After the hoopla of last chapter, every settles in for lunch.  Tris has everyone flinching from her when she tries to socialize, because in this world Tris’s magic is unusual and scary.  She’s got the biggest, flashiest, and (in many ways) most powerful magic and she can do amazing things with it, but everyone around…

Sandry watches all the nobles settle in to wait for the empress to return.  The boys who had been set to flirt with her before slack off once the empress is out of sight, and instead they just look jealous that Briar got some alone time with Berenene. “Silly amdain,” a man said near her…

The next day, they’re due to go see the empress in court, and Sandry is fussing over their clothes because she doesn’t want the people there to look down on them.  Briar thinks that’s silly because they’ll still be the same whether or not a bunch of nobles know it. “Don’t talk nonsense.  These people…

The group arrives at Sandry’s “town home,” which is unfathomably large and ornate.  The book and all the characters treat this with a “o.O Daymn, how much gilt does one family even need” attitude, and the characters other than Sandry are all made uncomfortable by how ridiculously wealthy everything is.   Briar gets flirtatious with…

After a month on the road and just as they’re about to reach Dancruan (capital city), the kids get delayed because Chime took off chasing wildlife and refused to come back.  Because the caravan on a schedule, Sandry sends them on ahead. …um, they can schedule a month-long trip to arrive in town down to…