asks Kai if she looks different. She thinks, “I need to know if stripped of illusion, Kai can see the real me. And if he can, is it monstrous? Is the evil there, like the taint Neizghání warned me about?” (211). He says she looks the same, but to Maggie Kai seems to be even more beautiful than normal. Despite Maggie’s protests, Kai leaves to search for Mósí on her own, and Clive approaches Maggie. They discuss Maggie’s reputation, which he describes as “violent and antisocial” but not psychopathic (214). Clive also mentions overhearing that there is to be a big fight at the Shalimar this evening where Mósí will be the bookmaker. Maggie offers to sign up for a fight herself, but Kai interrupts to announce he has purchased them all tickets.
Chapter 29 Summary
Clive explains that the first half of the night will be tournament fighting and the second half higher-stakes fights. They check their weapons at the entrance to the arena, where the Law Dogs provide security. In the arena Kai points out Mósí, who Maggie realizes is immortal rather than human. Two bouncers fetch Maggie to see Mósí, and Maggie insists that Clive and Kai accompany her. In Mósí’s lair, Mósí refers to Maggie as “Neizghání’s weapon. His battle child” (225). Maggie suspects that Coyote warned Mósí about them, but Mósí reveals that it was actually Neizghání’s mother. However, on the subject of the fire drill, Mósí is elusive, saying that it is promised to another. She tricks Maggie into agreeing to fight for the drill, but Clive reveals that the fight Maggie agreed to will actually be a fight to the death.
Chapter 30 Summary
Kai is frustrated with Maggie for endangering herself, even for the fire drill. He does not understand how she can be so calm in such a situation, and he is uncomfortable with Maggie’s ease in killing. Maggie explains that killing is one of her clan powers, just as healing is one of Kai’s. However, she still wonders, “Maybe I’m not one of the good guys” (232). Kai becomes angry and demands to know who made Maggie think she was destined to be a monster. He also says to Maggie, “you know Tah thought that you hung the moon. Used to brag about you to me, try to convince me you would save our people. He believed you were a hero” (233). Kai wants to know if Neizghání made Maggie think this way, but Maggie has trouble responding. In Kai’s mind, Maggie’s clan powers do not make her inherently evil. Maggie is still unsure. A guard arrives to bring Maggie to the fight, but before she can ask who her opponent will be, she is called into the arena.
Chapter 31 Summary
Maggie enters the arena. When she sees Coyote in the crowd, she immediately realizes who will be her opponent: Neizghání. Her former mentor enters the arena, looking the hero Maggie remembers. Neizghání says he did not expect to see Maggie, but Maggie is so shocked that she can only ask him “why,” as in, “why did he leave me? Why didn’t he come back? Why now? Why here? Just…why?” (238). Neizghání says that he is there to reclaim something that Coyote stole from his mother. Maggie refuses to back away from the fight, however, and demands again to know why Neizghání left her. When he refuses to answer, Maggie becomes enraged, and they fight. At first it is like their old practice fights, but when Maggie’s clan powers activate, the fight becomes real. Neizghání tries to tell Maggie that he misses her and wants her back, but Maggie reminds him that he left her. Eventually Neizghání gains the upper hand. He gives Maggie a last kiss and reaches in to rip out her heart.
Chapter 32 Summary
This chapter begins with Maggie screaming in pain. A rush of coolness washes over her, and a voice tells her to keep fighting. Maggie, though, does not want to keep fighting; her heart is too completely broken.
Chapters 28-32 Analysis
Entering the Shalimar is an interesting experience for Maggie, whose usual relationship with supernatural creatures and magic involves fighting and death. This negativity, combined with Maggie’s usual self-doubt, colors Maggie’s approach to magic in the Shalimar. The paint that Kia puts on Maggie’s eyes gives her the ability to see through illusions in the club, causing her to see each person in the guise of their inner self. For the Diné, this means that each person appears to have the characteristics of their particular clan. To Maggie, the immediate implication of this fact is that she, too, must have an inner appearance that is typically obscured through illusion. She worries, “I need to know if stripped of illusion, Kai can see the real me. And if he can, is it monstrous?” (211). The “real me” that Maggie refers to here is not actually the real her, but rather her overly negative conception of herself. She thinks that under the illusion she might look like a monster because Neizghání made Maggie worry that she was a monster.
Maggie’s continual self-doubt angers Kai, who eventually confronts her about the subject. He tells her, “Being a hero’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing the right thing […] I don’t care what you try to say to negate that—I was there. I saw it” (232). This quote shows again that other characters do not view Maggie’s actions the same way that she does. Kai, like Grace, believes that Maggie was a hero at Rock Springs, and he is angry that Maggie cannot see that about herself. Speaking about her self-doubt, Kai asks Maggie, “who fed you such a total crock of shit?” (233). By describing Maggie’s view of herself as a “crock of shit,” Kai tries to convince Maggie that Neizghání has twisted her self-perception, although Kai’s attempts are, at this time, futile.
A major development within these chapters is the fight between Maggie and Neizghání. This fight is a very literal way for Maggie to face her former mentor and, by extension, her own inner demons. When Maggie first sees Neizghání in the arena, she asks him why—“why did he leave me? Why didn’t he come back? Why now? Why here? Just…why?” (238). By asking these questions, Maggie confronts Neizghání with the failure in mentorship that his abandonment represents. Maggie also fights Neizghání more seriously than he expects, proving both his inability to see Maggie for her true, strong self and Maggie’s emotional development and newfound ability to face her former mentor. Even though at the end of the fight Maggie seems to lose, nearly dying, it marks the culmination of her personal development in that that she faces the man who destroyed her ability to love herself.
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