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Something Wicked This Way Waits: Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt

Burn the Dark (Malus Domestica, #1) by S.A. Hunt
Representation: Queer Protagonists, Bisexual, Gay, PoC
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy
Buy on Amazon, The Book Depository
Goodreads

Supernatural meets Stranger Things in award-winning author S. A. Hunt’s Burn the Dark, first in the Malus Domestica horror action-adventure series about a punk YouTuber on a mission to bring down witches, one vid at a time.

Robin is a YouTube celebrity gone-viral with her intensely-realistic witch hunter series. But even her millions of followers don't know the truth: her series isn’t fiction.

Her ultimate goal is to seek revenge against the coven of witches who wronged her mother long ago. Returning home to the rural town of Blackfield, Robin meets friends new and old on her quest for justice. But then, a mysterious threat known as the Red Lord interferes with her plans….

“Brilliant!” —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author

Burn the Dark was first self-published back in 2015, and published this January by Tor. I actually got to read a bit of the self-pubbed edition, so I know that Hunt tuned down the horror and gore for the new version, for which I’m grateful. The original prologue was nightmarish.

But even this new edition is still very much on the horror end of the spectrum. The premise is fantastic – Robin is a Youtuber shooting a series featuring herself as witch-hunter, only the entire thing is real – no need for a special-effects budget when witches are throwing real magic at you, I guess! I loved this concept so much – it’s just sneakily brilliant, and a really clever way for Robin to make herself enough money to support her witch-hunting road-tripping across the USA. But it’s not an easy life she’s built for herself – the witches in this series are properly terrifying, women who’ve given their hearts to the Sumerian goddess Ereshkigal (which, major points to Hunt for using Sumerian mythology for their worldbuilding! Don’t get to see that nearly often enough) in return for supernatural powers. Some of which give the whole ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ saying a…very different spin.

The book begins with Robin returning to her old hometown, where her mother was murdered and child!Robin placed into a mental hospital for calling it like she saw it. She reconnects with an old friend and makes some new ones, but she’s here to take out the very old, very powerful coven that killed her mother – and she’s not going to be distracted.

Except for how she totally gets distracted, as what looks pretty black and white to begin with rapidly becomes far more complicated.

To be honest, Burn the Dark was a bit too horror-y for my usual tastes; Hunt doesn’t flinch away from the grotesque and the gore, making it very clear that the magic here is of the proper fairytale variety – dark and fucked-up. I felt my gorge rise more than once. And there were a few too many plotlines running alongside each other – the ring, the dryad, the coven, the serial killer, the kid and his dad moving to town, Robin’s mother’s secrets…even though most of them were all tied together by the end, it felt pretty messy. Which is why it’s so strange that I was also kind of bored – it sounds like it should have been action-packed, but I actually kept putting the book down and wandering to something else because it took so long for things to really get moving. Although it helped that we got some flashbacks from Robin, and I really like how the exposition was handled.

All that said, I really liked the characters and Hunt’s writing – there’s something quietly lyrical about it, kind of soothing even when something monstrous is going on. And even if it felt a bit messy, there’s no arguing that the book wrapped up with a lot of important questions left hanging open, questions I’m invested in enough to want answered. I guess Burn the Dark really felt like the opening to a trilogy/series – like now that the story’s established and we know all the players, the game’s all set to really start with the next book. Luckily, we don’t have long to wait – two more books of the series are being released this year, and I already have the sequel pre-ordered.

If you like your fantasy on the dark side with diverse and very human characters, then you definitely ought to give this one a go. Readers with weak stomachs might want to skip and find something a bit gentler.

The post Something Wicked This Way Waits: Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Some Recent DNFs

Genres: Fantasy

I’m a fast reader, but between working full-time and writing my own stories, I have very strict rules about wasting time on books I’m not enjoying. If I don’t care how the book ends by the time I hit the 20% mark on my Kindle, that book is getting DNF-ed.

Some of the recent additions to my DNF pile were especially surprising and disappointing, since they were books I was really looking forward to.

I’ve loved every one of McLemore’s books, but this one just didn’t work for me. Nothing about the present-day storyline held my attention at all, and it didn’t help that it was told in first-person by characters who seemed incredibly bland and 2D. The historical storyline was much more interesting, but…the magic just wasn’t there for me this time. Sigh.

Bolivian-inspired fantasy with night-themed magic – I have no idea how this one went wrong. First-person present-tense narration definitely didn’t help (that pretty much always rubs me the wrong way, and I hate that it seems to be so popular in YA right now), and it all felt weirdly simplistic? I still find myself staring at that gorgeous cover, but unfortunately the writing within the pages was just too bland to bear.

I tried with this one, I really, really did, but if I’d had a paperback copy I’d have thrown it across the room. Although the heroine was refreshingly ruthless, she was also incredibly stupid, and there was so much info-dumping to establish the Extremely Important cultural and historical backstory – which could have been conveyed so much more elegantly through some kind of poetic prologue. Also, I have an Anti-Thing about stupid monarchs, and I couldn’t stand the mc’s father, the king – I wanted to push him off one of the cliffs of his island kingdom. And don’t get me started on the magic ship that only needs one person to sail it – that was so clearly a way to duck out of needing a larger cast of characters it was embarrassing. The worldbuilding was clearly meant to read as intricate, but it was like Grace came up with this interestingly complicated world and then watered it down to simple, wishy-washy mush. Nope.

I received this one as an ARC, and wow did it make me angry. The writing itself is really beautiful, but the conceit has the mc growing up inside a brothel – and I mean literally inside it: she’s not allowed to leave the house, ever. To the point that when she does eventually sneak out, she runs back to the house screaming because she mistakes the sun rising for the sky being on fire. That’s not funny, it’s fucked-up, and her being allowed out one day a year – on her birthday – isn’t some grand gesture; it doesn’t erase the cruelty of it all. But we’re supposed to accept this because the mc has feathers growing on her back and this is all for her ~protection~. Yeah, no. Fuck all the way off.

I have zero tolerance for shitty parents – especially ones we’re clearly not meant to think are bad parents, see the whole ‘stop sulking, she’s sacrificed so much for you’ line. Urgh.

I have been reading some fantastic books that I need to write reviews for – I just needed to scribble some notes about these DNFs first. I hope everyone else’s reading has been going better!

The post Some Recent DNFs appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

(Some Of) My Most Anticipated Reads of 2020!

SO MANY INCREDIBLE BOOKS COMING OUT THIS YEAR! This isn’t even half the ones I know about, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of incredible reads I haven’t seen coming yet.

So this list doesn’t get completely out of control, I’ve restricted myself to books that have been given covers and release dates.

January 14th – Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

I mean, it’s McLemore. I really don’t need to know anything more than that; at this point, I would read their grocery list. But I’m extra excited because McLemore’s been saying how they’re especially proud of this one and like??? Every new book they write ends up being my favourite of their works and you just know the pattern is going to hold true. AND IT’S COMING SO SOON AHHHH!

Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves.

Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Oliva’s feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever’s history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there’s more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may decide whether Rosella survives the red shoes.

With McLemore’s signature lush prose, Dark and Deepest Red pairs the forbidding magic of a fairy tale with a modern story of passion and betrayal.

February 4th – Euphoria Kids by Alison Evans

I stumbled across a mention of this one on twitter and I am so glad I did!!! All the Francesca Lia Block vibes except extra queer and extra magic, which is basically the recipe for a VERY HAPPY SIA INDEED! The only thing I’m anxious about is that it’s being published in Australia and there’s no ebook preorder links yet (that I can find). I’ll read it in paperback if I have to, though!

Ever since the witch cursed Babs, she turns invisible sometimes. She has her mum and her dog, but teachers and classmates barely notice her. Then, one day, Iris can see her. And Iris likes what they see. Babs is made of fire.

Iris grew from a seed in the ground. They have friends, but not human ones. Not until they meet Babs. The two of them have a lot in common: they speak to dryads and faeries, and they’re connected to the magic that’s all around them.

There’s a new boy at school, a boy who’s like them and who hasn’t found his real name. Soon the three of them are hanging out and trying spellwork together. Magic can be dangerous, though. Witches and fae can be cruel. Something is happening in the other realm, and despite being warned to stay away, the three friends have to figure out how to deal with it on their own terms.

Anyone who loves the work of Francesca Lia Block and delights in Studio Ghibli films will be entranced by this gorgeous and gentle young adult novel about three queer friends who come into their power.

February 11th – The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood

Orcs! Queerness! Runaway sacrifices! Epic Fantasy giving the finger to the classics, ALL THE YES! You can actually read the first few chapters for free, both on Tor.com, or you can download the sampler as an ebook on Amazon (and probably other retailers too).

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does — she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard’s loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

February 24th – Behind the Sun, Above the Moon ed by Brooklyn Ray

Brooklyn Ray is the author of the incredible Port Lewis Witches series – hedonistically queer, erotic fantasy I could wax poetic about for hours. So when I heard Ray was editing an anthology of trans and non-binary SFF?! I pretty much LOST MY DAMN MIND! (And is that cover not just RIDICULOUSLY stunning???)

A Queer anthology featuring stories inspired by magic and the cosmos, a vast and beautiful place where planets, stars, comets, entire galaxies even, live without borders, specifications or binaries. Stories will span science fiction, science fantasy, contemporary, fabulism and magical realism.

● twice-spent comet—On an isolated asteroid, Fer serves out their sentence with a found family of ramshackle criminals. Life takes an exciting turn when they befriend Ophelia, a beautiful humanoid creature with a tail like a comet.

● From Dusk to Dying Sun—Jay Morrison almost believes the rumors of magic and mischief haunting the US-50. But their partner, Luis Inoa, has made a career guarding the dusty Nevada trails. According to him, the only scary things on the highway are the silences, until a group of tourists break open the sun and disappear into a fiery blaze.

● Lost/Found—When Hollis Griffin, a lonely sex worker living in Venice Beach, forms an unlikely friendship with a fallen star, she begins to face the truth about her life, her past, and what the future holds.

● Awry with Dandelions—For thirty seconds every night, a disembodied specter named Mette visits with Orin who has long since written the ghost woman off as a recurring dream. But when Mette suggests meeting in real life, Orin’s inner world turns out to be more substantial than imaginary, and xie embarks on a journey to discover the truth of Mette and their strange connection.

● The Far Touch—A long-standing coven of witches trek to their sacred space and accidentally discover life on another planet when their Solstice celebration interferes with a lone practitioner.

● Ink and Stars—Locked in a contract to steal their ex-lovers ship, Chaz Neoma comes face to face with consequences, lost partnership, and the chance at a future, after discovering they aren’t the last Weaver in the universe.

● Horologium—In the far reaches of the Horologium Supercluster, an astronaux is stranded alone on a long-distance astral ship where they’re visited by three apparitions, telling stories of ancestors who traveled space before them. Coeie must decide whether to follow the ghosts of the past, or forge their own path through the cosmos.

● Death Marked—As chief security officer in the Lunar Guard, Enzi is in charge of the security for their sister’s coming of age ceremony. A fragile relationship with their family doesn’t make keeping Ulsa safe any easier, and neither does a group of pesky drones or a hidden plot to overthrow their sister’s place in the family.

● Weave the Dark, Weave the Light—On a crisp night, Ari, a supposed elemental witch, meets Jonathan Aster, a powerful being they desperately want to understand. As they explore an intense, intimate and passionate relationship, Ari unearths long-hidden mysteries about themself and their magic.

March 3rd – Docile by K. M. Sparza

I had the absolute DELIGHT of seeing Szpara at the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, and he was an absolute joy. Docile was already on my preorder list, but between listening to Szpara at a panel on non-human erotica and his incredible short story Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time (which is about a trans man getting turned into a vampire) it jumped right up my list of must-haves.

There is no consent under capitalism

Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents’ debts and buy your children’s future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

March 10th – A Phoenix First Must Burn ed by Patrice Caldwell

Sixteen stories of Black girl magic is literally all that I need to hear, okay?

Sixteen tales by bestselling and award-winning authors that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic.

Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs, have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that centers Black women and gender nonconforming individuals. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters in which you cannot help but see yourself reflected. Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels: the heroines of A Phoenix First Must Burn shine brightly. You will never forget them.

March 10th – The Queen’s Bargain by Anne Bishop

Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy was one of my formative reads, and even though I found it had lost some of its lustre for me when I reread the series a little while ago, it’ll always have a special place in my heart. So I’m still ridiculously excited to be returning to this world after so many years!

POWER HAS A PRICE. SO DOES LOVE.

Return to the dark, sensual, and powerful world of the Black Jewels in this long-awaited new story in the New York Times bestselling fantasy saga

After a youthful mistake, Lord Dillon’s reputation is in tatters,
leaving him vulnerable to aristo girls looking for a bit of fun. To
restore his reputation and honor, he needs a handfast—a one-year contract of marriage. He sets his sights on Jillian, a young Eyrien witch from Ebon Rih, who he believes has only a flimsy connection to the noble society that spurned him. Unfortunately for Dillon, he is unaware of Jillian’s true connections until he finds himself facing Lucivar Yaslana, the volatile Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih.

Meanwhile, Surreal SaDiablo’s marriage is crumbling. Daemon Sadi, the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, recognizes there is something wrong between him and Surreal, but he doesn’t realize that his attempt to suppress his own nature in order to spare his wife is causing his mind to splinter. To save Daemon, and the Realm of Kaeleer if he breaks, help must be sought from someone who no longer exists in any of the Realms—the only
Queen powerful enough to control Daemon Sadi. The Queen known as Witch.

As Jillian rides the winds of first love with Dillon, Daemon and Surreal struggle to survive the wounds of a marriage turned stormy—and Lucivar has to find a way to keep everyone in his family safe…even from each other.

March 17th – The Seared Lands by Deborah A. Wolf

I’m still anxious about whether this is the last book in this series or not – I’ve found conflicting info online – but I love this series so much, and I can barely breathe thinking about what’s coming in this next installment. I JUST WISH SOMEONE WOULD TELL ME IF I SHOULD BE BRACING MYSELF FOR THIS BEING THE FINAL BOOK.

Sulema—daughter of the Dragon King—escapes imprisonment by the power-hungry Pythos. She agrees to cross into the Seared Lands of Quarabala, where the slightest touch of the sun yields death. There she must rescue a young queen who holds the key to Pythos’s defeat. But Sulema is captured and put into the arena, forced to fight to the death against her childhood friend Hannei, now a brutal killer.

Across the world, forces enter into war. An inhuman horde swarms the settlements in the Seared Lands, forcing the human inhabitants to flee. The half-breed Jian leads a twilight army against the Sindanese emperor, while the lich king Kal ne Mur raises an army of the undead. Yet amid these massive conflicts, one threat will render them inconsequential.

Sajani stirs. Unless Sulema can bring down Pythos, the Earth Dragon will wake and the world will be shattered. To do so, however, Sulema must face her greatest foe—the Nightmare Man.

April 14th – Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost

I know everyone’s raving about Ashlords and you can be DAMN CERTAIN that I’ll be reading that as well, but I need more people to be talking about THIS book of magical horses, too! I’ve been looking forward to this one for years.

In this sweeping Dust Bowl-inspired fantasy, a ten-year game between Life and Death pits the walled Oklahoma city of Elysium-including a girl gang of witches and a demon who longs for humanity-against the supernatural in order to judge mankind.

When Sal is named Successor to Mother Morevna, a powerful witch and leader of Elysium, she jumps at the chance to prove herself to the town. Ever since she was a kid, Sal has been plagued by false visions of rain, and though people think she’s a liar, she knows she’s a leader. Even the arrival of enigmatic outsider Asa-a human-obsessed demon in disguise-doesn’t shake her confidence in her ability. Until a terrible mistake results in both Sal and Asa’s exile into the Desert of Dust and Steel.

Face-to-face with a brutal, unforgiving landscape, Sal and Asa join a gang of girls headed by another Elysium exile-and young witch herself-Olivia Rosales. In order to atone for their mistake, they create a cavalry of magic powered, scrap metal horses to save Elysium from the coming apocalypse. But Sal, Asa, and Olivia must do more than simply tip the scales in Elysium’s favor-only by reinventing the rules can they beat the Life and Death at their own game.

May 5th – Lobizona by Romina Garber

Hi yes, immigration and race and werewolves? Latin American mythology??? GIMME.

Some people ARE illegal.

Lobizonas do NOT exist.

Both of these statements are false.

Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who’s on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.

Until Manu’s protective bubble is shattered.

Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past–a mysterious “Z” emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.

As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it’s not just her U.S. residency that’s illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.

May 19th – The Worst of All Possible Worlds by Alex White

The final book in the AMAZING science fantasy Salvagers trilogy, where magic exists alongside spaceships and a celebrity racing car driver gets roped into trying to save the universe, this book’s release date has been pushed back a couple of times, but I know it’s going to be so worth the wait! Besides, this gives me time to reread the first two books before the finale!

The greatest dangers hide the brightest treasures in this bold, planet-hopping science fiction adventure series.

The crew of the legendary Capricious may have gone legitimate, but they’re still on the run.

With devastatingly powerful enemies in pursuit and family and friends under attack planetside, Nilah and Boots struggle to piece together rumors of an ancient technology that could lead to victory.

Ensnared by the legend of Origin, humanity’s birthplace, and a long-dead form of magic, the Capricious takes off on a journey to find the first colony ship…and magic that could bring down gods.

June 1st – The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska

Look. Look. I’ve been shrieking about this one since it was just a placeholder entry on Goodreads, and now it’s actually going to be released in a few months!!! I’ve literally been checking every day for an ebook preorder link.

A fast-paced, well-plotted fantasy retelling of an ancient Scottish fairy tale ballad, this exciting debut will appeal to fans of Stephanie Garber’s CARAVAL, Shea Ernshaw’s THE WICKED DEEP, and Kendare Blake’s THREE DARK CROWNS.

Every year on Walpurgis Night, Caldella’s Witch Queen lures a young boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking.

Convinced her handsome brother is going to be taken, sixteen-year-old Lina Kirk enlists the help of the mysterious Tomas Lin, her secret crush, and the only boy to ever escape from the palace. Working together they protect her brother, but draw the Queen’s attention. When the Queen spirits Tomas away instead, Lina blames herself and determines to go after him.

Caught breaking into the palace, the Queen offers Lina a deal: she will let Tomas go, if, of course, Lina agrees to take his place. Lina accepts, with a month before the full moon, surely she can find some way to escape. But the Queen is nothing like she envisioned, and Lina is not at all what the Queen expected. Against their will, they find themselves falling for each other. As water floods Caldella’s streets and the dark tide demands its sacrifice, they must choose who to save: themselves, each other, or the island city relying on them both.

June 9th – Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Hi yes I’d like eighteen copies yesterday??? Please and thank you.

Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.

July 28th – The Faithless Hawk by Margaret Owen

Book one in this series, The Merciful Crow, was one of my favourite releases of 2019 and one of my favourite releases for the last decade. So it goes without saying that I cannot freaking wait to get my hands on the sequel!

Kings become outcasts and lovers become foes in the thrilling sequel to Margaret Owen’s The Merciful Crow.

As the new chieftain of the Crows, Fie knows better than to expect a royal to keep his word. Still she’s hopeful that Prince Jasimir will fulfill his oath to protect her fellow Crows. But then black smoke fills the sky, signaling the death of King Surimir and the beginning of Queen Rhusana’s merciless bid for the throne.

With the witch queen using the deadly plague to unite the nation of Sabor against Crows—and add numbers to her monstrous army—Fie and her band are forced to go into hiding, leaving the country to be ravaged by the plague. However, they’re all running out of time before the Crows starve in exile and Sabor is lost forever.

A desperate Fie calls on old allies to help take Rhusana down from within her own walls. But inside the royal palace, the only difference between a conqueror and a thief is an army. To survive, Fie must unravel not only Rhusana’s plot, but ancient secrets of the Crows—secrets that could save her people, or set the world ablaze.

August 11th – Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

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I definitely have a Thing for stars – they are intrinsically magical to me, and a fundamental part of humanity’s concept of wonder and awe – so I was all over this one even before they released that jaw-droppingly beautiful cover. I mean – look at it! Just look!

The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. But when a flare of starfire injures her human father, Sheetal needs a full star’s help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago.

Sheetal’s quest will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must act as her family’s champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens—or risk never returning to Earth at all.

Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets a rich landscape of Hindu mythology and celestial intrigue in this sparkling YA fantasy debut.

September 1st – The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg

I don’t recall how exactly I discovered this one, but I’m so thankful that I did because it sounds incredible. This is set in the author’s already-existing Birdverse – comprised of various short stories that can be found around the internet and on Lemberg’s Patreon – but it can be read alone too.

Wind: To match one’s body with one’s heart
Sand: To take the bearer where they wish
Song: In praise of the goddess Bird
Bone: To move unheard in the night

The Surun’ do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But Uiziya now seeks her aunt Benesret in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.

Among the Khana, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.

As the past catches up to the nameless man, he must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya, and Uiziya must discover how to challenge a tyrant, and weave from deaths that matter.

Set in R. B. Lemberg’s beloved Birdverse, The Four Profound Weaves hearkens to Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. In this breathtaking debut, Lemberg offers a timeless chronicle of claiming one’s identity in a hostile world.

I’d better stop there before I drown everyone in pretty covers! What about you guys? Which books are you most looking forward to this year?

The post (Some Of) My Most Anticipated Reads of 2020! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

#LastSunReadalong Week 5: Final Chapters & Epilogue

Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy

This post was late because I moved house on Friday, and also, it seemed very appropriate to let this go up on the last day before Hanged Man‘s release! It’s out TOMORROW, people! TOMORROW! I can’t wait for the reactions of all the cool people I’ve met through this promo. I’m so excited!!!

My livetweeting thread for this section is up over here, and I encourage you to peruse it for the usual overabundance of gifs!

But. The ending.

Talk about a feels!fest.

*

When we left our favourite scion and his Companion, the wards on the Moral Certainties compound had just fallen. As usual, Rune and Brand are the ones who grasp the realities of the situation most quickly; Addam, and then Geoffrey, waste precious moments trying to get the wards up again (through their connection to the compound’s mass sigils – which is interesting, since I think this is the first time we’ve been told that sigils can be connected to multiple individuals, not just one person).

This is just the moment for the Sun Court mass sigil – the one Quinn told Brand to dig out of the foundations of his and Rune’s home and bring with him. So Rune triggers the spell inside it.

We don’t know the name of the spell, but it fans out to barricade the entire compound. It sweeps through the building, over corpses hidden in the walls and a little girl hiding in a dumbwaiter – but when Rune reaches the outer walls, he makes the hard but tactically sound decision to stop the spell there. If he stretched it over the grounds, the spell would be weaker and not last as long; even as it is, with a building the size of the compound, the spell will only last an hour.

But that means sacrificing the groundskeepers and anyone else working outside.

We know Rune is intensely invested in protecting bystanders, and he was genuinely grieved and horrified by the death-powered seeking spell Rurik used before. He has a huge amount of empathy for those who can’t protect themselves, for innocents and victims. So we know that sacrificing those people is hard for him. But at the same time, it shows us his ruthless, warrior-practical side in a way I’m not sure we’ve seen before. He may grieve later; he may have nightmares of those he couldn’t save, I don’t know. But to save as many people as he can, he has to let those ones go. And it means something that he is able to make that call, quickly and decisively, where many people would have hesitated – and potentially lost more lives by hesitating. Addam, for example, feels responsibility to all the compound’s employees and tries to insist that they go and retrieve/assist the groundskeepers. It’s a reaction I can definitely understand – I’d feel the same impulse myself – but it’s not the right course of action now.

“We need to find a way to get to them.”

“No, we don’t,” Brand said. “Not now. Now, you save who you can, because in an hour we’ll be right back where we started. Do you have any idea how little time that is? How isolated we are? We are in trouble.”

Addam’s sense of responsibility speaks well of him. The fact that he looks to Rune for confirmation after Brand’s No, we don’t does not.

It’s a tiny moment, just one sentence. ‘Whatever ground Addam had gained with Brand, he lost when he turned to be for confirmation.’ Rune tells us. But there’s a lot to unpack there.

The best-case scenario is that Addam would have looked for confirmation no matter who was speaking, because ‘we can’t save them’ was an answer he desperately didn’t want to be true. While that makes him a good person, it doesn’t speak well for his experience as a warrior or his ability to face harsh truths quickly, both of which are potentially huge weaknesses right now given that Ashton is out there determined to kill them all. It means it may not be safe to depend on him, now, when Rune and Brand need to be able to depend on him.

A worse scenario is that this is Addam’s internalised bias/prejudice showing. Brand is human; Rune is a scion. It may just be that simple. However, I find this unlikely, given how Addam has treated Brand up to this point.

On the other, other hand, those who’ve been participating in the #LastSunReadalong Q&A sessions (or who have already read book two, Hanged Man) will know that Addam’s older brother Christian has a Companion of his own. Which means Addam ought to have experience with the tactical abilities of Companions, enough to believe Brand right away. Although I suppose it’s possible – maybe even probable? – that Addam has never been in a situation where his brother’s Companion was dealing out harsh battlefield truth-bombs. Christian (and thus his Companion) lived through the Atlantean World War, so they’ve presumably seen – well, war, whether or not they were on the front lines. Addam was born after the war, and there’s been no indication that he’s ever been in a really dangerous situation before. So he’s quite probably heard a Companion’s tactical assessment before, or had to quickly internalise it.

I still don’t blame Brand for deducting a whole bunch of points from him, though.

They all quickly establish that there’s no way to call for help, and gather the compound’s employees into a central ballroom – along with Ciaran and Max, whom they pick up on the way – where Rune and Brand can divide everyone up (those who can hold a weapon, those who need to be safeguarded) and establish some kind of plan.

The stakes get higher when it becomes clear that Ashton is using weather magic – completely forbidden and completely taboo – to summon up a storm above and around the compound. Rune’s wards will only keep out anything that intends them harm – but debris thrown around by a storm? Not so much. Flying rocks don’t really have intent, even if the person tossing them around does.

(Which raises the question: could you use Telekenesis to throw rocks at a warded window? I suspect not, otherwise Ashton would pick up logs and whatnot and break into the compound directly. Whereas summoning up a storm and hoping that something breaks all the skylights etc…without actually directing any of the debris yourself…that apparently slithers through the ‘intent’ rule.)

(And it is heavily implied that there are other kinds of wards that would keep out the debris, the question of intent irrelevant. However, that’s not the kind of magic Rune was packing, unfortunately.)

A question is raised, though, that I didn’t catch the first, second, or third time reading – I only caught it now.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Geoff said under his breath. “If he [Ashton] needs the imbued circle like you said, why waste time coming after us?”

“Without Rurik, I’m not sure he’d be able to break through the Magician’s estate wards,” I said.

This sounds like a catch-22; Ashton needs the summoning circle on Lord Magician’s Westlands estate to summon Rurik…but can’t get into the estate without Rurik.

I understand why Rune and the others don’t catch this either – they have far more immediate problems – but once you stop and think, it raises an enormous red flag. It’s not clear whether Ashton needed the imbued circle every time he summoned Rurik – although I think maybe he might have, given that Lord Tower said Ashton would need it chapters ago, and Brand’s magic bullet dematerialised Rurik between that point and now. It’s entirely possible Lord Tower always planned to dematerialise Rurik and force Ashton to have to summon him again – it would be a smart plan. But it actually doesn’t matter too much. Whether Ashton has had to repeatedly breach Lord Magician’s wards or whether he’s only had to do it once, he’s been able to do it. Without Rurik, since that was the whole reason he needed the summoning circle in the first place.

Which means that he, or someone helping him, is strong enough or knows some secret to get through the Magician’s wards. And that’s really, really bad. Because it doesn’t seem likely that Ashton could get through the wards himself – yes, he managed to summon Rurik, but Rurik himself told Rune that any idiot could have summoned him; the summoning isn’t the hard part. There’s no evidence to suggest Ashton is toting the kind of magical firepower necessary to break into the Magician’s estate, and even if he did, I seriously doubt the Magician wouldn’t have been alerted when someone broke in.

Which makes it more likely that Ashton has some kind of key or trick to getting in. And it’s most likely that someone else gave it to him.

It might be that Lord Magician himself is one of Ashton’s allies. But if not, it means Ashton is working with or has a patron capable of subverting the wards of a sitting Arcana. That implies incredible strength, skill, or knowledge – or all three. In other words, not someone we want backing someone like Ashton, and more importantly, really, really not someone we want to have it in for our favourite boys.

Fuck.

*

Everyone is divided into non-combatants and patrols – who knows if anything got inside before Rune’s ward spell went up? – and the home team splits up; Ciaran, whose sigils are full, takes Max (who has no sigils) and a reluctant Brand to help the compound’s people, while Rune, Addam, and Geoffrey go to the compound sanctum to refill their sigils with combat magic.

That Brand agrees to leave – eventually – tells us a fair bit about him, and about Rune as well. Brand says outright that Rune can protect himself, which takes us all the way back to the first chapter when he said he’d have Rune melt the side of the house if he needed a safe exit. The other thing, though, is that I think this is the first time we’ve seen Brand willing to take care of ‘bystanders’. In all fairness, the previous times the issue came up, Rune was under fire, and there was no way in any Hell that Brand would leave him in that kind of scenario. Now that Rune is not being actively attacked (right this second), however, there’s space in Brand to care about the people who can’t take care of themselves. If there was any concern that he might be unable to empathise with people other than Rune, that’s just gone out the window. I imagine there’s plenty of Companions who wouldn’t leave their scion like this; that Brand does…it says that he cares, like Rune cares.

It’s just that Brand stops caring if Rune is in danger. And to be honest, I suspect if their positions were reversed – if Brand were the one in harm’s way – Rune would burn New Atlantis down to get him home safe and sound.

So.

That being said, Brand might not have left if he had seen the sanctum, which turns out to be a great big conservatory-type thing made all of glass. Or, as Rune puts it;

This space–a sanctum, the very heart of sigil magic–was now so indefensible that it could be taken down by nothing more complicated than a big rock.

I admit to being very curious about the dependence of scions on sanctums. We know it’s possible to store magic in sigils without one – Lord Tower mentioned doing so in the past, although it took a great deal more effort and time to do so. But so far, all that’s been explicitly explained is that sanctums tend to have a variety of items stored in them to allow for all the different ways people charge sigils. The sanctum back in the hospital had music, meditation spaces, art supplies, porn, crystals, and a bunch of other stuff. But those are things you could store in any random closet, and meditation doesn’t have to take place in a particular room, even if that can make it easier. So it’s something else, presumably, that makes sanctums special – because there’s no way Rune would charge his sigils in a giant glasshouse in the middle of a storm if he could have done it elsewhere. Especially since he, unlike Addam, who needs music and space to dance, doesn’t require any kind of supplies for his charging.

Whatever it is that makes sanctums sanctums, it’s not a lost art like sigil-making. Every sanctum we’ve encountered so far was built after the fall of Old Atlantis, up to and including the one in Rune and Brand’s home – whereas there don’t seem to be any sigils younger than New Atlantis. (That’s a guess, because we’ve yet to learn the exact age of any sigil. But I’d be willing to bet on it.)

Hm.

The scions manage to charge their sigils in their various ways – including Rune’s mass sigil, which he fills with Fire – just in time; a deer breaks through the glass, presumably terrified by something outside. (Given that the outside is the Westlands, the possibilities are pretty literally limitless). Brand, who felt Rune’s alarm through their bond, checks in through a walkie-talkie, and lets them know that Ciaran is with one of the patrols sweeping the compound. Rune and the others start to make their way towards Brand, with Addam directing their route.

What follows is messy, nasty, and emotional by turns. There’s fighting. There’s monsters. Innocent people die in heartbreaking ways. It’s not pretty or nice or easy – as it shouldn’t be. Some of the monsters are ‘just’ monsters, but the recarnates are humanised and tragic even as they’re forced to fight our heroes. One of the stand-out moments – and one of the ones I found the most painful – is Ciaran granting them…a kind of mercy.

He tells them to “Remember!” and when they do, they destroy themselves.

I have so many questions about what Ciaran is and the things he can do. And I’m so grateful that he gave the recarnates their way out that it actually brings tears to my eyes.

(He couldn’t do it for all of them at once, unfortunately. Only those present. But still.)

Another important scene is Rune calling on his Aspect deliberately and consciously – for the first time ever. Aspects are still pretty mysterious things at this point; we don’t know much about them, but they’re tied to power and I suspect Rune gaining more control over his signals that he’s leveling up. Perhaps passing into whatever the next stage of an Arcana’s life-cycle might be?

Eventually the main team, with Brand now reasonably badly injured to the leg, and with added Max, regroup. Kind of. They’re attacked hard, the worst yet, and even Max is fighting to protect the servants – and Geoffrey, who has been almost worse than useless this entire time – with a kitchen knife.

And then Max goes down. Claws to the throat. And there’s more monsters coming – and Brand is wounded – and the mass sigil is out of reach –

From that space in my heart where desperation lived, my Aspect finally answered my need.

Rune does – something. Even he doesn’t know what. It’s not a spell. He uses no sigil. But he howls and magic sears up into the sky, disintegrating the storm that gives the monsters cover from the sunlight. They burn, and the storm dies, and the living are safe, for the moment.

It’s just that it’s a very short moment. And the battle’s not done.

No one knows what Rune just did, but far more important is Max, who’s still – just – breathing, if bleeding badly and unlikely to survive for very long. And I know it’s designed to rip at my heart-strings, but that doesn’t stop it from working when Max asks “Did I do good?”

Yeah, baby. You did so good.

I’M TEARING UP AND I’M NOT EVEN READING THE DAMN SCENE.

Ahem.

Rune shouts for someone to find him the healing kit they had with them, but it’s not enough. The healing spell contained in the kit’s sigil isn’t enough to fix all the damage the claws did to Max.

He’s still the only survivor, outside of the sigil-wearers. None of the servants lived.

And this is where we see a side of Rune we haven’t seen before. Maybe because the only people Rune considers family – Brand and Queenie – haven’t been in danger before. (Or rather, Brand has. But not going to die danger. Except, perhaps, for that last attack, and for that Rune unlocked some part of himself and his powers he never knew existed. So maybe it has, actually, been established that he will break the rules of reality before he’ll let the ones he loves be hurt.) But now Rune stalks up to whiny, useless, cowardly Geoffrey, and orders him to go back to the sanctum and fill his sigils with healing spells for Max.

That’s not the side we haven’t seen before.

That comes when Geoffrey refuses. Repeatedly. Wasting precious seconds that Max doesn’t have to spare.

He pointed a finger at my chest.

I grabbed the finger in an overhand grip, twisted it around, and stabbed my sabre through the center of his palm. The heated blade slid through bone and tendon with only a small, jerking resistance. When Geoffrey started to scream, I grabbed his jaw in my free hand and shoved him backward. He windmilled four or five steps before losing his footing. As soon as he hit the ground, I pinned him with my knee, and waited until he stopped screaming.

When I had all of his attention, I yanked my sabre blade loose. More screaming. I didn’t have to wait long this time for him to subside to a dog-whistle whine.

“If I find out you used a healing spell on yourself before everyone else is healed,” I told him, “I won’t just kill you. I’ll kill you slowly.”

It’s cold and unhesitating and unstoppable. There’s no emotion there – none shared with the reader, anyway. Rune doesn’t waste more time arguing. He doesn’t let social conventions – or even the most core aspects of human interaction – stop him. He is ruthlessly, mercilessly efficient at causing the maximum amount of fear and pain while still leaving Geoffrey functional (although I do think the pain is going to make charging his sigils harder for him? Guess that’s Geoffrey’s problem) and it’s not something we’ve seen him do before. I’m not scared of him here, but I do find myself feeling a little bit sorry for Geoffrey. Just a tiny bit.

Our hands are one of the things that make us human. As someone with chronic pain in mine, I know – really know – what it’s like to lose the use of your hands. You don’t really know how much we use them and depend on them until suddenly, you can’t. There’s a reason Rune goes for Geoffrey’s hand, rather than driving straight through his forearm or upper-arm, or even giving him a through-and-through fleshwound to the torso. I’m sure part of it is that, if it’s too debilitating, Geoffrey isn’t going to be functional, and Rune needs him useful, not useless. But there’s also a special kind of horror to hand injuries, like there are with injuries to the eyes. And Rune uses that.

Needless to say, Geoffrey takes off running.

(Needless to say, Max is family now.)

Addam is shocked, clearly taken aback by the part of Rune he didn’t realise was there. But it’s important that rather than rejecting Rune, Addam does try to go to him – he only holds back when Rune indicates he wants a minute to himself.

Addam will never be what Rune is. But he is not afraid of what Rune is. Or if he is, it’s not enough to overcome everything else he feels for Rune. And that matters. His mother, Lady Justice, might prefer pretty feather-heads for her consorts, but Rune never will. If Addam wants to stay with Rune long-term? He needs to be able to stand beside him, and not flinch away.

And it looks like he can. So hopefully, he will.

They’re almost out of time. The ward spell Rune used is about to fall, and Rune’s team is on their last legs or close to it.

Rune picks up a picture that fell out of the pockets of one of the recarnates. It was clearly done by the man’s child – it’s described as ‘the sort of thing a kid might slip into a coffin’. And I think it says so much about who Rune is – what kind of man he is – that this is what gives him the idea for his final plan. The reminder that the recarnates were, and in some ways still are, people. The idea of this recarnate’s family, lost who knows where, but including a child who cared enough to leave a picture with their dad when he was buried. Family and love and innocence all wrapped up together.

It sounds like a perfectly good, if dangerous, plan: Rune will use his mass sigil and the Exodus spell he still has stored to take out the monsters outside. If he goes alone, he doesn’t have to worry about controlling his magic; he can just let it loose. Predictably, and understandably, Brand hates this plan – hates being left behind again. Hates that he can’t stand with Rune, again. “Don’t ask this of me,” he says, because what this chapter needed was absolutely more tears.

Rune reassures him by reminding him of the words Brand spoke to him just a few hours ago, and by this time, I’m definitely sobbing.

It’s a cruelly beautiful moment, one that illustrates – maybe better than any other yet – that what they have is so much more than normal friendship. It’s not just the lack of toxic masculinity – Rune touching Brand’s cheek, and Brand letting him; Brand not being afraid to look weak when he whispers – it’s more than that. Deeper and truer than that. We know not every Companion bond looks like this – Lord Tower and Mayan are more like business partners or something – but they should look like this.

These are soulmates, and platonic or romantic doesn’t matter. The Atlantean concept of tallas doesn’t matter. Friendship, brotherhood, Companions – none of those words are big enough. They’re soulmates. They match. They’re a pair. Two halves of one whole. I don’t mean to imply there’s no room for Addam there, because there is, but when push comes to shove they don’t need Addam. Like and even love does not equate need.

I don’t know how Rune ever thought, for even a second, that Lord Tower could keep Brand from ‘following’ him if he, Rune, died. Brand wouldn’t need poison or a knife. His heart would just stop. Just as Rune’s would, if he ever lost Brand.

Don’t you dare ever do that to them, KD. Don’t you dare.

*

Of course, the very first sentence after Rune convinces the others to leave – and let him leave – is the most terrifying in the entire book.

Rune promised them this wasn’t a suicide strike, and you know, heroes never die. Even during my first read of the book, I knew Rune wouldn’t die. This is the first book of the series, and it’s his story. But there are a lot of other things that could happen instead. What if Ashton captures him? Or the ‘powerful friends’ Geoffrey mentioned? What if this damn book ends on a cliffhanger with Rune taken captive? WHAT THEN?

That’s not what happens, though. Thank all the gods.

Rune goes out to fight ready to die. He unleashes the Fire from his mass sigil, and it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. I think it’s fair to say the power makes him a little high, a little giddy, if that’s the right word. Bullets disintegrate before they reach him, vaporised by the heat of the Fire. The recarnates burn, and burn, and burn, and Rune gathers as many of them as he can into as tight a space as possible, twisting and turning as he runs through them to make them bunch up tighter and tighter.

Then he lets it all loose.

It’s like an atom bomb going off in an enclosed space. It’s a moment that belongs on a screen, with the most epic of soundtracks.

But it’s not enough.

Because he didn’t get them all. He got all the recarnates near him, for sure. A football-pitch sized space is now clear of anything but ash. But beyond that? Ashton still has an army. And the worst part is, Rune can see immediately what he did wrong, how he should have used his available sigil spells to wipe them all out. I think that’s maybe even worse than failure – realising exactly what you did wrong, and how you could have done it right. Coming so close to success, and missing it by a hair’s breadth.

No matter what he does now, he won’t get them all. The people he loves will have to face those he can’t bring down.

But there’s nothing else he can do. And this time, he gets ready to die for real.

I’d spent twenty years ready for this moment. Ready to close my eyes without the weight of knowing they’d reopen.

I don’t want to cheapen the moment, but… Rune, honey. When this is all over, we desperately need to get you a therapist.

(If I don’t make jokes, I’ll start crying again. HUSH.)

This, of course, is when Lord Tower swoops in to save the day. It is all too appropriate that this enormous drama queen comes with with a tiara. Granted, it’s a tiara packed full of mass sigils, but it is still a crown for the drama queen and there’s no way KD didn’t mean it that way, either.

It really drives home the power of an Arcana, the next little bit. With little more than waves of his hands, Lord Tower takes care of the recarnates and recharges the compound’s wards. He astral-projects to search for Rurik – who has been successfully summoned, it seems – while a now-healed Brand, Addam, and Ciaran make their way from the house – along with Mayan and the Rune-golem we met a few chapters ago. And when it’s decided who’s going where – Ciaran will return to the house to watch over everyone, the others go with Lord Tower to deal with Ashton and Rurik – the Tower just…makes a path. A safe, warded path through the Westlands, to take them to Ashton’s location.

It took Rune and Addam days to get through the Westlands safely. Lord Tower makes his path in seconds.

Rune has a long way to go before he’s anywhere near the league of a full Arcana.

(Ciaran, by the by, is the only one who seems to catch the whole ‘Ashton made it into the Magician’s estate’ thing. But the issue is put aside in face of the more immediate problems.)

Lord Tower lends Addam and Rune two sigils each, and I kind of want to dig into the symbolism – the sigils Addam receives are platinum and gold; Rune gets bronze and brass. Yes, the spells in the sigils Rune receives suit him better – Fire and Shatter, both of which he can use well – but it’s such a pointed difference that it’s difficult to see it as pure coincidence. And yet sigils aren’t less worthy or precious based on what material they’re made of – I mean, a platinum sigil might be worth more financially than a brass one, but probably not by all that much? (Now I want to know if Rune’s leather cock-ring sigil will ever wear out and break, the way normal leather eventually will. ???) Still. It’s…odd? I can’t see exactly what it says – maybe I’m reading too much into it for once – but it just seems so deliberate. Addam, Lord Tower’s godson, gets precious metals – and Rune gets bronze and brass? The contrast is so stark.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

*

There’s banter, and Rune and Brand reconnecting and together again, but the next big thing, is, of course, the endgame this final chapter is named for.

Ashton and Rurik are in a church on the compound’s grounds, one dedicated to past Moral Certainties Arcana. Ashton’s been injured – by Rurik, apparently, who didn’t behave during his summoning. I can’t imagine why.

Ashton – kind of jokingly, I think – asks if he and Lord Tower will now negotiate. Lord Tower simply tells him “No.”

(There’s a magical barrier, between Rune & co and Ashton and Rurik. It takes the Tower three strikes to bring it down. Three. Is there any spell Ashton could cast that would give an Arcana that much trouble? Like, okay, it’s not much trouble. It’s still more than I’d expect. Is it some kind of gift from his ‘friends’?)

Addam takes care of the recarnates; Lord Tower deals with Rurik; Rune goes for Ashton. Rune continues to be dazzlingly imaginative and efficient in his use of firepower – even if Lord Tower doesn’t quite approve – and when Ashton slips away, he, Brand and Addam follow, leaving Lord Tower and Mayan to take Rurik. (It’s not like those two need the help of some baby scions and a Companion, anyway. That’s been made abundantly clear.)

Brand sends the Rune-golem to take point, which is far safer than risking one of them. When they tangle with Ashton again, the golem deals with the last of the recarnates – but there’s a wild card. Before the battle can really start with Ashton, Ella appears.

She doesn’t look good. I can’t really blame her for that, considering what she’s been through. But I also don’t feel that sympathetic, and what traces of it I do feel go up in smoke almost instantly.

There are things all Atlanteans know how to do. Bad things. Like burning ants with magnifying glasses, but on the scale of young gods.

She deals with the recarnates, all right. By shredding their souls. She doesn’t kill them, the way everyone up till now has been doing. She doesn’t release them – presumably they can be banished just like they were summoned up. As Rune says,

It would take decades before they found the cohesion to properly die. It was their final desecration.

Maybe it’s being raised Catholic (even though I left that behind a long, long time ago), but I have a Thing for people messing with souls. Not a good Thing, like the Addam-wearing-Rune’s-sigils Thing. An anti-Thing. I get irrationally upset when a story allows someone to sell someone else’s soul, or use some method to poison someone else’s soul, etc. You should only be able to affect your own soul.

And if you know for sure they exist, as Atlanteans apparently do? YOU DO NOT SHRED THEM.

You can make the argument that Ella was manipulated into everything up to this point. Given the toxic society she’s been raised in, I can even mostly forgive her for how she treats Quinn – she’s never actively been cruel to him, as far as I can recall, ‘just’ ignored him, and that’s a pretty understandable reaction when she was raised to care about power and prestige, neither of which Quinn has. (Or so she thinks). But this? What she does to the recarnates? This is a kind of evil no one else in this series has yet demonstrated. Even Rurik, awful as he is, ‘only’ kills. Killing the body, if you know souls exist, is not as bad as shredding a soul; you know that person will continue past their body. But wrecking a soul?

I’d argue, honestly, that this is the single most evil act we’ve seen so far. And maybe that’s the religious upbringing I mentioned, I don’t know. But.

And she does it so casually. She does it just to get the recarnates out of her way. She could have done literally anything else, and she chose to do that.

Fuck her. I didn’t like her before, but this? I can’t forgive this. I hate her for this. The recarnates are innocent. They were dragged out of their rest against their will, forced into dead bodies against their will, and that does not make them enemy combatants.

Even if it did, we have the Hague Conventions. Some things are not okay even in war. THIS IS ONE OF THEM.

Ella is also, to be blunt, a fucking idiot, not just for going up against Ashton in the middle of all this, but for turning and slicing open the golem. Which is, apparently, the equivalent of skinning a grenade. The blast knocks Brand out, even under cover, and Addam as well – he’s not moving, although Rune doesn’t have a Companion bond and thus can’t verify that he’s okay without going over to them. Which he can’t do, because Ashton and Ella.

It’s darkly, awfully funny, because just as Ashton and Ella are facing off, we’re reminded of the battle happening in the other room. A null thread lashes through the room, nullifying the spells in Ashton and Ella’s sigils (though Ella, again proving herself an idiot, doesn’t seem to realise) – though no doubt the real target was Lord Tower.

(I hope his tiara survived okay.)

When Ella starts monologuing – she doesn’t care about anything except that the man who finally wanted her for her, aka Michael, is dead at Ashton’s hand – Ashton takes the opportunity to punch her, hard, and she goes down.

When Ella starts monologuing – she doesn’t care about anything except that the man who finally wanted her for her, aka Michael, is dead at Ashton’s hand – Ashton takes the opportunity to punch her, hard, and she goes down.

Finally.

Then it’s Rune’s turn.

I prodded the end of the rebar into his gut so that he tumbled backward. I said, “There was a household servant who heard his friend being hurt, and ran toward him, right into the arms of a draug.”

I stabbed at his gut again. “There was another who caught fire, and died while I put him out.”

Now I swung, and took out Ashton’s knee. He crumpled with a howl. I spoke above his shouts. “And there’s a woman whose son worked in the gardens and who probably died when I trapped him outside my defense spell. Do you think there are any remains? Do you think she’ll have anything to bury? Do you feel anything for these people you’ve destroyed, you miserable, useless inbred?”

It’s not about him. It’s not, in this moment, even about Brand, or Addam, or Max. It’s about all the innocents who got caught in the crossfire. All the people Ashton never gave a thought to, just like Ella didn’t stop to think about the recarnates. The people who weren’t people, as far as Ashton and everyone else in his little conspiracy were concerned.

Rune is a wonderful character and I love him, but this is what makes him a hero. This. That he cares.

And Ashton…Ashton starts laughing. Because he can see it now, he says. This was always meant to happen. ‘They’ didn’t care about helping him. ‘They’ wanted Rune involved all along.

Rune’s not interested, and when Ashton tells Rune to kill him, Rune only assures him that his death will come. For what he’s done, Ashton will face the death penalty on his own – even his father will raise his hand against this scion-son.

Ashton claims it will never go to trial. That the people he’s involved with will destroy his soul before they let that happen. Not shred it, like Ella did to the recarnates – destroy him completely. Permanently. So Rune has to kill him first, kill him now.

And when Rune refuses –

There were nine men who assaulted fifteen-year-old Rune the night the Sun Court fell. They all wore animal masks.

It’s not enough to make Rune kill him, though he’s thrown by the revelation. More thrown when Ashton reveals enough details to prove he’s telling the truth, details no one else could know. Rune can’t process it, and who can blame him? He doesn’t freeze, but he definitely loses focus on the moment. In favor of getting thrown back towards the past.

But then.

Then Ashton says something else.

“Kill me or I’ll tell everything. Have you forgotten what I saw? What I know? I was there. I know what happened. I know the secrets you keep. What will happen when he finds out?”

Just like that, my anger became terror.

What secret? Which ‘he’? Maybe Lord Tower, who comes into the room at just that moment. Lord Tower, who absolutely cannot be allowed to hear the secret, or else Rune will lose everything.

“Kill me or–“

“No,” I said. “No, no, you–“

He raised his voice into a shout. “On the night–“

I touched my white-gold ring and unleashed Exodus.

*

I think Rune dies. A little bit. Just for a while.

Before a woman’s voice throws him back to the living.

*

Addam, it seems, heard a little of what Ashton said – he must have been waking up by then. Brand did not, though he wakes up and is fine. Lord Tower must have, but he doesn’t ask.

*

The epilogue is a lot of fluff and feels, much-needed after the turmoil of Endgame. Ciaran goes back to doing whatever it is Ciaran does. Lord Tower is silent, which means he’s gone hunting. (For who? For what?) Max learns that he really is staying, Rune and Brand are keeping him – and though he was promised into a marital alliance with the Hanged Man, Rune promises it won’t happen.

That’s an issue for later.

In a secret apartment Brand doesn’t know about, Rune opens the door to find Quinn, who gifts him an eighth sigil for saving Addam’s life – or maybe Quinn’s life. Maybe both. They have a talk about his powers, about how Quinn manipulated things – like insisting Max go to the compound, just so he could take the wound that otherwise would have gone to Rune.

“So you let Max get stabbed so that I wasn’t taken out. So that, what, I would still be able to save Addam?”

“No! That’s not–I’m not that selfish! I let Max get stabbed so that you could part the clouds!”

I blinked, surprised. “And that was important.”

“It was the most important thing in the world,” Quinn whispered.

Not that Quinn can tell him why. Only time can do that.

(I wonder if he means Time. If the Time Court maybe isn’t as gone as everyone thinks.

Hmm.)

*

They wrap up with a barbecue. It’s sweet. It’s wonderful. Quinn is invited, and gets to be a kid, and is delighted to learn Brand considered him as a suspect for a while with Addam’s kidnapping. Addam brings a densuke watermelon, because Rune said to bring a normal barbecue thing like a watermelon and Addam is a cheeky sod.

Addam still thinks they’re tallas.

The story is just getting started.

#LastSunReadalong Week 4: Chapters 13-16

This post is late, because it was hard to write. Anybody reading along with me knows the last few chapters were rough (even if they had a ton of wonderful things in them as well) and analysing some of this stuff wasn’t super fun. But! We’re approaching the endgame now, folx. And as usual, feel free to peruse my live-tweeting thread for these chapters over here,

*

Warning, also, that this week we discuss rape and trauma.

*

The last chapter ended with the bombshell that Rune and Brand are to be separated, with Rune and Addam heading into the Westlands, while Brand helps Lord Tower with an unspecified distraction for Rurik. Chapter 13 opens with that leavetaking, and to be blunt, it’s fucking heartbreaking. Although there have been moments where their Companion bond was muted – all the way back in chapter one, Brand was unable to sense Rune for a minute during the raid on the Heart Throne when Rune stepped into the secure, presumably heavily warded lab – they’ve never really been separated before, and it’s incredibly hard for both of them. It’s absolutely heart-rending to read, especially when Rune has to face the fact that he just might not come back. He asks Lord Tower to take care of Brand, especially if Rune himself dies.

It’s painfully clear to the reader, though, that not even Lord Tower can do that. If Rune dies, Brand will be right behind him. Rune’s only option is survive this mission and make it back to his Companion.

I felt Brand right up until the Boundary’s magic began crushing our bond into silence. At the last, I had the clearest sense of him grabbing his door handle so hard that he nearly tore a ligament in his hand.

And then the Boundary was behind us, and I was alone in my head for the first time since I was even capable of conscious thought.

Just rip my heart out, why don’t you?

Rune and Addam are making their way to the Moral Certainties compound – the one shared by Justice, Temperance, the Hermit, and Strength – via the ‘safe paths’; roadways that are heavily warded to protect travellers from the wild magic of the Westlands, but are far from totally secure. The Westlands itself is strange, beautiful, and very clearly dangerous, and it’s especially interesting to see Rune and Addam swap roles a little; Rune is out of his usual environment here, unfamiliar with the dangers and not much of an outdoorsy person, whereas Addam spent a lot of time in the Westlands as a child and is delighted to be back. He’s also much more well-versed in all the many ways the Westlands can be dangerous, and is placed in instructor role for a while. It’s a shift in dynamic that they both take to well; Addam isn’t arrogant and Rune’s pride isn’t bruised. There’s an especially beautiful moment when a large, tusked monster appears – and where Rune sees a potential threat, Addam goes wide-eyed with wonder.

It’s really incredibly sweet.

Which isn’t to say that this part is all and only about the dangers of the Westlands; Addam and Rune continue to banter – Addam admits that Max heavily implied that Max and Rune were an item, or going to be, and that Addam needed to back off; and they talk a little about what Old Atlantis was like, what Addam’s heard from his older brother Christian, who was born pre-exodus. But that’s about as far as they get before something teleports them off the safe paths.

Addam…doesn’t react so well. For all his experience with the Westlands, he’s never been outside the warded ‘safe’ zones, and he panics a little, although he follows Rune’s orders to get back-to-back and watch for an attack.

It’s Rurik, of course. Who, with the use of golems and illusions, manages to separate them, sending Addam chasing after a false-Rune he believes is in trouble – and I’d like to take a brief pause to point out that this is very much a case of Addam’s instinct to do good and help being a bad thing, because the false-Rune doesn’t sound like Rune at all, and if Addam had stopped for a second I think he’d have realised it. But in fairness, I don’t think I’d have stopped and thought either, and that makes Rurik’s trick extra twisted – there’s something especially awful about using someone’s own goodness against them. A more selfish person wouldn’t have gone after the false-Rune; it’s a trick that would only work on someone who tries to be good. That’s…pretty hideous.

It’s not nearly as bad as the focus or core of the scene, though, which is when Rurik finally gets where he’s wanted to be since he first ‘tasted’ Rune – inside Rune’s head.

He makes Rune relive his assault – the rape when he was 15, the night the Sun Court fell.

Actually, he doesn’t, because Addam sweeps in and the illusions/mindfuckery are destroyed before they can go…very far. Maybe it would be more accurate to say; he’s not raped again, but he does relive the first time, and it’s horrific, it’s awful, it’s like swallowing broken glass. Edwards doesn’t go into much detail, and I’m grateful, because the tiny flashes of detail we do get are enough to give me nightmares; the focus is on Rune’s panic and terror and to be honest, that’s where it belongs. I’m so tired of rape being used for shock-value, of it being portrayed in a way that tries to be titillating or scandalous, and of how often victims are dehumanised, in the moment and afterwards. This isn’t like that. I almost wrote that it’s impossible to forget that Rune is a real person here, and I deleted that line, because yes, he’s fictional, I know, but – but at the same time I’m not sure he’s ever felt more immediately real than in this moment. The fourth wall completely shatters and you’re right there and it’s too damn real, honestly.

It’s just a few lines. I’m not sure I can break down what makes it hit so hard. Or I can, but I really don’t want to.

What makes you want to scream, as a reader, is when Rune’s a heartbeat away from unleashing Exodus, the spell we’ve heard of in passing but never learned what it does, until now –

I frantically tried to concentrate, to feel the silver band on my finger, the sigil where I stored Exodus. I’d do it, I’d activate it, I would–I’d reduce this entire clearing to atoms, myself included, oh gods oh gods oh gods, I would, because in the darkest corner of my heart I knew this was why I’d created Exodus in the first place. I’d let the flames sing out and destroy me. I’d rather die than let this happen again, than be this helpless, than be this abased.

He’s not prepared to suicide; he’s ready, about to do it, in the process of triggering the spell. And that says far more than pages and pages of graphic detail ever could.

And Addam interrupts before Rune can do it, fully clad in his own Aspect, that of a Knight, and it ends well enough with them driving Rurik off. But much as I don’t want to delve deeper into this scene, I guess I have to a little bit.

See: Rune doesn’t talk about what happened to him. He doesn’t – as far as the reader knows – think about it. It was 25 years ago; there’s plenty of reason to think that, although he’s obviously scarred, he’s also healed. Nearly the very first thing he tells the reader, all the way back in the prologue, is that he’s a survivor. It’s how he sees himself and it’s how he demands the world see him – how he forces the world to see him, even, arguably. So he’s awkward with flirtation: so what? So are a lot of people who’ve never experienced any kind of assault. It’s not by itself a sign of anything.

I don’t feel qualified to say whether Rune’s immediate and terrible reaction to the illusions is a sign that he hasn’t, actually, dealt with what happened to him. I’d imagine a lot of people would have a panic attack if thrown back into their trauma, regardless of what kind it was. But the fact that Rune’s been carrying Exodus around all this time? That’s not like an assault victim carrying pepper spray or a taser now that they know the world can be awful. That’s like keeping a cyanide pill always at the ready, just in case. It’s a whole ‘nothing level of thing.

So…yeah, I’m tentatively willing to say he hasn’t dealt with it. Not that I have the first clue what ‘dealing with it’ really constitutes. But I know Brand would lose his mind if he found out the truth about Exodus, and that, weirdly enough, has become my standard of measurement re whether whatever Rune’s doing is okay. And when you think about it, the idea that Rune hasn’t dealt with it makes perfect sense. He lives in a society that treats its victims like object-lessons. Where would he go for therapy? Is that something even theoretically available to him? To any Atlantean? Pretty much his first lesson after his rape was that he had to suppress everything and control himself – see, Lord Tower whipping Brand to drive that message home to Rune. Then, as far as I can tell, he’s spent the last 25 years making himself as strong and smart and secure as he possibly can. He’s never been allowed to be ‘weak’, not in the world he lives in, not with the standards he sets himself. When did he ever have the chance to process and heal properly?

I mean, he’s no whimpering wreck, at all. Nothing like that. He is a survivor. But he seems to have survived by repressing, not processing. He’s healed, but the scar tissue just closed over the shrapnel. Maybe.

It’s dark, dark, dark reading.

Addam comes in like a literal ray of light, blazing in his Aspect – something we, and Rune, had no idea he had (most younger scions don’t, these days). That his Aspect is a knight in literal shining armour ought to be ridiculous, but it somehow isn’t. Addam as a character, honestly, really ought to read as a Gary Stu, too perfect to be real – and yet somehow he never seems unrealistic or impossible??? I have no idea how Edwards manages that. I really don’t. I’ve tried analysing Addam’s character, but I gave up. Take him apart, and he shouldn’t work, but put all the pieces together and he’s like the perfect romantic interest you can absolutely believe in. I don’t know how it works, but I definitely appreciate the effect.

ANYWAY.

Addam sees that Rune was distressed, but since it was all illusions he has no idea what Rune saw. Rune’s so shaken he actually hugs Addam – is this the first time he’s deliberately initiated contact between them? Thinking back, it might be. Addam certainly picks up on the fact that Rune’s badly shaken, and hugs him back once Rurik is, at least temporarily, banished again.

(By a light that burst from the both of them once they touched. Hmmmm.)

Rune seems a lot more shaken by his own reaction to Rurik’s illusions than anything they showed him, though. There’s something important there, I think.

*

The two of them make it to an unfamiliar manor, which allows them in – Addam, with his knowledge of the Westlands, tells Rune that out here the hospitality rules of Old Atlantis still reign, which seems to translate as, travellers are always granted safe harbour so long as they don’t intend harm to the residents. Addam watches Rune sweep the place for dangers, but it’s secure enough, even if there isn’t much in the cupboards. They do find a training room for golems – specifically, golems from the Terracotta Army – which clues Rune in as whose place this must be: the Hierophant’s, who is apparently into this sort of thing.

I’m sure the Terracotta Army soldier golems will be plot-relevant down the road.

There’s a storm outside, and no Rurik for the moment. This chapter mostly serves as breathing room for Rune and Addam, a much-needed downtime after the hell of the previous chapter. Addam puts forward the theory that they might be tallas, or soulmates, an Atlantean concept that doesn’t translate super well, since tallas can be deadly enemies as well as dearest lovers. That would normally be pretty forward (haven’t they only known each other a couple of days?) but it’s one explanation for the light they made together, the one which hurt Rurik badly and banished him. Tallas, after all, can accomplish mysterious, powerful things together.

Rune shuts this down gently, but firmly.

In a voice far gentler than I’d thought I could manage, I said, “We’re not tallas, Addam. I’m sorry.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just am. It’s not possible. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Is…” He chewed his bottom lip. “Is Brandon your talla? Is that why?”

“That’s not why,” I said.

Look: the talla thing has come up briefly before, and pretty much everyone is heavily invested in theorising who Rune’s talla might be – if he has one at all. It’s kind of impossible to do more than come up with wild theories because we just don’t know nearly enough about tallas at this point in the series to make serious guesses. But this exchange does tell us a few things: Atlanteans can apparently be tallas with humans, since Addam wonders if Brand might be Rune’s. It’s heavily implied that a person can only have one talla, since otherwise Brand and Addam could be tallas with Rune, and Addam wouldn’t have to ask that question.

And something very, very strange is going on. Because Rune’s wording… ‘It’s not possible.’ Honestly, that makes it sound like he believes there’s something wrong or broken with himself – that that’s why it’s impossible he has a talla.

(An argument could also be made that he does already have a talla, and knows who it is, and that’s why he claims it’s impossible he and Addam could be. But he later wonders what it would be like to have one, and if he already had a talla, he wouldn’t have to wonder, would he?)

Addam’s sigils were destroyed by Rurik in the fight – something Rune didn’t know was possible; I feel like that’ll also be plot-relevant at some point – and Rune Wills him a few of his own sigils so Addam won’t have to go undefended. There’s a very beautiful and interesting intimacy to this; Rune is distracted by seeing Addam wearing his, Rune’s, sigils. I have no idea if it’s because sigils are such personal things that it’s intimate by default, or if it’s more because Rune’s sigils are so few, and therefore much more precious – and more often against his skin, so seeing them against someone else’s is..a Thing. Addam and Quinn both have platinum disk sigils – a lot of them, but they’re very impersonal. I’m not sure Addam feels as connected to his sigils as Rune does to his; Addam might not feel the same distraction if their scenarios were reversed.

The scene is warm and pretty lovely; there’s banter, Addam flirts, and when he realises what happened with Rurik and tries to apologise for the flirting, Rune kisses him in the most adorable manner possible;

Before I could think better of it, I lifted my butt off the ground and scooted over to him. His mouth closed in surprise. I leaned in, gave him a quick, aimless kiss on the cheek and scooted back the way I’d come from.

“If you still feel bad, though, you can give me the best side of the mattress.” I thought about it some more. “And the rest of your animal crackers.”

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that? Edwards went with the time-honoured tradition of the there’s-only-one-bed!!! trope.

YEP.

HE WENT THERE.

I cackled.

Seriously though, the conversation goes from banter to meaningful and back again, a really lovely, soothing rhythm akin to listening to ocean waves. But it stays sweet and funny, and when they go to bed, Rune snuggles. Just a little bit.

*

I want to skip over the next bit, honestly, but let’s go over it lightly; sometime before the morning, Rune and Addam wake up holding each other – or more accurately, with Addam holding Rune – and they’re both cautious but enjoying it. They start to make out a little (I don’t know what the technical terms are – is it still making out when there’s no kissing?), and Rune is horrified when he comes almost immediately. Humiliated and, I think, ashamed somehow, he flees to the shower. After a little while, Addam follows him, and asks if he can touch Rune again. Rune consents, and it’s very, very good, but he’s uncertain about how to reciprocate until Addam tells him not to. He tells Rune,

“I needed this to be the memory you remember, from tonight.”

Not the humiliation, or the shame. Just pleasure. I feel like there’s something deeper to be untangled there – something about Addam’s easy sensuality, how at home he is with his body, how comfortable with his sexuality – and with his existence as a sexual being. This, it’s been made clear, is a very Atlantean approach to things like modesty and sex. So contrast that to Rune, who, we now know, has had few romantic interests at all as an adult, who is awkward with flirtation and uncomfortable with showing skin.

It feels like a lot more than Addam making sure Rune walks away with a good memory, not a bad one. It’s like…like Addam’s showing Rune, or reminding him, maybe, what it means to be Atlantean. That hedonism and body-comfort, sensuality and pleasure, are his birthright, an intrinsic part of his heritage. Something he’s allowed to reclaim.

Rune says he wishes Addam could be his talla. That it could be that easy. And Addam responds with one of the most meaningful, and powerful, passages in the whole book.

They both go back to bed.

*

Which turns out to be extra-important, because Ciaran shows up in Rune’s dream to facilitate Quinn showing up in Rune’s dreams, and there is a Talk. The short version is that Quinn lays out for Rune the path he and Addam need to take to make it to the Moral Certainties compound with the greatest chances of safety and success. In the previous chapter, Addam shared stories about Quinn that showcased his adorable side – how Quinn used to sneak away to Siberia while Addam was stationed there, unwilling to be separated from his older brother. But those stories also showcased a well-intentioned manipulative side, honestly – it’s not as if sneaking through guarded portals is easy, and yet he was able to do it repeatedly; that’s clear evidence that he’s not above using his powers for personal reasons, even without the emotional blackmail of telling Addam that he, Quinn, ‘sometimes meets a man with a white van and candy’ while Addam’s gone. It’s cute because it’s a little brother willing to do anything to spend time with his older brother, but it makes you pause. If Quinn’s willing to manipulate even Addam, who adores him without reserve and whom Quinn adores right back…it does make you wonder what he might be capable of.

If nothing else, his conversation with Rune in Rune’s dream definitely makes it clear that, for all his joking about meteors made of soy beans, Quinn very much has an adamant core under all the sweet toffee.

“But he’s expecting that,” I said. “Right? Rurik is expecting me to go off the safe path at the point closest to the compound.”

“He expects everything,” Quinn said. His face hardened. “But so do I.”

Quinn may be young and he may be genuinely sweet – but I for one wouldn’t want to go up against a true seer. And given that Quinn’s powers seem to be a secret from New Atlantis at large, I don’t think Rurik and his summoners even know he’s in the game. I never thought of that before, but it’s true – Rurik & co would definitely have tried to kill Quinn if they knew, although I’m not sure they could have managed it.

Hmm.

Rune passes along Quinn’s message/s when he wakes up, and Addam is clearly still worried about his little brother. But he more than anyone knows better than to ignore Quinn, and they follow Quinn’s instructions to the letter, heading out and following the path until they reach the point where Quinn told them to diverge from it.

And Rune tells Addam to use all of his sigil spells for this next dash.

“I want to cross that hundred yards like gods, Addam. I want our footsteps to be like thunder. I want to show that miserable creature what it means to interfere with an Atlantean scion. Are you with me?”

“Are you with me?”

If Rune’s afraid or shaken after how their last clash with Rurik went, there’s no way for the reader to tell. And maybe this is what it means to be a survivor, at least for Rune; he won’t cower, and he won’t flinch. His response to attack is to hit back harder, and it’s a reminder, not just of what he’s been through, but how it’s shaped him and set him apart from other scions. We’ve seen various other scions attempt to threaten him, sometimes bluntly, sometimes slightly more subtly, and he’s thrown them with his reaction every time. Because Rune’s not interested in the posturing and dominance scuffles his peers engage in; when he steps onto the field, he fights to put his opponent down, with a skill and efficiency we’ve yet to see matched by any other magic-user. He doesn’t fight to show off or impress anyone, but to destroy whatever’s standing against him, and it kind of amazes me that scions like Michael and Ashton – both of whom have threatened Rune earlier in the book – don’t see it, don’t sense the difference between what he is and what they are. It’s the difference between a school-yard bully and a Special Forces officer, between a yappy little puppy and a wolf, a house-cat and a tiger.

How the hell do they not see it?

So Rune and Addam hit Rurik – who appears the moment they step out of the safe zone – with everything they’ve got.

“You have no idea,” Rurik said loudly from his linen cowl, “what forces are marshaled against you. I will bring everything I have to bear on–“

“Fuck that mastermind chatter,” I said, and hit him with a surge of fire that blackened the grass under his feet.

Okay, so it doesn’t go quite like this, but LET ME HAVE MY DRAMATIC GIFS

It helps drive home just how dangerous liches are that the fight doesn’t exactly go well. I’m not sure I’d say it goes super badly, either, but Rurik is alarmingly powerful, and even now Rune’s learned some of Rurik’s favourite moves…the sheer power the lich has at his disposal is terrifying. And Lord Tower said that Rurik is a young lich, who’ll only grow stronger with time. That’s really not good, when a Scion Heir (I know Rune’s technically Lord Sun, but power-wise he’s still on the Heir level) and one of the few post-New Atlantis scions to be born with an Aspect can’t make a proper dent in him as he is now.

At least there’s no null-threads for Rurik to play with. Quinn specifically directed them down a path where there wouldn’t be any.

Okay, so maybe the fight does go kind of badly, because Addam is caught at a point where he’s probably right about to die when Brand puts a bullet through Rurik’s head.

The fight goes better after that, and Brand uses some kind of magical bullet (created with the help of Mayan, Lord Tower’s Companion, we later learn) to make Rurik disappear in a forced retreat. But I want to take a second to look at the symmetry of the last 24 hours; Addam saved Rune from Rurik just the day before, and now Brand saves Addam (and a few minutes later puts an end to the fight completely, but let’s put that aside for a sec). It’s nothing as simple as a thank-you – partly because Brand doesn’t know what Addam did and partly because that’s just not how Brand works, he’d have saved Addam anyway as long as it didn’t put Rune at risk – but it is a glimpse of how well the three of them might work together as a unit. And although Brand is Rune’s partner as well as Companion, and they were thus both hired to find Addam, I still feel like there’s a particular intimacy to a Companion saving their Companion’s love interest. Again, Brand would have done it regardless, because that’s the kind of person he is. But in typical Atlantean life, I suspect Companions probably don’t extend their protection outside of their Companion’s immediate loved ones. A more traditional Companion would defend Rune’s consort or spouse, surely (as long as it didn’t mean risking Rune), but not a random bystander or acquaintance, not in the same way.

Probably.

Am I making any sense here? I just feel it’s significant that Rune’s Companion is safeguarding his love interest too, okay?

ANYWAY.

*

Brand escorts Rune and Addam to the compound, on the way breaking the news that no, Rurik wasn’t destroyed by the magic bullet – just ‘decorporealized’ for a while, damn it.

Sigh.

But the compound’s not far, and Ciaran and Max, it seems, have also been sent along with Brand by Quinn (try convincing me that kid is not a puppet-master. You won’t manage it). Quinn also had Brand drill up the mass sigil buried in the foundation of Rune and Brand’s house – the only mass sigil that survived the fall of the Sun Throne, one Rune’s been charging for years and years in case he ever had to defend their home. The implication that they might need it is reasonably terrifying.

Not that Quinn was dreamwalking into Brand’s dreams, by the way. All these messages were passed on via Max, because Brand didn’t sleep the entire time Rune was gone.

You hear that? That’s the sound of my heart breaking, just a little more.

Although Max is eager to greet Rune, he’s stopped short at the sight of Addam still wearing Rune’s sigils. (This does suggest that the act of wearing someone else’s sigils is in fact an intimate thing, not just made so because Rune has so few sigils to share). He becomes even more upset when he sees that Addam is also wearing the ring-sigil his grandmother – that would be Lady Lovers, from way back in chapter one – gave Rune.

“And that’s my grandmother’s ring! You gave it to him? The one you took in exchange for me? You gave it to him?”

Phrased that way, it does sound kind of bad. Or at least, it does when you remember that Max’s whole world collapsed just a few days ago, Rune pretty literally saved him (several times, in fact), he’s a teenager with a crush, and – maybe most importantly, and something that only literally just occurred to me as I type this – he’s been trained to think of himself as a commodity. Something to be bought and sold.

And not for a very high price, either.

But of course, that’s not what the ring symbolises to Rune, and none of that played into why it was one of the sigils Rune gave Addam. And when Max goes on to be directly rude to Addam, Rune’s had enough.

“Did you tell Addam that we were involved?”

Max lowered his eyes so far that the lids nearly closed. “We…talked. He might have gotten the wrong impression.”

“I can assure that lying to me, right now, right here, is the wrong, wrong tactic. You are seventeen years old. We will not become involved. Your behavior toward Addam is unacceptable.”

“I–“

“We will not have this conversation again,” I told him.

It’s a conversation they badly needed to have, and Rune is decent enough to drag Max away to have it in privacy; no doubt Max’s feelings are pretty hurt, but he doesn’t have to be humiliated on top of it. As someone whose guardians didn’t always give me the same consideration, it’s something I really appreciate.

Rune joins Brand and Addam at the outdoor showers by the compound pool, since they all have a lot of guk to wash off. Which is when this happens;

“Shall we share the shower?” Addam asked me. Only he said it like he was saying, Shall we share a shower AGAIN, which had Brand’s head snapping up.

Addam. Addam, Brand shot a lich all of five minutes ago.

It’s like he has no self-preservation instinct at all.

No, but for real, what follows is intense, emotional, and hilarious. Far from defending Rune’s virtue or whatever (which – I don’t think that’s a concept Atlanteans really have, anyway), Brand instead says…

I saw the wheels turning in Brand’s head. “It’s big enough for all of us.”

And yes, he’s talking about the shower, but as I joked on twitter, he might as well be talking about Rune’s heart. Especially since he says as much, just a few minutes later. But first, he has a little bit of a trap for Addam, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to make anybody shriek with laughter. Because once Brand’s in the shower and Addam has confirmed with Rune that he’s comfortable with this – Atlanteans basically have no nudity tabboo, so Rune’s the only one who might be bothered – we get THIS freaking gem!

When he heard Addam approach, he turned and stretched his arms upward to bring his front into the best definition.

The trap was sprung.

I couldn’t see Addam’s face, but his shoulders actually sank as he caught sight of Brand’s endowment. Addam turned and gave me such a comic expression that I started laughing.

Look, yes, it’s probably more than a bit immature, I DON’T CARE IT’S HILARIOUS. Every time I picture the face Addam must give Rune I start giggling, and I’m not even a little bit sorry.

Rune reassures Addam – again – that he and Brand don’t have a sexual relationship, and it actually morphs into this really sweet bonding moment when Brand starts massaging Rune’s bad shoulder, and Addam asks about the best way to help the old injury. Addam’s interest seems to imply that his feelings for Rune go way beyond the superficial – although it’s been a while since he was only interested in Rune for his looks, if that was ever the case; wanting to know how best to help an old injury kind of suggests he’s in it for the long-haul, doesn’t it?

But eventually Brand shoos Addam away so he and Rune can talk. About what happened with Rurik, and about Brand being left behind. About their relationship, really, about what the Companion bond means to them and means to Brand. But when Brand flashes back to what he considers the first time he protected Rune – from a little jerk who was verbally bullying him when they were kids – Rune has to correct him.

“That wasn’t the first time. You’ve always protected me. You’ve always been my hero. You ate my broccoli. You told my father that you were the one to run out on the ice when the pool froze over. You made me drink my stupid juice when I was sick. Always.”

And when Rune – who clearly has concerns about the consent of a Companion bond, given that it’s something done when both parties are infants – admits he’s not sure he deserves Brand’s devotion…

“Rune of Sun House, I believe that you are meant for great things. I truly, truly do. Your story has barely begun. It is my honor to be along for what has been, and is, and will be one hell of a ride. So don’t leave me on the bench again. That’s all I wanted to say.”

I know I’m quoting a lot, this time around. But there were just so many perfect passages in last week’s chapters. How could I not?

*

Alas, that’s about all the time Edwards allows us to patch up our hearts. After that, it’s back into the plot again.

In short order, a battered Geoffrey arrives on the scene, looking for his brother. Rune, Brand and Addam discover that Michael Saint Talbot – the one who was secretly dating Addam’s sister Ella – is dead in Ella’s room, apparently a victim of a summoning gone wrong. However, the summoning is pretty obviously staged; it fooled Addam briefly, but Rune and Brand called it after just a few seconds, and I think any other trained investigator would too. Which makes me wonder whether the staging was done poorly by someone too stupid to think of all the details necessary to make it believable, or if it was just thrown together as a brief delaying tactic, and not meant to fool anyone for long?

Ella is hidden in a closet, shoved in there by Michael when recarnates attacked them. Having listened to Michael die, she’s understandably hysterical, but Rune & co manage to put together that the disgusting perfume Ashton was wearing back at the hospital – way back when Rune first met Quinn – acted as a scent-marker to prevent the recarnates, and maybe any other monsters they summoned, from harming him. Brand kicks himself for not putting it together earlier – Ashton’s supposedly a trained fighter after his stint in the Poland training camps, but he was terrible when they were fighting the recarnates together. He was terrible, they now realise, because he didn’t have to bother to seriously fight; the recarnates were never going to hurt him.

But the perfume no longer works – at least not the bottle that Michael had. With Michael, Ella, and Geoffrey accounted for, the only one left of Addam’s business partners is Ashton; clearly the one in control, since he allegedly sent monsters after Geoffrey too now that their plan’s come down around their ears.

Geoffrey explains – begrudgingly, and with much whining – that he and the other partners wanted Addam out of the way so they would get his shares, but via Michael’s relationship with Ella, still retain the connections and influence of the Justice Court. (Brand points out that this is most likely why Addam wasn’t killed; Ella was okay with removing Addam from play, but not with actually killing her brother). Ashton thought bigger: he wanted to take down Lord Hermit, whose assets would be divided amongst the rest of the Moral Certainties courts – Justice, Strength, and Temperance – adding to the partners’ personal wealth. Lord Hermit, appropriately enough, doesn’t have a large court, so Ashton seemed to think he would be easy to take down. Rune’s not convinced, but Geoffrey insists that Ashton claimed he had powerful friends who owed him favors – even as he admits that he thinks Ashton might have been planning something even bigger and worse the entire time. What that is, Geoffrey claims not to know.

“And he hates you, Rune. Ashton hates you; he says he won’t let you ruin his life again. He’s going to keep trying to kill you.”

“When the hell did I ruin his life the first time?” I demanded.

Geoffrey has no idea what Ashton was talking about, is only convinced that Ashton’s hate was very, very genuine. There isn’t really time for Rune’s team to dig into that, anyway, especially since motivations are a lot less important right now than actions. It’s clear to Brand that Ashton is tying up loose ends – which means he’s probably coming to the compound, or at the very least, is far from neutralised.

Which, of course, is when the estate wards come down, on what’s probably the biggest cliffhanger we’ve had so far.

You’ve never seen fantasy like this before: The One Who Eats Monsters by Casey Matthews

The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow, #1) by Casey Matthews
Representation: Sapphic, F/F or wlw
on 25th August 2017
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Pages: 378
Buy on Amazon, The Book Depository
Goodreads

Long ago, before history broke in half, elder gods exiled the vengeful deity Erynis to a far corner of Earth. When Ryn is found weakened after saving the life of an innocent villager, the U.S. military mistakes the battered immortal for a feral teenager and places her in New Petersburg, a decaying city full of monsters.

In her clash with the city’s demons, Ryn is confused by her intense emotional connection with Naomi Bradford, a senator’s daughter she has sworn to protect. But while her claws can kill anything that dies (and a few things that cannot), she must also contend with the human race. They lie, they speak in riddles, and to protect her friend, the immortal must navigate the senseless rules of their flawed civilization. Worse, they are fragile—and giving her heart to one makes Ryn afraid for the first time in her eternal life.

Sometimes when you’re dealing with monsters, what you need isn’t a hero.

It’s a bigger monster.

American soldiers rescue a teenage girl from torture, and bring her back with them to the United States. The problem? She’s not a teenage girl at all, and the rules that keep humans safe from her are null and void if she’s invited in to their cities.

It’s okay though. She might be a monster, but her prey are other monsters – of both the mundane and supernatural varieties. Normal, everyday decent people are perfectly safe from her – as long as they don’t get caught in the crossfire.

The One Who Eats Monsters is a really dark, really beautiful, and incredibly unique urban fantasy that a lot more people need to be talking about. When pitching it to someone looking for recs recently, I described it as: primordial, feral goddess falls in love with a human girl, because honestly, that’s all I’d need to hear if someone were recommending it to me.

Whatever you’re envisioning when you hear that, the reality will surpass your expectations – or your wariness, if you’re like me and aren’t interested in safe, pretty ‘monsters’ ala Twilight. Because Ryn – the eponymous one who eats monsters – definitely isn’t safe, and definitely isn’t a human with fangs tacked on; she really feels like something else, something completely alien, in a way few authors ever really manage when crafting non-human characters. Most of the book is from her perspective – third person, not first, which was definitely the right call – and she is just so completely Other. Honestly, Matthews hit the balance just right: Ryn never feels human, but her emotions and motivations and choices still make enough sense for the reader to connect to her. It’s a very difficult line to walk, but Matthews pulls it off exquisitely.

And what the hell does it mean, anyway, that Ryn is a goddess? Well, the answer to that was probably my favourite part of the book, because the worldbuilding here is incredible. Matthews has created an entire underground eco-system of spirits living alongside humanity, and while some terms might be familiar – asuras and daevas are beings from Hinduism and Zoroastrianism respectively, for example – Matthews puts entirely her own spin on things. Slowly uncovering more of Ryn’s history and abilities as the book goes on is an utter delight, as is bit by bit learning about the supernatural world she belongs to; although the story is set in the USA, we get tidbits about the gods and spirits in other parts of the world too, and the laws that bind them. More, we even get a glimpse of what lies beyond our world – and I admit to not being entirely sure if the other worlds referred to are meant to be other dimensions or other planets. (For the record, my bet is on the former). So much work and detail has gone into inventing Ryn and building the world she lives in, and I adored it.

Although it’s not all pretty. A large component of the plot is Ryn hunting down and facing off against a number of seriously fucked-up spirits, and although the vast majority of the real awfulness happens off-page, there’s definitely enough to make your stomach turn over. One of Ryn’s enemies, for example, is a spirit that was born out of a snuff-porn ring, and though nothing like that ever comes near the page, we know it’s happened. A more mundane monster is the ‘father’ of the group-home Ryn is placed in when she reaches the US, who’s sexually inappropriate with the girls in the home and clearly gearing up to molestation – it’s implied that he’s sexually abused girls who’ve since left. Spoiler: Ryn puts him through a wall, but I can still see it being triggering for some readers.

On the one hand, that makes it easier to deal with Ryn’s absolutely merciless response to these kinds of monsters; the bad guys are so unremittingly evil – without being caricatures, which is something I’ve never seen another author pull off successfully – that it’s kind of a relief when Ryn rips them apart. But readers who are uncomfortable with darker themes, or with gore, should definitely steer clear of this one, because Ryn doesn’t pull her punches, and neither does Matthews.

Honestly, there were a few points where I might have put the book down – if Matthews’ writing wasn’t so damn beautiful and seductive. It was a little reminiscent of reading Poppy Brite, in terms of gorgeous writing and horrific content – except that Brite puts all of the nightmares on the page and Matthews doesn’t quite. (For which I’m grateful!) But the writing really is stunning, and not just in the use of language, but also in showing us our world through Ryn’s eyes. I probably identified with her a lot more than I should have – some of her incomprehension as regards human customs and behavior might seem familiar to other autistic readers; it definitely did to me. But that same incomprehension, or lack of human experiences, can also be super endearing, like when Ryn tries chocolate for the first time.

Because – and this is important for so many reasons – Ryn is feral. This is not a book about a classical Greek goddess who’s been following humanity’s progress, and interacting with it/them, from day one. Ryn is a wild thing, a primal thing, who has never had much interest in humans except to purge them of rapists and murderers. She can’t read, she doesn’t understand dates, she’s never had chocolate. And this is why it’s okay that she falls in love with a 16-year-old human girl, why this relationship doesn’t fall into the same dodgy areas as immortal/mortal romances usually do – because in terms of human life experiences, Ryn’s no older than her favourite mortal. She’s not suave, wealthy, and struck with the ennui of having tried everything in the world and being left with nothing else to live for; she’s awkward, uncomfortable with emotions, animalistic (in the real way, not the prettified, sexy way), and completely and beautifully self-contained. She doesn’t need anyone, doesn’t need the approval of others – she’s whole within herself, which is something I absolutely adore about her.

And she looks like a 16-year-old girl. Sorry-not-sorry: reading her smacking down every human asshole who thinks they can use or abuse her because that’s what girls are for was cathartic, hilarious, and freaking amazing. Also? She has good, tactical reasons for taking the form she does, which I loved as well.

So how about the actual plot? Like I said, Ryn is brought from the wilds (it’s not clear exactly where, but I got the impression it was Africa or possibly the Middle East) to the USA. Since she looks like a teenager, she goes into the foster system and high school, but thankfully, this is not one of those supernatural-creature-in-human-school stories – Ryn is far more interested in establishing her territory and purging it of the kind of monsters she hates than she is in keeping up her GPA. In the process, she stumbles across Naomi, who is the daughter of a Senator (and look, I never thought I would like a Republican Senator, even a fictional one, but Matthews made me like him) and is being targeted by the kinds of dark spirits Ryn doesn’t permit to exist. What originates as a plan to stay close to Naomi-as-monster-bait gradually develops into a kind of friendship, and eventually a fledgeling romance. Which only raises the stakes for Ryn, who grows very different reasons for keeping Naomi safe.

I wish I knew how to talk about the romance. I wish I could put into words how I feel about it. Naomi believes she’s straight, but when she finally faces her feelings, and the reality of Ryn’s nature…it’s an incredibly beautiful scene with this delicate, dark sweetness to it that made me catch my breath; it’s impossibly intimate and speaks to something deep that I can’t quite verbalise. I can only plead with you to go and read the book yourself, if you don’t mind the dark themes.

This isn’t just one of the best books I’ve read this year; it’s one of the best books I have ever read. It’s lyrical and lush and vicious and cathartic, it’s queer and magical and incredibly original, it’s delicate as spun sugar and sharp as steel. It’s perfect, and I don’t use that word lightly for books. It’s impossibly, breathtakingly perfect.

This one is staying with me always.

#LastSunReadalong Week 3: Chapters 9-12

This week’s chapters were INTENSE! For gifs, caps-lock, and Monty Python references, you can see my twitter thread for this week’s readalong; for a more thoughtful recap, read on.

*

Chapter 9, Farstryke Castle, is, predictably enough, set inside Farstryke Castle. And it’s immediately interesting because Farstryke seems to be a kind of Atlantean cultural heritage site – it used to be the home base of the now-defunct Time Court, another Arcana (like the Lovers Court) which was disbanded ‘for crimes against humanity’. It’s definitely noteworthy that it’s crimes against humanity, not their fellow Atlanteans, that is grounds for wiping out an Arcana – one of the fundamental powers of Atlantean society. As Rune said earlier, all of (New) Atlantis is weakened when one of the Arcana is destroyed (at least if the other Courts don’t get to profit from it by seizing their stuff in a formal raid). So dismantling a Court is a very big deal, from which we can infer that for whatever reason, fucking with humans is a Very Big Deal indeed. Why that’s so is a bit unclear at this point. On the one hand, Atlanteans don’t protect their victims, they use them as object-lessons, so I get that an Arcana abusing other Atlanteans is not seen as punishable – the victims should have been able to protect themselves better, or something. (Urgh victim-blaming). But why do Atlanteans care about protecting humans, then?

Especially because, the Lovers Court, we’re told, threatened New Atlantis’ treaties with humanity. Treaties that presumably didn’t exist before Atlantis was revealed to the world. But since the Arcanum inspired the Major Arcana of the tarot, and there is no Time tarot card, the Time Court must have been taken apart ages and ages ago, before those whispers of magic could get out to inspire the tarot. So, before humans knew about Atlantis. Before there were treaties to threaten.

And yet messing with humans was still a big enough deal to get the Time Court ripped apart. Even back then.

Hmm.

Since Brand can’t go with Rune this time, Ciaran is the one to accompany Rune into Farstryke. All’s going fairly well until Ciaran hits a null-line – which kills magic – and the ghostly inhabitants of the castle grounds wake up for breakfast. Rune and Ciaran can pretty much handle these, right up until the Big Bad from the last chapter – the creature Rune is calling the Dead Man, because he is very good at snark but maybe not so good at naming things – shows itself. That scuffle doesn’t go so well, with the Dead Man continuing to display impossible abilities – like speaking, but also grabbing and moving null lines around – until Rune tries a gambit.

This, apparently, is something old Atlanteans would yell to each other on the battlefield, when they were fighting at the behest of their masters and had no personal quarrel with each other. And I guess it makes an impression, because Rurik – as the Dead Man names himself – confesses that he must kill Rune if he tries to get past and inside the castle, but doesn’t want Rune dead of his own will.

The problem is, not wanting him dead does not mean wishing Rune well, and Rurik gives off plenty of serious creeper!vibes.

Nuh-uh. Nope.

(The ‘Stay with me. Play with me.’ line is giving me Exquisite Corpse flashbacks, and I have no idea if that’s intentional or not but it is definitely helping with the NOPE-NOPE-NOPE.)

Rune and Ciaran manage to fight Rurik off with the help of Bless-fire, which is exactly what it sounds like – a spell for holy fire that destroys dead, evil things with extreme prejudice. It’s pretty clear that Rurik isn’t actually destroyed though, and Ciaran tells Rune he has got to report this to Lord Tower. But he won’t say why, and Rune currently has no cell service, so it has to wait a while.

They face lower-level dead things inside the castle, and something about its haunted energies messes with Ciaran; he keeps getting trapped in what might be visions or memories, until he’s forced to retreat and leave Rune to go on alone. Rune makes it through the various monsters, though he’s running dangerously low on magic by the time he finds Addam Saint Nicholas.

Perfectly hale and healthy.

With fast food and an mp3 player.

With books and wine.

Dancing.

It’s…not exactly the condition Rune, or the reader, was expecting to find him in.

There’s no way I’m ignoring Rune’s reaction to this, though;

My first thought was that he danced like Brand.

As I said on Twitter when I reached this line – EXCUSE ME?

You’re in a haunted castle, there’s an impossible monster throwing null threads around outside, Ciaran had to retreat so you’re alone, your Bless-fire is running out, you finally found the kidnap victim someone has been trying to kill you to prevent you from finding – and your first thought is ‘he dances like Brand’???

There’s so much to read into this: it’s yet another moment reinforcing/driving home the depth of Rune and Brand’s relationship, that even now (maybe especially now) it’s Brand Rune thinks of, not any kind of relief that the mission’s almost over, or even relief or confusion that Addam seems to be okay. It tells us that Rune has spent a fair bit of time watching Brand dance, or thinking about it – probably both. And given what follows, I think it might also be how Rune reflexively categorises people who are beautiful or appealing to him – I think he sees them in terms of Brand, in how they are like and unlike his Companion. Because Brand is his standard by which he measures the rest of the world. Brand is the standard anyone else has to measure up to.

Meaning that Addam reminding Rune of Brand is how we’re supposed to know that Addam has caught Rune’s attention in a way most people don’t. And is probably a flag from Edwards telling the reader to pay attention, that this scion is maybe not like all the others we’ve met so far.

Which seems to be true: Addam immediately endears himself to me by swinging to attack Rune, only to halt when he realises that Rune is not one of his dead-creature captors.

“Ah. You’re not dead. I am being rescued, yes?”

The next few seconds are an amusing confusion as Addam – kind of naturally – reveals his assumption that this is a fairly major operation, rather than a one-man mission. Rune seems to find this hilarious.

“Oh, I get it. You think this is one of them big, fancy rescues. Boy are you about to be embarrassed.”

This is one of those moments Edwards drops where it’s easy to miss the layers. My first time reading this scene, I just shared in Rune’s amusement, but now it reads very differently. Or rather, it’s still funny, but it says a lot about Rune’s character, his personality and how he sees himself. Rune thinks Addam is about to be embarrassed; it doesn’t seem to cross his mind that Addam might instead be impressed. It’s one thing for a big team of people to break in and break Addam out; it’s a whole nother thing for one single person to walk in to a notoriously haunted castle, get past Rurik and all the other traps and monsters, and get Addam out by himself.

So does Rune really not understand how impressive he is? He has absolute confidence in his abilities (and knows exactly where his limits are), and he dismisses other scions as ‘wasted and wasteful’, but it’s like he hasn’t made the mental jump from ‘I am objectively better with magic and in a fight than any other scion I’ve met’ to ‘I’m actually kind of awesome’. I’m very happy to have a hero who isn’t stuck-up and arrogant, but Rune doesn’t even seem to have very solid self-confidence. Confidence in his abilities: absolutely. Confidence in his own worth as a person: not so much.

I think it’s pretty clear that the judgement of his people has had an effect on him, even as he bares his teeth and defies them at every turn. He won’t give up and die; he won’t let assholes like Ashton Saint Gabriel walk all over him; he doesn’t even try to live especially quietly, although he’s happy to fly under the radar for purely tactical reasons. He refuses to be a broken thing. But somewhere along the line, I think he internalised some of the vicious whispers, because I don’t see how he could be so blind to how genuinely impressive he is otherwise.

Unless he’s just used to other scions being idiots who don’t or can’t recognise that a single rescuer is a lot more badass than a bunch of them. I guess it takes a certain kind of mind to be able to jump through all the implications of a situation – especially to jump through them quickly. So maybe he just didn’t expect Addam to have a good enough grasp of the real world to understand what it was Rune was pulling off, and what that says about him?

*

Well, if that’s the case, then Addam very quickly subverts Rune’s expectations – and the reader’s. What with it being so established that yeah, actually, scions = assholes, and with Addam even getting the next chapter named after him, it would be natural to expect Addam to be – well, not that great.

But that’s really not how it goes.

On their way out of Farstryke, Rune and Addam run into a pack of animated skeletons. Addam’s immediate response is “Ten apiece” – meaning, he’s automatically putting himself forward to actively help in his own rescue; he takes it for granted that he’ll take half the monsters while Rune takes the other half. Compared to the only other scion we’ve seen in combat – Ashton, who took minutes to react when people were throwing grenades at their group, and wanted to have Brand whipped for insolence afterwards – the difference is damn stark.

Addam does panic and throw his stake before he really should, but personally I’m willing to forgive him. Even if his cage was a fairly comfortable one, he did get snatched out of his office by something so evil just its psychic traces are enough to make people throw up, and he’s been stuck in a castle populated by the dead ever since. If he’s a bit on edge, I think that’s understandable?

Besides, after Rune blasts the skeletons, this happens;

He gave me a smile. “I am unaccustomed to being upstaged by a proper hero. That was very good spellwork.” He winked, turned, and retreated. “This way, Hero.”

HE’S IMPRESSED.

I TOLD YOU SO, RUNE. I TOLD YOU.

But seriously, the genuine appreciation, the lack of pricked pride… He takes Rune’s teasing – “Want me to go fetch your stake?” – without the slightest bit of offence, and there’s no sarcasm when he compliments Rune’s spell. Even the fact that he’s smart enough to be impressed says good things, doesn’t it?

It feels like a bit of an Easter egg that the spell Rune uses is Shatter, the one stored in his ‘marital aid’ sigil. Remember a few chapters back, when, in response to the teasing about the cock ring sigil, he was all

“Godsdamnit,” I said. “It’s a sigil. I have a Shatter spell in it. Do you know how few scions can pull off Shatter?”

It’s THAT spell, and Addam seems to recognise how badass it is. Give the man points!

I also somehow doubt it’s a completely innocent coincidence that the spell that impresses Addam is in what’s effectively a sex toy sigil, when Addam is clearly being set up as a potential love interest.

I see you, Edwards. I SEE YOU.

And I mean, he flirts. With Rune. So clearly he also has good taste!

Ahem.

*

They make it out of the castle without too much trouble after that, meeting up with Ciaran outside. Without discussing it, Rune and Ciaran agree not to tell Addam about Quinn’s coma just now, and Rune calls Brand to report in. Brand is, obviously, deeply relieved that everything’s okay, but he’s not willing to write Rurik off as a threat. Rune tries to play it down; it’s not clear if he’s just trying to reassure Brand, or if he genuinely thinks Rurik isn’t something he needs to worry about just now. Given Rune’s tactical smarts, I suspect the former; he’s too competent and realistic to think Rurik’s little fixation with him is over and done with.

It clearly doesn’t work at soothing Brand, though, given that we get this delightful little bit of interaction as Ciaran drives them away from Farstryke;

My cell phone vibrated. I pulled it out and saw Brand’s name. I barely got a syllable out before he said, “Are you sticking to busy streets? Is anyone watching for a tail? Do you have your senses open to feel for power spikes?”

…

I thought about it for a second. I said, “Shit. You’re behind me, aren’t you?” I swiveled around. Brand’s motorcycle trailed us by a half block. I felt a sharp, sudden surge of emotion–relief he was there, guilt that he always did a better job at looking out for trouble, and anger. Oh, there was anger. “Brand, so help me fucking gods, if you were standing outside Farstryke this entire time, it will be war.”

Seriously, this exchange hit me hard. “It will be war.” Fuck everything and everyone else, because Rune had to face the possibility of a world without Brand in it when Ciaran passed along Brand’s prophecy, and it was too much for him then. Just the thought of it. So if Brand actually risked it–risked dying, risked leaving Rune forever–then hell yes, it will be fucking war.

(It’s a different kind of risk than the ones they face every time they take a job. A seer who sees probabilities said that Brand always dies if he enters Farstryke. That’s a certainty, a surety, a promise that their combined skills and powers will not, cannot be enough to prevent it. Brand would have died. So if he came so close to the castle–)

But he didn’t, of course. No matter how much he might have wanted to, Brand knows better.

*

Ciaran drops them off at Addam’s condo, after Rune expresses his genuine gratitude for the principality’s help. It’s the kind of open gratitude I haven’t seen very often in stories like this, honestly – again, there’s that lack of pride or shame, Rune not hesitating to make it clear that he needed Ciaran’s help and that he’s thankful he had it. No macho posturing.

Ciaran implies – I don’t think quite truthfully – that he did it solely or mostly for Quinn, whom he’s fond of; personally, I think Ciaran might just be a better person than he’s willing to admit to. But he reminds Rune to tell Lord Tower about Rurik, and to tell Addam about Quinn’s injuries asap. The two brothers are ‘unusually close’.

He blows Brand a kiss and drives away

Upstairs, Addam momentarily steps wrong by inviting Brand – and it does seem like a genuine invitation, not a snooty dickish thing – to wait outside the apartment if he’d be more comfortable there. This is more than just an amusing mis-step because when he’s corrected – Rune explaining that Brand is his partner, not just his Companion; Brand pointing out that bodyguards don’t leave their clients in unfamiliar rooms with strangers – he bows an apology and welcomes Brand in, adjusting his expectations and behaviour immediately.

Basically, Addam continues to impress. He weeps without shame when he hears that Quinn has been hurt, which: see what I’ve said before re the lack of toxic masculinity bs. It’s one of the things I really, really love about these books, and about Rune and Brand in particular; Addam’s complete disinterest in being macho or whatever just reaffirms that he’s different and belongs in the same category as Brand and Rune, a clear Good Guy, something that’s only confirmed as he talks about Quinn and shares the emails he received from his little brother before the attack. And from his and Rune’s subsequent discussion about what’s going on and what might be motivating whoever’s doing it, it seems pretty clear that while Addam’s not super interested in revenge for his own sake, he is going to kill whoever hurt his little brother.

And you know, I think I’m okay with that.

We get a little glimpse of what is probably the more typically Atlantean approach to sex and sexual attraction too, with this little moment before Addam goes to shower;

“You interest me, Hero. I’m fairly sure you saved my life, and a simple thank you seems so small. I don’t know whether I should pay you handsomely, or invite you into the shower with me.”

“We take checks,” I said.

It makes Addam smile, and it definitely made me grin.

*

Rune and Brand then actually search the apartment, since this is the first time they’ve had access to it, and discover that someone set things up to make it look like Addam left of his own volition to Brazil. Lord Tower was the only one taking Addam’s disappearance seriously, but clearly whoever took him was ready for when other people did too; when someone eventually checked his flat, that was what they were going to find.

But Addam’s business partners don’t have access to his apartment – only his family and his assistant, Lilly Rose do. Pretty much confirming that, whoever might have summoned Rurik, someone very close to Addam is working with them, if they’re not the summoner themselves.

Addam tells Rune he wants to take over Rune’s contract from Lord Tower now – hire Rune himself, in other words – which Rune agrees to, as long as Addam agrees to follow orders when necessary (it’s pretty obvious Rune hasn’t forgotten how Ashton behaved during the firefight, and wants to make sure Addam will follow orders in a similar situation). Addam then arms himself – he has a belt of 20 matched sigils – metal disks, like the one Quinn gave Rune – but has only four of them charged with spells. However, they’re all charged with Telekenesis, not stupid cosmetic stuff. Addam, apparently, has more sense than most scions, which is something he seems to be aware of –

“Do any of them contain spells to make your teeth whiter? Your breath mintier?”

“Such a cleverly laid trap, Hero. Yes, please, allow me to admit being vain and vacuous.”

That said, he seems unaware of the immense privilege of having so many sigils – that match, along with matching accessories designed just for those sigils. He still comes from unimaginable wealth. He’s just that somehow managed to become less of a dick than most other scions seem to become.

I’d really like to know more of his backstory, honestly. Why is he different? Is it Lady Justice’s parenting skills, or was he influenced by someone or something else?

Anyway, they all head to the hospital so Addam can see Quinn, even if Quinn’s unconscious. On the way, Rune and Brand quiz Addam on who could possibly wish him harm. It’s an interesting little scene, because initially Addam has only good things to say about everyone. They have to teach him a little mental trick to start seeing the potential for his inner circle to wish his downfall, and it’s not an easy thing for Addam to do. But he does it, and that’s what’s noteworthy; he shuts up, he listens, and he does as Rune and Brand ask, once he wraps his head around it. Once it clicks, he’s actually pretty good at it, and tactically analyses everyone in his inner circle, coming up with what might motivate any of them to hurt him. Thankfully, I have no real-life experience with needing to analyse my own nearest and dearest in the same way, but given how most people protest and throw a fit if detectives or the like ask questions about whether their loved ones might be the bad guy, I’m guessing this is something a lot of people balk at.

But Addam listens, and does it. Without protest, even if it’s difficult. That he’s willing to listen and obey Rune and Brand is another major point in his favour.

Although I admit that my heart melts when he refuses to see Quinn as an enemy. There’s nothing that could make Quinn hurt him, no matter what Rune and Brand say. And it becomes clear that that’s very likely the case; Addam explains how he’s basically raised Quinn himself, and there’s no way to forget how Quinn told Rune that in every timeline where Addam dies, Quinn eventually commits suicide.

I suppose he could have been lying, but I don’t think so.

*

At the hospital, Addam goes to see Quinn, and while waiting for him to be finished, Rune catches Michael Saint Talbot – one of Addam’s business partners – leaving the hospital. Ella, Addam’s sister, is also leaving, though by another route, and it’s clear from the state of them that they’ve been making out.

Pieces snap into place.

Ella reveals her ability to cry on command, and uses it to dodge Rune’s questions, and then Addam’s, when Addam returns. Addam, after all, is not so impressed with the fact that Ella hasn’t been to see Quinn, despite having visited the hospital where he’s staying. So Ella is revealed as much more manipulative, and much smarter, than we knew her to be before.

It’s also a pretty hard strike against her that she doesn’t like Quinn. Hmmm.

*

Despite that, Addam struggles to understand how Ella and Michael being together is suspicious, indicating that he really has lived a life of incredible safety, and also that his seeing-good-in-others shtick is pretty deeply ingrained and likely genuine. I like him for it, but I can understand Rune and Brand’s frustration in having to lay things out for him.

They stop by the hospital’s sanctum – a space Atlanteans use to engage in whatever activities they use to raise their magic and charge their sigils – to stock up on spells. Addam dives for the music collection, and starts dancing; once Rune is done meditating (the imagery here is really beautiful; in charging his sigils, he imagines his power as a grain of sand, and then slowly builds it into a pearl) he watches Addam move.

I liked men who danced. It was something I was far too self-conscious to do well myself. Brand was a good dancer. Brand, who’d dragged a stuffed armchair to the corner so that he could keep an eye on the exits, and who was watching me watching Addam. I ducked my gaze.

Once again, we see Rune comparing Addam to Brand. I still think that says something deep and important about how Rune’s mind and worldview work, and in particular how he sees other people. How Brand-like is this person that he maybe likes?

Rune isn’t thinking about that consciously, though, or if he does, it’s not something he shares with the reader. Instead, while he, Brand and Addam are discussing Ella and Michael, Rune gets yanked into one of Lord Tower’s memories, a method of communication Lord Tower seems to prefer to phonecalls. Lord Tower – who has heard from Ciaran, it seems, or else has listened to the messages Rune’s been leaving when the Tower wouldn’t return his calls – says that Rurik is a lich, a creature that is supposed to by a myth even to Atlanteans. While the details are sparing, it’s pretty clear that this is a Big Bad indeed, and dealing with Rurik is not going to be a nice simple walk in the park.

Returning to his body, Rune doesn’t share what Lord Tower said, only that they need to go to him immediately. Brand knows him too well, though, and pulls him aside to demand more information. Rune tells him that Lord Tower said Rurik is a mythological creature, but he doesn’t use the word ‘lich’, and given Rune’s lack of information on them I’m not sure Brand would know much about them either.

However, the trip to Lord Tower doesn’t go well. The three of them are attacked in an underpass – in public, in the middle of a crowd. People start dropping like flies as spectres emerge from the dead, and Rune and Brand aren’t equipped to deal with them – Rune’s out of Bless-fire, and spectres don’t seem to be material creatures that can be shot or stabbed. They fight back as well as they can, though, with Addam using his Telekenesis to clear the path for them until Rune tells him to run ahead and get them help.

What happens is this: Rune and Brand reach Lord Tower’s building. Dozens of supposed civilians reveal themselves as part of Lord Tower’s defences by throwing up an enormous Bless-fire barrier.

And Rune’s on one side – the safe side – while Brand is left on the other.

Lord Tower’s people try to stop Rune from getting Brand.

It doesn’t work.

*

Rune and Brand don’t talk about the barrier, but Addam is waiting for them inside. Brand tells Rune that his Aspect set his eyeballs on fire.

“This is new?” Addam asked politely.

Yep, it very much is.

There’s not really time to discuss it, though, because Mayan, Lord Tower’s head of security and Companion, sends the three of them, not up to the floors where Rune and Lord Tower typically meet, but down. They’re going to Lord Tower’s ‘war room’, and Rune and Brand, at least, grasp the implications all too quickly.

Whatever’s going on is really, really bad.

And so it proves to be. Lord Tower – along with Ciaran, who is also mysteriously present – describes his one previous experience with a lich, many centuries ago, and explains how liches are tied to terrible disasters, like the eruption of Pompeii.

“They are summonable creatures, and virtually immortal. They feed of death and annihilation; they draw strength from disasters on an epochal scale; and if they are not stopped they become, I promise you, a threat that can bring down empires.”

A little of this is shown as Lord Tower shows them a grid of the city, covered in neat red circles – deaths Rurik caused and used as a death-magic tracking spell to find Rune. Lord Tower doesn’t blink at this, but Rune is shaken, and I love him more for it.

I stared at the red circles. I couldn’t count all of them in a single glance.

It reminds me of how he cared about bystanders at the hospital; somehow, maybe because Atlantean society has tried to make him into one, Rune is able to see the weak and ostracised as people rather than toys or subjects. Even Addam doesn’t express the kind of horror Rune’s feeling about the tracking spell, although he, too, tried to protect the bystanders in the underpass as much as he could.

I’m not sure I’d call it a superpower, but Rune’s empathy is one of the things I love most about him, and really appreciate in a hero.

Lord Tower – and Ciaran – present their plan: their are various reasons it’s not ideal to chase Rurik down or even go straight to the Arcanum with news that there’s a lich in New Atlantis, so their best bet (they say) is to use Rune and bait to draw Rurik out, given that Rurik is entranced with him. Specifically, Lord Tower wants Rune to travel into the Westlands – the magic-warped area outside the city – to find and clear the summoning circle that was used to summon Rurik in the first place. The circle is most likely to be the one in Lord Magician’s Westlands compound – and Ella’s been travelling to the Justice compound in the Westlands lately.

It’s not looking like she’s going to prove to be uninvolved.

*

Lord Tower collected Max and Queenie – Rune and Brand’s sweet housekeeper – meaning that their entire household is now safely in Lord Tower’s – well, his tower. Brand kicks Rune into a guest bed to catch up on much-needed sleep.

When he wakes up, he and Addam have a short conversation about the situation – once Addam’s dressed and Rune can take his eyes off the scissors! – and they’re both refreshingly open and realistic.

“I would like to admit I am worried you have a poor impression of me.”

“Why would you say that?” I asked, stopping short.

“I did not fight a spectre, as you and your Companion did.”

“No, you just used Telekenesis to push bystanders from the line of fire. You pushed tripping hazards out of my way. And when I needed you to run for help, you went, without hesitation. You handled yourself well.”

I really like this bit of interaction, since it’s just – not the kind of talk I think I’ve ever gotten to read before. One of the things that differentiates Last Sun from other urban fantasy novels with whodunnit elements is how genuinely professional Rune and Brand come across as; they really seem to know their stuff, and react to things like real people would, real professionals – not like they’re in an action film, or in whatever way is better for the drama or cinematics. And Rune is completely right here: Addam did exactly what he should have, and Rune can see that and appreciates it.

SO DO I.

In the years since the fall of the Sun Throne, I’d had very, very few romantic interests. I was uncomfortable with people flirting with me, and usually let Brand growl them away. The fact that Brand was almost speculative with Addam’s interest was either really interesting or horribly unsettling.

AND I GUESS BRAND DOES TOO.

Max is adorably puppy-ish when he gets to see Rune after the last few days. He’s clearly crushing on Rune hard, and it’s hilarious to see Brand deal with that – especially in contrast to how he’s ‘speculative’ about Addam’s interest. It’s cute, but I continue to be relieved that Rune and Brand – Brand especially – are so no-nonsense about not putting up with it, given that Max is just 17 and dependant on them.

Max jerked into motion. He beat Brand to the table and slid into the chair on my other side. “I’m okay. How are you?”

Brand grabbed the back of Max’s chair, lifted it up, and dropped it into the next place setting. He pulled another chair up for himself and sat down next to me.

I cackled, but I also find it telling that Brand is okay with Addam sitting on the other side of Rune. Addam’s being evaluated and considered; Max is not even a little bit in the running, and definitely doesn’t get to push Brand out of his spot – which is always next to Rune.

Lord Tower sets a very fine table indeed for his guests, with ridiculously rare and expensive magical fish for dinner. It’s another one of those tiny details Edwards uses to convey a lot, since Addam calls the sundrop fish ‘a treat’, highlighting the difference between his lifestyle and Rune’s – given that this is a meal Rune could never afford if he was footing the bill. But the focus of the meal is very much what they’re going to do about Rurik; this is when Lord Tower explains about the summoning circle, and tells them all that all of Addam’s business partners seem to have disappeared. There’s evidence that at least a few of them were attacked or abducted, but there’s no telling if they were staged or not.

But ultimately, Lord Tower makes it clear that Rune is to go to the Westlands with only Addam – Brand has to stay behind, to help convince Rurik that Rune is still in New Atlantis. The resulting confrontation is epic and emotional and so full of feels; Brand is furious, incredibly angry at Lord Tower for making this necessary (which – he really has. Lord Tower has a golem of Rune, a kind of animated statue that will definitely convince people Rune is in the city – but obviously to make it convincing, Rune’s Companion has to hang out with it. It was Lord Tower’s choice to not have a Brand golem made, when he has dozens of other golems of other people – and you really have to wonder why. Any scenario in which Rune’s body-double was going to be necessary was always going to require the real Rune be separated from his Companion, to make the body-double worth the effort. Why would Lord Tower want that?) Even Queenie, who I think is completely human and definitely doesn’t have Brand’s level of badassery, demands to know why Rune is the one who has to perform the anti-summoning ritual in the Westlands.

DEMANDS.

OF LORD TOWER.

It’s stunningly impressive, and suddenly gives Queenie a lot more depth than her character has really had a chance to display this far. A not-militarily-trained human housekeeper, snarling at a sitting Arcana in defense of her boys?

Oh, hell to the yes.

Brand storms off, and Rune goes after him. Rune doesn’t seem to share Brand’s rage – it kind of reads like Rune doesn’t see, or doesn’t judge, Lord Tower’s manipulation in the same way Brand does. Rune doesn’t like them being separated, but the Westlands is full of wild magic, which isn’t something Brand is equipped to fight. He can see the sense in Brand staying behind, though that doesn’t make it easier for either of them. But where, in another book, the scene might end with Brand storming off to spend his rage in a punching bag, here he pivots on his heel and comes back to hug the fuck out of Rune, apologising for his anger and for lashing out at Rune because of it.

This is what soulmates look like. Whether Rune and Brand remain platonic throughout the series, or eventually shift to romantic; this is what soulmates look like.

And when Rune slips on the wet floor…

*

Rune, Brand, and Max join Addam by Lord Tower’s pool, where Brand and Max reveal what they’ve discovered in researching the recarnates. It’s an important little scene because it has that ring of truth again; Max babbles about how recarnates’ dicks fall off, because, dead bodies, and Addam teases him a bit. But Brand very coolly points out that that is, actually, useful information.

“Recarnates used to be alive, and a part of them remembers it. There’s a part of them that hates what some sick necromantic fuck has done to them. And the more you make them aware of it, the harder it is for said necromantic fuck to hold them. You don’t think it’s good information that their dicks are about to fall off? Knowledge is a weapon. Knowledge informs tactics. Max did good work.”

It feels like another exchange that wouldn’t have happened in another story; it’s what someone actually trained in tactics would say, whereas in another book, Addam’s teasing probably would have stood, because another author wouldn’t have nailed that professional mentality so well.

But let me point out that Addam gives his sincere apologies. Again. This is a scion who isn’t afraid to be wrong, and doesn’t think it’s weak to say he’s sorry. Who isn’t offended to be put in his place by a human Companion, or upstaged by a 17 year old.

It makes me like him more.

*

The chapter closes with a meeting between Rune and Lord Tower. Besides getting a glimpse of a beautiful but dying Atlantean art – painting with melted gemstones – the scene is important because Rune lays down the law.

“I want to thank you for helping me outside, when the spectres were after me. You revealed one of your defense mechanisms to save my life. I know it wasn’t an easy, or costless, decision. I need you to knot that–that I am truly, truly grateful for your help and protection. I always have been.”

“But.”

“But if you or your people ever leave Brand outside that protection again like you did downstairs–when it would have been so easy to save him as well–I swear, on my name, by binding oath, that we are done.”

It’s a potent moment, and a pretty big risk for Rune to take. Rune, after all, isn’t at all certain where he stands in Lord Tower’s affections, if Lord Tower even has affection for him; the Tower is one of the most powerful men in the world, and Rune is definitely risking losing that powerful protection. It’s been implied that most of Rune and Brand’s income comes from doing jobs for Lord Tower; that could disappear too. Worse, if Lord Tower is offended, if he decides to strike Rune down as he’s struck down so many others…

Someday Rune will have his father’s strength. He doesn’t yet. He wouldn’t be able to stop Lord Tower.

And that risk – in all its layers – is worth it. Rune is absolutely ready to walk away from everything Lord Tower has been and is to him if it’s a choice between the Tower and Brand.

Just let that sink in for a sec.

In the end, Lord Tower promises to do his best when the situation allows for it – he’ll still prioritise Rune’s life over Brand’s, and points out that Brand would want nothing less. Lord Tower even gives what might be a kind of apology for having Brand whipped when he and Rune were younger – when Rune needed to learn, after the fall of the Sun Court, that he needed to control himself and his Companion.

Sometimes Lord Tower seems coldly calculating, but in that moment, it does seem like he might have genuine affection for Rune – I’m not sure what else could get a man like Lord Tower to come even that close to an apology. On the other hand…

The whipping incident came about because Lord Tower’s son was sexually harassing Rune in the aftermath of the Sun Court’s fall, and Rune’s own rape. Now, years later, Rune asks “Have you changed your mind about what happened? Do you see your son more clearly now?”

To which Lord Tower replies, “I’ve always seen Dalton clearly, Rune.”

And that alarms me on several levels. Because it means that Lord Tower allowed his son to grow into that kind of person; it suggests that the Tower was fully aware of what Dalton was doing to Rune, and allowed it. I get that Atlantean society isn’t interested in protecting the hurt or weak, but it feels like there’s more to it than that – or there might be, at least. Especially since Lord Tower was protecting Rune at the time, took him in and gave him some kind of home (although not for nothing – Rune made some desperate promises and oaths of service, though I’m glad they’ve now run out). He wanted Rune to learn the lesson about self-control, but why did he let it happen that way? Why has he let his son become someone like that? It’s like he’s a puppet-master, and was pulling strings for more than to teach Rune just that one lesson.

I’m not at all sure he can be trusted long-term.

*

But that wraps up this week! The Q&A with KD Edwards is happening now over on Twitter, and make sure to follow the #LastSunReadalong hashtag to join us for week 4’s reading!

Sigil Me This: Why Rune’s Cameo Necklace Might Be Important to the Worldbuilding of the Tarot Sequence

Ostensibly as part of the Hanged Man Promo, but really because I might have a slightly obsessive personality type, here is my mini-thesis on Rune’s cameo necklace in The Last Sun, and why I think it’s a major clue to one of the mysteries of KD Edwards’ worldbuilding. Enjoy.

*

In the world of New Atlantis, sigils are magical items, usually in the form of jewelry, which can hold spells – allowing their bonded users to release the spell at a later time. They’re the foundation of Atlantean magic; in practical terms, it’s virtually impossible for the average person to cast noteworthy spells without sigils – at least without a lifetime of hardcore training.

This obviously makes sigils incredibly important and valuable – but what makes them priceless is that Atlanteans no longer have the ability to make new ones. Somehow, at some point, the art of sigil creation was lost. How, why and when has not yet been specified in the books.

I have a theory though.

Rune, the main character and narrator of the Tarot Sequence, possesses a cameo necklace sigil that used to belong to his mother. As one of only six sigils that survived the fall of the Sun Court, it’s beyond priceless to the last scion of the Sun Throne and his small found-family; as the only thing he has of his mother’s, it has incalculable sentimental value too.

Shell cameo brooch of Shakespeare’s Ariel (from The Tempest) riding a bat

But because I have a brain full of all sorts of random trivia, listening to the Last Sun audiobook (which I highly recommend, by the way, even if you’re like me and not used to audiobooks) and actually hearing about the cameo instead of reading past it, reminded me of something. So I went digging.

Cameo actually refers to a specific method of carving; it means the picture – usually a person (silhouette, full figure, or just a face), but sometimes a scene from myth – has been carved out of whatever material is being used to form a raised relief. That relief is almost always of a single color that contrasts to the color around it, and in cameo jewelry, the entire piece is then set in a gold or silver frame. Cameo as an art form has been around for ages; the Egyptians had stone cameos, and the Romans had ones made of glass, which weren’t always necklaces or rings but sometimes made into amphorae, a kind of vase.

The Portland Vase, on display at the British Museum: an example of Roman glass cameo work

I feel I should also mention that one theory is that the word cameo comes from kameo or kame’o, a term from kabbalistic magic that referred to a talisman magical symbols were carved into. Which just makes it extra appropriate to have your sigil be in the form of a cameo, if you ask me.

Cameo jewelry, aka cameos, got a resurgence in the 15th century, and then again around the 1800s – Napoleon’s crown was apparently covered in cameos and Queen Victoria set the trend for cameos in Britain. This is pretty much when what we know as cameo brooches and necklaces today got really popular, and when most of the heirloom ones were made. They’re usually made out of shell or some kind of gemstone – modern ones tend to be agate – but they’ve also been made from coral and lava.

A lava cameo

I’ve been unable to get a clear answer on what material ‘lava’ is supposed to refer to – the pictures I’ve seen are all like the one above, kind of brown, but there’s references to the material being gathered from Mt Vesuvius? ‘Lava stone’ is a catch-all term for a whole bunch of minerals that turn up when molten lava cools, from obsidian to volcanic rock. But what’s important here is that, as you might remember from Last Sun, coral, vulcanized coal, and volcanic glass – aka, obsidian – are all used in weaponry specifically designed to take out magical creatures. So we know that coral and obsidian are two substances that have special importance for Atlanteans.

Since Rune’s necklace hasn’t been described in any detail, we don’t even know what the cameo is a picture of, never mind what it was carved from. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that historical cameos were made of coral and obsidian, and those two substances just happen to be majorly important to Atlanteans.

From my rabbit-hole spiral into Google, it looks like cameo necklaces didn’t exist prior to the 1800s. Before that, they were rings, brooches, and even earrings and bracelets, but not necklaces. The problem is that a brooch could have been turned into a necklace at some point, so that’s not a surefire way of narrowing down the age of Rune’s cameo. That said, assuming I’m right that Rune’s cameo is made of coral and/or ‘lava’ – lava cameos are almost always Victorian in origin, according to one expert. For those of you lucky enough not to be raised in the British education system, the Victorian era covers 1837-1901, aka the reign of Queen Victoria.

Which would suggest that Rune’s mother’s cameo was created after the 1830s and possibly as recently as 1900, just a century and change ago. So I’m willing to tentatively theorise that Atlanteans were still making sigils at least until the 1900s.

Now, sigils are so vital to Atlantean society that I can’t believe anything short of a truly enormous event could wipe out all knowledge of how to make them. And what’s the most likely contender for an enormously destructive event that hit Atlantis after the 1900s?

The Atlantean World War.

There’s a few different ways it could have gone down, and they all depend on a) my being right that the art was lost in the war and not before it, and b) on how knowledge of the art was kept. A small group of superior craftspeople, carefully keeping the secret exclusive to their own guild and apprentices, would be much easier to eliminate than something more widespread. And the upper echelons of Atlantean society do seem pretty big on exclusivity – it’s not really hard to imagine that only an elite few might have known and kept the knowledge to themselves; it would be a sure way to ensure their power and influence, and possibly also keep sigils themselves as rare, precious objects – their value would have decreased if they’d been common enough that everyone could have one.

For the sake of argument, let’s say I’m right. The human side of the Atlantean World War might have deliberately aimed to take-out the sigil-makers, once they realised who they were – short of the Arcanum themselves I can’t think of more tactically valuable targets. And while it’s likely that the Atlanteans would have tried hard to protect their sigil-makers – both the Emperor’s and Empress’ Courts fell in the war or its aftermath (assuming they had separate courts; the Emperor and Empress are two separate tarot cards, so I’m guessing that though they were two halves of a whole, they also each had their own power base). If the fight was bloody enough to kill the Emperor, with all the defenses he must have had, it suddenly becomes a lot more believable that even some of Atlantis’ most valuable citizens would have been in danger too. Especially given that the demand for sigils during the war must have been at an all-time high, potentially putting their creators way too close to the front lines.

So yes. Tl;dr: I think Rune’s cameo necklace is evidence that Atlantis lost the art of sigil-making in the Atlantean World War. And that’s important not just because it’s a cool bit of worldbuilding, but because a secret lost that recently has a much higher chance of being rediscovered than one lost millennia ago.

And just imagine what that rediscovery might do for Rune, Brand, and New Atlantis?

#LastSunReadalong Week 2: Chapters 5-8

Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy

I had a lot of fun livetweeting this section, and you can find the thread here, but now it’s time for the weekly recap!

Chapter 5 opens with us getting a little more of a glimpse of how Rune and Brand’s normal, day-to-day life goes; Rune likes to sleep in, and Brand is apparently the kind to put his socks and underwear in the dishwasher when the washing machine is broken. (Why, Brand? Why on earth?) Rune calculates that, between a repairman for the washing machine and property taxes, both their payments from Lord Tower for the raid on the Lovers Court and their search for Addam will pretty much disappear.

It’s a surprisingly human moment (if we put aside the fact that Rune isn’t, actually, human) in a city assembled out of haunted buildings and ruled over by tarot cards, and it’s one of those tiny details that makes Rune and Brand feel so much more real. Most readers don’t have much experience with magical detective work and people trying to kill them, but it strikes a chord to have heroes who have the kind of everyday problems we’re familiar with – as well as the other kind. It also helps drive home that Rune is really, really not living the same kind of life as other scions (children of Arcana). Atlantean society ostracises its victims, but Rune is separated from his peers by more than what he’s survived. I’d bet hard money that other scions never worry about the washing machine being broken.

(I bet they don’t even know when the washing machine is broken. Laundry is what servants are for.)

Brand has continued to be his terrifyingly competent self and has nabbed the school records of Addam’s partners in his company. Rune and Brand, it seems, have a backdoor into the servers of the Magnus Academy, the school most scions attend, and this is another tiny detail mentioned in passing that raises a pay attention! flag: they have a backdoor? How? How often do they have to check scion school records that rather than hack in every time, they just left a permanent back door in their systems? And which of them has the skill set to do that?

Anyway, the noteworthy bits from the school records reveal that Geoffrey – Rune’s ex – would have been able to summon the golem that attacked Rune and Matthias, but Ashton has done post-grad work in Poland. And Poland, it happens, is one of two magically radioactive zones destroyed in the Atlantean World War; it’s now a training ground for hardcore spell training. I’m particularly fond of the line ‘The camps had very good PR staff. I knew this because the human world never asked what they were training for.’

But Rune describes training there as being like a tour of duty, so it definitely means Ashton has hidden depths they’d better watch out for.

*

It’s then time for them to go to the Enclave, a huge beachside property where all the Arcana Courts have private suites. Despite the Sun Court’s destruction, the suite belonging to Rune’s family still exists, and it’s where they go with Matthias while waiting for Rune’s appointment to talk to Lady Justice, Addam’s mother. There’s a giggle-moment when it’s revealed that one of Rune’s precious, priceless sigils is not a piece of jewellery, as most sigils seem to be, but takes the form of…well…

“It’s a cock ring,” Brand told Matthias.

“Godsdamnit,” I said. “It’s a sigil. I have a Shatter spell in it. Do you know how few scions can pull off Shatter?”

“His magic cock ring,” Brand said.

I challenge my fellow readers not to cackle.

The most noteworthy part of this scene, though, is probably the fact that Matthias has clearly not been to the beach before, despite being the – supposedly – favourite grandson of Lady Lovers, a ruling Arcana. Rune is starting to piece together the bits of Matthias’ backstory, and he doesn’t like it one fucking bit.

(Neither do I. It’s fast becoming easier to forgive him for being a bit of a brat right after the raid).

It’s then time for Rune to make his way to Lady Justice. Rather than simply go openly to her suite, he uses a Camouflage spell (functionally an invisibility spell, but, apparently, less energy-intensive and more versatile, which says something about how Rune uses his magic) to make his way there undetected. On his way he glimpses Ashton doing paperwork, and Michael, another of Addam’s business partners, playing Frisbee with his younger sister and using a sigil spell to make her keep missing and dropping it. Even without Rune’s aside about how wasteful most scions are with their magic, after seeing how carefully Rune hoards his own sigils against need, it’s almost rage inducing to see such privilege spent so frivolously. It’s another deft, quick moment driving home how different Rune is from other scions, and to be honest, it’s very difficult not to see Rune’s way of being as infinitely better.

Which does raise the troubling question of: could it actually be a good thing, in a bigger-picture kind of way, that the Sun Court fell? It was horrific, and not something I’d wish on anyone, but at the same time – would Rune be just as arrogant and pretentious and wasteful as other scions if he’d been raised within a Court, not just as an average scion but as his father’s heir? We’ve yet to meet a single other scion (bar Matthias, who has also clearly not lived the normal scion experience) who reads as an even reasonably decent person. Would Rune be as awful as the rest of them if he hadn’t been forced to grow up in the ‘real’ world?

It’s an uncomfortable question.

Rune meets briefly with Ella, Lady Justice’s daughter, and Diana, Justice’s sister. Ella is described as very skeletal, either seriously ill or anorexic (not that anorexia isn’t an illness – but it’s not clear whether Ella’s sickness is something that requires medication or therapy, or both), and it’s telling that Diana’s first reflex, upon realising Rune is present, is to use a sigil spell to make her niece look healthy. The implication that it’s more important to make sure Ella looks healthy than actually is healthy just reinforces the shallow values scions seem to live by: appearances are far more important than substance.

Poor Ella.

Neither of them have anything useful to share about Addam, so Rune moves on to his interview with Lady Justice. This is our third time meeting an Arcana, but only the second time we see an Aspect (although we’ve been introduced to Lord Tower, we haven’t seen his Aspect, and you know what, I’m kind of glad. I’m pretty sure the guy who wears warhead-proof pyjamas is going to have an utterly terrifying Aspect). I find it interesting that Lady Justice’s Aspect is of, more or less, a giant spider, complete with web – spiders aren’t something you typically associate with justice, but every detail in this series is so full of meaning I refuse to believe KD chose it at random. I’ve seen spiders associated with creativity, secrets, dreams, fertility/motherhood, good luck, order, mystery, fate/destiny, and patience. But justice? Not so much.

Hmm.

Maybe it’s the Order angle; Lady Justice, after misstepping and being called on it, calls Rune ‘brother’, as in, her brother Arcana – since he is, sort-of-technically, Lord Sun. Since he hasn’t claimed the Sun Throne, her calling him that is an immense piece of courtesy and respect that maybe isn’t that warranted, unless she does genuinely regret stepping out of line. It makes me think that she – not relies on patterns and protocol, exactly, but that they’re important to her and she takes them very seriously. She was discourteous – she broke protocol – and that is distasteful to her, so she leans into it instead to make up for it.

Of course, she also tells Rune that Addam is definitely fine, because she has spells on all her children to tell her if they’re hurt or dead. At least we finally have an explanation for why a powerful Arcana in her own right isn’t tearing the city apart looking for her son…except it also becomes apparent that even without that spell, she probably wouldn’t be looking that hard.

“I am loathe to involve myself in my children’s affairs, even in matters of harm or peril. They must be strong if they are to survive outside my walls. New Atlantis would pull my children down. It is the nature of ruling.” She paused. “I would also have you understand this: if you discover someone did hurt my son, you are to tell me. While I am sparing in my protection, I am very generous in my reckoning. Such is the nature of Justice.”

I could analyse that bit of dialogue for days, but it comes down to

a) Lady Justice is not anyone I would allow to have or raise children, ever, fuck you, lady, and also

b) I’m pretty sure KD is talking about more than just this one character with the line ‘Such is the nature of Justice.’ Because – yeah, actually, that kind of is what justice is. It’s an attempt to balance the scales after the fact – not any kind of preventive measure. Justice doesn’t stop bad things from happening, it just hits back after the bad thing is done. I’ve spent the last few years coming to the conclusion that we hold the concept of justice too highly, when maybe we should care more, and work harder at, preventing there being a need for justice.

I guess Lady Justice doesn’t agree, though.

Afterwards…after the interview, Rune gets caught in someone’s siren-song, a mind-control spell that leads him down corridors to a man who puts his hands on Rune’s face. It turns out to be Lord Tower – and Rune turns out to not be all that mind-fucked, because he has his sword against Lord Tower’s stomach before Tower knows what hit him.

Watch me breathe a sigh of relief. But also

“At least you didn’t banter before the killing blow this time,” he said lightly.

‘This time’? ‘THIS TIME’?! How many times has Lord Tower done something like this?

Enough that Rune’s learned to identify who’s controlling him and gut whoever it is. That’s… Good, I guess? Kinda?

None of these Atlanteans make good parental figures, do they?

Rune makes his report to his employer, and in the process one of Lord Tower’s water elementals – I’m unclear on whether they’re purely constructs or whether they have some kind of sentience, but I’m hoping for the former – is suborned by an outside force and tries to kill Rune. Lord Tower saves him, and pre-emptively destroys the other elementals, and at first wants to write it off as ‘wild magic’ – the same thing the police deemed the cause of the golem attack earlier. Rune is unimpressed, but there is the question of: who the fuck would be able to break through Lord Tower’s control to suborn one of his constructs? Someone stronger than a ruling Arcana?

Not any of the scions, Addam’s business partners, that’s for sure. Which means the Big Bad is even worse than previously suspected.

Rune really can’t catch a break.

*

Christian, the eldest of Lady Justice’s children, is sick in hospital. This is strikingly unusual, because with all the resources at a Court’s disposal Christian should have been ill for all of five seconds if he got sick at all. Since Lady Justice was pretty close-mouthed about the situation, Rune and Brand go to New Saints Hospital to look up Christian themselves, since with both her older siblings out of commission, Ella has a shot at her mother’s throne. If that’s what she wants, she definitely has motive to get rid of her brothers, although I can’t help wondering if she’s healthy enough to hold the throne, never mind do all the scheming necessary to get to that point.

The problem is, Ella’s definitely not badass enough to take control of that water elemental, any more than Addam’s business partners. But any of them could have contracted someone – or something – who is strong enough, so they’re all still suspects. It’s just that there must be someone or something else involved that’s a hell of a lot scarier.

Rune and Brand debate everyone’s motives, but nothing really adds up. Ella probably couldn’t hide killing her brothers from her mother. Addam’s business partners get far more out of him being alive – with all his connections – than they would with him dead. And if there’s someone on the playing field strong enough to break through Lord Tower’s power, why isn’t Rune dead yet?

At the hospital, Brand goes off to find Christian’s room number…and someone goes psssssst! at Rune.

This is Quinn, the youngest of the Justice siblings. And he wants to talk to Rune.

“I’m Quinn. I think people are going to die if you don’t come with me. It’s not far. I don’t know why we can’t talk here, but we can’t. The floor’s not right.”

He smiled at me as if what he said made perfect sense.

Rune readies his sword and sigils and follows Quinn, deciding that if it’s an ambush, he’ll be ready for it, and if it’s not, he might learn something important. (Brand is not impressed to find Rune missing. He literally texts ‘THE FUCK’ in all caps, which delights me beyond reason). Which, in fairness, he really does.

Because Quinn? Is a genuine seer. More, he sees probabilities – meaning that he sees all possible timelines, not just one, as it’s implied most seers do. This is an incredibly rare, incredibly dangerous gift, and instantly explains why Quinn is more than a little weird. But he’s also bouncy and sweet – very like a puppy, really – and he wants to help.

We already know that Rune hates seers. Now we learn a little bit of why: there was apparently a prophecy made about him as a baby. He will be the most beautiful man of his generation. It’s come back to mock him too many times – and that’s entirely aside from the fact that most seers are useless at best, and cause the disasters they foresee at worst.

It’s pretty apparent to me that you’d much rather have someone who can see probabilities on your side than against you, though. But Quinn needs to learn some boundaries fast; he asks why Rune never kissed Brand ‘again’ (it happened when they were 13), and then gets very nervous at the look on Rune’s face.

“You really don’t want to read my thoughts, Quinn Saint Nicholas.”

Despite the fact that this book is written in first-person, we don’t always know what’s going on in Rune’s head. We didn’t know he recognised Lord Tower’s mind-control, or that he was ready and able to defend himself. This feels like a similar moment. Out of context, ‘You really don’t want to read my thoughts’ could be a very different kind of warning – ‘my head’s a dark place, it’s not good for a kid to be in there’, maybe.

In context, with whatever’s on Rune’s face, it reads more like the moment Lord Tower found Rune’s sword against his belly, ready to gut him.

But Quinn bounces back from his nerves, announcing that Rune likes him (which probably means, will like him) anyway. It definitely doesn’t hurt that he does his best to give Rune important clues about Addam, saying that it’s not the who or why that are important right now, but the where. He says he sees a desert, broken glass, a dried river and ghosts. And that Ciaran will know more, and is waiting for Rune. ‘Make sure to bring Max.’

Rune recognises the name Ciaran, even if we don’t yet, but it takes a few seconds to sort out that ‘Max’ is ‘Matthias’. Rune makes the mistake of accidentally touching Quinn’s bare skin, and receives a more personal prophecy – albeit one that still doesn’t make any kind of coherent sense, even if it does sound scary as hell. But what’s heartbreaking is that when Quinn comes back to reality, he’s waiting for Rune to be mad at him. Everyone, it seems, is mad at him for seeing what he sees – except Addam. Addam is the only one who really takes care of him, it sounds like, even if Quinn claims that his other siblings don’t resent him for being a ‘runt’ (which is. Insane??? How is it possible that Lady Justice can’t see the enormous potential in Quinn’s gift? I’m kind of stunned that Quinn isn’t being treated like a prince, with a full honour-guard and his every whim instantly met, rather than running around in ragged clothes unaccompanied. What the hell? Is this about Lady Justice not protecting her kids? I’m so confused). But Quinn ‘won’t make it’ if Addam dies. Every timeline ends in suicide for him if Addam doesn’t come home.

It’s really fucking heartbreaking, and I’m pretty sure everyone reading instantly adopts Quinn. He and Max both. They’re both messed-up kids who need protecting and love, damnit.

Right about then is when Brand and Ashton – Addam’s business partner, the one who did a stint in Poland – show up, Ashton apparently visiting Christian after Rune’s enquiries. What’s really fascinating is that Quinn instantly switches from very sweet puppy to ice-cold.

“Why don’t I know why you’re here?” Quinn asked bluntly.

There’s a red flag if there ever was one.

Quinn can’t work out that part, why Ashton’s here, because

“The attack is too loud. Oh. We’re about to be attacked. They have grenades.”

Brand doesn’t wait to be told that Quinn’s a seer; he already has a knife out. Ashton – who’s done a tour of duty? – is far slower to react. Rune and even Quinn have already deployed sigil spells before Ashton gets started; at once point, Brand picks up one of the grenades thrown their way – by unidentified assailants – and throws it back, and even once Ashton starts fighting, he’s not nearly as creative or versatile as Rune. Ashton does have some offensive spells stored, but it’s just not as impressive as Rune and Brand’s work.

Quinn gives Rune a sigil – one with a Door spell inside it, which sounds like a kind of teleportation – and then makes himself a bomb-shelter dome out of a Shield spell, saying that everything will go wrong if he leaves with Rune and Brand. It’s only because they can’t get to Quinn through his spell that Rune and Brand – and Ashton – leave.

They’re not safe yet, though; if anything, things get worse. Now in the tunnels under the hospital, the three of them are attacked by recarnates – which are not zombies, but seem kind of similar; some kind of reanimated dead, anyway, which have Brand reaching for special knives of coral and coal – some of the only kinds of materials good against the dead (I’m unreasonably pleased that there’s no call for silver bullets. It’s really cool to see something genuinely original, especially when Rune explains that it’s the different classical elements involved in the materials that make them work). Rune continues to showcase quick thinking and efficient use of sigil spells, while Ashton continues to be pretty useless.

And then.

Then there is a Thing.

It’s like a recarnate, but it’s not. It uses magic – strong magic – which we later learn is impossible for dead things. It’s fascinated by Rune even as it’s trying to kill him. It rips through reality.

Maybe this is the Big Bad?

*

They do get out.

*

Once they get home – and go through a lot of healing spells – and also verify that Quinn is alive but in hospital care, Rune and Brand hash out how little they know and how impossible what the Big Bad did is. How impossible its existence is. Brand is also quick to point out that Ashton was utterly useless, but more important is that the recarnates were using guns.

Guns were anathema in our culture. You didn’t bring bullets to a magic fight; it bruised our sense of spectacle. You needed a special dispensation to even own guns, like Brand had.

This is actually really cool on multiple levels, not least because it gives a reason for New Atlantis to not use firearms. Guns can be plenty dramatic on a screen, but they don’t pack the same cinematic punch on a page, not alongside swords and magic. This is something urban fantasy as a genre often seems to struggle with – the question of what to do about guns, how to handle them, whether to include them. But KD has come up with a real reason for why they’re (mostly) not present, and given us an excuse to revel in all the cinematic magics without the nagging question of ‘but bullets???’ bugging us.

Also, this is not how I saw gun control happening, but I’ll take it, I guess?

Rune and Brand – along with Max, brought along because of Quinn’s earlier insistence – head out to look for Ciaran. They start with a bar known as Cubic Dreams, where he’s apparently been seen lately, and where Rune can try very hard to forget to forget Brand taking him aside to tell him Max is totally crushing on him.

It’s starting to look a lot like Max was sexually abused. That, and Quinn’s age (he’s 17, remember) is plenty of reason enough to be incredibly uncomfortable with the crush – which Rune is. But it becomes clear that there might be more to it than that, because Rune covers himself up in a tweed coat to go clubbing and awkwardly deflects the bar-tender’s flirting when they get to the club. He’s clearly not comfortable with anything sexual; even if Quinn were older, untraumatised, and not in a position of dependence on Rune, I think Rune would be more than uninterested, he’d be…let’s stick with ‘awkward’.

Considering what he’s been through, I don’t think anyone can blame him.

Max gets a (non-alcoholic) drink on the house, and Rune settles in to look for Ciaran. Who makes quite an entrance.

Lips as red as carnage. Damn, I love that line.

Ciaran is a Principality. That term flags for me because it’s one of the ranks or castes of angels, and angel mythos is kind of my thing. Here, it means that Ciaran is as powerful as one of the Arcana – but rather than a tarot card he’s a wild card, unaffiliated and unpredictable, with no Court but nothing to hold him back from what he wants, either. And what he wants is apparently to trade in secrets – which, it just now occurs to me, is very like Lord Tower, who also deals in secrets.

Ciaran reveals that Quinn is in a coma, at which Brand materialises (where was he listening from?) to demand more info. Ciaran takes offense, and uses a ‘little’ mind-control spell to make Brand go away and dance so Rune and Ciaran can talk alone.

Rune reacts with what I think is completely justified rage. Mind-control should be treated like something horrifying, and Rune…well.

It doesn’t exactly make Ciaran behave. But he reins it in. A bit. He and Rune go through what Quinn said, and Ciaran helps Rune work out where Addam is – some place called Farstryke Castle. And when Rune is ready to call it a day and get the hell out of dodge – Ciaran reveals that Quinn says that Brand will die if he enters the castle with Rune.

Every time.

Every timeline.

It’s enough to draw out Rune’s Aspect. It’s enough to make Ciaran shake. Because Rune is struck by what might have happened, what his world would have looked like, if he’d worked out where Addam was on his own and gone in with Brand. He would have lost his Companion.

Rune has to go be alone for a little while in a corridor before he can function again, after that.

When he’s functional again, he goes to collect his Companion and his ward. Brand is annoyed but shrugs off the mindfucking – which is kind of odd, suggesting that Rune’s hatred for mind-control is unique to him, or at least not something that Brand shares (I’m sure Brand doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t waste time getting worked up about it, either) – but Max, it seems, has been drugged.

Brand doesn’t shrug that off. He promises not to kill the bartender, but one has to wonder what he does when Rune and Max are out of sight, after the bartender’s admitted that he fucked Max up because he recognised Max as part of the Lovers Court – the Court which, it sounds like, caused the death of the bartender’s boyfriend.

Max looks at a mop and sees a tiger, and somehow it’s just. It’s awful. Somebody give this kid a hug, please, because he’s not just seeing fun things, he understands too much of what’s going on and remembers too much of whatever he’s not telling Rune and Brand, and I’m not sorry if Brand breaks every one of that bartender’s fingers.

Somebody give Max a hug, please.

*

The last chapter of this week is just a few pages, where Rune and Brand talk about what Rune’s pieced together of Brand’s backstory, and Brand has to deal with the fact that, despite his reason for breathing being keeping Rune safe, he can’t go into Farstryke with him. And for such a short chapter, it packs a whole lot of punch; we have two badass guys talking about their feelings, and their feelings for each other, being open and honest in way we just don’t get to see that often. Action heroes don’t talk like this. They’re not this honest about how they feel. They don’t admit that the world would be over if one of them died.

New Atlantis may be messed up, but Rune and Brand, at least, seem to be completely missing all the toxic masculinity bullshit I’m so used to seeing. And it’s wonderful.

Also, no, what? I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying.

*

That’s this week’s summary wrapped up! Don’t forget to check out the #LastSunReadalong hashtag on twitter for a lot more reactions than just mine, and you can leave your questions for this week’s Q&A here for KD to answer!

Tarot Sequence Book Tag!

Lisa over at Way Too Fantasy has created a Tarot Sequence-inspired book tag with the help of her #ScionsOfAtlantis Court – Team Death! And since she left it open for people to tag themselves, OF COURSE I’m claiming tag and jumping in!

Now, let’s begin!

Rune Saint John, Lord Sun

“Walk down the wrong street in this city and you could be gutted for your shoelaces. You could have a dagger stuck in your eye because you used the wrong adverb. The inside of a person’s head is a deep, dark place…”

A book that left you a little broken inside

The Mortal Sleep is the fourth and final book of Gregory Ashe’s Hollow Folk series, books about a traumatised teenager with psychic powers he really doesn’t want. That doesn’t actually come close to explaining these books, though, which are queer and powerful and soul-shaking and some of my favourite in all the world. And although the series does wrap up with a happy ending, it still broke me into little pieces. SOME SCARS NEVER HEAL.

Brand

“Don’t smile at me,” Brand said. “You’re still a dumb-ass.”

A book that is like your (snarky) best friend

Nobody does snark and giggles like Sarah Rees Brennan, and In Other Lands is a freaking masterpiece. A sarcastic bisexual boy named Elliot gets taken to magic school – and is seriously unimpressed. It’s hilarious fun while also taking on some tough topics and dissecting and inverting some pretty deeply-ingrained fantasy tropes. The best part is that it’s just – I call it one of my Happy Books; meaning that it just makes you feel good and happy, even though it’s not all pixie dust and candyfloss. There’s sad stuff, but the book as a whole is one of those that makes you happy to be alive.

Quinn

He said, only a little shakily, “Quinn told me to pass along the warning. I’m not sure what rosy future Quinn prefers to see, but in the one he likes best, you and Brand are dear to him.”

A book featuring a prophecy

There’s a whole bunch of prophecies at the heart of the Chorus of Dragons series, but what delights me is that here, most people believe they’re trash and nonsense – in the whole first book we only here a line or two of supposed ‘prophecy’, because they’re considered so ridiculous no one can be bothered to quote them. Also, they all contradict each other and none of them make sense to anybody. There’s a whole lot of awesome packed into this series already, but this thing with the prophecies especially did make me grin.

Max

“Max is fucking flooding me with texts.”

“Like what?”

“I need to do laundry. Is it okay if I try to fix the washer machine? Oops, I didn’t fix the washer machine, where are the towels? I used up all the towels. Is it okay if I eat a Devil Dog? Oops, I ate all the Devil Dogs.”

“He ate my Devil Dogs?”

A book featuring a found family

It’s probably cheating to include one of the Tarot Sequence books in a Tarot Sequence book tag, but I can’t help it; Hanged Man is the best found family book I’ve read in a long time, and I can’t talk details because it’s not out until next month, but seriously, I teared up (in the best way) so many times while reading it. I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL IT’S OUT SO WE CAN ALL SCREAM ABOUT IT PROPERLY.

Addam

He finally said, “You interest me, Hero. I’m fairly sure you saved my life and a simple thank you seems so small. I don’t know whether I should pay you handsomely, or invite you into the shower with me.”

A book that gets exciting halfway through

I think Kushiel’s Dart is a neat fit for this category because the slow start is completely intentional on Carey’s part – Phedre, the main character, chafes at how long it takes for her to complete her training, to become an adult, to join her patron and foster-brother in their missions of espionage and sacred courtesanship. So it’s a very deliberate thing that the ‘excitement’ doesn’t start right away, and personally, I think it’s both worth the wait, and a pleasure to wait – even the ‘slow’ parts are lyrical, decadent, and an utter joy to read.

Lady Death

Her frost magic rose, forming shining rivulets of ice above the veins of her hand.

A book that left you cold

I hate that I just can’t get into this book. I was looking forward to it for over two years, but every time I pick it up, I end up bouncing off it. I think my most successful attempt got me about halfway through, and honestly? It puts me to sleep. The writing is bland, there’s only one interesting character and a couple of likeable ones, and the dialogue is so bad it makes my eyes cross. I doubt I’ll ever manage to finish it.

Lord Tower

For a moment–just a moment–there was an expression on his face that I entirely mistook for pride, only wondering in hindsight if maybe it had been triumph.

A book featuring a mentor

I reread this book this year (an immense delight), and as those who’ve read it know, the relationship between mentor and student isn’t just at the heart of the book – it’s in the title! The horribly callous Mr Norrell deliberately buys up all the magic books in England and prevents other magicians from practising, but finds himself so excited to have a genuine colleague when Jonathan Strange, against the odds, manages to study magic and eventually becomes his, Norrell’s, pupil. Of course Strange eventually becomes the far greater magician…but that’s how a mentorship is supposed to go, right? The student is always meant to become the master eventually.

Lady Justice

Lady Justice’s eyes were not normal. I’d heard this before.

They shifted and changed, their shape and color stolen from nearby memories. Even more unnerving was my implausible recognition of all the variations.

A book with a sinister secret

It’s more the trilogy as a whole than the first book in particular that has a terrible secret at its heart, but gods, it’s heartbreaking and horrifying when all the pieces come together. This is an incredible fantasy trilogy with a disabled protagonist in a magical post-apocalyptic world – and rather than boring us with yet another romance, the central, defining relationship of the trilogy is the friendship between two teenage girls. There’s ghosts and anti-magic and vicious critiques of capitalism and classism, some of the coolest magic I’ve ever seen, and a fiercely hopepunk heart beating at its core. If you haven’t read these yet, you need to.

Tagging…anyone who wants to take part!