I Read What?!

So this chapter review was supposed to go up Friday night. Needless to say, it did not. Oops. Well. No time like the present.

Last time, Alec and Micum found the evidence needed to acquit Seregil, but the Queen can't release him without the real criminals realizing they're on to them and skipping town. Does this mean we'll be spending the rest of the book with a lead character in prison?



So we rejoin Seregil in his cell. He is, all of a sudden, not alone. Nysander and Thero are here. Apparently Thero will be "taking Seregil's place".

How?”

“No time for explanations. Join hands with him.”

Biting back a flood of questions, Seregil did as Nysander asked. Thero’s hands were cold but steady in his as Nysander took them firmly by the shoulders and began a silent incantation.

The transformation happened with dizzying swiftness. For an instant the shadows of the cell seemed to brighten, swirl, engulf them all—and when Seregil’s vision cleared, he found himself on the wrong side of the room facing a slim, all-too-familiar figure.

Raising a hand to his face, he felt a coarse mat of beard covering a gaunt cheek.

Okay, this is pretty entertaining as a concept. Rivals exchanging bodies. Thero warns Seregil to take care with his body, while Seregil snaps that he's more anxious to trade back than Thero is. Nysander teleports him away. (Seregil gets teleport sickness apparently.)

So back Nysander's casting room, Micum and Alec are agog. Seregil is bitchy.

Alec stared at him, goggle-eyed. “Seregil, is that really you in there?”

Seregil examined the pale, bony fingers wrapped around the cup, then knocked back the fiery liquor in a single gulp. “Gruesome, isn’t it?”

“Thero was no more pleased than you by the prospect,” sighed Nysander. “He was, however, a good deal more gracious.”

“Forgive me,” Seregil retorted. “I’m just not myself tonight.”

Heh.

Alec notes that while Seregil has Thero's voice, it still sounds more like him. Seregil compares it to wearing an ill-fitting suit he can't take off. And that Thero wears his linen tight.

Nysander tells us that Oreska doesn't particularly approve of this kind of magic. He wants Seregil to try lighting a candle. Basically to see if Seregil's particular magic dyslexia, or whatever it is, applies in a different body.

is feet, Seregil held his hand over the candle.

Micum gave Alec’s sleeve a surreptitious tug, whispering, “You might want to stand back a bit, just in case.”

“I heard that,” Seregil muttered. Centering his concentration on the blackened wick, he spoke the command word.

The results were instantaneous. With a rending groan, the polished table split down the middle and fell apart in two neat halves. The candle, still unlit, clattered to the floor.

It does!

Seregil's a bit disappointed, but Nysander is reasonably pleased. It means Thero should still have access to his own considerable magic power and thus won't be a sitting duck in an emergency.

Alec, meanwhile, is disappointed to realize that he'd have to go back to the Wheel Street address soon, but Seregil reminds him that keeping up appearances is important. He also bitches about Thero's facial hair.

“Amazing,” he muttered. “I’ve never cared much for all this hair you people have sprouting out of your faces anyway, but now that I’ve got it myself—it’s absolutely revolting!”

Micum proudly stroked his heavy red mustache. “For your information, we consider it a sign of virility.”

“Oh?” Seregil snorted. “And how many times have I sat waiting in the middle of nowhere while you scraped away at your chin with a knife and cold water?”

“It’s my fashion,” Micum said, giving Alec a wink. “Kari likes it this way—smooth cheeks with a bit of tickle thrown in.”

“It itches,” Seregil complained, scratching under his nose again. “Teach me to shave, will you?”

“You most certainly will not!” Nysander said sternly.

I find Nysander far more tolerable when he's scolding Seregil for being a dick. Heh. So they discuss this news about someone having a Queen's Warrant. The only folk with legal access to it are the Queen, Phoria and Barien. And then there's the matter of the missing ship, and it's missing hold. Seregil thinks that he can find out the manifest - at least the official one.

Nysander thinks it'll prove unrelated to the business at hand, but agrees that no avenue should be untried. Which I do like. Because it's totally going to prove related.

There's a cute Alec and Seregil moment where Seregil smiles at Alec, and Alec thinks that Thero would be a lot better looking if he'd smile more. He wonders what Seregil's face looks like with Thero behind it.

And they share their own farewell:

At the workroom door, Alec turned for a last look at Seregil in Thero’s body. He couldn’t imagine a more unlikely combination. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s good to have you back—sort of.”

“Sort of good or sort of back?” Seregil countered, managing a semblance of his familiar lopsided grin in spite of the beard.

“Sort of both,” said Alec.

Seregil's nightmares follow him into Thero's body though. He dreams of being in Thero's body, riding a headless horse to the Red Tower Prison. He floats up to see his real body naked, covered in tiny spider-flames. Thero saying that the spiders are coming from his chest. There's still a hole in there with a blue eye glaring out. Ew.

When Seregil wakes up, he realizes that he's forgotten most the nightmare, and then ended up with dreams of a lascivious nature quite unlike his usual fare and he’d awakened to find Thero’s body in an uncomfortable state of arousal. Cold water soon put a stop to that.

Hee.

He asks Nysander if it's possible for him to have Thero's dreams. Nysander doesn't think so, and to Seregil's credit, he doesn't elaborate. He merely notes that a few days in the Street of Lights (brothel district) would do Thero good. (Nysander says Thero seems celibate by nature. Seregil notes "By practice, perhaps, but not by nature").

And in fact, Seregil learns that there's a bit more going on with Thero than anyone thought, when he finds the sorceress Ylinestra waiting outside the door. And well...

“So formal today!” Ylinestra chided playfully, sweeping past him. The crowded confines of the entrance might have explained the generous brush of silk-clad breast and thigh against his side; something in the lilt of her voice warned otherwise. Following her back to the workroom, Seregil felt a pleasant tug of anticipation. Both of them, he suspected, were about to put on excellent performances.

“Out chasing around on behalf of his pretty Aurënfaie friend, is he?” she sighed, turning back to him with a conspiratorial pout.

“Not at the moment.” Seregil gave a credible rendering of Thero’s customary disdain at any mention of himself. “He’s gone to see Mosrin í Argavan. Something about the library.”

“And left you here to solitary toil, eh? How lonely for you. And me, as it turns out.” Ylinestra drifted closer, and Seregil was suddenly aware of the light, spicy scent she wore. With it came a sudden mental image of the perfume rising invisibly from the warm cleft between her breasts. That put him on his guard. It wasn’t his usual sort of thought at all, and smacked of magical machination.

“I hardly see Nysander anymore,” she sulked, just inches away now. “You tell him for me that if he doesn’t mend his ways, I’ll look elsewhere for inspiration. I daresay he neglects you as well when that Seregil fellow is around. It makes one wonder—”

Oh dear.

...she's not wrong about Nysander's favoritism. Though shse's wrong about the implications. And there's an intriguing note here:

Arching a perfect eyebrow, she let the thought hang unfinished between them, then surprised him with a brisk, almost maternal pat on the arm. “If you find yourself at loose ends, my offer still stands.”

“Offer?”

“Oh, shame on you!” she twinkled, coy again. “Those Ylani levitation chants I promised you? You still haven’t come to learn them and you seemed so eager when we spoke last. I’ve a few other bits of magic that I think you’ll enjoy, too, things Nysander can’t teach you. I’d show you one now, only I need my own things. You must come to my rooms. You wouldn’t want me to lose patience with you, would you?”

“No, not at all,” Seregil assured her. “I’ll come as soon as I can. I promise.”

So, APPARENTLY Thero's stepping out with his master's mistress! That IS juicy! Seregil is a bit impressed, and in true sibling rival fashion immediately goes off to tattle to Nysander. And Nysander, to his credit, has an excellent reaction:

To his disappointment, Nysander was more amused than outraged.

“What are you so upset about?” he asked. “Only this morning you were advocating just such a course of action yourself.”

“Well, yes, but not with his master’s lover!” sputtered Seregil.

“It is not like you to be such a prig,” countered Nysander. “I appreciate your concern, but it is quite unwarranted. The lovely Ylinestra and I claim no more hold on one another than we do on the wind. Though I flatter myself that she does take some genuine pleasure in my company, it is my magic that interests her most. She has shown me a few interesting aspects of her own art, too, but it must be apparent to you of all people where my real interest in her lies.”

“A good lay?”

“Beyond description, dear boy! And as neither she nor I have asked more than the other is prepared to give, we are quite satisfied with the arrangement. At heart, Ylinestra is a vain creature whose sexual tastes run more commonly to the conquest of virginal young men.”

Seregil notes that she's always been cool with him. Nysander notes that Seregil isn't exactly virginal. He does warn that he might want to keep an eye on Alec though.

I DO see where Seregil is coming from here. Nysander may not see his relationship with Ylinestra as a matter to be concerned about. But there IS an undertone involved with SECRETLY banging your master's lover. I also wonder how old Thero is meant to be. Seregil is fifty-eight, and had been Nysander's apprentice first. If Thero was a child or very young adult when he became Nysander's apprentice, he could be in his thirties or forties now?

That seems much younger than it did when I last read this book, I have to admit.

But anyway, there is maybe a certain subtext of resentment if Thero is banging Nysander's lover. Not that I'd blame him, but Nysander may want to actually talk to the guy at some point. Well, we'll see if anything comes of it.