Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #2)

     This picks up a few months after where book 1 left off.  Rowan is in hiding and has taken on the identity Scythe Lucifer and has been killing corrupt and immoral scythes.
     Citra is now a scythe apprentice known as Scythe Anastasia and lives with Scythe Curie.  She has started gleaning and developed her own style, giving her victims a month to get their affairs in order before coming back to glean them.  A meeting was held at the Vernal Conclave (seasonal scythe meeting) regarding how she was handling her gleanings but nothing could be found in the rules about why she couldn't do it the way she does so she has been allowed to continue.
     Rowan meanwhile is living nomadically while doing his "calling" as Scythe Lucifer.  He was living with Faraday for a while when he found out Faraday was alive but the calling to get rid of corrruption among the scythe order was too great for him to stay and so he hasn't seen Faraday in months.
     His friend Tyger shows up one day to see him at his temporary apartment.  Tyger had been able to track Rowan down because he had helped Rowan get his fake identity when everything went down after his apprenticeship and he had to go on the run from the scythes.  Tyger has no idea Rowan is Scythe Lucifer so he doesn't realize the amount of danger he has put Rowan in by coming to see him in case he was followed.
     Tyger tells Rowan he tracked him down to tell him that his father was gleaned.  Rowan thinks it is an omen that the scythedom knows he is Lucifer and it's a warning that if he doesn't stop they plan to kill all his family.  Tyger also tells Rowan that he has accepted a job in Texas which is one of the 7 charter regions*.  He doesn't know what the position entails, only that a scythe offered him the position.
     Later on when Tyger goes to his new job the scythe tells Tyger that he will do nicely and Tyger assumes the scythe has hired him for pleasure purposes (Tyger is a professional "partier" and escort) but the scythe tells him that isn't the case and he will be a sort of "apprentice".  Tyger gets excited then thinking the scythe is going to train him for a scythe apprenticeship but we can all tell from the tone of voice the scythe has that this isn't true.  We find out later that this scythe is Scythe Rand, one of Goddard's apprentices who Rowan thought he had killed in the fire. More on that later.
     Meanwhile, Xenocrates, head over the scythedom, has requested a meeting with a Nimbus agent to relay a message to the Thunderhead.  Nimbus agent are like the task force of the Thunderhead; they enforce the laws the Thunderhead has put in place to protect humanity and are also the voice of the Thunderhead to speak with scythes.  Since scythes are outside the realm of the Thunderhead's jurisdiction they are not allowed to speak directly to the Thunderhead or vice versa but only through Nimbus reps.
    Xenocrates inquires as to why Scythe Lucifer hasn't been stopped since he isn't a real scythe.  The Nimbus agent confers with the Thunderhead and says that the Thunderhead sees Rowan as a real scythe since he carries a scythe ring (Rowan had stolen Goddard's scythe ring after he killed him in the last book) and completed his apprenticeship.  The Thunderhead further notes that being ordained by the scythedom is merely a custom, not a requirement for someone to be a scythe and so it will not/cannot take action in scythe matters.
     We see bits and pieces of what the Thunderhead is thinking throughout this book (which was really cool) and we find out that the Thunderhead wants Rowan to succeed where it cannot.  It has also seen that the scythedom is becoming more and more corrupt but its laws prevent it from doing anything so Rowan has become its voice in this matter.  The Thunderhead also keeps stating over and over that Citra (Scythe Anastasia) is very important to the outcome of humanity too, whether she be alive or dead.
     This is where we meet Greyson.  Greyson is a teen boy who is a Nimbus agent in training.  He has always wanted to be a Nimbus agent because the Thunderhead has been like his own parent, throwing parties for him, encouraging him, helping with homework, etc because his parents aren't very caring and are usually mia on the homefront.
     Greyson is called to the Nimbus command center in his town (called the Authority Interface, A.I for short, these command centers exist all over the world) one day and is given info from one of the upper agents named Agent Traxler that the Thunderhead wanted him to know that two scythes might be in danger; Scythe Curie and Scythe Anastasia, but he must NOT intervene because it goes against the laws of Separation of Scythe and State.  Greyson knows he is being told this because the Thunderhead wants him to help the two scythes since it isn't allowed to help so he goes against the rules and goes to find Curie and Anastasia.
     He does find them but is almost too late because a tripwire has been placed across the road they are driving on (Curie is teaching Anastasia to drive a mortal age car so Anastasia is the one driving).  He jumps in front of the car and commits suicide to force them to stop before reaching the wire.  As he is dying Anastasia goes over to him, thinking he's just a thrill seeking "splatter" (someone who commits suicide for a rush since they know they'll be revived soon) and realizes that with his dying breath he's trying to warn her of the booby trap in the road once Curie sees the wire and calls her over.
     When Greyson is revived at the revival center he is called in to the AI and is told he is banished from becoming a Nimbus agent since he broke the law of Separation of Scythe and State and that the Thunderhead has branded him "unsavory".  Greyson knew he would lose his place at the school since he broke the law but he doesn't why the Thunderhead has branded him as an unsavory since he knows the Thunderhead wanted him to protect the two scythes.
      Unsavories are required to have monthly meetings with an assigned Nimbus agent, kind of like a probation officer is in our world, and at Greyson's first meeting he sees his assigned agent is Traxler.  Traxler tells him that the Thunderhead set it up this way so that they could talk each month in private without suspicions being aroused.  Traxler informs Greyson that the Thunderhead wants him to delve deeper into the world of the unsavories to help Curie and Anastasia.
     Greyson takes on the identity of an unsavory named Slayd and Traxler sets it up so that everything in his file reflects he is this person so that it is more authentic in case anyone digs into it.  He begins hanging out with the unsavories at AWFul clubs.  These clubs are set up like they are from different time periods throughout history.  The employees are paid to let the unsavories do whatever they want to them; for example- there is a 50's diner where you can push around the other diners and get into brawls with them, a prison cell you have to break out of, etc.
     It is at one of these clubs that Greyson meets and falls for a girl named Purity.  She leads him down the rabbit hole to the "dark side" of the unsavories and asks him to join her.  He agrees and after hanging out for a few weeks (maybe months? doesn't give a timeline for it in the book) and making trouble around town he earns her trust and she tells him that they have a job and are going to kill a couple scythes.
     At Greyson's next meeting with Traxler he is anxious to tell him this turn of events while still trying to find a way to protect Purity but he is surprised to see that it isn't Traxler at the meeting but a new agent named Agent Kreel.  He demands to speak with Traxler and she tells him that she's sorry but Traxler was gleaned and she is his new representative.  Purity reveals to him before they are about to attack the scythes that she mentioned to their proprietor that he didn't like his Nimbus officer and so the proprietor killed him for him.  Greyson realizes then that it must be a scythe as their proprietor to have that kind of clout.
     When he tries to discuss everything with Agent Kreel and tells her his name is actually Greyson she doesn't believe him and he realizes that the rest of the world now thinks he really is this unsavory named Slayd and no one knows his real name now except the Thunderhead who isn't allowed to talk to him since he has been deemed an unsavory.
     Meanwhile, Citra and Curie have been living a nomadic lifestyle while they try to figure out who wants them dead.  The scythedom has sent their best representative to help them named Scythe Constantine.  Between the 3 of them they decide to set up a trap for the person hunting them.  Citra (Anastasia) has been told that her in-process gleanings have all already been taken care of except the last 3 to protect her from going back to the same place twice which would make her more of a target.        She says that instead of someone else gleaning her other 3 she should do as normal and wait the 30 days out since the person tracking them will know she will be at the spots her subjects end up choosing (she allows her subjects to pick their place and method of death after their 30 days are up).  Constantine and Marie agree to this plan.
     The first two gleanings are uneventful but at the third all hell breaks loose.  Anastasia's third subject/victim is a theater actor and he tells her that he wishes to be gleaned onstage during the death scene in his Caesar play and she agrees to his terms.
     Greyson has still been undercover even though there is no one to help him now and when he goes to the theater with Purity and the other unsavories hired for the job he is in the dark as to what they  are doing but sees as it's unfolding that they plan to put acid in the sprinkler system at the theater and start a fire to make the sprinklers come on.  Acid and fire are some of the only ways to truly destroy scythes since there is nothing left to revive afterwards.
     When Greyson sees what's happening he lunges backstage to stop them and he sees the look of betrayal in Purity's eyes.  Even though she is evil Greyson loves her and he had hoped he would find a way for both of them to come out of this together but he knows this has to be stopped.  He sees Scythe Constantine and tells him that there is acid in the sprinklers and he has to stop it.  Purity is chasing Greyson and when she gets near them Constantine gleans her by slicing her throat. Greyson runs to the sprinkler system and grabs a fire axe next to it and chops open the pipe so that the acid won't be released through the whole theater. As he does this one of Constantine's men is caught in the acid because he was chasing Greyson since he thought Greyson was with the unsavories attacking them.
      Anastasia was also chasing Greyson and she sees that he messes up the sprinkler system to protect her and Curie (Curie was in the audience watching the play while Anastasia did her gleaning).
      A few days afterwards, Greyson sends her a note to meet him and he requests that she help him because now the scythes, unsavories, and the AI are after him and he has nowhere to go. She sends him to a Tonist church where he will be safe. She had met one of these tonists when he showed up at her and Curie's hotel room a few weeks ago.  She thought he was undercover as a tonist but was actually their attacker so she had broken his arm when he reached into his pocket.  When she realized he really was a tonist after seeing all the pamphlets in his pocket she and Curie patched him up because this particular tonist group has had all their healing nanites and pain nanites removed and he wouldn't go to a hospital.  He and Anastasia became amiable during this time so that is why she sends Greyson there.
      At the same time this is happening, Faraday has found Rowan and told him that he is disappointed in what Rowan is doing but that he won't stop him either since it's his choice but that there is a better way to solve the corruption in the scythedom and he is going to the land of Nod to find it.  Rowan tells him that place is just a mortal age fairtytale and Faraday says that means there's no better place to look.
      Before he leaves Faraday tells Rowan about how Citra (Anastasia) is in trouble because so many new scythes look up to her.  He says that the "new order" scythes (those with beliefs like Goddard's were, that they should enjoy killing and live extravagant lifestyles) are taking over and they don't like the fact that Anastasia supports the old ways and is causing a stir among the divide between new/old scythe ways.  Upon hearing this, Rowan sneaks in to see Xenocrates to try to save Anastasia.
     He tells Xenocrates that he will temporarily stop killing the corrupt scythes if Xenocrates will pull the scythe forces searching for him and use all the forces to try to help Anastasia and Curie.  Xenocrates tells him he already did that anyways because he supports Anastasia and Curie and the old ways and doesn't want them dead.
      Before Rowan leaves he asks Xenocrates to tell him who killed his father and Xenocrates tells him it was Scythe Brahms.  Rowan is taken aback because now he feels like his father's death is his fault due to the fact that he spared Brahms a while back since he wasn't completely corrupt and Rowen had told him that if he changed his ways he would let him live.  Instead of doing that, Brahms continued his ways and gleaned Rowan's father in revenge.
      Rowan tries to find Anastasia to help her but he isn't able to track her so he instead heads for Brahms house to kill him.  When he breaks in he is captured by Brahms guards and Brahms takes Rowan's scythe ring and tells the guards to beat him up.
     When Rowan next wakes he is in a bed and Tyger is sitting next to him.  Rowan has no clue what's going on and Tyger tells him he's a scythe apprentice now and that he sent for Rowan to be his sparring partner.  In walks Scythe Rand and she sends Tyger to make Rowan some food while she talks to him.
     She explains that Brahm was working for her and she knew that if she had Brahm kill Rowan's father he would eventually come for him.  She tells him that she was burned badly in the fire but that Rowan couldn't kill her that easily.  She took off for Texas when she dragged herself out of the ruins and had the hospitals here patch her up (she came here since they don't ask any questions in Texas hospitals) and she's been plotting to find Rowan ever since.
     She has Rowan and Tyger spar for a few weeks trying to train Tyger to get better, and eventually Rand tells Tyger that he is ready for his scythe ring.  Rowan is stuck in his room while they're gone and he is worried about Tyger.  He tried to warn Tyger that Rand was using him but Tyger confessed he had fallen in love with Rand and would make her love him too.  When Rand comes back she comes into Rowan's room with Tyger and when the light is clicked on Rowan sees that Tyger's body is sitting in front of him but Goddard's head is the new head.
     He realizes that Rand has rescued Goddard's head from the fire whenever Rowan decapitated him and they have had it transplanted on Tyger's body.
     Goddard tells Rowan that his vocal cords were ruined in the decapitation and so now Rowan gets to "enjoy" hearing his friends voice come out of Goddard's mouth.  Rowan demands to know what they did with Tyger and Goddard says they threw him out with the trash but once Goddard is gone Rand tells Rowan that she took his ashes and spread them in a field of bluebonnets, showing that she did care about Tyger at least a little even though she did this to him.
     Meanwhile, Scythe Faraday has gone to the scythe library which houses all the scythes journals about their lives to see if he can find any info on Nod.  He asks the librarian there for help in his search and she agrees because she recognizes and admires him.
     She becomes his colleague in the search and they eventually find that there is a section of ocean where a group of islands sit that no airplanes travel and they realize this must be a blind spot for the Thunderhead.  Faraday and Minira(the librarian) explain this to Curie and Anastasia during a secret meeting and explain that they will be heading there to try to find the information that might stop the madness happening in the scythedom.
     The winter conclave for the scythes happens and Xenocrates announces that he will be stepping down as high blade because he has been offered a position as one of the seven on the World Scythe (Grandslayers) Council.  These are the highest tier of scythes; there is one representative on this council from each continent and one of the current Grandslayers has decided it is his time to glean himself.
      The scythe conclave is allowed to make nominations for who the next high blade will be and then the votes are tallied at the end of the day and a new high blade will be announced.  Scythe Curie is nominated by Constantine and she starts to turn down the nomination but Anastasia asks her to wait to see what will happen.  One of the new order scythes is nominated as well and so a dividing line is drawn and Curie has no choice but to accept the nomination because none of them want to see the new order scythes win uncontested.
     Before the nominations can be set in stone Brahms stands and says he would like to nominate another scythe and announces Goddard as he comes in.  Everyone is in shock since they all thought he was dead but he has become a martyr for the new order so they all readily agree to let him take the other new order scythe's place in the nomination.
      A debate between Goddard and Curie ensues, with Goddard saying that if he becomes high blade he will delete the scythe quota and allow scythes to glean as much or as little as they choose to along with numerous other promises.  Curie of course wants to stick with the current scythe traditions since they are the most honorable.
     After the debate the votes are about to be cast and those on Curie's side including Anastasia are afraid they are going to lose because of all the outrageous promises Goddard made.  Anastasia's brain begins working overtime to find a solution, and when another junior scythe mentions to her that Goddard doesn't seem to stand as tall now it gives her an idea.
      When the votes are cast the scythes all have 10 seconds to make their choice.  At the 8 second mark Anastasia stands up and claims that she wants an inquest.  She states that since the votes have been cast but not read that by the scythedom laws she has the right to do this.  Xenocrates consults with his 2nd in command and they confirm that this is true and Anastasia is allowed to proceed.
     She addresses the scythedom and tells them that Goddard cannot be the high blade because he is only 7% scythe at the moment and the parts of him that were ordained as scythe and held his scythe ring are no longer present since he is in another body (he admitted this when entering the conclave but of course didn't mention the devious method by which he acquired a new body, only the part about how Rand managed to save his head from the fire and "found" him a new body). 
     The inquest is passed and Xenocrates announces that his 2nd will take over as high blade until the inquest is resolved before the Grandslayers in the spring.
     Goddard is of course livid and proceeds to randomly glean passerby on the streets outside the conclave in a fit of anger for all the other scythes to see.  Rand pulls him into their car and when they get back to the apartment he begins taking out his anger on Rowan daily, forcing him to fight with him.  Rowan always wins and Goddard always kills him afterwards and he is sent to a revival center so that Goddard can repeat the process.
     During one of his revivals the Thunderhead speaks to him while he's deadish, the same way it was able to circumvent the law before when it talked to Anastasia since while deadish he isn't technically a scythe at that moment.
     The Thunderhead tells him that it knows he has a purpose and that there is a 39% chance he will have a profound impact on the world as either himself or Scythe Lucifer, and a 61% chance he will die before this can happen.  Rowan isn't comforted by this statistic but the Thunderhead tells him this is a much greater percentage than most people ever get in their lifetime to make an impact.
       Faraday and the librarian head to the Library of Congress to try to research more about the islands they are heading to to find out which one in the little cluster of islands holds the secrets they are looking for.
     They know that it has to have been saved in print rather than in the Thunderhead's backbrain because they've figured out that the Thunderhead has been programmed to avoid this place since it has no cameras on the islands and doesn't even send planes over it like it doesn't exist.
     They find the right one but all of a sudden hear a slight clicking noise and realize there is an old camera in this room and the Thunderhead now knows the location too and they realize they've made a terrible mistake in not checking for surveillance first since this is information the scythes purposely kept from the Thunderhead all these years although they don't know why yet.
       Anastasia and Curie head to the Island of the Enduring Heart, also called Endura, for the meeting with the World Scythe Council (the Grandslayers).  When they arrive they are escorted to their rooms which are underwater, and Anastasia sees that there are a ton of fish outside the window and she is mesmerized.  Xenocrates has come to meet them and he shows her how the fish can be controlled by remote since they have been embedded with nanites. He makes a school of fish swim away and some jellyfish swim up next to the window (I know this seems irrelevant but bear with me).
     Goddard has also shown up with Brahms and Rand in tow and they have brought Rowan as a prisoner.  Goddard plans to present him to the Grandslayers the next day to gain their favor.  His plans are thwarted when Rand tries to give herself to him that night and he shuns her.  She realizes it's not even him that she is in love with but Tyger and she had killed him for Goddard.  She frees Rowan and tells him to escape the island before the meeting tomorrow.  When he asks her why she's letting him go she tells him that if she can't have what she wants then neither can Goddard but that if he loses at the meeting tomorrow Rowan will not want to be anywhere near the island so he needs to leave NOW.
     The next day when Goddard wakes up and sees Rowan gone Rand blames Brahms for it, saying that he must have let Rowan steal the key from him.  Goddard kills Brahms in a fit of rage.
      They go to the meeting and the Grandslayers end up ruling in Anastasia and Curie's favor, saying that they still consider Goddard a scythe but that in order to meet the requirements to be a master scythe again he will need to train his body as an apprentice under Rand for a year.
     Rowan finds Anastasia instead of leaving the island to warn her that Rand told him Goddard had something up his sleeve and to be careful because he doesn't know what it is.  Curie sees him and tells Anastasia to get away from Rowan before she is seen with him and her reputation in ruined by associating with Scythe Lucifer.  Before Anastasia can even respond the whole island falls apart.
     Endura is free of any Thunderhead help since the whole island is devoted to scythes, so anytime repairs are needed on machines or security is needed manpower is required.  Based on this, Goddard has been recruiting engineers and other workers to tamper with the machinery on the island for months, making everyone think that stuff was just starting to wear out and break down.
    His big finale for this comes today though because he has messed with the buoy system for the island and it starts sinking.  As everyone frantically tries to get to higher ground, the wildlife scientists on the island see on their radar that all the fish and sharks controlled by nanites have been hacked and are now bearing down on the island, so as it sinks people are dying to the jaws of the animals that are now programmed to kill.
      Goddard flies over the Council in a helicopter and acts like he's going to save the Grandslayers but as he opens the door to give his hand to them he instead laughs and flies away.  All the Grandslayers are killed by the sharks except Xenocrates who instead jumps in the water and sinks to the bottom due to his heavy robe and he dies by drowning.
     When Curie sees that there is no getting off the island by ship as they had planned on (whales are attacking the boats at the docks) she instead leads Anastasia and Rowan to the Vault of Relics and Futures where all the deceased scythe rings are kept along with the robes of the founding scythes.  The place is sealed up like a bank vault so it is waterproof and she tells Anastasia and Rowan to get inside because it's their way off the island.  They don't understand but do as she says, thinking she has a plan once they are all in there.  She instead slams the door shut, locking them in.  Rowan realizes that she did this because even though they will still sink and die by hypothermia at the bottom of the ocean, their bodies will not be eaten by the animals and they have a chance to be revived in the future.
     Curie heads back up to the top of the tallest buildings which are all almost underwater too and she begins leading all the scythes in gleaning the humans there so that they don't suffer a fate of being eaten and can instead go out peacefully.  Once the humans are dead the scythes all glean themselves as well, including Curie (I hated that part so much, I loved Curie and can't believe she's dead!).
     After Endura sinks the Thunderhead cries by turning on every siren, cell phone ring, radio transmission, etc in the world and having it wail for ten minutes.  We switch over to Greyson's POV when this happens and his Tonist group is celebrating, thinking it's the "Great Resonance" they always talk about coming (they believe in the Great Resonance in the kind of way that Christians believe in the Rapture, I think the tonists are supposed to be a bit like an overzealous religious cult).  After the cry, every phone and device in the world now shows that every human being has been labeled as an unsavory by the Thunderhead.
    Greyson goes to his computer and looks at his name and he is the only one not labeled unsavory anymore.  He calls out to the Thunderhead and it replies "Hello Greyson, we need to talk".

End of book 2
   





*The 7 charter regions were set up by the Thunderhead, one on each continent.  They are places where the laws and customs are different from the rest of the world.  For example, one region requires body modification to live there, one region forbids employment but the people receive a higher monthly allowance from the Thunderhead, etc.  Texas defining characteristic is that it has a bit more anarchy than the rest of the world-people allowed to own guns, exotic pets allowed, and the most defining factor is that the Thunderhead has turned off cameras in people's homes to allow them total privacy.  The Thunderhead created these charter regions because it said it realized the world had a need for diversity and it's also an experiment to see if those without constant monitoring by the Thunderhead are still able to live normal lives without hurting themselves or others.

Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman summary

     This book begins with us learning about the world developed in the novel.  What we know as the "Cloud" currently has grown and become self aware and humanity has named it the "Thunderhead".  It has helped us develop a cure for death since it is all knowing, so everyone is now immortal. As people get older, they will go and be "reset" so that they look young again to whatever age they want, most choose their 30's, so although they look to be that age they can actually be hundreds of years old.
    To prevent overpopulation, an organization called the Scythedom has been established to "glean" people, which is just a fancy word for killing them.  There are hundreds if not thousands of Scythes in the Scythedom and all are regular people who have been trained by previous scythes and selected before the scythe council to continue the tradition.
     Scythes are both feared and revered, with many people trying to buy extra time by offering indulgences such as cars, money, and homes.  Most scythes do not accept these items (at least they aren't supposed to according to the scythe commandments) but some are not on the up and up and find loopholes to allow them to live lavish lifestyles (more on that later).
     Citra is a teen girl who hears a knock at the door one day and it turns out to be a scythe.  Although she and her family fears that one of them is about to be gleaned, the scythe is allowed in as a sign of respect.  He proceeds to have dinner and chat with the family and then gets up to leave.  Citra is angry that he didn't tell them he was going to glean their neighbor to begin with (a fact he has now revealed) and confronts him and he tells her that he could see her being a scythe but she tells him she would never want to be one, a fact to which he replies "that is the first requirement".  After he comes back from the neighbors he gives her the knife he used and she trashes it once he leaves.
     Rowan is a teen boy who just wants to get through his high school years and get out of his parents house since he feels he is the "lettuce".  It's a metaphor likened to the fact that his younger and older siblings are the bread and meat of a burger but he is just lettuce, always forgotten.  He and his friend Tyger coined the term in gradeschool.
    One day he sees a scythe come to his school and he shows the scythe to the principal's office, where it turns out that the scythe is there to glean one of his classmates.  When the classmate is called to the office, although Rowan only knows him by name and they're not friends he offers to stay with his classmate while it happens and the boy agrees because everyone else has already left to try to get away from the scythe for fear that they too might get gleaned.
    Months later, both Rowan and Citra are sent an anonymous invite to an opera and when they both arrive the scythe is waiting for them.  He reveals his name to be Scythe Faraday and tells them that they will now be his apprentices (all scythes train apprentices at some point when populations begin growing in the world) and that he is granting immunity to their families while they are within his care.  Immunity is granted by a scythe by a person kissing the scythe's special ring which is then sent out to all other scythes so that they know the person has been granted said immunity.
    Although neither of them want to be a scythe they don't have a choice in the matter and they leave their families to go live with Faraday.  As he teaches them about what it takes to be a scythe (the types of killing they do, morals of scythedom, etc) they grow close to him and each other.  Although a romance is forbidden for scythes, Rowan and Citra do kiss once since they are attracted to each other but both agree it won't ever go farther than that.
     Scythes hold a meeting during each season to discuss political matters and so that apprentices can be tested.  When Faraday takes them to the seasonal meeting their apprentice test is given by the "grande dame of death" named Scythe Curie.
     She had been given this name because when she was first ordained as a scythe she gleaned the president and his whole cabinet and the story was spread far and wide and she never escaped the nickname (although she's not a bad person, which we find out later on).
    Scythe Curie asks Citra what the worst thing she ever did was for her test and Citra lies and says that she tripped a girl down the stairs when she was younger and the girl broke her neck, but she had actually pushed that girl out in front of a bus to kill her.  Citra doesn't want to admit that she did this though so she lies and Curie can tell and tells her she fails this test.  Rowan then lies about his question too so that Citra doesn't have to feel ashamed that she failed.  When they return to their seats Faraday tells him that was a mistake.
     On a side note, when someone is killed in this world, since everyone is immortal that person is just taken to a revival center and brought back from the dead.  Only scythes give out true death.  Anytime someone kills themselves or anyone else they are considered to be "deadish" since they will no doubt be brought back to life soon. BUT, when a scythe decides it's their time to die and they glean themselves, this is irreversible according to the laws of the Thunderhead and the Scythedom.
     After the end of the discussions of other scythe business, a scythe named Goddard addresses the high scythe Xenocrates (the head over all Scythedom) and says that he feels taking on two apprentices is unfair and it hasn't been done before, so he proposes that in order for the apprentices to not show favor to one another that as the first act of the chosen apprentice into Scythedom they be forced to glean the other one.  Faraday protests but it's very clear that Xenocrates favors Goddard for some reason and he agrees.
     That night, a knock comes at Faraday's door.  Citra and Rowan answer it since Faraday is out on one of his late night walks and it is two guards who take them to Xenocrates home.  Xenocrates tells them that Faraday has killed himself by jumping in front of a train.  Citra and Rowan realize he's done this because he loves them both like his own children and by killing himself it meant they would be free of the scythe training obligation and could go back to their families.
    It backfires on him though as Xenocrates says that only applies if no other scythe will agree to mentor them but Curie has agreed to take Citra as an apprentice and Goddard wants to take Rowan, so the death warrant still stands.
     Citra grows very fond of Curie under her apprenticeship but feels that something is amiss about Faraday's death so she starts digging behind Curie's back to find out what happened to him and she learns that on the day of his death 3 witnesses at the train station were given immunity, so she realizes that those witnesses were bribed and that another scythe murdered Faraday.  Judging from his reputation and the fact that they hated each other, she believes it to be Goddard.
     Rowan has been training under Goddard and his 3 junior scythes (junior scythes are newly anointed scythes who live for a while with an older scythe to learn from them) for months at this point and has come to realize just how cruel Goddard is.  He abides by the rules of Scythedom but just barely and he thrives on killing.  When he and his junior scythes go kill, they do so in mass murders.  They will sustain from killing for weeks (most scythes will kill a few people a week to meet their gleaning quota), but then they'll go wipe out whole buildings of people and Rowan can tell how much they enjoy it....except for one of the junior scythes named Volta.  He and Rowan strike up a friendship and begin confiding in each other.
     Volta fell under Goddard's spell as almost any young person would.  Goddard knows just what to say and he always throws lavish parties, lives in a huge mansion that he claimed from a wealthy family (he got around the loophole of a scythe living modestly by having the man "donate" the mansion when in reality he threatened the man with gleaning if he didn't), drives fancy cars....pretty much everything the other scythes don't do.  He calls it the new way of thinking versus being an "old guard" with "old ways".  Since nothing he does falls outside Scythedom rules no one has been able to stop him and many others are joining his way of thinking.
     Rowan finds out that the reason Goddard has such a hold over Xenocrates is that the young little girl staying with them that Goddard has kidnapped (he and his group gleaned a whole food court at a busy mall but "spared" the little girl and told her she was coming to live with them) is actually Xenocrates illegitimate daughter.  Since scythes aren't supposed to have romantic relationships, if Goddard revealed this fact to the rest of the scythes Xenocrates would be gleaned due to breaking a scythe commandment, so Xenocrates does pretty much whatever Goddard wants in order to keep his place of power and avoid being gleaned.
     Citra tells Curie about how she suspects foul play in the death of Faraday and Curie agrees.  Two guards show up and take Citra to Xenocrates again while Curie is away.  This time it's because she is being accused of murdering Faraday.  They provide evidence in the form of her searches on the Thunderhead pertaining to the cameras at the train station.  She had been searching through these to try to find video evidence that someone killed Faraday and had discovered that they were tampered with, but Xenocrates thinks she did it.  With the extra evidence of a journal entry found in Faraday's nightstand when the other scythes searched his home after his death they've charged her with his murder.  Xenocrates shows her the journal entry and it says something along the lines of "I fear for my life, I should have never taken her as an apprentice".
     Citra knocks out the guards and runs and jumps off the top of the building and kills herself so that she will have a few days in the revival ward to try to get this sorted out.  While dead, the Thunderhead talks to her and gives her the name of Faraday's murderer.  The Thunderhead isn't allowed to interfere with Scythedom matters, but it tells her that since she's dead at the moment she's not under Scythedom jurisdiction so it can help her.  It also tells her that she will have an important role to play in the Scythedom later on, whether she's alive or dead based on it's calculations.
     Curie is there when Citra wakes up and tells her that she's taking her to a place in another country to a scythe friend's house so that she can hide until Curie can clear her name.  Curie then tells her that the entry that was found in Faraday's journal was about Curie and not Citra.
     Curie was his apprentice and she fell in love with him but he mistakenly thought that the way she was acting meant she was going to kill him.  He had woken up one night to her inside his bedroom just standing there.  It was because she was going to try to get into bed with him but when he woke up and saw her standing there she panicked and tried to lie and that's why he thought she was about to kill him.
     She told him the truth later on and although he was flattered he didn't reciprocate her love until many years later and then they began a forbidden 7 year affair. When it was discovered by the Scythedom, they were such respected scythes at that point that instead of being gleaned or imprisoned they were sentenced to die 7 deaths, one for each year of their affair.  After that they would only greet each other in passing and just associated as friends, although at this point in the story Citra sees the sadness in Curie's eyes and she knows that they must still love each other.
     When Curie takes Citra to her friend's house the lady tells them that the Scythedom already has several scythes in search of Citra, so after resting a couple days to fully heal, Citra goes on the run with information from Curie about where to find Faraday's killer.
     Citra arrives there and shoots the person in the knee from a distance to maim them so that she can force a confession but is shocked to find out that she actually shoots Faraday.  He had faked his own death so that Citra and Rowan would be set free.  Only Curie knew where he was.  When Citra asks why Curie didn't tell her this, he tells her that the truth of what has happened could only reach him in person and he knows that's why Curie sent her; for protection until Citra's name was cleared and so that she could let him know that things didn't work out like they were supposed to and he was the only one who could help her finish her training while Curie is clearing Citra's name.
      In the meantime, Goddard has said that they are going on one last gleaning before the winter meeting in the next few days, and he leads them to a Tonist church (the tonists are a group of people that believe immortality and the scythes aren't supposed to exist).  Goddard leads them in and begins murdering all the people.  Rowan is ordered to wait outside but Goddard tells him that "today is his day" and that he will be gleaning someone himself today.  Rowan tries to reject this by saying it's not allowed as an apprentice but Goddard waves him off and says it will count as one of his gleanings. Rowan wanders over to the side of the church because although he wants to let people escape no one will run past him thinking that he's on Goddard's side.  He finds Volta sobbing and when he asks what's wrong, Volta tells him that he went into one of the rooms thinking that only a couple people would be in there that he would have to kill but it turned out to be a room full of children.  Rowan tells him that once he is a scythe they will go somewhere else away from Goddard but Volta says it's too late and that's when Rowan realizes Volta slit his wrists.  When a scythe gleans themselves, they aren't revived, so Volta really is dead.
     Rowan goes inside the church furious and finds Goddard tying up the church's high priest.  Goddard tells him that he saved this man for Rowan, but when Goddard gives him a sword Rowan decapitates Goddard and also kills the other two junior scythes (they were evil too and tried to attack him after he killed Goddard).
     Rowan sets the church on fire and goes out in Goddard's robes.  Firemen are there to put the fire out but Rowan tells them that this is scythe business and they aren't allowed to interfere so they don't since they think he is a true scythe and not just an apprentice since he's in Goddard's robes and the church burns down.
     Rowan is sent to Xenocrates and Rowan hints to him that he knows Esme (the little girl from the food court) is his daughter, so Xenocrates hints that if Rowan keeps it a secret, the investigation into Goddard's death will be dropped.
     By this time, Citra's name has been cleared by Curie telling everyone about what had really happened and Citra is allowed to come back under Curie's apprenticeship.
     At the Winter meeting, the apprentices are sent into a private room for their final test.  They are told to kill the person sitting in the chair in front of them with the weapon of their choice that is laid out before them.  Citra has to kill her little brother and Rowan has to kill his mom.  The scythe judges assure them that their family members will be revived at the revival center right after they kill them, but this is their final test because if they can kill someone close to them then they do have what it takes to be a scythe.
     Citra is mortified but does as she's told while comforting her brother.  Rowan picks up a gun and shoots without a 2nd thought since he didn't care for his family very much anyways, and the fact that he did it so easily makes him wonder if he's more like Goddard than he would care to admit.
     Citra is declared as the winner of the contest and is announced in front of everyone as a scythe.  When asked what she wants her new scythe name to be (they always take new names from the Age of Mortality saints when they become junior scythes), she tells Xenocrates that it will be Scythe Anastasia Romanov.
     When Xenocrates says that's not an appropriate choice because Anastasia never accomplished anything of note in her life, Citra tells him that she was the product of a corrupt system, and that if she hadn't been, who knows what might have become of her.  Citra says that she will be another change that might have been (hinting at taking down this corrupt Scythedom) and so she will be known as Anastasia.
     She is told to kill Rowan per the previous arrangement after this, but she's already thought this through and she punches him hard enough to make him bleed and tells him "I will glean you, but that's for breaking my neck before!" (at the Autumn meeting during their previous apprenticeship competition he broke her neck so that he'd be disqualified and she would win, since he wanted her to be a scythe and not him so that he didn't have to kill her).  This transfers blood onto the scythe ring, aka his DNA, so he has been granted immunity.
     When she pulls out her blade to "attack" him, the ring glows red along with the surrounding scythe's rings, so they yell out for her to stop and that she can't kill him.  She feigns ignorance and tells them she didn't mean to give him immunity when she punched him.  While the Scythedom debates what to do with him for the year that he's immune, Citra leans close and tells him there's a car waiting on him outside.  He makes a run for it and it turns out that it's Faraday in the getaway car.
     In the Epilogue, it's revealed as an excerpt in Citra's journal that someone is out there taking down corrupt and evil scythes by fire and has been dubbed "Scythe Lucifer".  She says that if he ever comes her way she hopes he'll see her as one of the good ones, "the way he once did".  END OF BOOK 1