It was Arliss who had informed her of the obscure right of the Crown to take direct military action, an old remnant of powers granted to the American executive.

1) If you’re going to claim any part of this government is a throwback to American government, then I demand to know why you have a MOTHER-FRIKKIN MONARCHY.

2) Referencing American government for that isn’t necessary, it’s not like that’s the only government ever that lets monarchs leaders get militaristic.

3) Article II Section 2 (which is what I’m assuming this bit is referencing) is extremely vague, but even the most liberal interpretation doesn’t extend to “Commander in Chief can literally just do whatever they want and FU.” At least not when it comes to individual units.

“Of particular concern to me are the cannons,” Kelsea told Hall. “I saw ten of them, but there may be more. I couldn’t tell whether they were iron or steel. Your first task will be to disable them.”

Should you not…IDK, use spies for that? I’m thinking by the time a field commander gets to them, it’ll be too late.

Also cannons are big and scary, but let’s be real, they are siege weapons. They’re most effective against a stationary target, and if you want to use them on a battlefield you really need to have a bunch before it’s going to do more than just scare people. (Although scaring people has its own merit.) You should really be more concerned about whether or not they’ve developed firearms than cannons.

“Cannons,” Bermond scoffed, and turned to Mace again. “There’s no gunpowder. Are we really to base military strategy on a girl’s fever dreams?”

How about more to the point that…you aren’t actually doing that? The whole guerilla strategy that Kelsea is pulling Hall to do is based on the idea that the Red Queen will do some raids before all-out invading. Literally all she’s said about cannons is “disable them, please.” Also if you’re really that upset about it mother-frikkin spies already.

Kelsea wondered briefly whether she should be concerned about Bermond’s loyalty, but dismissed the thought from her mind. He didn’t seem the type to try to stage a coup, even if he’d been twenty years younger. He simply wasn’t imaginative enough.

Yes, because a coup is totally the only thing you have to worry about. It’s not like a disloyal general might, IDK, just ignore your orders or something because he’s already shown a propensity to think they’re stupid. Nope, only the top level of problems is actually a problem, everything else can be ignored.

Well, that’s enough strategizing, and Kelsea sends them off with orders to report back in a week.

Next we switch to Javel, the gate guard working with Thorne who let in the assassin.

Thorne had engaged a single Caden to assassinate the Queen, and not even one of the famous ones … Lord Graham the younger, who was barely more than a boy.

JFC, what is it with so many books thinking assassins are supposed to be recognizable by name and face or something? What the fuck even is this, I don’t understand. It’s like one of those messes where you make a copy of a copy of a copy and each time it gets a little bit more distorted, because not only is this not something from history, I don’t even remember this being part of fiction until recently. Like, I guess I can see the progression. You start with stories about cool assassins, the stories get popular, the assassin characters get more and more larger than life, and pretty soon fiction is imitating reality and making these assassins as popular in the fictional world as they are in the real world? I guess? Certainly that’s all I can imagine going on, because it completely defies reality and common sense. (And even to get to the point of “guild of assassins made up of fucking celebrities and aristocrats” I think I must have missed a few steps, because I cannot fathom what thought process went into this.)

The Caden had their own problems now. It was common knowledge in the Gut that the Regent had offered them an exorbitant bonus to find and kill the princess, and they had committed the bulk of their resources to that endeavor, ignoring the everyday jobs—guarding nobles under threat, collecting bounties, and escorting valuable deliveries—that were their bread and butter.

…

I fucking give up, I don’t even know, they’re assassins and also nobles and also they guard nobles? Fuck it, I don’t care, because the book doesn’t care, and trying to make sense of any of what these guys do is just giving me a headache.

So Javel gets called in to see Thorne at his super secret warehouse lair, where a couple of Caden thugs with very long, easily-grabable beards and another noble named Lord Tare are already waiting. Also four other people: a priest, a scruffy pickpocket, another gate guard, and Javel forgets to describe the fourth. Either that or he can’t count. Take your pick.

Oh, and the other gate guard guy is a serial rapist and woman abuser and also lets throw in some child prostitution because SERIOUSLY FUCK THIS BOOK I AM GETTING DRUNK NOW.

—

Okay, so now that I’m back, I just have to say

Keller had once flung a woman through a wall,

So Javel goes on to detail one episode with some difference violence but this…gets just that? Like…do you not know??? what it means???? to go? THROUGH????? A FUCKING WALL??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Like fucking shit, that other episode I’m not even going to describe because SERIOUSLY FUCK THIS BOOK, but it seems to me like pulpifying someone should mean more than just one line?

Also fuck off with all this literary splooging over violence against women. I mean I don’t even think anyone is getting off on it, but it’s the closest analogy I can think of, it’s not sexual it’s more like ego masturbation, like YES, I AM SO GRIMDARK, LET ME STROKE MY BEAUTIFUL MIND AND GET PLEASURE FROM IT, GOD MY WORD-BONER IS SO HUGE.

Seriously, if I thought saposexual was thing, I would expect it to be this, just getting orgasmic pleasure from an idea without messy body fluid part but also anything in that realm but derived from violence against women means FUCK YOU.

I feel the need to assure everyone that I am writing this at 9:30 at night, and not the middle of the day when it gets posted, and also the book didn’t drive me to it this was totally planned, you guys are just getting to enjoy the side effects of blogging while drunk.

Moving on.

Thorne shows up. Hey, is his non-speaking-evil-sex-lady with him?

Javel was relieved to see that Brenna was not with him this time; there were still two hours of daylight left outside.

Okay, so no. But…what????? Daylight? Is she an evil-sex-vampire???? Like I just literally have no idea where this line came from. Did I forget something? Wouldn’t be surprising.

Everyone bickers because they are fuckers and I don’t care, it’s just a bunch of evil cartoons trying to out-evil each other.

Like, seriously, do any of these guys have a personality trait that isn’t “LOL I’M SO EVIL”?

Actually, I kind of like Javel, he just got sucked into all this eviltude and he’s the straightman in the corner going “WTFBBQ” and like “Okay, but I’m doing this to free my girlfriend who got slave-traded so I’m not really evil but also WTFBBQ???” I like that. Too bad everyone is SUCH A FUCKING CARTOON.

So Thorne is all like $$$$$ WE NEEDS IT and the Queen is pooping on our slave funzies also war and shit, but I can stop the invasion!

Desks and chairs stood empty, coated with a thick layer of dust. Wall-mounted torches provided the light

1) Books need to get over their fucking love affair with fucking torches man, like they are so inefficient, do you even know about the lighting inventions that went on in history, it didn’t go campfire -> torch -> lightbulb, like there was a whole lot of shit going on with like mirrors and lanterns and such and people got damn inventive when it comes to seeing things by fire but not having electricity and fucking torches weren’t it.

2) DUST IS FLAMIBLE. LIKE, BY A LOT.

Oh and in the next room over is a bunch of construction and sawdust. CAUSE YEAH THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT AROUND YOUR OPEN FLAME TORCHES YOU JACKASSES.

Seriously, get the fuck over torches.

Anyway, Thorne’s big secret is that he commissioned the best carpenter in the country to build a bunch of really shitty cages, because I guess they’re just going to send some slaves on their own. Which, well, why did you need this really good carpenter guy that got two paragraphs of backstory to build shitty cages? And also why is that something that needed to be dragged out so long when Thorne could just be like “guys, chill, I talked to the Red Queen, we’re just going to send her some folk without Kelsea noticing”? ‘Cause, I skipped most of the time wasting because it was fuck that but I assure you guys, it took a fucking long time for a bunch of people to sit in a room, whine, walk to another room, and go BOOM, CAGES.

Also no really where is that fourth guy? Fuck this book.