Mare stays up late for a week waiting for something to happen at midnight, and then finally one night the power cuts off and she knows that secret meetings are about to go down. Walsh arrives to take her outside, which seems like a silly risk considering they have such a short time window before the power (and security cameras) comes back. Why not set this up for when Mare’s already outside, cut the power then, and save on the travel time?

In fact, once they arrive and meet Farley, she says another new recruit is coming, so that’s even more travel time…

And why is Farley here? What position is she in that she’s required to be at both the Stilts pawn shop on a random day AND here in the palace to meet the new people? The best insurgencies operate in cells, each one able to act at least semi-independently, so that you don’t have to have one person running all over tarnation like this. And if Farley is the leader (as they seem to be implying) then she really shouldn’t be putting her neck out for pep talks like this. If the book really wants to conserve on named characters, Walsh is right there and perfectly capable of serving as a go-between!

The other new recruit shows up, and it’s Maven! When asked why he wants to join, he gives a sob story about how he went to the front when he was 12 what is wrong with all of these people????? and noticed that not only was it a stupid war, but some people were paying for a lot more than other people.

And then he did that whole “I’m not prejudice, I had a Red friend once. Oh, and then he died” thing. (I can’t call anything in this book racist when all the characters are white. I just can’t. Prejudice will serve.)

“Cal calls this the balance, Silver over Red. He’s a good person, and he’ll be a just ruler, but he doesn’t think change is worth the cost,”

This cannot be a true statement. You cannot be a good person and also think that a whole class of people just deserve to die. This is literally not possible. Either you value the lives of your people, or you are not a good person. The fact that Maven even says this makes me suspect his commitment to joining the Guard, because it’s clear that he thinks it’s – at least on some level – okay to shrug off oppression.

You cannot be a “just ruler” and support oppression.

You cannot be a “just ruler” unless the “just” means “just rules the wealthy people, and ignores all the poor ones.”

You cannot say, to the face of the fucking rebels, that the guy wanting to oppress them is “just.” Like, even from a practical standpoint, how can you not see how that hurts your argument?

Well, the manservant/guide that brought Maven to this meeting claims Maven has been talking like this for a while, and Farley more or less accepts it. She asks what Maven can give her, and Maven mentions he sits on the ‘tax council.’

“We don’t care about taxes,” Farley snaps.

You…probably should. I’m just saying, this place still seems pretty capitalist.

That Samos guy is apparently more powerful for his mines than his superpowers, so that shit still has some influence. I mean, not exactly sure how a tax council spy would help, but it’s not like it would hurt to pay attention.

Maven gets squirmy when Farley mentions wanting targets to hit, not…actual intelligence, and when he mentions that their explode-y ways aren’t winning them any friends, she points out that the Silvers are way more violent than the Guard has been so far.

I’m kind of torn. Because Maven kind of has a point – you’re not going to get any institutional change with only bombs. You need to cultivate allies wherever you can find them. But Farley is absolutely fucking correct that nothing is going to change by ‘playing nice.’

I think what bugs me is the unilateral stance from both sides. I think this is going to turn into a ‘one or the other’ kind of thing, instead of a ‘where is the line.’ Arguing that you need to make allies is not the same as saying ‘play nice.’ Play fucking dirty as hell, just play on more than one board.

“The little prince and the little lightning girl.” She laughs. “You two suit each other. One, a coward, and you”—she turns to me, her steel-blue eyes burning—“the last time we met, you were scrabbling in the mud for a miracle.”

“I found it,” I tell her.

…what the fuck does Farley have against Mare?

The darkness seems to shift, and members of the Scarlet Guard reveal themselves

How did all these rebels get into the palace? Did the Selection guards take over for a night?

“We can bomb and burn every inch of this country down,” she murmurs, looking between us with something like pride, “but that will never do the damage you two can do. A Silver prince turning against his crown, a Red girl with abilities.

Okay, I see the point about those two causing social/psychological damage/change but…why does everyone in this book hate bombs? Because I think exploding the entire country would do quite a bit of “damage.”

Farley is at least turning away from her “hah, talk of anything but death is coward!” tone and starts talking about PR, about how bombs are just to get attention and then they’ll get to work and use this royal couple here for some propaganda. Whew, you were starting to make me nervous, Farley, but you’re holding your own now.

They start talking about how they need something big that can’t be covered up by government lies, and Mare gets twitterpated over how the retaliation will end up killing innocent civilians. I’m actually kind of willing to give her this one, mostly because I’ve liked her so far and that is a hard thing to have to face and why wars/revolutions aren’t easy. I mean, I can sit here and say “they’re kind of dying already, right?” but that doesn’t make it easier to swallow when actually planning it.

Although mostly it’s the “liked her so far” part. I’m much more forgiving of a character’s moments like this if they’ve been behaving appropriately up to that point. Mare has been bitter to a very nice level for someone with her background and also she has a history of “just keep your head down and survive,” so this all feels natural to her and not like moral grandstanding.

“Revolution needs a spark,” I murmur, repeating what Julian would say in our lessons. “And even sparks burn.”

Oh, god, that’s so much worse than Hunger Games. Wow, I didn’t think you could get a worse forced catchphrase.

They briefly mention the upcoming ball as a good target, and when Mare balks because mindreading queen, Maven points out that his mom doesn’t really have the time/headspace/inclination to read literally everyone around her. So as long as all these thoughts stay in the brain of people “beneath” her and they don’t give her a reason to go looking, she’s not going to find out.

Before they part ways, Mare asks Farley not to let Kilorn join up, only to have him reveal himself as one of the guards. They argue, and he…acts like some part of this current situation is because she was trying to protect him?

She’s forced to be a princes because powers, she outed her powers because of her palace job, she got the palace job because of Cal, she met Cal because of idle thieving and moping. Yeah, there was a plot to help Kilorn dodge the draft, but that was entirely incidental to the current plot. The whole thing could have been excised and this would still be going on. You know, assuming Mare went and mope-thieved at the tavern over some other reason.

Well, Kilorn refuses to stop being a rebel so they part ways miffed.

A week flies by in summary, until one day all the kids waiting for training are anxious about something. Turns out they’re all going to be sparring today, but the book doesn’t bother to say how they all knew that ahead of time and Mare didn’t. I guess just to give us a couple hundred words of padding for no reason?

Then we go through several descriptions of super-powered bouts.

Across the arena, Evangeline smiles at the murderous display between us. How she can watch her friends bleeding on the floor, I don’t know. Silvers are different, I remind myself. Their scars don’t last. They don’t remember pain. With skin healers waiting in the wings, violence has taken on a new meaning for them. A broken spine, a split stomach, it doesn’t matter. Someone will always come to fix you. They don’t know the meaning of danger or fear or pain. It’s only their pride that can be truly hurt.

I do really like this line.

Cal pairs off against two others and is apparently super good at fighting.

She looks like a living statue, made of solid rock rather than flesh, but Cal’s stronger. His blows splinter her rocky skin, sending spider cracks through her body with every punch.

But…how. Cal manipulates fire. You can’t punch something with fire; it has no mass. Is just…punching her with his fist and also fire is there? I don’t understand how this would crack stone. I mean, you can superheat stone to make it crack, but then why the “blows”? I don’t think this book understands how fire works. Or lightning, for that matter.

After Cal casually beats the other two with his…Pokémon fighting moves, Evangeline challenges Mare to a match. Dun dun dun.