Next day, Cally is reading more weirdmark books and thinking about Nemmy.  She continues to berate herself for daring to think that Nemmy would be less than a saint, all because Nemmy failed to mount a very obvious attack at the worst possible moment one could chose to do that.

This is so lazy.  There was little reason for Cally to suspect Nemmy in the first place, but there’s even less reason to let her off the hook.  I’m sure if you look at one random hour out of the life of a serial killer, he’d be acting perfectly normal, too.  Might even pet a puppy.  But that doesn’t make him not a serial killer.  Yet this book is bored with suspecting Nemmy, so it has decided to move on, and logic be damned.  It’s almost like the author had the idea for that scene first, wrote it, then had to twist the rest of the book around to fit it rather than edit it when it ended up not fitting.

Cally finally manages to find the marks used in the murders, along with a convenient explanation in the margins.  How nice of the universe to spell things out for her so that she doesn’t have to think and deduce.  (Then again, we’ve seen what happens when Cally tries to draw conclusions…)

For sacrifices to the ridderak: using the victim’s blood, mark the area around it accordingly. Once the creature has been summoned, these marks guide the exchange: for the flesh of the sacrifice, the beast will grant you the victim’s strength.

Seems straightforward enough.  Except Cally turns 180 and goes back to assuming Nemmy is the driving force behind the murders.  Why?  Reasons.

She can’t figure out why Nemmy would want the strength of the dead champions, but she never stops to put 2 and 2 together with regard to Cain getting bigger and bigger every time she sees him.

Unless she wanted what few dared whisper: rebellion. And not rebellion as it was now, with rebel groups hiding out in the wilderness, but rather rebellion in the sense of entire kingdoms rising up against Adarlan—as it should have been from the start.

As it should have been, but wasn’t, because…reasons?

She starts wondering how it all fits together, and then wonders where Nemmy would even hide this weird beast, before she suddenly realizes that the ‘forgotten’ tunnels and passages under the castle would be perfect.  *sigh*  Really?  You think you’re so special that you’re one of a select few that know about hidden hallways in the castle?

Hey, wanna know the #1 use for hidden passages?  For the servants to use so they can do their jobs without being seen.  #2 is spying.  These passages may be unknown to visitors, but regulars should be all up in that.  Especially since the passages are described as fairly wide and the door isn’t tricky or well-hidden.  It really does sound like something built for regular use by the servants.

Cally goes into the ‘secret’ passage and looks around until she finds Cain, who is too busy chanting to notice her.  The book wants me to be surprised at this, but mostly I’m just relieved that we can give up on this ‘Nemmy raised the beast’ red herring.

She watches as Cain summons the beast and we get a description of it being creepy.  Grey skin, vaguely human-shaped, big claws and fangs.

Cain notices her, and he says that she wasn’t supposed to die, but she’ll do since she’s here and all.  He shows off that he has super-human speed as he steals her needle-knife and gets past her to lock her in the room with the ridderak.

Cally does a pretty good job of both freaking out and keeping it together, and she manages to trick the ridderak into running into the door so that it’ll break it open for her. 

With a roar that shook the castle, the ridderak ran for her.

…was it quiet with all the other murders, or did people just ignore all the roaring in the middle of the night?  And if it was quiet before, why the change?

Cally runs for Elena’s tomb, staying just ahead of the ridderak, and when she gets there she makes a beeline for the old king’s sword.  She manages to stab the ridderak in the face, but not before it bites her hand.

That was why they’d brought her to the tomb on Samhuinn, wasn’t it? So she could see Damaris, and have a way to save herself?

I don’t know why this is bugging me so much, but it is.  Maybe because I wasn’t actually wondering why she found the tomb; Elena wanting to talk to her at the time was a perfectly good excuse.  This bit gets repeated a lot, as if her finding the place was some great mystery that was just solved.  It also begs the question of how these ghosts can see this part of the future, but can’t just spit out “hey, btw, Cain’s summoning monsters so look out for that.”

She used her shirt to wipe Gavin’s blade clean, and set it back where it belonged.

‘Cause there’s no chance that you might need to use it again, nope.  No point taking it with you to hide in your room or something.

She goes back up to her room, but her hand is still bleeding and her vision is blurry.  Seems the bite is poison or something, and once there she passes out.  (Anyone else getting Chamber of Secret vibes here?  She kills it by stabbing it in the mouth, but reaches so far she hits poisonous teeth, just like Harry and the basilisk.  Also, summoning deadly creatures in a basement.)

Nemmy shows up before Cally goes totally under, and she starts washing her hand and using magic on it, before we finally give in and black out completely.

Either I was skimming without realizing it or there’s really no drinks to be had today.  Here, have a shot just for fun.

 \~/