Wolf and Lion
- Briony and Eldric go for a walk during their first meeting of the "Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus" (12.1), or in plain English, Bad Boy Fraternity.
- Briony muses over how short of a time it's been since Eldric came (five weeks) and how long it feels (months).
- Get ready for some difficult to understand conversations, because as part of their fraternity, Briony and Eldric attempt to speak in Latin. Mostly, though, it seems like they just throw around complicated versions of simple words and occasionally Briony corrects Eldric with the right way to say something.
- Briony is very pleased with herself for blowing up the swamp pumping station—she even writes a little poem/song/nursery rhyme about it in which she claims to deserve a break. Because of her arson, Rose and everyone else has been cured of the swamp cough. Yippee.
- While Eldric is teaching her to fight, Briony asks him if he plans to return to London—to her relief, he says no.
- Eldric asks Briony why her father didn't get her another tutor after firing Fitz, and Briony says not to blame him because he wanted to send her away to school. Unfortunately though, when Stepmother was injured and became ill, Briony stayed to care for her.
- There's trouble in the bad boy brotherhood already, as Briony and Eldric fight over whether or not Briony's staying home from school to care for Stepmother was a sacrifice, and whether or not Stepmother should have pushed her to go. Though Briony doesn't share any of this with Eldric in their fight, she thinks back to her Stepmother's fall and blames herself for injuring her.
- Frustrated with her inability to make Eldric understand, Briony runs away and Eldric chases her happily.
- Eldric mentions the pumping station, which is owned by his father. Specifically he says "funny about the pumping station" (12.69). Does he know Briony's secret? Briony stays quiet on the subject.
- Eldric begins teaching her to fight. Of course, there's a little flirting in the mix too. Good thing Cecil's not here to see.
- Briony acknowledges that the swamp pump is being repaired and will resume work soon. She has a plan to save her sister though—before the pump starts draining the swamp again and the swamp cough comes back, they can take the London-Swanton train line out of town to where Boggy Mun can't reach them.
- Noticing her scar, Eldric asks Briony about the fire, and she tells him what she calls the heroic version where she smelt the burning and tried to save her stories for Rose.
- In her head she remembers Stepmother running to her rescue—she briefly wonders how Stepmother was able to do so with her spinal injury. In the end, she decides that love and fear gave her stepmother the strength to run to her rescue.
- Something called the Strangers (Old Ones that Eldric can't see) start asking Briony to write stories about them again. We're sensing a theme here about the Old Ones and Briony's stories—seems they like them quite a bit.
- Eldric tells Briony her fists are beautiful in (perhaps) a romantic attempt; Briony reminds herself not to get too close to anyone, to keep her secrets safely guarded.