Em’s older sister, Nor (Elinor), was raped during a frat party her freshman year of college. One year later, despite attempts to discredit Nor, her attacker is found guilty on all charges. Then the judge sentences him to time served. Em (Marianne) doesn’t know what to do with her rage, or her guilt, having convinced Nor to push for a full trial. Everywhere Em turns in Seattle she sees signs of the patriarchy and rape culture prevailing, while her effort to counter the continued online slander of her sister only makes things worse. The stress and tension has frayed the fabric of their family. Em learns about Marguerite de Bressieux from classmate Jess. Marguerite, a young 15 ^th -century French noblewoman raped during the pillage of her father’s estate, trained as a knight and took revenge on her rapists. Em becomes obsessed with writing a story about Marguerite, poems that white, genderqueer Jess, an artist seeking refuge with Nor’s family from their parents’ bitter divorce, begins illuminating like medieval manuscripts. These poems and drawings are interspersed through the primary prose narrative following the contemporary characters. Nor’s family includes her Guatemalan immigrant dad, who turned from a doctorate in poetry to plumbing to help support them, and her white, literature professor mom. Untangling their messy, complicated feelings surrounding the trauma of Nor’s rape and its impact on all of them is powerful, and essential to their healing as individuals and a family. (Age 13 and older)