After the hoopla of last chapter, every settles in for lunch.  Tris has everyone flinching from her when she tries to socialize, because in this world Tris’s magic is unusual and scary.  She’s got the biggest, flashiest, and (in many ways) most powerful magic and she can do amazing things with it, but everyone around her ends up scared of her because of it.  It’s a nice balance, and it keeps her from being an over-the-top character.

Briar and Quin and Ishabel swoop in to keep her company, though, because they are nice people.  Leaving Sandry free to be the viewpoint character and talk about other things.

Sandry finally has enough of boys flirting with her atrociously, so she tells Berenene that they have to go because she intends to go to her home/holdings the next day.  Berenene can’t really get around this, since duty is the very thing she used to guilt Sandry into visiting, so instead she declares that Jak and Fin (the pretty boys) and a few others should go with them as guests.

As they leave, Shan plays escort, mostly so that he can express his regret that he can’t go along as well.  He’s been tasked with making of the empress’s other guests less annoying, since apparently he’s good at charming crotchety old people.  What an unfortunate talent to have, or to have known at least.

Shan starts to explain the “traditional kidnapping” that happens in that country, but he’s interrupted by a crazy man who comes by.  That’s the second false start we’ve had for that concept, and I’m kind of torn about it.  On the one hand, it’s brought up casually as part of the culture, which is a nice, smooth way of introducing a concept and making the setting unsettling.  On the other hand, the way the book sidesteps any opportunity for explanation makes it seem like it’s supposed to be a mystery or something.

Back to the crazy man, who is legit “addled.”  He’s a character from Daja’s last book, though a very minor one, so when he comes up rambling on about how they’re all game pieces, Daja takes up the role of defending him.  She sends everyone else along so she can talk to him without so much confusion to overstimulate him.  His name is Zhegorz, and he keeps rambling in a very disorganized way, but the gist of it is that they’re all game pieces, repeated over and over again.

It’s hard to tell if this is any amount of accurate, because the cause of his insanity is magic (as we’ll find out later) but it’s still miles more sensitive than a lot of other depictions in fiction.  Especially in the way the kids handle him by primarily being concerned with keeping him safe and removing stressors.

Back at the house with Sandry and the others, they’re mad because she didn’t consult them before making more travel plans.  She’s made because they should have just known?  She’s upset because if they had their telepathy going again they would have known, but they don’t, so her acting as if they do is a bit much.  But it’s also the kind of thoughtlessness that’s realistic.  (this is the kind of character flaws I’d like to see more of, things that aren’t right and cause harm, but aren’t necessarily rooted in a bad attitude.)

After they split, Tris runs into Ambros in the kitchen and they get along.  I like Ambros.  He’s so understated and unassuming, but it doesn’t go so far as to make him bland.  They also find Daja and Zhegorz have arrived and Daja is trying to get him to eat.

They get Zhegorz’s story from him, which is that he was locked up in an asylum but he managed to pretend sanity for long enough to get out.  Which didn’t take long; the place was overcrowded and needed to release some people.  Also, he’s about 50, based on what events he remembers from his childhood and their best estimates.

As he keeps talking, Tris realizes that the “voices” he says pester him are the same voices she hears, because part of her magic is to hear and see things on the wind.  In her case, someone found her and told her she wasn’t crazy and trained her.  In Zhegorz’s case, no one told him he wasn’t crazy, so they tried to magically heal him and 30 years of piled-up spells broke his brain instead.

They explain this to Zhegorz as best they can, then try and figure out where to put him.  Briar shows up and offers to share a room with him, since he does medicine and he can help calm the guy down if anything gets him too worked up.  Plus, he knows what it’s like to be paranoid all the time.  (Zhegorz knows people’s secrets from hearing them, and he’s convinced those people know it and will come after him.)

Sandry shows up, apologizes for the fight earlier, and thinks Zhegorz should come with them to Landreg.  There will be fewer voices away from the city.

“But you’re going to be nice to him, right?” Daja asked.  “You’re going to be gentle with him, because he’s all broken to pieces inside.”

“When am I not nice?” demanded Tris with a scowl.

Heh.

That night, Briar has a nightmare about the war (which we don’t get to see happen for real in Battle Magic, no, I won’t let that go, it upsets me) and Zhegorz proves to be a very tenacious and persuasive crazy man, because he convinces Briar to take sleeping drops to help him sleep, even though the plan was to have things happen the other way around.