Splendors and Glooms Part 2: Ice—Strachan's Ghyll, Winter 1860-1861, Chapter 29 Summary

Strachan's Ghyll

  • Even though everything is beautiful, Parsefall is pretty upset as they ride in the carriage. He's far away from everything he's ever known, and there isn't a bustling city here where he can bust out a puppet theater for random strangers.
  • Lizzie Rose chatters on about how Madama could have known that they were coming, and how she will probably be upset when she hears about what happened to Grisini.
  • The trees part and the children look up to see a huge castle—it's Strachan's Ghyll, and it's intimidating. They both stare at it in amazement.
  • As they approach the house, Cassandra watches them from the tower window. She wonders why it's taken so long for them to come here. After all, she wrote weeks ago.
  • She's surprised to see how malnourished and little the children look and wonders if they are as devious and criminal as Grisini made them out to be.
  • Cassandra hangs onto the phoenix-stone and falls asleep. Immediately, she starts to dream about her childhood friend Marguerite and how they used to go to the carnival by sneaking out of the convent.
  • When she wakes up from her dream, Cassandra finds herself thinking about Clara Wintermute; she wonders if Lizzie Rose and Parsefall brought the puppet girl along.
  • She thinks about how Clara would be an easy person to trick into stealing the phoenix-stone because she'd want its power to release herself from Grisini's spell.