Titus Groan disturbed and uneasy about all that has happened, and disturbed about Steerpike's sudden rise. Yet neither is able to connect Steerpike as the cause of the tragic events, as he was their apparent saviour from the fire in the library. Soon afterwards, the “Earling” takes place, and young Titus is officially made Earl of Gormenghast. In a ridiculously elaborate ceremony on a nearby lake, little Titus holds aloft the sacred symbols of his status – the stone and ivy branch, and to the horror of observers, promptly drops them both into the lake. The scene is silent except for the
Titus Awakes in the Overlook editions (albeit in both single volume and omnibus). Mills (2005) comments on the irony of the narrator's comment that Titus would never again see Gormenghast Castle, for "even in the first proposed chapter, Titus returns in a dream to Gormenghast and the fight between Swelter and Flay." The textual repetition in the preadventure was commented upon by Chris Sandow, who stated that "[t]he fragments are clearly no more than early drafts". However, it is not clear that the repetition is an error. Early in 2010 Sebastian Peake announced that his daughter had found Maeve Gilmore's notebook MS