Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 23 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire passing out from ether. It works as an anesthetic and that’s the important thing. Now she just needs to get Tom Christie to agree to the surgery. Malva is working on him agreeing to it.

First, Claire and Jamie need to head to the Bugs’ cabin. That’s where Claire finally learns what happened to Arch’s fingers. He shares that the Frasers chopped them off—not the Frasers of Lovat though. It was a different clan that is no longer around, and it all turned out to be clans hating on each other.

Jamie is certainly relieved to find out that it wasn’t kin of his. However, he and Claire are shocked about the revelation.

The next part of the chapter is focused on Tom Christie as he makes it clear that he doesn’t want surgery. Claire points out that he’s going to lose all function if he doesn’t and eventually, manages to talk him around to the surgery enough to get him to at least turn up after breakfast. Tom tries to pull the religion card and that it’s God’s will, but Claire pulls him up on that.

On the following day, Tom still makes it clear that he doesn’t want to do it. He is scared of being put under with the anesthetic. He ends up having the surgery without any anesthetic, which means that Jamie is also there to read from a Bible. It’s a chance to get Tom’s surgery done and see some attempt of bonding with Jamie continuing to be a laird.