After a month on the road and just as they’re about to reach Dancruan (capital city), the kids get delayed because Chime took off chasing wildlife and refused to come back.  Because the caravan on a schedule, Sandry sends them on ahead.

…um, they can schedule a month-long trip to arrive in town down to the hour?  Well, all contrivance aside, the quartet find themselves on their own and enjoying a last bit of quiet before they head into the city, each doing their own things.  And quarreling, as they always do now.

Before that goes on long enough to be annoying, Chime comes back, but she’s been chased by a hunting party!  Briar reacts by going “WTFBBQ, GET THE HORSES SADDLED, WHY AREN’T YOU GIRLS MOVING, PEOPLE WITH SWORDS COMING” even though everyone is still chill, since parties of hunting nobles aren’t exactly a raiding party and all.  Not that Briar cares; he’s going to react the same way anyway.  Ah, realistic reactions to trauma, ILU.

This just happens to be the Empress Berenene and her gaggle of afternoon entertainment.  They were mad at Chime for chasing off their prey, but new people are more fun than being mad.  Also, Empress’s cousin, can’t really be mad at her without getting in trouble.  They all exchange perfectly polite introductions, because these kids can be snarky all day long with each other, but they know when to shut up be polite, too. 😀

And that really is key to making a snarky character.  It has to feel natural to the situation and to the character.  If it’s just there 24/7, it doesn’t feel natural, because real people adjust their behaviors depending on what’s going on.  Now, you don’t have to have the same divide as in these books.  It could be that a character is polite to their family and friends and snarky when they get nervous.  That can be part of their personality, and that’s fine.  As long as it’s consistent to their personality and not flatly the same across every situation, they can have nearly any combination of reactions.

Berenene expresses concern for the fact that Sandry doesn’t have guards, especially since all her siblings were introduced as “Mr.” and “Miss” instead of “Mage.”

Sandry noticed Briar’s tiny smirk and the sudden, bored droop of Tris’s eyes.  Only Daja’s face had the perfect, polite expression that told onlookers nothing of her true thoughts.  Daja and I should have spent the trip teaching them a diplomat’s facial expressions as well as Namornese, Sandry thought, vexed.  It would be impossible not to guess that Briar and Tris thought they were a match for would-be kidnappers, something that would never cross the mind of an ordinary young man or woman.

POLITICS! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

There’s a lot more chit-chat before Berenene “invites” them over to the palace in a couple of days, which of course is not the sort of invitation you can turn down.  Afterwards the siblings all chat about how creepy it is that the no-name characters in the group take their cues from Berenene without hesitation, so clearly she’s got them trained.  Then there’s more banter as the girls are exasperated at Briar for being all “yay, ladies.”  And…yeah, I don’t remember him being this obnoxious about it.  Previously in the book, he’s been really confident and perfectly shameless about it, but he only talks about liking the ladies when someone else brings it up.  Here, he’s kind of annoying.  Feels like the book is going “did you get it yet?  How about now?  Let me know when you get it, so I can back off a little.”

We got it, book.

I feel like I’m skipping over a lot more in these books than others, but actually, I think it’s more that the stuff I’m skipping over is just more informative and detailed than in other books.  Here, when I skip a whole page of banter because it is banter, then you guys are missing out on what awesome characters we’ve got going on here.  There’s so many little lines and comments and off-hand actions that I can’t exactly list here, but which illuminate the characters so well, and then I have to skip it and you guys don’t get to appreciate all of that.

Well, unless you buy the book to read for yourself.

Oh, hey, what’s this here?.  *whistles innocently*

We POV switch to Berenene for the rest of the chapter, but she just spends that time reading notes on Sandry and each of her siblings, which is another way of infodumping about them.  We read all about what they did in their second quartet of books and what important people they’re allied with, all of it coming down to the same result: they’re all important and connected enough to treat carefully, about on par with, say, the head of an influential guild or institution.  I like that.  Just as important as they need to be for the story (considering we are dealing with imperial levels of influence here) but not heaping on the specialness.  Berenene decides they’d all be useful to her court and she should convince them all to stay.

Although, between this and the bantering in Ch 2, I’m more convinced than ever that the entire first chapter of this book didn’t need to happen at all.  We’re getting plenty of establishing information.