Next morning, Kelsea wakes up with a hangover, but thinks it’s more of a curiosity/life experience than anything to moan about. Cool detail from a sheltered character. Then Fetch comes in to creep up the joint. Anyway, clemency wouldn’t begin to repay your debt. I’ve given you a greater gift than you know.” “What gift?”…

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…

Kelsea wakes up the next morning and starts to get ready, but suddenly notices that her sapphire has started glowing. Well, her old one is glowing, the new one is not. There was no time to marvel at the light; rather, she needed to conceal it. …because…reasons? Her surprise-but-not-overly-surprised reaction makes me think that magic…

That night, Kelsea lays in her tent, kept awake by the ’drunken laughter’ of her guards. Yup. Drunk. Because they are drinking. Literally the previous scene was them being nervous about how pursuers are hot on their tail and they might have to split up, but now they’re all…drunk. I don’t know how to process…

As Kelsea’s group finally begins their journey, Kelsea muses about how she’s never been more than a few miles from home, or dealt with any human beings other than her two caretakers. You know, just to really drive home the point about how absurd her upbringing is. We do get a flashback about once when…