Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig

Here is a summary with spoilers for Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig

King Benedict Castor III tells the people of Traum that wild sprites destroyed the cathedral and killed the abbess, the Diviners, and the gargoyles. Sybil Delling, the last surviving Diviner, is taken to Castle Luricht and imprisoned. Benedict intends to marry her and use her position as the last Diviner to support his rule. Sybil believes Maude, Bartholomew, and Rory were killed when the cathedral fell. She is devastated but decides that she will eventually kill Benedict herself. She is cleaned, dressed in white, and prepared for the forced wedding.

At the same time, Rodrick “Rory” Myndacious wakes on the tor after being dead. Maude Bauer had used the magical spring water to resurrect him, but he has no memory of who he is. Maude and Bartholomew find him and explain that he is Rory and that he died during the fall of Aisling Cathedral. Rory sees the cracks running through Bartholomew’s stone body and realizes that Bartholomew and Maude survived as well. Maude explains that the spring water brought Rory back, but something happened to him in the process. Rory’s eyes have become pale and stone-like, and his memories are gone. Maude tells him that Sybil is alive but has been taken by Benedict and is being forced into marriage. Rory agrees to travel with Maude and Bartholomew to find a way to get his memories back and rescue Sybil.

Maude, Rory, and Bartholomew eventually reach Petula Hall in the Chiming Wood. Benedict's knights arrive to claim the estate for the crown, and a fight breaks out. Rory fights alongside Maude even though he still does not remember his previous life, while Bartholomew attacks the knights as well. Birke sprites eventually kill the remaining royal soldiers. Maude realizes that Benedict is organizing a massive tournament that will travel through the five hamlets of Traum. Each part of the tournament is connected to one of the five magical stone objects that Benedict has placed in the hands of his champions. Maude, Rory, and Bartholomew decide to enter the tournament undercover rather than try to attack Benedict directly.

Meanwhile, Benedict begins parading Sybil through the kingdom as his future queen. She is repeatedly given ox-eye, the substance that had previously induced visions, and she is kept under close guard. Benedict explains that the tournament is partly a political spectacle designed to make the noble families publicly support him. Sybil discovers that the five stone objects have been distributed among champions representing different areas of Traum. She also realizes that Benedict intends to use the tournament to strengthen his control over the kingdom. During the wedding ceremony, she attempts to resist him, but Benedict uses the Artful Brigand's stone coin to escape when the ceremony begins to fall apart. Sybil is badly wounded in the chaos, and the magical spring water inside her body causes limestone to begin forming around her organs.

Six weeks later, Maude, Rory, and Bartholomew arrive at Coulson Faire for the first tournament event, the Joust. Bartholomew disguises himself under elaborate clothing so that nobody will recognize him as a gargoyle. Rory disguises himself as a knight. While they are moving through the castle, Bartholomew steals Benedict Castor I's old notebook because it contains information about the stone objects, the Omens, and the magical spring. Rory eventually sees Sybil during the royal procession. He does not remember her consciously, but he immediately recognizes something about her. Sybil also notices him and is unsettled by how familiar the mysterious knight feels.

During the Joust, Maude secretly competes against Benedict. Rory uses the tournament chaos to get closer to Sybil and eventually gets hold of the loom stone, one of the five magical objects. When Rory touches it, his memories begin returning. He remembers being an orphan and thief, his relationship with Maude, his connection to Benedict's family, and eventually his relationship with Sybil. Most importantly, he remembers that Benedict killed him during the destruction of Aisling Cathedral. Rory now knows who he is, but he pretends that he still has amnesia because he needs to stay close to Benedict and protect Sybil.

Rory wins the Joust while Maude's name also appears on the tournament records, proving to Sybil that at least some of the people she believed were dead are actually alive. During the next event, the Melee, a mysterious fighter known as the Knave enters the arena. He wears dark armor and uses a piece of Sybil's clothing as his token. He fights his way through the competition and eventually defeats Dedrick Lange, the champion holding the stone inkwell. Sybil demands that the Knave reveal his face. When he removes his helmet, she realizes that he is Rory. His eyes are still pale and stone-like, but he is alive.

Benedict immediately becomes suspicious of Rory and orders him captured. Rory continues pretending that he has no memory of Sybil. Benedict even forces Sybil into an intimate situation in front of Rory to see whether Rory reacts. Rory manages to hide his reaction. Sybil then uses the fact that Rory won the Melee to demand her prize: a Divination for him. During the supposed Divination, Rory is able to get close enough to Sybil to untie her. Sybil tastes his blood and realizes that the spring water inside Rory is helping her pain. Rory confirms to her that he remembers everything, but the two of them have to continue pretending that they are strangers.

Sybil and Rory begin secretly working together to destroy the five stone objects and remove Benedict from power. Rory becomes Benedict's champion and remains near him, while Sybil continues playing the role of obedient queen. At a gathering at Eichel House, Rory and Sybil are briefly able to spend time together. Rory's blood continues to relieve the pain caused by the limestone forming inside Sybil. During the chaos caused by another earthquake, Sybil destroys the stone inkwell. Dedrick Lange attempts to stop her and is pulled into the Tenor River. Benedict blames the water sprites for his disappearance, which gives the humans another excuse to hunt and kill them.

After the Melee, Rory and Sybil have more opportunities to interact while still pretending to be separated by their positions. Rory eventually openly challenges Benedict to a fight and humiliates him. Then Maude appears wearing her tournament armor and declares herself Benedict's champion. Sybil realizes that Maude has deliberately placed herself in Benedict's immediate circle so that she can help undermine him. The reunion between Sybil, Rory, Maude, and Bartholomew is one of the first times Sybil knows for certain that the people she thought she lost are actually alive. She embraces Maude and Bartholomew, and Rory and Sybil are finally able to have a private reunion.

The group continues toward the Fervent Peaks for the Feats of Strength. Bartholomew's condition is becoming worse. His stone body is developing larger cracks and pieces of limestone are beginning to fall away. Sybil reads Benedict Castor I's notebook and discovers an important connection between dead sprites and limestone. The notebook describes a dead sprite that did not leave a normal corpse but instead became a massive piece of limestone. Sybil begins to suspect that the sacred tor and its spring may have been something very different from what the kingdom's religion taught.

At the Fervent Peaks, the group encounters Avice Fischer, the noblewoman holding the stone oar. Her castle contains evidence of the mistreatment of sprites, including shale sprites impaled on stakes. Avice offers Sybil another potential way out by suggesting that she marry Avice's son, Hamelin, and help create a new political alliance. Sybil refuses. Hamelin participates in the Feats of Strength and uses the stone oar to manipulate the water. Bartholomew competes as well and demonstrates how physically powerful he is despite his damaged body. During the competition, Hamelin uses the oar to attack Bartholomew, causing significant damage. Bartholomew eventually breaks the oar.

Benedict responds to the confrontation by killing Hamelin with the stone coin. Sybil is horrified, and Avice's support for Benedict begins to disappear. Bartholomew is badly damaged, losing a large section of his stone body. The group continues traveling, but Bartholomew is now visibly deteriorating. He constantly sheds limestone dust and has large sections missing from his body. Rory and Sybil continue trying to spend whatever private time they can find together. Sybil tells Rory that she believes the kingdom cannot be saved without destroying the five objects, even if doing so requires her to die. Rory refuses to let her deliberately sacrifice herself.

During their journey, Rory also discovers that drinking ox-eye causes him to see visions connected to Aisling Cathedral. Sybil explains what she has seen and what she believes is happening to the kingdom. She is increasingly convinced that the earthquakes, the spring, the stone bodies, and the Omens are all connected. Rory continues to use his blood to ease her pain. The relationship between them becomes physical as well as emotional, and they eventually sleep together. Sybil is still becoming increasingly stone-like, but Rory's spring-water-filled blood temporarily relieves her symptoms.

The next tournament event takes place in the Chiming Wood. The nobles have become increasingly uncomfortable with Benedict, and his control over the kingdom is weakening. At Eichel House, the group participates in the Hunt. Tory Bassett, who accidentally injured Sybil during the wedding, admits what happened and apologizes. Sybil forgives her. Benedict, however, has already decided that Sybil must be sacrificed as part of the spectacle. He plans to use the stone chime and the birke sprites to create another public story that supports his rule.

The Hunt turns into a disaster. Samuel Eichel begins realizing that Benedict is intentionally destroying Traum rather than protecting it. Benedict attempts to use Sybil as a sacrifice, while Samuel refuses to continue cooperating with him. Tory is killed by an arrow. Benedict traps Sybil in a net and orders the stone chime to be rung. The sound causes Sybil to experience overwhelming visions and memories. Samuel openly turns against Benedict, and Benedict pushes him into a burning pyre. A fire spreads through the Chiming Wood and destroys Eichel House. Sybil manages to break free and destroys the stone chime. Bartholomew flies through the fire to rescue her, but the effort causes even more damage to his already fragile body.

After the fire, the survivors return to Petula Hall. Bartholomew is now in extremely poor condition, with pieces of his body breaking away. Sybil is exhausted by the repeated deaths and destruction surrounding her. She drinks old ox-eye and receives another major vision. She sees generations of Diviner children being drowned in the sacred spring by the Abbess. She also sees Bartholomew repeatedly rescuing them from the water. The vision finally reveals that the tor itself is the body of an ancient primeval sprite named Der ewige Mond, the Eternal Moon. The limestone of the tor is its body, and the magical spring is made from its blood.

Sybil realizes that the sacred spring is responsible for the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of living bodies into stone. The earthquakes are also connected to Der ewige Mond. The kingdom has been building its religion around the remains of an ancient sprite while simultaneously teaching people to fear and kill sprites. Sybil also realizes that the destruction of the old religious system cannot simply be replaced by another false story. She and Rory decide that they must finish destroying Benedict's remaining power.

The final tournament event is the Duel at the Cliffs of Bellidine. By this point, Benedict's political support has largely collapsed. The major noble families gather, including Brenna Bassett, Avice Fischer, Edora Eichel, Otto Lange, and Regius Ormsby. They strip Benedict of his crown and name Maude the new leader. Brenna demands that Benedict and Sybil fight one final duel. Sybil agrees because she has wanted the opportunity to confront Benedict herself.

Sybil and Benedict fight on the beach. Benedict attacks her brutally, but Sybil's body has become sufficiently stone-like that his attacks cannot kill her the way he expects. He eventually stabs her beneath her breastplate, but the blade hits the limestone surrounding her organs instead of penetrating them. Sybil defeats him and refuses to kill him while he is unconscious. She carries him back toward the beach and leaves him alive. Benedict then uses the Artful Brigand's coin to teleport away to the tor, where he intends to drink the spring water and gain another chance at life.

Benedict reaches the tor before the others. He uses the stone coin against the sprites and attempts to reach the spring. Sybil, Rory, Maude, and Bartholomew follow him. Maude sees a sprite in danger and moves to protect it. Benedict uses the coin's destructive power, and Maude takes the blast while shielding the sprite. She is catastrophically injured and dies in Rory's arms. Rory does not use the spring water to resurrect her because Maude has previously made it clear that she does not want to be brought back again.

Bartholomew takes the stone coin and destroys it by biting down on it, eliminating Benedict's last magical weapon. Benedict is dying and asks Rory for spring water so that he can be resurrected. Rory refuses. Benedict dies on the tor. The victory comes at the cost of Maude's life, and the group then has to face what has happened to Bartholomew. His body has been cracking throughout the entire journey, and the damage from the oar, the fire, and his repeated efforts to protect Sybil have left him close to breaking apart completely.

Bartholomew eventually walks to the spring and allows himself to fall into the water. His stone body breaks apart. Sybil follows him into the spring, and she loses consciousness. In the resulting vision, she meets Der ewige Mond, whose spirit exists within the tor and spring. The ancient sprite tells Sybil that the tor is its body and that Sybil and Rory will have unusually long lives because of the stone and spring magic within them. Sybil is also given a way to save Bartholomew: she must carve a new body for him from the limestone of the tor.

Sybil returns from the spring and uses her hammer and chisel to carve Bartholomew a new body. She rebuilds him from the limestone of the tor, replacing the damaged body that had been breaking apart throughout the book. Bartholomew comes back to life with his memories intact. He recognizes Sybil and Rory, and the three are reunited. Maude is buried in the Chiming Wood, where birch trees eventually grow around her grave and create a sanctuary for sprites and humans. Benedict is buried on the tor beside his grandfather.

Sybil, Rory, and Bartholomew remain on the tor. The five stone objects are no longer used as instruments of Benedict's power. The relationship between the humans and sprites changes, and the tor becomes a place where the two groups can coexist. Bartholomew takes responsibility for preserving the true history of what happened, rather than allowing Benedict's false account of Aisling Cathedral to become the accepted version of events.

The story then jumps forward one hundred years. Sybil, Rory, and Bartholomew are still living on the tor. Sybil and Rory remain together, and Bartholomew continues to wait for travelers who come to the hill because they have heard stories about the gargoyle and the spring. A scholar-king named August Roane climbs the tor carrying a notebook, quill, and stone inkwell. She asks Bartholomew to tell her the true history of Traum. Bartholomew agrees and begins telling the story of Der ewige Mond, the origins of the sprites, Aisling Cathedral, the five hamlets, Benedict's false account, Maude's sacrifice, and everything that happened afterward. Rory and Sybil remain beside him while he records the history for the next generation.