‘Crescent City’ books recap: Everything to know before you read ‘House of Flame and Shadow’
Warning: This story contains major spoilers for Sarah J. Maas’ first two “Crescent City” books: “House of Earth and Blood” and “House of Sky and Breath.”
So you’ve embarked on the journey through Sarah J. Maas’ epic, world-bending romantasy books. If you’ve completed her “Crescent City” series, you’ve reached the right place.
The first two books in this series — “House of Earth and Blood” and “House of Sky and Breath” — are mammoths, clocking in at 800 pages each. Whether you completed them yesterday or years ago, you know you need a recap.
Before you dive into “House of Flame and Shadow,” the third book out Jan. 30, join us as we break down everything — literally, everything — you need to know.
The ‘Crescent City’ world, recapped
Places:
Midgard: The planet.
Valbara: A continent.
Pangera: Another continent.
The Haldren Sea: A body of water that separates Valbara and Pangera.
Avallen: The Fae’s sacred island in the Haldren Sea.
The Eternal City: Home of the Asteri, on Pangera.
Crescent City: Aka Lunathion, a modern city in Valbara.
Hel: Another planet ruled by seven princes and perceived to be scary.
Kavalla: Death camps located on Pangera.
Northern Rift: A place that opens the gates to Hel and other planets, located in Pangera.
The Houses of Midgard:
House of Earth and Blood: Humans, shifters, witches, animals.
House of Sky and Breath: Fae, angels (aka Malakim), elementals. (Sprites were in this house but were kicked out when they participated in the rebellion with the angels, which occurred centuries before the events of the first book.)
House of Flame and Shadow: Reapers, vampyrs, dragons and other dark creatures.
House of Many Waters: Mer, nymphs and other water beasts.
Other people, places and things:
Vanir: All magical beings (basically everyone but humans and animals).
The Asteri: The six (formerly seven) all-powerful rulers of Midgard.
Malakim: Human-like angels who have feathered wings and usually work as soldiers. (Singular use is Malakh.)
Archangels: The most powerful of Malakim. Ten of them are chosen by the Asteri to rule as governors of various territories.
Heads of Crescent City: There are six of them, each controlling different places or people: Prime of the Wolves, the Fae Autumn King, the Under-King, the Viper Queen, the Oracle and the River Queen.
The Auxiliary: Aka the Aux, the law enforcement in Crescent City.
The 33rd Imperial Legion: The personal army of the Crescent City governor.
Ophion: An organized group of human rebels.
The Drop: A ritual Vanir partake in to claim their powers and immortality.
Firstlight: A pure form of power emitted by Vanir when they make the Drop.
Secondlight: A pure form of power emitted by Vanir after they die.
The ‘Crescent City’ characters, recapped
Bryce Quinlan: Our heroine, born to the Fae Autumn King, from whom she is estranged, and a human mother. She was raised by her mother and stepfather. She lives in Crescent City and works at an antiquities gallery owned by Jesiba Roga. By the end of book two, we learn Bryce has Starborn gifts, wields the Starsword and can teleport.
Danika Fendyr: Bryce’s best friend and former college roommate. She is a wolf shifter and the Pack of Devils’ alpha. She is powerful, expected to one day be Prime. Danika is murdered at the beginning of book one, along with her wolf pack. By the end of book two, we learn Danika aided Ophion rebels and was a bloodhound with powers to scent out someone’s lineage. We also learn she had a mate, Baxian, whom she met before she died, and her biological father is Mordoc, a dreadwolf who is second in command to The Hind.
Hunt Athalar: Bryce’s primary love interest, a Malakh with a unique power of lightning. In book one, he works as a hit man for Micah, the governor of Crescent City. Two hundred years before book one, he joined an angel rebellion led by his lover, Shahar, an Archangel who was killed in that uprising. After that, Hunt became a slave to the republic and bore a tattooed halo on his brow that keeps his powers in check.
Ruhn Danaan: Bryce’s half-brother, son of the Autumn King and Crown Prince of the Valbaran Fae. He leads the Auxiliary and, in book one, is the sole wielder of the Starsword as a rare Starborn Fae. He is known as the Chosen One and has the power of telepathy. In book two, Ruhn is aiding the rebels and forms a romance with the anonymous Agent Daybright.
Connor Holstrom: A wolf shifter and Danika’s second in the Pack of Devils who long loved Bryce. He is murdered at the beginning of book one along with Danika.
Ithan Holstrom: A wolf shifter and Connor’s younger brother.
Lehabah: A fire sprite who works with Bryce at the antiquities gallery.
Jesiba Roga: An enchantress who owns the antiquities gallery where Bryce works. She is said to be a born witch but defected to House of Flame and Shadow.
Sabine Fendyr: A wolf shifter, Danika’s mother and Prime Apparent to the Valbaran Wolves.
Juniper Andromeda: Bryce’s faun friend who’s a famous dancer. By book two, she is romancing with Fury.
Fury Axtar: Bryce’s friend who works as a mysterious assassin. Her Vanir species and House are unknown.
Autumn King: Bryce’s biological father and King of the Valbaran Fae.
Micah: An Archangel who governs Crescent City in book one.
Sandriel: An Archangel in Pangera who killed her twin sister, Shahar, when Shahar led an angel uprising two hundred years before book one.
Tharion Ketos: A mer and Captain of Intelligence for the River Queen. He is engaged to the River Queen’s daughter.
Tristan Flynn: Ruhn’s friend and roommate who is Fae and part of the Aux. His father is a Fae lord.
Declan Emmet: Ruhn’s other friend and roommate who is also Fae and part of the Aux. He’s a tech wiz and hacker.
Lidia Cervos: Aka The Hind, a deer shifter, the republic’s most notorious spy-master and half-sister of Hypaxia. In book two, we learn she moonlights as Agent Daybright, a spy for Ophion.
Hypaxia Enador: The new witch-queen of Valbara and half-sister of Lidia. In book two, we learn Hypaxia and Celestina have a romance.
Cormac Donnall: Crown Prince of the Avallen Fae and cousin to Ruhn and Bryce. He moonlights as Agent Silverbow in the Ophion cause and is in love with Sofie.
Sofie Renast: A prisoner in Kavalla who is secretly a rare thunderbird, which gives her electricity and firstlight powers. She aids the rebels and is in love with Cormac.
Baxian Argos: An angel known as the Helhound who serves under Sandriel in book one. In book two, he joins the ranks in Crescent City, and we learn he is Danika’s mate.
Celestina: An Archangel who governs Crescent City in book two and is romantically tied to Hypaxia.
What we know about Midgard history
In ‘House of Earth and Blood’ we learn:
Fifteen thousand years ago, the first Starborn Prince named Pelias partook in the Crossing, when Vanir went through the Northern Rift and took over Midgard. He wielded Luna’s Horn in a battle with Apollion, a powerful prince of Hel. Apollion killed Pelias, but not before Pelias was able to banish Apollion back to Hel and seal most of the Northern Rift.
Pelias was also high general for Queen Theia and was married to her daughter Helena. Theia, Helena and Theia’s youngest daughter, who is not named, were also Starborn.
The Fae had more objects like Luna’s Horn that only worked when Starborn magic was channeled through them.
In ‘House of Sky and Breath’ we learn:
Pelias wed Helena by force. He killed Theia and stole the Starsword from her, so the sword is meant for Theia’s female heir. Pelias used the Starsword and the Horn to set himself up as a prince, and he passed them down to his kin.
Midgardian history books have it wrong: Hel actually allied with Theia against the Asteri thousands of years ago.
Theia was the great love of Aidas, another of Hel’s princes.
Theia’s other daughter got away from all this and vanished.
Bryce’s starlight gifts come from Theia. Ruhn’s powers descend from Pelias.
What happens at the end of ‘House of Blood and Earth’?
Bryce spends most of book one doing two things: 1. Seeking retribution and answers after Danika and her wolf pack are brutally murdered, and 2. Figuring out where Luna’s Horn, a Fae relic, went after it was stolen from a temple.
The book concludes with all the action: The Asteri are holding a Summit outside Crescent City. Everybody’s there except for Bryce, who’s at her job at the antiquities gallery. Bryce gets a visit from Archangel Micah and, suspecting no good, texts her boss, Jesiba, to wire the gallery’s camera feeds into the summit's conference room. Micah is there to kill Bryce, but not before he shares his masterminding: Danika wasn’t using or dealing synth, the violent drug that Bryce had suspected caused Danika to kill her own pack and then herself.
No, Micah was behind Danika’s death. He knew Danika was actually trying to get synth off the streets, so he caught her trying to intercept it and blackmailed her into stealing the Horn. She did steal it, but then wouldn’t hand it over, so he injected Danika with synth knowing its repercussions. In an attempt to keep the Horn safe — and also suspecting Bryce’s Starborn powers — Danika ground it up into powder and tattooed it onto Bryce when she was drunk.
Oh, and that archive kept beneath Jesiba’s gallery? It's the lost Library of Parthos, which contains thousands of books written by humans before the Vanir migrated to Midgard.
Bryce kills Micah, while the whole Summit is watching, with help from her sprite friend Lehabah, who gives her life to the mission. While that is happening, Hunt in a blind rage kills Sandriel at the Summit, and Hypaxia removes his halo. Also, the Horn on Bryce’s back opens the gates of Hel to the city. In the middle of the carnage, she makes the Drop to claim her full powers. With Danika’s spirit able to help her, Bryce ascends and seals the gates. Hunt makes it to the city to help and was injured, nearly dead, but he is OK. After this whole thing, one of the Asteri named Rigelus thanks Hunt for aiding the city by eliminating his slave status.
What happens at the end of ‘House of Sky and Breath’?
Bryce, Hunt and Ruhn wind up in Pangera in the Eternal City. Inside the castle, Bryce discovers the truth about the Asteri: They need firstlight to survive and steal it from Vanir when they make the Drop. In fact, the Asteri lured Vanir to Midgard from other worlds to farm and feed off them and have been conquering other planets for the same use. Hel was one of those, but the Asteri lost that fight.
Meanwhile, Tharion and Cormac are at a Pangeran lab to distract the Asteri, but the plan goes awry: Cormac dies, but Tharion escapes. Ithan is back in Crescent City, trying to save a mystic whom he discovered is a wolf, a lost Fendyr heir.
Rigelus finds Bryce sneaking around. He needs the Horn on her back to open the rifts. He says her ancestors wielded the Horn and another Fae object that allowed them to enter this world. He believes they were stolen from their original masters, “our people,” he says.
Rigelus also reveals he orchestrated Danika’s death because she was learning too much, and Bryce learns Midgardian shifters are also Fae from another planet.
Bryce teleports into another room where Hunt and Ruhn are in trouble. The Hind, aka Lidia, reveals herself as Agent Daybright, to Ruhn’s shock — he’d been romancing with a killer all along. They take out the Harpy, one of the Asteri’s top killers, but disguise it to make sure Lidia’s cover isn’t blown.
Bryce, with the Starsword in hand, makes a run for it toward a gate, hoping to reach Hel to seek help.
She lands in a grassy lawn covered in mist but can barely catch her breath before a guy with bat wings puts a knife to her throat. She’s hauled indoors where the people in front of her don’t speak her language. A female with dark hair does understand her and tells Bryce she is not in Hel. She recognizes Bryce’s blade and calls it Gwydion. Bryce shares her name. A male who looks a lot like Ruhn then says, “Hello, Bryce Quinlan. My name is Rhysand.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
