Come Tumbling Down is the fifth novella in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire. It picks up where Every Heart a Doorway left off and focuses on Jack and Jill.
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children has some important rules; 'no solicitors' is an obvious one, 'no visitors' an understandable one given the students wanting to leave the world behind. But 'No Quest's is always an odd one for those who don't know the student body the school caters to.
These rules have been broken before when life needed to be snatched from death and now it is going to happen again when the reverse happens. Before Jack Killed Jill when she went down a mental hill.
Being a good sister she brought her back to life. Now Jill is going to make sure Jack pays for her temerity.
Now one of the Twins is back at the Home begging for help to stop the other it's time for another quest.
Tropes appearing in this work include
- All Animals Are Dogs: Invoked. When Jack talks to her horses like they're dogs, Christopher asks if that's how horses work, and she explains that Pony actually has a dog's brain, since it was easier to get than a horse brain.
- Back from the Dead: Alexis and Dr. Bleak. Also, as of an earlier book in the series, Sumi.
- Bad Moon Rising: Even the highly scientific Jack agrees that the creepy, giant red moon is a deity.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: One character notes that the sea cult's base looks like something from a Vincent Price movie. Jack replies that it's actually the other way around.
- Beneath the Mask: Jack is a cold, amoral mad scientist...who is shown to absolutely adore her lover Alexis.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Once again, Sumi shows why High Nonsense travelers are to be feared. After skipping cheerily through the horrors of the book, she almost single-handedly takes the Master on with a baling hook, preventing him from rescuing Jill.
- Body Snatcher: The Drowned Gods call to Cora who eventually dives into the ocean to be with them, Kade follows a bit later. They give him back but not before this use Cora's body as a mouthpiece.
- Call-Back: At one point, Sumi tells Jack that she's glad they're getting to see her being sweet for once, because no one can be all spice, and Jack says people aren't pieces of gingerbread. Sumi replies that she's wrong—and Sumi would know, because she technically is a piece of gingerbread, given the way she was resurrected two books ago.
- Came Back Wrong: Alexis after being resurrected a second time. She’s basically lightning-powered now, and lightning runs out, so she has to be recharged regularly. When she's running low, she looks deader and stops being able to vocalize. Also, she's traumatized by being dead, and she can basically never travel because she can't hold a charge that long. (A more traditional version is third resurrections; second ones can be a little off, but while third ones work, you'll always wish they didn't.)
- Celibate Hero: Averted with Sumi; after declaring that she was taken in an earlier book, she has decided that her candy corn farmer future husband wouldn’t mind if she didn’t wait for him and directly propositions.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Sumi, until she unexpectedly says something incisive.
- Death Is Cheap: Averted. Yes, Jack can resurrect you with lightning, but she would still prefer that she not have to. For one thing, you'll still have died the first time around, and that's not good for a person.
- Disney Villain Death: Jack takes out Jill by shoving her off of the Master's tower.
- Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: With a dose of Bio-Augmentation when it comes to Gideon, he's the high priest of the Drowned Gods and came through a door himself. His left leg is a tentacle that seems to be a sign of his office.
- Grand Theft Me: Jill swaps bodies with Jack so she can become a vampire, since Jack didn't die and get resurrected.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Jack, in spades. She has to kill her sister, for good this time.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Drowned Gods are implied to be this. They appear to have some kind of Psychic Link with Cora, who yearns to live in an ocean again.
- Enemy Mine: Why the Drowned Gods agree to help Jack. Since the Master has killed Dr. Bleak, the power balance in the Moors is off.
- Familial Body Snatcher: Jill takes her sister's body to become a vampire, her resurrection following her death by Jack's hands having removed that option for her. Jack is stuck in Jill's body and is pissed.
- Hellish Horse: Jack’s horses, one of which is cobbled together from other animals and one of which is a skeleton. They’re well-behaved, though, and of course Christopher is enamored with the skeletal one.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: The Moors run on this trope. Need to transfer your mind to your twin? Can do! Need to resurrect your girlfriend and keep her batteries charged? No problem! Need to travel between worlds? Sure! Jack gives an extended and very energetic speech about the rules of the Moors to her companions.
- I Have Your Wife: A body swap requires mad science and was therefore not something a vampire could do alone. The Master obtained Jack's help by threatening Alexis.
- Mad Scientist: Jack, of course. Complete with traditional Evil Laugh.
- Mouth of Sauron: Cora is forced into this role by the Drowned Gods. After they release her she vomits or coughs up a lot of dark water and fishes and is left with a bit of rainbow skin.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: Cora. She wears her scales on the inside now, so to speak.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Eleanor is starting to show signs of this. Kade is running the school more as a result.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The (sentient) monsters of the Moors. They recognize that there must be "balance" on the Moors, and will maintain it even if it means temporarily putting their own interests aside.
- Promise Me You Won't X: Before introducing her horses to him Jack asks Christopher not to scream, he wonders out loud if this is how he'll die.
- Sibling Murder: Jack kills Jill again, this time by pushing her off the Master's tower.
- Signed Language: Alexis uses ASL when she's The Speechless because of the whole Came Back Wrong thing.
- Sumi turns out to know ASL which helps her communicate and translate for Alexis when necessary. It's noted that there's been a bit of linguistic drift in the version used by the Moors but it's not a major issue.
- Überwald: The Moors, which seems to hit every note on the Hammer Horror checklist with a dash of Lovecraft's work sowed in for flavor.
- Vampire Wannabe: Jill’s main motivation. Taken to an extreme degree.
