Mare dreams while she’s passed out, reliving a parade of memories from her whole life. When she wakes up in a cage, the queen is there with her, and we find out that her trippy memory-dreams were really from the queen reading her mind while she was comatose. The queen is also keeping Mare in a state of permanent migraine so she can’t concentrate enough to use her electricity powers.

Although now I’m just wondering about this queen’s Queenstrial. What did she do, a mind controller stuck alone at the bottom of a pit with a barrier between her and everyone else? Did she mind control her competition into throwing themselves at the electrical barrier? Because the last one we saw seemed like it valued only one thing: destruction. So short of making everyone else suicide (or at least get injured) I’m not sure how this talent could have one. Yes, powerful, useful, all of that, just doesn’t fit within the standards that we saw. (I mean, I think reading minds is loads better as a talent for a politician than tearing down buildings, but that’s an entirely different bone to pick.)

The queen taunts her for a while, then says that the fact Mare did her electrocution stunt in front of hoards of people is the only reason she’s still alive. They can’t kill her when so many witnesses will be asking questions about her now.

Later, a guard comes by to tell her to change clothes and come with him upstairs. The stuff she’s given is a lot nicer than her uniform, with none of the traditional red color.

“And in case you were wondering, the girl you nearly fried is a cousin.”

I almost choke on the air in my lungs, not knowing how to respond. “I’m sorry.” It sounds like a question.

“Be sorry you missed her,” he replies without a hint of jest. “Evangeline is a bitch.”

“Family trait?” My mouth moves faster than my brain, and I gasp, realizing what I’ve just said.

Look, can we stop this? I’m so tired of heroines who mouth off without meaning to. Maybe if it were a bad habit, I could handle it, people do habits without thinking about it, but here she’s even surprised at herself. And given her upbringing, she shouldn’t be used to this sort of thing. I think authors do this so their heroine can be called “spunky,” but this isn’t spunk, especially when they don’t even mean it! If you don’t have the intent and the personality behind it, it’s just shorthand, nothing else. A character can show strength in the face of adversity through so much more than just thoughtless sarcasm.

And, I cannot stress this enough, if they’re in the oppressed group they should either 1) be used to keeping their comments to themselves or 2) be used the consequences of not doing that. Because so often this happens that oppressed chick talks back and nothing comes of it. There are people right now in real life who have to deal with the consequences of speaking out, whether it’s physical retribution or having their words used against them, and erasing that in fiction doesn’t do anyone any favors. You cannot erase the consequences of real problems just to give your main character brownie points.

Here, Mare mouths off (without intent) and luckily makes a new friend instead of being branded a brainless troublmaking Red. Earlier, she did the same to the queen and literally nothing happened from it.

This new guy is named Lucas, and he and some other guards take her up to see the royal family. Once again we have a castle with walls made out of glass (WHYYYYYY??????) and apparently there’s a breed of superpower that one of the guards has letting her change the opacity of the walls so they can walk around without being seen.

Okay, but, how common are these “shadows”? And how many of the walls are glass? Is there a group of shadow guards who have to go around the palace every night clouding up people’s bedroom walls so they can get changed for bed?

They get up to see the royals, and Mare refuses to kneel. Because…reasons. Just reasons.

The queen leans down next to him. “I told you, she’s Red through and through—” But the king waves her off like he would a fly. She purses her lips and draws back, hands clasped tightly together. Serves her right.

Yes, how dare she…speak? I get that she was cruel earlier while reading your thoughts and giving you headaches (and she was, there was much taunting) but that’s a terrible cause/effect sequence where you’re pretty clearly saying that being brushed off is a just punishment for talking. Her earlier actions aren’t at factor in this exchange.

The king talks for a while about how Mare is scummy lowlife but also has powers and he’s not quite sure what to do with her, since, again, everyone saw her use them. He reluctantly settles on one plan, which is to tell everyone that she was kidnapped/taken in by a red family after hers died and raised as one of them, then luckily discovered her ‘true’ heritage. She’ll be married to Maven, the younger of the two princes. She’ll go along with this story and not cause trouble. Or else…I dunno, maybe he’ll threaten her later.

The king seems to think this farce will help calm the rebellion caused by the Scarlet Guard. I’m really not sure how, since their story rests on her actually being one of the special people all along. “Oh, dear, our beautiful special daughter thought she was one of you dirt people for most of her life” just isn’t really the Cinderella story this book is making it out to be. I mean, that one really does rely on said girl actually belonging to the downcast group and being raised up. If she’s not really a Red, then marrying her to Maven doesn’t really have anything to do with the Reds, does it?

So, there’s some vague threats about how she needs to be kept in line, but then they also dismissively say they’ll give her family an allowance to keep them quiet. And when Mare demands that her brothers be brought home from the war, they grant that, too. No threats against them, even though they’re clearly her weak point. Just “you’d better behave or else!!! Family? Eh, sure, take care of them, whatever. BUT WE’LL BE SUPER MEAN IN SOME VAGUE WAY, MAYBE, SORT OF!”

Come on, guys, villainy 101 here. Always keep the family hostage.