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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mortal Engines, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class
Sacrifice
Dangers of Technology
The Importance of History
Prejudice and First Impressions
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Katherine wakes up in Tier One of London, reflecting on how sad it is that Tom died while chasing Hester. She has never seen her father (Valentine) look as shaken as he did that day. She gets out of bed and goes to see Valentine, who is taking his coffee. They discuss Tom, and Valentine says they haven’t found a body, meaning Tom likely drowned in mud or got crushed under London’s tracks.
This passage shows how sheltered Katherine is from the things her father does—she has no idea, for example, that Valentine pushed Tom and that it wasn’t Hester who dragged Tom down the garbage chute. This lack of awareness connects to her privilege as a member of Tier One in London, the highest tier below the official government buildings on Top Tier.
Themes
Valentine tells Katherine that the city’s Lord Mayor (Magnus Crome) isn’t happy about the assassin (Hester), so he’s coming to visit Valentine personally. On the table next to Valentine’s breakfast, Katherine happens to see an identification form and recoils when she notices the photo of a girl with a scar and one eye. Just then, there’s a knock at the door, and a man announces that the Mayor has arrived.
In spite of Katherine’s naivety, she still catches glimpses of her father’s darker side, like the identification photo of Hester on the table. Katherine begins to recognize that something unusual is happening, but like Tom, she’s not ready to give up her old beliefs.
Themes
Magnus Crome, the Lord Mayor of London for the past 20 years, comes into the house, looking thinner and gloomier than the previous mayors in Katherine’s history books. Katherine doesn’t like him, even though he’s good to her father.
Katherine leaves the room but listens in by the door. In his cold voice, Crome tells Valentine that he thought Hester and her whole family had already been “dealt with.” Katherine can’t hear everything, but she does hear her father saying he doesn’t know how Hester escaped the first time, but she finally seems to be dead.
Katherine overhears a conversation that suggests pretty clearly that her father murdered Hester’s family and attempted to murder Hester, and yet because Katherine isn’t ready to hear this yet, she doesn’t allow herself to grasp Crome’s real meaning here.
Themes
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Crome scolds Valentine that unless he saw Hester dead there could be serious problems, especially if Hester tells another city that London has MEDUSA (a term that Katherine doesn’t recognize). Valentine volunteers to go search for Hester’s body, but Crome tells him he wants him to take his airship somewhere else. Kathrine goes back to her bedroom, unsure what to make of the conversation she just overheard.
MEDUSA is an important concept in the book, but it remains mysterious here, in part because the naïve Katherine doesn’t know what it is (even though Crome and Valentine do). This highlights how the book’s changes in perspective often focus on a specific character in order to heighten the suspense.
Themes
