Lady Friday

[sawyl]

It's Friday and surely then time for Lady Friday, the fifth part of Garth Nix' Keys of the Kingdom series. The story opens with Arthur Penhaligon the new commander of the Armies of the Architect and his friend Leaf back on Earth in a nursing home full of old people where the wards are overseen by Lady Friday.

Fresh from his victory over Thursday, Arthur is holding a conference with his top aides. He has just managed to prevent his steward, Dame Primus, from ordering the extermination of all Piper's Children in the House, when an eminent denizen arrives with a message that Friday has decided to abdicate in favour either Arthur, Superior Saturday or the Piper, depending on which of them reaches her key first. When Arthur accepts the message he abruptly finds himself transported to the snow and ice of the Middle House.

Leaf, meanwhile, finds herself woken by the arrival of Friday's denizens in her nursing home. Using the power of their Day's voice, they hypnotise the patients, almost all of whom are elderly and in comas, into following them through the mirrored bottom of a dry swimming pool into dormant volcano in distant Secondary Realm. Here Leaf finds herself assigned to one of only two conscious humans in the facility, working to prepare the sleepers for some sort of procedure at the hands of Lady Friday.

Having holed himself up in an old mill, Arthur encounters a couple of unexpected allies in the form of Suzy Turquoise Blue and Fred Initial Letters Gold, both Piper's Children who he'd thought lost in a battle against the Nithings in the Great Maze. The group, together with the Children's Newnith minder, head up river on a raft bound for Friday's sanctuary. Along they way they witness a great aerial battle between Friday's Winged Servants of the Night and Superior Saturday's Artful Loungers. With the help of the Servants, the group make it through to the top level where Arthur decides to search for the fifth part of the Will of the Architect instead of going straight to the sanctuary to make a bid for the key.

Leaf, having discovered that her much-loved Aunt Mango is one of the sleepers, has let Friday believe that she has been cowed into submission but in reality she has used an amulet to call on the help of the Mariner. Arthur, too, has been forced to call on more power after encountering a sudden outbreak of Nothing he has had to summon all four of his keys to him to deploy their power to prevent it from spreading — even though doing so has compromised his humanity still further. Finally arriving at Friday's hideaway, Arthur and his friends finally confront Saturday and challenger her appalling behaviour — she has been drinking the experiences of the sleepers, putting them into some sort of near-death state.

Lady Friday expands the setting, introducing the Middle House, which seems to be dedicated to producing elegant books, and the secondary world of Friday's hideaway, with its reduced gravity and carnivorous plants. The book also introduces the ring, which prevents Arthur from employing magic at every possible opportunity, and shows how his personality is gradually being warped by the pressure of the keys, making him prone to fits of anger and arrogance.

The story ends on an intriguing note which, despite Arthur's victory over Friday and Leaf's rescue of the sleepers, suggests that someone or something is still working to undermine the foundations of the House while at least one of the two remaining Days — the scrap of a note is only initialled with an S — has chosen not to intervene in the scrabble for power...