The next chapter opens with a blurb out of a fake history book, informing us that Kelsea was room-bound for five days while recovering from her wounds. Instead, we get to follow the POV of the deposed regent Thomas, who is upset that he apparently went to bed with the wrong person.

Yes, he’s upset that he doesn’t have his own personal sex slave anymore, and he instead has to sleep with some other woman. And then he goes on about all the physical attributes that Anne lacks. It’s reducing the whole sex slave thing to a “she was really pretty” commentary. Stay classy, book.

There follows several pages of blathering from Thomas as he ruminates on things and yet doesn’t tell us much. He’s evil, he wants to be ruler, he wants Kelsea dead, his thoughts are disgusting slime… None of this is actually necessary.

but the idea of the Tear poor rebelling against anyone was so remote as to be laughable. They were too busy trying to find their next meal.

Sigh. Book, why do you hate history? Poor people are the heart and soul of rebellions – the rich people certainly aren’t going to start any. What is with books assuming that constant degradation and privation make people complacent? When has that ever been a true thing? It might last for a while, but it always ends one way.

Thomas goes out into his sitting room, where there’s a large racket going on, and sees that several servants are packing up all his things. One of the Queen’s Guard is there to inform him that all his stuff is property of the Keep, which is why it’s getting packed away, and then reminds Thomas that he’d better get out in a month.

There’s comments on his ‘women,’ and the guard says they are free to go but their gifts of jewelry have been confiscated. We learn from Thomas’s thoughts that these women came to him voluntarily (except for the chained woman) and their alternative was a life of extreme poverty, so taking the jewels seems really harsh. I mean, it sounds like they did it out of desperation, and without those jewels to sell they’re just going to go right back into desperation. JFC, Kelsea, if you want to help your people why not start with these women? Instead, the guard character talks about them like they’re high school fiction Mean Girls. They didn’t take well to losing their jewelry. Fuck off.

The next scene does at least have Anne informing him that she’s had “another offer” from a different noble and she’s going there, so at least there’s that.

(Don’t you dare try to make me hate the prostitutes, Book, because I won’t stand for it.)

Thomas and Anne have a brief argument where he insists he treated the women well and Anne goes “no, hun, you were a disgusting pig who took advantage of our youth and desperation and we’re glad to leave.” It is, quite honestly, the most human-sounding interaction in the whole book so far. Paints Thomas as a villain without laying on piles of cartoon villain traits.

We switch over to Father Tyler, the priest who did the coronation. We get a lot of backstory, including more self-fellatio about how only the good characters like books and everyone else thinks they’re stupid.

Oh my god this chapter has so much blathering. Five pages of useless backstory on the priest and ruminating on things that have already happened. Get on with it already.

Father Tyler finally makes it up to go see this world’s version of the Pope, carrying on about the corruption of the church the entire way, because this book just loves to lay it on extra thick. I guess it assumes you won’t be able to tell who the bad guy is otherwise.

Gah, even after we get to the pope’s room there’s more backstory and blathering. The pope is ancient and ill, there’s a guy with him named Anders who hates homosexuality with a passion to rival any GOP candidate.

The pope figures Tyler will be the next official Keep priest, and he wants Tyler to observe and report back on all the going’s on. Wow, riveting stuff, wasn’t that so worth the…what, 8 pages of narration we had to wade through to get it?

And now we have a new POV character, Javel, who comes along with his own massive amounts of blathering.

Javel winds up at a bar to see Thorne, who had sent him a message earlier.

Early in his career his sobriety, combined with his tall, thin frame and delicate features, had made Thorne a prime target for the Regent’s antisodomy hooligans.

…????????? Sobriety makes you gay? Huh? I mean, the rest doesn’t either, but people are stupid, so. But…sobriety???????

This book is just so downright weird sometimes.

Thorne has a woman named Brenna with him, she’s blind and albino. No one really knows why she hangs out with Thorne.

There is much banter between the two which is profoundly useless, and then Thorne gets to the heart of the matter. He knows where Javel’s wife is, even though she was shipped off to Mortmesne many years ago.

There is a super awkward interlude with Brenna who randomly…gets turned on? She has yet to actually say any words or contribute to the scene; like most women in this book she’s just offensive set dressing meant to…I don’t even fucking know in this case. Make everyone uncomfortable?

Thorne wants Javel to let someone in the gate without questions, but he doesn’t say who yet. He uses Allie and the fact that he poisoned Javel’s drink to coerce him to agree, which he does reluctantly.

The scene concludes with Brenna still doing absolutely nothing and having not one line.

And finally we’re over to the Red Queen. She blathers for a while, then a servant comes to give her a message, which I must assume is informing her about the slave shipment not coming. Which…well, we already knew that. So this whole section was a waste of space.

In fact, most of this chapter was a waste of space. The regent’s rooms being packed up could have been relayed to us in a throwaway line; his POV added very little to that episode. Father Tyler didn’t need a section; we could easily assume that he would report back to his boss, since that’s totally normal. The scene with Javel and Thorne was useful, but too long; it could have been worked into another chapter. All in all, the only thing we got here was a heaping helping of misogyny and weirdness.