After passing out – or getting knocked out, it’s unclear – Kelsea wakes up to find herself in a tent with the leader of the mask-wearing group. He’s young and handsome, because of course. Everyone in this book so far has been handsome, and the fact that Kelsea keeps lampshading this doesn’t make any less weird.

Also, obligatory note that passing out for hours and hours at a time generally involves brain damage and should not be just because one can’t think of a scene transition.

Kelsea notes her neck gash has been patched up, and Leader Dude says he did that. Then she notices she’s been bathed, and Leader Dude says he did that as well. Um…can we say super duper creepy? It’s truly bizarre how many books have unconscious women getting bathed and treat that like it’s either neutral or a good thing.

“But you needn’t worry, girl. You’re far too plain for my taste.”

First of all, that’s not comforting, because the problem part of bathing an unconscious person is not “maybe they got their jollies off” it’s “OMG WHY ARE YOU STRIPPING AND TOUCHING AN UNCONCIOUS PERSON???”

Second of all, way to reinforce the idea that rape and sexual assault are 100% attraction-based crimes.

Third of all, why does everyone in this world have to agree with and note on the fact that Kelsea is ‘plain.’ Like, fine, I suppose we can make general statements about how closely people conform to beauty standards, but that’s not the same as saying “I, personally, find you unattractive.” People have wildly varying tastes, after all.

Dude’s name is Fetch, and he took one of Kelsea’s sapphires out of her cloak, but not the one she wore. Apparently wearing it means the sapphire won’t “let” him steal it, which is interesting.

“Well, you would know my name otherwise. The Regent has a high price on my head, growing all the time.”

“For what?”

“I stole his horse. Among other things.”

“You’re a thief?”

“The world is full of thieves. If anything, I am the father of thieves.”

Kelsea smiled against her will. “Is that why you all wear masks?”

“Of course. People are envious of the gifts they don’t have.”

“Perhaps they just don’t like criminals.”

“One needn’t be a criminal to get in trouble, girl. There’s a handsome reward for your head as well.”

I don’t know what it is exactly, but something about this conversation seems slightly nonsensical. Like they aren’t really engaging with each other, they’re just talking, and it happens to be mostly about the same subject.

Fetch did not like Kelsea’s mother, and after a lot of the same not-quite-engaged blathering, he refuses to tell Kelsea why. The whole conversation adds literally nothing to the book, as we’ve already been bashed in the face with the fact that we know nothing. At this point the book is just cruelly kicking a dead horse.

Guys, there is so much talking with so little information actually imparted that I can’t even summarize it. They basically just go on for several pages about things that either they don’t know or refuse to talk about, and all I take away from it is “damn, this book is really, really bad at conversations.” I wish I could explain the reasons for my unease, but everything about the dialogue just feels not right, without my being able to pin down exactly why. It just…doesn’t mesh. Maybe there’s too much emphasis on trying to make pretty phrases, maybe it’s because no real information is being passed, but there’s just this constant sense that the people aren’t actually responding to each other.

Kelsea is attracted to Fetch for no reason I can tell, then bemoans the fact that she’s so ugly for several paragraphs. Because apparently you’re only allowed to not care about your looks if you’re conventionally attractive.

At first glance, Kelsea would have taken the camp for that of a circus troupe: several tents dyed gaudy shades of red, yellow, and blue, situated around a stone fire pit.

Great for hiding a band of thieves!

Kelsea asks to go see Mace, who is bound in a tent but otherwise unharmed. They talk, and it’s pretty much the same as every conversation thus far in the book. “Please tell me the things I need to know.” “No.” “Why?” “Reasons.” The book might as well be dialogue free for all the use it does us. I could accept it (barely) if no one knew things, because at least then there would be a plot. ‘We need to discover the things’ is a plot. ‘You need to untwist your britches and talk’ is not a plot. And every conversation is a fucking stall.

“I don’t understand how I’m supposed to make smart decisions without knowing everything.”

“Why dwell on the past, Lady? You have the power to make your own future.”

That is a horrible answer and you’re horrible for saying it. It also doesn’t actually address her question, which is also on par for every word spoken thus far in this book.

Kelsea notices that Mace is slowly getting free of his knots, and leaves again. She sees Fetch again once she’s outside.

Not just a thief, but a murderer as well. Beneath the handsome man, Kelsea sensed another man, a terrible one, with a life as black as the water in an ice-covered lake. A murderer many, many times.

The idea should have brought horror. Kelsea waited for a long moment, but what came instead was an even worse realization: it didn’t matter at all.

First of all, that is a horrible answer and you’re horrible for saying it.

Second of all, seriously, magic? Because I have no qualms about this being magic, I just want you to have a fucking reaction.

Then it’s dinner time.

Howell, poured her a cup of mead, which Kelsea had never tasted and treated with great wariness. Alcohol and governing went together badly; her books seemed to indicate that alcohol went badly with everything.

I question what books you’ve been reading.

She ate little. For the first time in a very long while, she was conscious of her weight. The cottage had always been well stocked with food, and Kelsea usually had second helpings at dinner without a thought. But now she pecked at her meal, not wanting them to think she was a glutton. Not wanting him to think so.

I really don’t think there’s much point in further commenting on that. What can you even say? It’s so blatantly bad that if you don’t already see it, I don’t if I can explain it.

I will say this, though; nothing has thus far indicated that she is hefty. I said in Ch 1 that she sounded not-thin, but that’s not the same as being fat, and everyone and their chicken has seen fit to comment on Kelsea’s plain looks but there’s been not one word about her weight. Is this a just-now addition by the book?

Also, in a world where, apparently, people are routinely starving because of the evil, evil feudal system, fat should be a sign of wealth and status, and signs of wealth and status are generally considered to be beauty standards as well. That’s why Renaissance paintings of Venus had her with a gorgeous round belly.

At the urging of the others, the black man, Lear, stood up and told the tale of the White Ship, which had sunk in the Crossing and taken most of American medical expertise with it. Lear told the tale well, much better than Carlin, who was no storyteller, and Kelsea found herself with tears in her eyes as the ship went down.

“Why did they put all of the doctors in one ship?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense for each ship to have its own doctor?”

“The equipment,” Lear replied, with a slight sniff that told Kelsea he liked to tell stories, but didn’t appreciate having to answer questions afterward. “Lifesaving medical equipment was the one technology that William Tear allowed them to bring on the Crossing. But it was lost all the same, along with the rest of medicine.”

“Not entirely lost,” Kelsea replied. “Carlin told me that there’s birth control available in the Tear.”

“Indigenous birth control. They had to rediscover it when they landed, mostly by trial and error with local plant life. Real science has never existed in the Tearling.”

First of all, were all the doctors on that ship or not? Because it’s not really clear if Lear’s answer means “all the equipment was on that ship, but the doctors were spread throughout” or “we don’t really care about the lost doctors, we care about the lost equipment.”

Second of all, you can’t lose science. Science is a process, not a thing. You can lose tech, you can lose discoveries, but you can’t lose science. I mean:

They had to rediscover it when they landed, mostly by trial and error with local plant life.

That fucking IS science right there. Furthermore, it’s how all that “lost” medicine was DISCOVERED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Because all that ‘lost’ medicine? Wasn’t handed down by pyramid-building aliens, it was discovered by humans through experimentation also known as trial and error.

WHICH MEANS THAT YOU COULD HAVE JUST REBUILT ALL THIS FUCKING ‘LOST’ STUFF and it’s only by author fiat that you haven’t. I mean, the crossing was 300 years ago, yes? Most of ‘modern’ science was discovered/invented well within a 300 year time-frame, and they were starting out from a much lower base knowledge than you guys.

One thing that always has and always will bother me is the sense of historical stalling that exists in so many fantasies. Like the authors think their world is in some sort of stasis, and things have to have been the same for hundreds of years, and the only history to be found is ancient history. There’s no progressive sense of history in these worlds, which is utterly unrealistic since even in the frikkin Dark Ages we weren’t stalled. There was lots of society-wide changes going on between the fall of Rom and Renaissance.

Check out this chapter on the ‘myth’ of the Dark Ages.

Side note, the 18th century was a dick to history. It feels like every debunked myth I’ve heard about antiquity got its start in the 18th century. Weird.

Wow, I got way off topic.

The Fetch sat down beside her and she felt blood rush to her cheeks.

Ah, there’s the bullshit we know and love.

Does this guy have literally anything going for him besides being hot? I mean, they’re kind of vaguely setting him up to be Robin Hood-ish, but they haven’t actually gotten there yet, so thus far he’s just a dick who kidnapped her, stripped her, threatened her, and refuses to answer any questions.

They teach Kelsea to play poker and tease her lack of a poker face. This group is apparently undecided on if they want to kill her or help her become queen, so they start quizzing her on what she’ll do during her reign.

She opened her mouth, not knowing what she would say, and Carlin’s words spilled out into the darkness, Carlin’s vision, reiterated so often in the library that Kelsea now spoke the words in a litany as practiced as though she read from the Bible of God’s Church.

This is most of the reason why everyone is an idiot for not telling her things. I mean, they know she was raised in isolation with only one person around to form her opinions of things.

Her list of tasks is an unreasonable as a presidential candidate early in the campaign trail. I mean, she’s talking about whole-scale land and resource redistribution. That’s not something you can just do. I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen; I’m saying at no point in history has any governing system anywhere given one person that much power. And there’s no reason to think this one is any different.

I’ll restore the rule of law in this kingdom and drive out the influence of Mortmesne—”

Do you even have the ability? I mean, it seems like that would be the goal of every sovereign ruler, and they haven’t been able to stop what’s going on, so…?

They find out how very little she knows of Mortmesne, and instead of telling her any of the recent, relevant information, they launch into the whole history of the country up to the part we actually care about.

Hey, want to hear something that makes the loss of medicine even stupider? All the other countries didn’t lose the stuff they brought over in the Crossing. And apparently there is absolutely zero trade of information in this world, because reasons.

Three pages of history and we learn exactly squat that we didn’t already know. Red Queen bad, invaded the Tear, stopped and went home. Well, we do learn that she stopped because Kelsea’s mom signed some sort of treaty, but we don’t learn what was in it.

We also still have yet to learn WHERE THE FUCK ANYTHING IS or WHAT THE FUCK THE CROSSING IS. They very clearly make reference to England, America, and the rest of Europe. So…where is this ‘new world’ since it’s not any of those places, yet appears to have the exact same climate and flora/fauna of those places?

Kelsea tells a fairy tale for no apparent reason and also for no apparent reason, this appeases everyone and they decide she’s passed their ‘test.’

they’re good policies, and they show an understanding of political history that most monarchs never take the trouble to achieve.

…most of this chapter serves as literally nothing except to emphasis how much Kelsea doesn’t know about history, to the point where history has to be explained to her. She has done nothing except parrot the political ideals of someone else without any nuance or plan attached. She has not earned any level of praise at all.

Everything is stupid and I hate every single character.