Duke Vedris and his guards show up to visit House Daja.

“Tris!  That little flying glass monster of yours just sole fish roe pearls!”

[…]

“I’m meditating up here!”

The duke looked at the sergeant of his guard.  “Did you know that the magical rune for discord is the combination of the rune for house and two runes for mage?”

The woman grinned.  “I wonder what it would be for a house with three mages?”

“Number 6 CHeeseman Street,” murmured one of the other guards.

First of all, KASJDF;LSKJ ADORABLE.

Second, let’s talk for a second about equality in the Emelan universe.  One thing I like is that when it comes to bit characters like that second guard, you can never tell what gender they are.  Because female characters aren’t pointed out as being female unless they’re getting a full-on character description.  It’s not “the lady sergeant of of his guard” or “the sergeant of his guard, who was a woman, because he’s awesome and employs women like that.”  No, you don’t find out her gender until she needs a second descriptor, because it’s not important enough to be the first.  And this goes on so much in her books that when it comes to things like that second guard, it could be a dude, it could be a chick.  We don’t know.  Because it’s not important!  That person’s most important trait is that they are a guard, and they are good enough at being a guard to be the duke’s personal guard, and gender is not a defining feature.

The only reason I’m concerned at all about it is to gleefully chuckle over the fact that I shouldn’t be concerned about it and the book isn’t asking me to.

Because in this book all women are awesome, across the board, because being female is not something that needs to be overcome.  And since women don’t have to overcome their femaleness in order to be kickass, there’s no point in treating it like something special.  They just are, just like the boys.

Unless you live in Namon, and then it’s just socially imposed.

Okay, on to the actual story.

Verdis wants to talk to all of them, so they gather together while still bantering.

“What are you worried about?” snapped Briar.  “I make sure any girl I go walking with knows I’m not serious.”

Because Briar is all about being open and honest about his intentions with his sexual partners!  Respect is sexy!  And who could blame that kitchen maid for just wanting to have a good time with no strings attached?  Rawr.

They pad things out some more and then pad even more than that, but the second time it’s to explain for the reader exactly what Sandry’s financial state is.  She’s a clehame – countess – in Namorn and she inherited considerable lands, wealth, and the title from her mother, because ladies can do that in Namorn.  But she’s also rich from her dad’s side and her own business smarts.  Being that she rich to a level that’s uncomfortable for everyone, her guardians have more or less encouraged her to do stuff other than play with money, but now that’s kind of bit them in the butt because all that money came with responsibilities that she’s now shirking.

Long story short: she has to go to Namorn and deal with her neglected estate and her pissed-off cousin the Empress.  

Verdis doesn’t want to send a lot of guards, because that could be taken as an insult since Sandry is supposed to just be visiting family, so he wants these three to go with her instead.  

And just, GUH, POLITICS, ECONOMICS, RESPONSIBILITIES, DOUBLE-MEANINGS THAT AREN’T INNUENDOS, ACTUALLY THINKING ABOUT HOW YOUR ACTIONS LOOK TO OTHERS, POWER PLAYS, GUH, UNF, THIS BOOK Y’ALL, I WOULD HAVE TO TYPE EVERY LINE OUT TO REALLY MAKE YOU LOVE IT AND THAT WOULDN’T BE FAIR YOU SHOULD JUST BUY IT INSTEAD YESSSSSSS.

After a bit more banter, they all agree.

I didn’t realize until this reread just how much banter there is.  But it doesn’t bug me, unlike other books.  Mostly because it’s generally appropriate.  I mean, they aren’t being snarky to the duke, just each other, and it’s toned down a lot with him in the room, so there is some sense that they’re being considerate of the situation.  It just so happens to be that in this situation, they’re really comfortable with the duke because they’ve known him since they were children and he’s cool and all.  Plus, it’s very informative banter.  Instead of just being witty jokes, we get a good sense of their character and we learn things about them, too, like how Tris plans to go to Lightsbridge and that she’s more upset than she lets on that she can’t making a living off her magic.  So, yes, it’s banter, but it’s useful and fun.

Nearly everything that’s bad in writing can be deemed acceptable as long as it’s fun.  Long, pointless backstory?  As long as it’s fascinating, bring it on.  Useless side-quest?  Wait, with dragon-battling?  Hells yes.  It’s not actually good, but it can still be entertaining, which is an entirely different standard.  

The next day Sandry comes over with a whole cart full of fabric, because she may be ticked off about how this all went down, but no one in her family is going to look less than perfect!  And no, siblings, you’re going to wear court clothes and no one is going to find one single reason to think you’re less than perfect, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, hah!

Can we just talk about how awesome Sandry is?  And how it would have been so easy to make her fashion-focused magic and the fact that she’s rich and dresses like it into some cheesey “ew girl things” trope and instead it’s just MORE BADASSNESS BECAUSE HELLS YEAH?  In this book, clothes are serious business, because of course they are.  In this context, when dealing with courts and when a rumor or a first impression can change how very powerful people treat you, yes they absolutely are important, and even if they’re not most important, they’re still given their due place in the priorities.  And Sandry is never once looked down upon by the book or any of the characters for any of this, and that’s even before we get to the part where she can totally kill you with her brain.  But she won’t, because she’s nice.

Guh, I just love Sandry so much.

She runs into Briar, and they fight some more because she’s still not happy that everyone’s all in disharmony and when you’re unhappy about that, it doesn’t matter, you’ll find any excuse to pick a fight.  And so will Briar.

“Tell her I’m not wearing fussy embroidery or pointed shoes!” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Tell him I’m putting hoods with the faces sewn shut on all his tunics! Sandry yelled from somewhere inside the house.

“Tell each other yourselves!” called Daja from somewhere between them.

And even when they fight they’re still adorable.

Of course, it comes around to good-natured fighting, because Briar thinks it’s nice to have a good sibling-flavored snit going on.  Feels very homey.

So the next month they head out with a Trader caravan, because that’s somewhat of a standard thing in this world.  The caravans go all over the place all the time anyway, so travelers who want safety in numbers pay a fee to go with them.  Except, since Daja is all tight with the Traders because of the cool stuff she’s done for them, the usually closed-off Traders are all welcoming and friendly with them.

And then there’s more character stuff because I cannot even with all the character stuff in this book, it’s all these little lines and scenes that I can’t bring up half of them without making these reviews far too long, but GUH CHARACTERS.  She packs so much personality into such little things with all of these kids AND I LOVE IT.

Anyone can be taken by surprise.  Anyone.  You’d think she’d know that, at her age.

COME HERE, BRIAR, I’M GOING TO SNUGGLE YOUR LITTLE EMO, NOT-OVERDOING-IT SELF BECAUSE YOU ARE PERFECTION EVEN WHEN YOU’RE BEING UNREASONABLE.

After about a week they get to a big river crossing, and as they’re all halfway through it, Tris gets her spidey senses all in a rise.  She starts going ballistic, yelling at people to hurry across, screaming and threatening and even using her lightning (she keeps lightning in her hair, btw) to scare the livestock into crossing faster.  She really does act scary in this scene, hurling lightning about and such.

Daja (the POV character at the moment) thinks her sister has gone off her gourd at all this and keeps trying to calm her down, to no avail.  But it’s a good thing she couldn’t’, because almost as soon as they get across the river and to higher ground, a huge wall of water comes rushing in.  A dam from upstream broke, resulting in this little bit of deadliness right here.

And then we POV shift to Briar because one of the few things I don’t like about this author is her inability to stay in one head for an entire scene.  The switching at scene breaks isn’t so bad, but then she’ll up and jump around in the middle with no warning and it drives me up a wall.

Daja tries to apologize, but Tris won’t have none of it because they should have remembered that she doesn’t exactly lose it without good reason.  Which is a good point, really.  When someone with as much self-control as Tris starts firing off lightning bolts, you don’t shrug and say “there goes Tris again.”  You say “holy shit, something big must be happening!”

But on that same note, it’s a really great moment between all the siblings to show off how out of sync they all are with each other, how far they’ve drifted apart to make it so that wasn’t everyone’s first thought.  And while it’s still a point of contention in the group, there’s a lot of wounded pride and “well–  but– but I’m still some right, right?” going on and all very frustrating but at the same time it’s frustrating in a very believable way and afklahsjfasfdjh I LOVE YOU TAMMY.