Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The three phases

The eighth floor's structure: fourteen days to fill a squad; at 12:01 on December 24th a choosing room, a new memory, nine tokens from frozen deckmasters and a key, often in the home of someone the crawler knew; at midnight on the 26th the keyless placed at the doors of those with keys, Flee costing a keyholder a key, doorways breakable and keys with them — 'setting the final phase to be a slaughter' — and, at the end, fifty Build Trench scrolls apiece, the floor's bandages and torches, to dig under a sealed chamber.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — The Ghosts of Earth
• Chapter 20 — Ruby
• Chapter 27 — Phase two rules
• Chapter 28 — Rude-Dolph
• Chapter 30 — Four drugs
• Chapter 31 — The corridor behind the shops
• Chapter 32 — Minge
• Chapter 37 — The eye of the Bedlam Bride
• Chapter 38 — Monroe County
• Chapter 40 — The Book of Voodoo
• Chapter 44 — A different time instance
• Chapter 45 — Asher
• Chapter 52 — Two of five
• Chapter 53 — Flee rules
• Chapter 57 — Samantha's secret
• Chapter 61 — Three out of four
• Chapter 62 — Where the Sidewalk Ends
• Chapter 71 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Progression

Rules read from a saferoom booth (ch. 27) and a motorcycle (ch. 53): the choosing room and a glitch that dumps Iowa on Florida (ch. 37, ch. 38); nine tokens in order, a vending machine, a double deckmaster (ch. 39–ch. 42); Flee as the only way to give a key, doorways as hostages, keys for one squad in four (ch. 56, ch. 59, ch. 61); Build Trench scrolls by the dozen for the way out nobody was told (ch. 61, ch. 72).