Scythe

Faraday tells Citra and Rowan that during their year together, they will learn many types of killing, including blades, guns, poisons, and martial arts. They begin immediately and grow stronger through the grueling training. Each day they must also study the history and science of scything for one hour with Faraday, and they note what they do in their apprentice journals.

Citra is surprised that she does not grow desensitized to witnessing gleanings. Faraday reassures her: “If you do not cry yourself to sleep on a regular basis, you are not compassionate enough to be a scythe” (79). He tells them that he never performs a gleaning the same way twice, which is why he wants them to be trained in such an extensive variety of methods.

Rowan hates keeping the journal and thinks it is pointless. The journals of apprentices are private, but those of scythes are public record and required to be kept by law. Rowan watches Citra write effortlessly and realizes he is not sure how he feels about her. He wonders if they would have been friends if they had met in school.

Faraday does not allow them to visit their families but makes an exception for Citra to attend her aunt’s wedding after she and Rowan have been with him for one month. At the wedding, everyone except her immediate family and her cousin Amanda avoids her. She leaves early and takes a car back to Faraday’s house.

One day Faraday tells Citra and Rowan that he will glean alone. He tells Citra to polish his blades while he is gone. While she does so, she wonders what each blade was used for and how many times each had been used.

Faraday tells Rowan that his task is to “lay the groundwork” for his next gleaning (88). He says that everything Rowan needs to know is in the Thunderhead. Rowan begins entering search parameters into the Thunderhead for clues. He tells the Thunderhead to search all of MidAmerica (the region where Faraday, Citra, and Rowan live) for strong swimmers who are also dog lovers. The subject must also have “a history of heroism in a nonprofessional capacity” (89). His search returns four results, and he must decide which of them will die the following day. He decides to learn as much as possible about each person so that he does not make a biased decision based on their photos. The more he learns about each person, the less he wants to choose them. When Faraday returns, his robes are covered in blood. When Rowan says that he doesn’t know how to choose, Faraday is angry and demands that he make his decision. Rowan chooses a man.

The next day they are in the man’s house when he comes home. Rowan explains that he has chosen the man for gleaning. Citra and Faraday watch. Then Faraday tells the man he has chosen a drowning for him, so they have to go to the river. Rowan tells the man that he has been researching him and wants him to know that his daughter still loves him. Citra is impressed by how well Rowan handles the situation, but Rowan reminds her that he vomited on the bank on the river and is not impressed with himself.

A fourth-grader named Esme is eating pizza in a food court when a scythe attack begins. The scythes say the food court has been selected for gleaning and begin attacking with blades and a flamethrower. Esme hides under a table until a blue-robed scythe finds her. He tells her she is the last one and that he has been looking for her. He says he has granted her immunity and that she is to come with them: “From this moment on, your life will be everything you’ve ever dreamed it could be” (100).

Curie’s journal treats the subject of fear and crime: “I wouldn’t want the return of crime, but I do tire of we scythes being the sole purveyors of fear. It would be nice to have competition” (101).

Faraday allows Rowan to visit Tyger, who tells him that the student body thinks he took the apprenticeship to get revenge on the school. Tyger asks him if he will give him immunity when he gets the ring, and Rowan says that would be against the rules. He invites Tyger to come see Faraday’s home. When they arrive, he is relieved that Citra is not there, as he is suddenly worried that she will like Tyger more than she likes him. Citra comes home from a run, and Rowan hides Tyger in the weapons room. While she is showering, he sneaks Tyger out.

After three months, Citra realizes she wants to win the ring. She has become fond of Black Widow Bokator, the grueling martial art that Scythe Yingxing tutors them in. Their class has eight students, but Rowan and Citra are the only apprentices. The rest are junior scythes in their first year of gleaning. Today in class she spars with Rowan. They are evenly matched, but he manages to flip her over and pin her. She has the ability to throw him off and reverse the position but realizes that she can feel his heartbeat and wants to feel it a little longer. When the match ends, she is annoyed with herself and refuses to look at Rowan.

Curie writes that the end of death meant that the nature of love changed: “Mortals fantasized that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know that neither is true” (110). Curie wonders if the end of loss has made people into something other than humans.

Sometimes Faraday only takes one of the apprentices to gleanings. In May, before the Vernal Conclave—the first of the three meetings Citra and Rowan will attend that year—she witnesses the worst gleaning yet. It is a man having dinner with his family. He immediately fights back. He breaks Faraday’s jaw, and Citra jumps on him, gouging his eyes and giving Faraday enough time to take a knife and slit the man’s throat. As the man dies, Faraday tells him that his actions have grave consequences. He goes into the other room to glean the wife and two children, as the law requires when a person resists gleaning. However, when Citra goes into the room, Faraday tells the woman that he is not going to glean them. He says that he and Citra had a fight, which resulted in their wounds. He grants the woman and her children a year of immunity. On the way home, Faraday tells Citra she cannot tell anyone what happened, and she cannot find the words to tell him how much she admires what he did.

That night, after bringing him a glass of milk before bed and finding him asleep, Citra notices Faraday’s ring on the nightstand. She lifts the ring and examines it and then realizes the scythe is watching her. He invites her to try the ring on, and she does. It quickly becomes so cold that her finger is in agony. She takes the ring off and throws it across the room. He tells her that it is a security measure he installed and that from now on, Rowan will bring him his nightly milk. When Citra apologizes, Faraday says he is not punishing her. He was testing her curiosity.Curie writes that once humans saved themselves from death, faith became irrelevant. There are cults, but they exist to “make the passing time feel meaningful and profound” (118).