Ava Refuses the Assignment to Assassinate Duncan

Ava Refuses the Assignment to Assassinate Duncan marks a decisive breach in Ava’s coerced service to Venus: ordered to kill Duncan, she refuses openly, knowing that the blood pact gives Venus the power to punish or even kill her. The assignment turns Ava’s private loyalty into a direct challenge to the Coterie’s authority, and its consequences extend to Lock and Ezra, who recognize that Venus may treat Ava’s defiance as a threat to them as well.

Causes and Stakes

Venus gives Ava a file containing her next assignment, which arrives soon after two earlier jobs. Ava sees what it contains and immediately tries to return it. When Venus will not take it back, the file falls, scattering its papers over the pristine carpet; a subordinate gathers them and returns the file to Venus, who again holds it out. The exchange makes the order difficult to mistake: Venus expects Ava to accept the job, while Ava is already trying to refuse it.

The target is Duncan. Venus later says she has well-substantiated reports that he is building an army and that she cannot allow such a force to form practically on her doorstep. Ava questions what Duncan would want an army for, especially one made of golems, and sees the allegation as hard to reconcile with his established life. Venus dismisses the prospect of an army of wood as a danger to Owen, stroking his arm as she does so. Her answer gives Ava a stated political rationale, but not a convincing reason to believe Duncan is a genuine threat.

Ava also understands that the assignment may be a test or a calculated risk. Venus knows, Ava thinks, that she will not accept a contract targeting Duncan. The demand could mean Venus wants Duncan badly enough to risk losing Ava as an asset, or that the order is a trap. Ava cannot determine which explanation fits. That uncertainty makes her refusal more dangerous: she is acting without knowing whether Venus’s purpose is simply to remove Duncan or to expose Ava’s loyalties.

The Refusal

Ava says no, then makes her position explicit: Duncan is off limits, regardless of Venus’s conflict with him. The room falls silent. Venus freezes with the file in her hand before her pupils contract and the muscles around her mouth tighten. Ava feels fear, but continues rather than soften the refusal. The scene’s pause gives the decision its weight: she does not merely object to the assignment or ask for a different target; she denies Venus’s authority over this particular act.

Ava then refuses again, saying she will not do the job and warning Owen that she will burn him if he comes within range of Duncan. Owen answers by making a small flame move across his knuckles, displaying his control and treating her threat lightly. Their antagonism briefly shifts the confrontation from the contract to the rivalry between the two firebugs, but Venus cuts it short, warning that she could make them behave. Her reminder is more than a rebuke. Ava’s blood pact binds her to Venus, and Ava knows that her right to refuse has no protection under that agreement.

The choice is therefore not between a safe course and a dangerous one. Ava has only been able to manage small acts of rebellion before, because Venus owns her under the pact. Still, she thinks of Duncan’s hand-whittled ornament from the previous winter: a cat like Horatio, resting on a book, which Cade loved so much that it remained on the bookshop counter long after Christmas. That remembered object makes Duncan’s kindness concrete, and Ava decides that he is worth the risk. She asks Venus to leave him alone and insists that whoever supplied the information is wrong.

Immediate Aftermath

The refusal does not free Ava from the pact or settle the danger. Venus slaps her, a punishment Ava later describes to her friends as almost nonpunishment by Venus’s standards. Afterward, Venus hands her the file again. Ava uses it to wipe blood from the corner of her mouth and returns it with a tight-lipped smile, openly maintaining her defiance even as the room waits to see how Venus will respond.

Ava knows that Venus could kill her under the pact and that disobedience has given Venus grounds to do so. She gambles that Venus needs her too much to follow through. That calculation offers little comfort: she wonders whether Cade would be safe if she were gone, or whether Venus might pursue him out of vengeance. She can only hope Duncan would protect him. Venus watches Ava for several breaths, then dismisses her and tells her to rejoin her friends. Ava leaves Hell at a normal walking pace but is eager to get out.

Consequences for Her Friends

At Purgatory, Lock asks how the meeting went. Ava tells him she turned down the job. Lock and Ezra both go still. Lock recognizes the target as Duncan, whom he likes in part because he brings them fish, and agrees that killing him would be wrong. He is nevertheless alarmed that Ava said no outright rather than negotiate, and he suspects Venus has a plan because she let Ava leave with only a slap.

Lock’s suspicion is sharpened by talk that Venus has been more unpredictable than usual. He urges Ava—and, by extension, the others—to be especially cautious. Ava admits she is worried. Ezra strokes her hair, a gesture that reassures him and reveals his concern despite his usual carefree manner. Lock then names the wider stake: Ava spoke for all of them, so Venus could terminate Ezra and him as well. Ava apologizes for not consulting them first, but Lock says their answer would have been the same. The exchange shows that her choice is personal in origin but collective in consequence.

Significance

The episode places Ava’s inherited obligations beside a loyalty she chooses for herself. The blood pact makes obedience enforceable, while her memories of Duncan’s care for Cade give her a reason to refuse that is grounded in an established relationship rather than abstract defiance. Venus’s allegation about an army supplies the political pretext; the whittled cat and Duncan’s history with Cade supply the counterweight that makes Ava’s decision emotionally legible.

The aftermath preserves the tension rather than resolving it. Venus’s slap is mild enough to seem anomalous, but not reassuring: Ava and Lock both suspect that the restraint conceals a larger intention. Meanwhile, Ava’s refusal has exposed the limits of her ability to protect the people around her. She has kept Duncan from being made her target for the moment, but she remains bound to Venus, Cade’s safety is uncertain, and Lock and Ezra understand that they may share the price of her disobedience.