Splendors and Glooms Prologue Summary

Fire

  • When the witch, Cassandra, wakes up, she feels like she's totally burning up—and her nights are plagued by nightmares.
  • She's getting super old, and she doesn't know if she wants the phoenix-stone around her neck anymore; it's a very powerful magic.
  • She remembers Grisini told her the phoenix-stone is dangerous and that even though it is giving her power now, it would bring on her destruction by burning her up. She wishes she'd let him finish what he was saying.
  • Back then, though, she'd stopped Grisini by hurting him with her magic for tricking her into believing that he was in love with her when he was really just manipulating her to learn magic.
  • Cassandra decides that she wants to destroy the stone, but when she lifts up a mirror to smash it, her arm betrays her, and she ends up hitting her other hand instead.
  • She breaks four bones in her hand, and the stone remains untouched—just as it wants to be.