Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 107 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

This chapter makes it very clear that men are disgusting. Brianna and Josh are to be sold to the highest bidder. Bonnet doesn’t care who that is, although he has a few men lined up for the auction that’s to happen. The men are going to come and see who they are bidding on, and it’s clear that Bree will do what she can to protect herself. That even means kill.

During the chapter, she decides to get food in Bonnet’s house. They’re on Ocracoke by now, by the way, and that’s important for the Frasers and Roger. While in the house, Bree see Phaedre. It’s time to find out what happened to her.

Phaedre initially explains there was trouble and she had to get away from River Run. She doesn’t go into detail at first, but eventually explains that Ulysses caught Phaedre with Duncan. When Ulysses told her to stop the affair, Phaedre refused. He told Ulysses that he would tell Duncan of the affair Jocasta and Ulysses are having.

Oh yes, it turns out that Ulysses and Jocasta have had a 20-year-long affair. It’s no wonder Duncan’s inability to consummate the marriage didn’t really matter to Jocasta. She wasn’t in it for the bedroom activities at all. It does shock Brianna, though.

Phaedre crossed the wrong man, though. Ulysses arranged to have her sold. Eventually, she ended up in the hands of Stephen Bonnet. It’s not like she could have done anything to prevent it, and she couldn’t get word to Claire to say where she had gone.

Bree does ask about the gold. All the slaves at River Run knew about it, but there was a rumor that it was cursed. Phaedre doesn’t know who took the gold since it happened after she left, but she does think Ulysses has something to do with it.

When Bree is taken back to her room, she thinks about time travel. She realizes that it may be connected to the law of thermodynamics, and decides that if someone dies in the past, that means another traveler has to die in the future to balance it all out. It’s the only way she can work out why some people survive the journey through the stones and others don’t.

I will admit that the thoughts of time travel are a little odd in the placement of the story. Why would Bree start thinking about this? I could see Roger thinking about it since he’d just come across the stones, but not Bree. It’s also a weird theory that seems to hint at a lot of things to come.