intothedraft

[intothedraft]

For those asking what's on the CD... I can't find it.

Luckily I do have a few files called 'CD back' in the Eleanor's Data disc, so it was probably one of these:

The first list appears to be a couple of songs from the Myst III soundtrack, and at a guess the second list may be music from one of the Tomb Raider games?

Anyway, here's the entirety of the fanfic that made it to the backup CD:

Staying at my parents' house tonight, tell me why they have the CD cover (?) for a mix CD (?) I made for the fanfic I used to write about me and Lara Croft when I was 10 years old on display on the dresser in the spare room?

[intothedraft]

Staying at my parents' house tonight, tell me why they have the CD cover (?) for a mix CD (?) I made for the fanfic I used to write about me and Lara Croft when I was 10 years old on display on the dresser in the spare room?

[intothedraft]

Chapter 22: Layane's father is completely irrelevant

We're at the end.

It really doesn't feel like we're at the end, and I think that's because the climax was more than a little anticlimactic. The other two drafts had their faults, but at least battling the Dying Screams felt like a climax.

Evidently I agreed at the time, because there are a bunch of notes from 2011 that suggest I was planning to change the entire plot even as I was writing it. It would become a story about Roen rescuing Layane from the kidnappers against the wishes of the Gever (as he's not meant to meddle in human business as a Protector), being stripped of his role for this, and later tearing his way back into the plot when it turns out Layane's two new Protectors don't care about Layane and Clemant beyond trying to work out what the kidnappers want with them. Roen's meddling ends up getting him kidnapped, the torture bit remains the same (because that's the whole reason I wrote this), and Layane ends up rescuing him.

Also, extremely importantly, my dreamcast for Evil Protector #1 was Cillian Murphy. One of the only notes about this character I made is that he's fucking his assistant.

But I never wrote that version as far as I can tell, so let's ignore that for now and see how many loose ends I bother wrapping up in this one.

In less than 1,500 words.

It's the next day. Roen is back in the flat, recuperating. He has to stay in his room with the curtains closed, because if he uses a tagliatelle, the magic covers up his injuries.

The previous day, they had rushed him back as fast as they could. They made quick progress with the map, but Roen weighed them down. Half way, he had fallen unconscious. Jezirah and Layane had to jointly support him until he came to.

The chapter opened with Roen already at the flat, which I assumed was because I had no idea how Layane and Jezirah got him back, so I wanted to gloss over it.

As a reminder, Layane and Jezirah were walking for so long that they needed to nap in a field before continuing. I get that they have the map now, but I call shenanigans if the walk wasn't at least four hours.

Four hours of dragging a semi-conscious guy back to the flat.

On a (seemingly busy) residential street.

In broad daylight.

When the police are presumably looking for Layane, and the bad guys are looking for all of them.

How inconspicuous. Shame Jezirah's teleportation powers stopped working again.

“He’s getting better,” Jezirah said. She settled down on the sofa next to Layane. “We’ll be able to go back to Geviria soon.” Layane sighed. Since she had practically carried him back to the apartment, she hadn’t spoken to him. She didn’t know what to say. It still felt like her fault. “Good,” said Layane vaguely. “Then what?” Jezirah shrugged. “Whatever you want to. You could go home.”

I mean... could she? She could, but it's the same as when she technically could go home at any other point after they found Clemant. The bad guys are still out there (presumably). The police will want to know what happened.

Layane, sensibly, verbalises this. Clemant comes into the room and announces that she wants to stay in the flat. She likes it here.

From Clemant's perspective, this is the flat where:

She has been left alone for days

Numerous arguments have happened (some about her)

Roen has generally been acting drunk and weird, and had that random one-night stand that woke everyone up

Her sister has continually told her they are in danger and kept threatening to kill Roen

Is that flat that nice?

Jezirah hears Roen getting out of bed in the next room, and goes to check on him. Shortly after, she returns, telling Layane that he wants to speak to her.

Layane got up. In a way, she dreaded the conversation. Before Roen was taken, it would have been because she hated him. She still felt she did, in a way. But after her struggle to find him and how helpless she had felt when she watched him being knocked out, everything that had happened to her didn’t seem to be his fault any more.

In a way in a way in a way...

Yeah, you stalked me and got me kidnapped, but after seeing how badly you got tortured, you're alright!

A love story for the ages.

He was shirtless, but so covered in bandages that he appeared to be wearing an odd, lumpy jumper. Jezirah had inexpertly wrapped a bandage around the cut on his head, but the smaller cuts and bruises were still visible. Before either of them said anything, he got to his feet, walked over to her, and wrapped her up in a many-armed hug.

How is this guy still alive?

If you don't like the 'many-armed hug' wording, I'm sorry to inform you that I do, so it'll probably crop up again.

It made her feel a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure what she thought of him yet. She certainly didn’t dislike him anymore, but she thought it was a bit of a stretch to consider him a ‘friend’. Especially one she was one hugging-term with.

I do find it very weird that their relationship is so poorly-written and forced, considering it seems to be the only reason I bothered to write this. I strongly suspect I wanted them on better terms long before the last chapter, but got worried that I'd be called out if Layane warmed to her stalker too quickly.

“I have to... do something,” he said, and he pulled away. He sat back down on the bed, his wings folded behind him.

Ouch. Isn't his wing broken? I may have forgotten that.

“What?” [Layane said] “The... kidnappers,” he said slowly. “They wanted the diamond your parents were given. And G-slur wants it, too.” “So you’re going to... try to find it?” He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “If it’s returned to G-slur...” He scowled as he said her name. “The kidnappers would stop looking for you, because there’d be no point.”

Good god. This is where the rest of the plot is going?

I don't really understand why getting The Key back would stop the bad guys? Sure, they might stop specifically going after Layane and Clemant, but... Layane and Clemant couldn't have led them to The Key now so I'm not convinced they would. Plus, how would they even know it was returned to G-slur? And haven't they already got a way in, considering they found and murdered the two goons who stole the diamonds from Roen? Even if they'd sold them already, surely it makes more sense to track down the buyers? All they need is one!

Layane sighed. “How would we work out where to start?”              He chuckled. “We?”

Dawwwh. I love that Roen was planning to do all this alone. Why would he? Surely now would be the best time to run away from everything Geviria-related and never look back?

If it wasn't for his love for Layane, maybe he would.

Roen says that to find The Key, they need to find Nicola.

I would call shenanigans that this idiot could find Nicola where police and other Gever have failed, but then again, he did find her once already. Or she found him? I don't think that was ever fully explained, but they must have interacted for him to deliver the letter to Layane.

However unless he's still somehow in contact with Nicola, I do call shenanigans on him finding her again, seeing as no one knows how to find anyone in this book.

And... there's the tiny detail that: NICOLA DOES NOT HAVE THE FUCKING KEY. She lost it, remember? That's why she abandoned her kids? Because she wasn't able to return The Key when asked? Have I forgotten that? (Probably.)

Why on earth, if she's terrified of Geviria, would she take The Key and run? What sense does that make?

We could be heading for a reveal that Roen knows Nicola still has The Key because she told him so, but what would be the point of holding onto The Key if you're (presumably) not going to use it to enter Geviria? And if she doesn't have it because she sold it or something, would it really be that helpful to track her down?

Sigh. I guess looking for Nicola is no worse than any of these characters' other plans.

Layane is naturally conflicted about trying to find Nicola, who she hasn't seen as her mother in years, and —

...

I've just realised that Nicola has barely come up throughout the whole novel. She was mentioned a lot in the first few chapters, and again when we found out about the holiday, but beyond that...

Fucking hell.

Nicola's name is only used THIRTY-SIX TIMES. Twenty-two of these were pre-kidnap (the first one), and a further one was while Layane was in the boot of the car. The name appears four times in the These Are The Four Arms And Wings Of A Killer chapter. That leaves NINE for the entire rest of the novel! After finding out from Roen that her mother is alive, Nicola doesn't come up for another SIXTY A4 PAGES. The next appearance of Nicola's name is in the fucking Roen chapter, when he sees a picture of her in G-slur's house! Then there's another twenty pages, and the name's brought up in the Clemant chapter. Another thirty, and Layane thinks of Nicola when considering what would happen if someone spotted her in public, but doesn't think about her any more than that. Twenty pages later, Shafinah asks Layane and Clemant if they are Nicola's daughters. Nicola is brought up twice by Winchester. And now we're here.

I've even searched 'mum' and 'mother' to see if she popped up any other times: NOPE. All references to Nicola as 'mother' pop up alongside the use of her name. If I search 'mum' all that comes up is where I've used the word 'mumbling'.

Layane spent the last TEN YEARS assuming Nicola abandoned her for funsies (or whatever it was she believed), and has recently learnt that her parents left them at the carehome because they were in danger. And she has no reaction to this whatsoever. No remorse. No doubling down and deciding her hatred of Nicola is justified because she could have taken her daughters with her. Layane didn't try to find out more about Nicola from people who knew her. She didn't question if Nicola is involved with what happened to her and Clemant.

Nothing.

Not even going to touch the fact that Simon is mentioned even less. The one constant in these novels is that Layane's dad is irrelevant.

Never mind. Now she's remembered Nicola exists again, Layane puts whatever she thinks of her mother aside (as she has done, easily, for the entire fucking novel), and instead focuses on what really matters: her feelings towards Roen.

Layane knew she would have a hard time fully trusting him, but she would have to. She tried to push everything negative she knew about him to the side. He was a stalker. No, he wasn’t, it was part of a misguided attempt to force him to Protect her. He let Clemant be taken. And Layane let him be taken. He killed Sue. He tried to save Sue. She would have died if the kidnappers had got their first.

I like how most of these internal arguments don't address why Layane should trust him now, except the Sue one. The middle one especially feels a bit tit-for-tat.

See, past me, this is why you develop the relationship. If I'd given these two some nice moments amidst the chaos, I could have mentioned them here!

Layane says she'll come with him, and...

The first two drafts, as incoherent as they were in places, did seem to follow a traditional story structure. This one's all over the place.

It feels like the opening to a much longer novel, where Layane meets her morally ambiguous Protector in the first act and grows to trust him as they search for her mother over acts two and three. The prose is so overwritten in some chapters that I reckon if I tried to edit it down, I'd lose over two thirds of the wordcount, meaning this would only be around 30,000 words long (if that).

This is probably because I had planned sequels with an overarching plot. Unlike draft 1, whose sequels all felt like the deranged eighth instalment of an established franchise, this was meant to be at least three books following the same 'plot'. A plot I strongly suspect could all be squashed into one book.

So... let's have a wrap up. How many of those loose ends were actually tied up?

What's going on with Roen? He's been rescued, but considering his whole plan seems to be 'let's find Layane's mother so I can give The Key back to G-slur', we don't have any closure on what's happening between him and G-slur, or Anakah's death, or his terrorist family, or really anything outside the main plot

What's going on with the bad guys? We've been told they're after The Key, but... are they? Is anyone who said this reliable? It's also really unclear why they're going after The Key when they know there's a bunch of Protectors out and about with diamonds in their skin that can be used in place of The Key, but never mind

Why did they start this whole thing to begin with? Again, we've sort of been told this, but there's a lot of gaps. All we really know is that Louis found out about Gever when he was shipwrecked, and at some point Winchester bought his company and decided to go after the diamonds. When did this happen? How long after the shipwreck did Louis and Winchester start working together? Why aren't the Gever aware of Louis, seeing as he was brought into Geviria? Why did the Gever tell Louis about The Key? Are any of the goons still alive? Who knows

How did they find out Layane's family was involved? No idea

Where's Layane's parents? No idea, but at least the plan is to find them. Or... the plan is to find Nicola. Layane's dad doesn't matter

What happened to The Key? Again, no idea

Who killed Jezirah's parents? No idea (presumably G-slur, but no one seems to care enough to question it)

What is G-slur's plan for Jezirah, seeing as she's not officially a leader yet? No idea. I also have no idea what Jezirah's role will be in the next book, seeing as she wasn't involved in Layane and Roen's what next conversation

What happened with all the magic diamonds two of the goons stole? No idea

Why did (presumably) G-slur fill Layane's family's house with water? No idea

What's going on with Roen's terrorist family? Again, no idea

Is Clemant okay, after being abandoned for over a day? She's fine, I guess

Are the police still searching for Layane and Clemant? Presumably, but again, it hasn't been brought up so I have no idea

I wonder how many of these threads will be wrapped up in the unfinished sequel?

[intothedraft]

Going to start working on the final post for draft 3. After that, I may take a break from this blog, partly because I'm trying to edit one of my novels and juggling this blog and edits is getting tricky, but also because it feels thematically appropriate, seeing as after writing draft 3 I took a long break from The Human Spirit, because something weird happened: I had an idea for another book.

This had never happened before. Until then, whenever I had an idea, I just shoehorned it into The Human Spirit. But hey, at least that doesn't show, right?

[intothedraft]

After the success of our Watch Every Hunger Games Film Day during the last heatwave, today we are having a Watch Every LOTR Film Day. I haven't seen these films in maybe fifteen years so I'd forgotten just how much I ripped them off when writing Dying Screams 😂

[intothedraft]

Chapter 21: After the 2008 financial crisis, some business owners had no choice but to raid Narnia for diamonds

I've done it again. Forgot to queue up a post, so now I'm writing a new one in the middle of a heatwave. It feels a bit like this:

If you were wondering, this is the penultimate chapter. There are only thirteen A4 double-spaced pages left of this book. We have a lot of loose ends:

What's going on with Roen?

What's going on with the bad guys?

Why did they start this whole thing to begin with?

How did they find out Layane's family was involved?

Where's Layane's parents?

What happened to The Key?

Who killed Jezirah's parents?

What is G-slur's plan for Jezirah, seeing as she's not officially a leader yet?

What happened with all the magic diamonds two of the goons stole?

Why did (presumably) G-slur fill Layane's family's house with water?

What's going on with Roen's terrorist family?

Is Clemant okay, after being abandoned for over a day?

Are the police still searching for Layane and Clemant?

There's probably more and my brain is too roasted to remember. In any case, I'm scared to find out how I plan to wrap this up in just thirteen pages. Then again, there is an unfinished sequel, so maybe I don't.

As you may be able to tell from the warped screenshot, Layane and Jezirah napped in a field for a bit, and then continued their search. We've now officially overtaken the Roen Timeline, so just in case it wasn't already crystal clear, Layane is NOT dead. Hurray!

A definite bright side was that the roads were starting to look a little familiar. They double-checked the map to see if they had walked down the same road twice in a day but, to their relief, they had not.

Phew. That would have been really pointless, huh?

There's a section break, and Layane spots A HOUSE.

Fields were on either side of the road. On the other side of the one to the left, Layane could see the beginning of a small town. Ahead of them, they could see a couple of houses in the distance. Her stomach jolted, and she stopped. She couldn’t tell from the side of the house if it looked like the one in the picture, but this was the most likely area they had passed.

I have no idea where the woods have gone. (Spoiler: they return later.)

Even though I still haven't described anything about this house that is distinctive in any way, Jezirah bolts towards it. Layane calls after her, and Jezirah vanishes.

Layane skidded to a stop. She waited, expecting to see Jezirah appear at some point further down the road. But she didn’t. “Jezirah?” Layane called out. The house was still a couple of hundred metres away. Then, she put her face in her hands. What if Jezirah went inside the house?

Don't worry, it works for the plot, so Jezirah can teleport again!

Of course Jezirah is inside the house. Layane runs up to the door, but hesitates.

Just like the picture, it was old-fashioned and grand. On one side was a wooded area, on the other, sprawling fields. Across the road from it were two other houses, which looked abandoned as well. The difference between them and the suspected house was that they didn’t look well cared for.

There's the woods! Phew.

Now our protagonist is standing right in front of it, I still can't describe this house in any detail. Considering it's now confirmed to be in the middle of nowhere, I sort of understand why it took them a long time to find. What I don't understand is why it read like they were walking down roads with loads of houses during their hunt, backtracking as they went. Surely you'd focus on country roads if this is what you remembered?

Also, given how weird this place seems to be (sans description), why didn't you investigate the house when you came across it yesterday? Why wasn't its location more memorable?

I know the answer is 'because I wanted Roen to be tortured for longer' so I should stop asking these things.

“Jezirah?” Layane hissed behind her. She looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Then, she heard the door of the house click open. She was completely unprepared. If the kidnappers rushed out now, she would be standing for them like a prize. She had little hope of getting away unless she could outrun them. She prepared to, when she paused.              It wasn’t one of the kidnappers behind the door. It was Jezirah.

It's only just dawned on me that we, the readers, are supposed to be worried about Jezirah inside the house. Given how quickly these characters (Roen excluded) get out of situations, I don't see how anyone could be.

Layane's initial thought is that Jezirah teleported inside and murdered all the kidnappers, before letting her in. For some reason she doesn't ask Jezirah this, she just wonders if that's what happened.

Then, [Layane] saw the blood. There wasn’t a lot. A small trail along the floor, leading to a table. There was a little, green bag on the table that Layane recognized.

To clarify: Layane thought Jezirah murdered the goons before she saw this. She just saw sweet, innocent Jezirah inside the house and thought, 'wow she must have killed a lot of people'. For no reason.

I'm not surprised at this at all. It is a bit surprising that there's not a longer trail of blood leading directly to wherever Roen has collapsed, though.

Layane and Jezirah just stare at the blood for a while. I'd be running around trying to find Roen, personally, but you do you.

A creak from the upper floor brought them back to their senses. Someone was moving around. “Do you think it’s Roen?” asked Jezirah in a whisper. “Either him or... them.”

Layane suddenly remembers that this is a dangerous situation, and if the kidnappers attack her, she has no real way to defend herself.

I guess the bad guys hid all their guns.

Whoever was moving around upstairs didn’t seem to be doing a lot. They weren't even walking around, or Layane would have heard footsteps. They appeared to be sitting and rocking slightly, or crawling across the floor. It was as if they were trapped.

Horrible image. I sort of like this. We know Roen is/was outside. If there's a slow, lumbering noise up there, it's probably one of the goons. Maybe Roen's body being dragged around. But all Layane can think is ROEN and she runs upstairs, Jezirah following.

Upstairs are a few doors. A horrible stench is (unsurprisingly) coming from behind one of them.

It was Jezirah who reached the door first. She wrinkled her nose, and pushed it open. The shock of what was inside forced her backwards. There was blood. Blood splashed over the walls. Blood soaking into the carpet. Jezirah made a noise that was somewhere in between a retch and a sob. There were bodies in the room. Four of them. Layane’s mind started spinning at the sight.

I mean... yeah. This is probably one of the more realistic things that's happened in this book. I'm surprised Winchester and Louis didn't kill the goons sooner.

Layane realises that all of the bodies are in suits, and none of them could be Roen.

She put her hand over her mouth. One of the men’s heads had been blown to pieces. The others had patches of blood on their shirts. Someone had shot them all.

I like that now they're all dead, they're back to being 'the men'.

The female goons being spared reeks of misogyny. There, I said it.

If you're wondering, no, you didn't imagine it. The houses were described as being just down the road from a town. A town full of people who may not have heard all the torture, but surely would have heard a gun massacre?

“What the fuck?” muttered Layane. “That was my... reaction.” She spun around. It wasn’t Jezirah who spoke, but one of the men.

Me when I'm bleeding out on the ground:

Sick Dying Screams reference

Layane looks down at the dying man, horrified. Jezirah rushes over to him and asks where Roen is.

Recognition dawned on his face. “The... the thing?” Jezirah looked insulted. “Yes. The thing.”

“He escaped.” “Escaped?” “Yes. You’ll find him. The state he was in... I don’t think he would have got very far.” He paused, and winced a little. “I don’t think Winchester found him. I think they all quickly left. But not before... well.” He pointed at the bodies, and then to his stomach.

This guy's pretty coherent considering everything that's happened.

Also, if Roen is nearby, WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU FIND HIM? I mean YOU, Dying Man, who presumably was attempted-murdered because you lost Roen?

Jesus Christ this whole thing is such a fucking disaster.

Layane realises she might FINALLY get some answers, and asks the man why he kidnapped Clemant, and -

“You think it was my idea?” he said. “Do you think it was any of our ideas?” He pointed at the bodies.             “No, I just...”             “You need to know, because I don’t want you to think too badly of me,” he said. “I worked for a guy called Louis Chesser. He used to own a pretty successful company. I sold computer chips. That was all.”             “Then why did you...?”             “The company went bust. And I don’t really know what happened, but at some time around then he met a war veteran called Michael Winchester. And then he sold his company – said they had a deal.” Layane sighed impatiently. It sounded irrelevant. “What has this got to do with Clemant? And Roen?”             “I’m getting there,” he said. “After we lost our jobs... we were offered a lot of money... from Winchester. He didn’t tell us what we’d have to do.”

Don't you just hate it when your employer goes into administration and it's bought by someone who changes your job from Tech Sales to Child Kidnap?

Choosing to read all this as a poignant reminder of the 2008 financial crisis.

Is this why they're all in suits? They're all just businesspeople? I'm not even going to touch the fact that the only information we get about Winchester is that he's a 'war veteran'.

Turns out, this is the guy who refused to starve Clemant. Why he didn't just call the police, seeing as the goons appeared to have a certain degree of autonomy, I have no idea. Worth noting that in his monologue, he not once suggests that he went along with Winchester because he was worried for his life or the lives of others.

I mean, he should have been worried about his life given his current situation, but he's making it sound like he was absolutely fine going along with most of this. The only thing he didn't like was Clemant being starved.

It's also confirmed that until Roen's arrival, the goons had no idea Geviria existed, so they had no idea why they were kidnapping and torturing kids to ask them about holidays. Maybe they assumed it was something to do with Layane's Netflix Unsolved past?

Layane started to pace around, avoiding the blood on the ground. “But you still went along with it,” she said. “You only let her go to use her as bait...” “I fed her when the others refused to!” he shouted, his voice croaking after every syllable. “I refused to touch her! I had no idea of the plan to... to use her as bait for you until she was gone!”

See? No, 'Winchester threatened to kill me if I didn't go along with the plan!' No, 'Winchester knows where my family are and he threatened them!' Just, 'I know I helped kidnap and torture your sister but I'm nice, promise!'

This exact thing happened with 'Roan' in the last draft. I clearly intend to present this as good people being forced into horrible actions under the threat of death, but write them like a light tap on the shoulder would be enough to push them to murder their loved ones and/or kids.

“Winchester wants the diamonds,” he continued. “After you didn’t turn up to get Clemant, he didn’t know what to do. Until the thing...” “Roen,” Jezirah corrected, a scowl on her face. “Until... Roen was seen near your home. Someone recognized him from the hospital... I don’t know exactly what...” He groaned, and Layane backed away from him a little. “Exactly what happened there.”

I guess the author doesn't know what happened there, either. Good thing I'm the author, so I take this to mean, 'we saw Roen flying around but didn't think anything of it until we started with all the torture.'

And yeah. We get no real reaction to 'Winchester wants the diamonds' from either of them, interior or otherwise. No shock from Jezirah that clearly they want to get into Geviria. No remark from Layane that she was right, people would do crazy things for all those diamonds!

Nothing.

He started to speak faster, obviously in pain. “They interrogated him. He got... really ill. Then two of us...” He pointed at the two men behind him, lying, dead. “Stole diamonds from him or... something...”

'He got really ill' is a nice way of saying, 'we kicked him in the head repeatedly*'.

* And also he's experiencing alcohol withdrawal I guess

Does this mean Winchester has the diamonds now, if he caught the two goons who stole them? I doubt we'll ever have a definitive answer to this.

“That’s why... they were killed. I was killed because... we thought... Roen was dead. He wasn’t.” He gestured vaguely towards the woman. “And that’s why...” Jezirah stopped him. “Thank you,” she said, “for telling us.” He looked taken aback. “Well, at least I did something good.”

I mean... have you though? You haven't given them any useful information. Where is Winchester? Where is Louis? What are they planning to do now? Do they have the diamonds? Are any of the other goons still working with them? Any weapons nearby? Where's Roen?

If the dying goon was going to say anything else, Jezirah... well.

“I can’t save you,” she said. She pressed her lips on the man’s forehead. Before Layane could take this in, there was a flash. The man flopped down; his head lolled to the side. Jezirah stood up and returned to Layane’s side. Her look suggested that she didn’t think anything unusual had happened. “Did you... kill him?” hissed Layane. “No. He’s sleeping.”

Okay then.

So... what have we learned from all of this, which I assume (plus what Roen knows) is all we're going to get?

Louis owned a company that went under

At some point, Winchester bought the company (?) and used its employees (?) to try to break into Narnia to steal diamonds (???)

They know about Layane and Clemant somehow, and told their goons to kidnap and torture them, but not why

Wow. Truly inspired.

I have no idea why Louis and Winchester are two separate guys, seeing as we don't know enough about either of them to distinguish one from the other. The narrative even refers to one by his first name and the other by his surname. I can't see any reason for them to not be one guy called Louis Winchester.

If anything, them being two guys rather than one actually complicates things. How did they meet? At what stage in a friendship do you admit you accidentally stumbled into Narnia? Was it only Louis who knew about Geviria when they met, or did they both know, because I assumed Winchester's scars had something to do with -

...

He got the scars in the war, didn't he? That's why I mentioned he's a 'war veteran'.

Wow. I was right not to touch that. I have no idea what I was doing with that.

Layane and Jezirah remember they need to find Roen, and set off. There's no blood trail to follow, but they correctly guess that Roen probably sloped off towards the woodland.

At least there weren’t many places for him to easily hide in. The wooded area was small – and the only alternative would be finding him easily on the open fields. It was starting to get light, which made it easier to look around.

The goons died because they lost Roen, and could not find him, in a small wooded area directly next to the Kidnap House.

I was about to say, 'they deserve their fates', but I mean, they did kidnap and torture kids, so they already did.

Layane glanced around. She didn’t like the idea that the men could still be around. The dying man had said they were gone, sure... but what if they had lied to him?

This is why you ask USEFUL and RELEVANT questions and don't let your sidekick knock out your enemy before he's done talking, Layane!

But even though waiting near the house in case Layane or another Gever show up would probably be Winchester and Louis' first good idea, no one is there, so Layane finds Roen immediately.

Yes. It takes Layane probably thirty seconds to find the person who two people lost their lives for losing.

...

AND I've just remembered they fucking ran away after Roen threatened them! I guess the implication is that Winchester hunted them down and brought them back here, but are you seriously telling me that of the four separate goons (the two who stole the diamonds, plus the two who lost Roen), NONE of them managed to successfully hide or went to the police about all this?

I'm just... going to go back to what's happening, because the more I think about this, the more I want to scream.

She saw him. He was lying spread-eagled on the dirty ground. One of his hands was curled around his face. Relief filled her when she saw him, but then she felt a little faint. His clothes were covered in blood. It had matted in his hair, and around the neck of his hoodie. But his face was clean, fresh, untouched. She didn’t understand. It unnerved her rather than reassured her of his safety.

He wasn't even fucking HIDDEN these goons are so stupid I'm going to vomit.

I guess the tagliatelle also covers up injuries, which is odd, but pretty cool?

Somehow, Roen is still alive.

Layane sighed in relief as he slowly opened his eyes. They were bloodshot, and the skin around them looked a little pink. When they first opened, he didn’t seem to be able to see out of them at all. He looked frustrated; he looked at his hand, and blinked several times before his expression softened a little. Then, he looked up at Layane. His eyes widened.

Now Layane is actually here, Roen is convinced he must be seeing things. He panics, tries to get away from her, as Layane tries to calm him down by saying, 'come on'.

I'm more than disappointed that after all of that torture, Layane can't think of a better way to comfort Roen than repeat come on.

Eventually, Roen lets Layane help him to his feet, and they stagger away together. If you're wondering how Layane managed to lose Jezirah in a small patch of trees, I have no idea.

They reached the road, and Layane paused. She looked into the area that Jezirah was searching, but couldn’t see her. “Jezirah!” she yelled out. She paused when she heard footsteps. Jezirah could come to her. There was no point wasting any of her energy now. “You’re alive.” His voice was a whisper, but he was so close to her that it was amplified. His arms moved around her neck, as if he was trying to weakly hug her. “What?” she said. “Of course I am.” “Is Jezirah? And Clemant?” “Yes, we’re all fine,” she said. “We just have to make you fine and everything will be.”

How touching.

Hey, Layane? I sure hope Jezirah's teleportation powers have turned back on, or you now have to walk Roen back all the way you came.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 20: Ah, the classic three-kidnap story structure

The chapter opens with Roen regaining consciousness. Again.

It's been an hour since he 'watched Layane die'. Her body is gone, but there's a large, bloody stain where she was sitting, which is a pretty cool detail. The stain probably came from Roen, but of course Roen immediately sees this as evidence that Layane's death really happened.

Had the kidnappers taken her body away? His headache worsened, but he had gained a new, furious strength. He would run to the door, and batter it down until it opened for him. He couldn’t let them dump Layane’s body somewhere. Or bury her in unmarked earth. He turned around, ready to shout... He held his voice before he made a sound. The door was open. He blinked, trying to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.             The door remained open.

No.

No, no, no no no. NO. This cannot be where this is going. Please let this be another hallucination. Please. I'm not strong enough.

He used the wall to support him, and carefully manoeuvred himself around the doorframe. He could hardly believe it. He was almost free!

NO. Don't you fucking do it, past me. Don't you dare.

Outside of the room was a corridor with several doors leading off it. At the end of the corridor, there was a window. It was the perfect escape route. Roen started to make his way slowly towards it.

It's... going to happen, isn't it?

This entire book is just plans to rescue characters who have been kidnapped, who then manage to get away before the rescue can happen.

At least it disguises how incompetent the rescuers are.

Before Roen can climb out of the window, he hears voices downstairs. He realises Layane's body might be down there, and also that maybe it's not the best idea to jump out of a window with his (broken) wings and four arms fully exposed.

So naturally, he decides to follow the voices, to rescue Layane's fully dead body, and find the bag of tagliatelles that the kidnappers tormented him with earlier. Given the state he's in, it's a terrible idea, but I'm going to give him a pass on account of all the brain damage.

At the bottom of the stairs, there were two directions to go in. At one end of the short corridor, he could hear someone talking in one of the rooms. Loudly. Maybe that was the only reason they hadn’t heard him.

No, Roen, the reason they haven't heard you yet is plot armour.

He hardly dared to breathe as he chose the other route. When his foot hit the last step he slipped forwards onto his knees. His legs had completely given up; they were shaking beneath him. He turned towards the room that the voice had come from, but nothing had changed. He hadn’t been heard. He pushed his arms onwards, and started to crawl into the other room.

Finest quality, top of the range plot armour...

He finds himself alone in a kitchen, and in another great stroke of plot armour luck, the table is covered in guns!

His vision was shaky, but he was sure they were there. He moved across the room as fast as his legs would allow him to pick them up. He had never held a gun before, but it looked easy enough.

I'm pretty sure the in-universe reason that Roen is able to sneak around the house and find the guns is that the goons think he's dead. He'd collapsed for maybe the eighth time, is covered in blood and probably a lot of other bodily fluids, and the goons didn't want to get close enough to check his pulse. If 90% of the plot* wasn't 'characters being kidnapped and getting away before being rescued', it wouldn't be a terrible idea.

* If we can call it that

He picked up all three, but didn’t have enough time to work out how to use them when he heard footsteps behind him. The talking man was coming closer, and he could now hear his words. “Yes, definitely dead,” he said. “I know because we checked. What do you want to do now?”

Right on the money with that guess. I'm nothing if not predictable.

Roen half hid, half fell behind one of the counters as he entered the room. He peered out to look at the man who entered. He didn’t recognize him. “No, no...” said the man. “I know! You have to call Winchester. Tell him he was too rough or... something.” He took a cup out of the cupboard, and started to make tea. “Look, this isn’t my fault! I just found the body! I wasn’t here for whatever happened...” Roen felt fury rising through him. This man didn’t care that they’d killed her. All he cared about was making his little cup of tea.

OH. That's fun. The goons think Roen is dead, but Roen is going to misinterpret all of this as further evidence that they killed Layane!

Would be a lot better if the rest of the plot wasn't bungled kidnap/rescue plans, but never mind.

The goon asks one of his fellow goons to go check on Roen's body (which does call into question why they left him alone with the door open), and someone goes upstairs. Immediately after, Roen pops out with the gun, and aims it at the remaining goon's head.

“Where... is she?” [Roen] said, but his voice was nothing more than a whisper. The man started to back away. “Who?” he said. He was about to make for the door, when a woman came running into the room from behind him.     “We have a problem,” she said in the brief moment before she noticed Roen standing there.

Roen keeps shouting 'where is she' and eventually confirms he means Layane. The goons have no idea what he's on about, seeing as Layane was a hallucination.

[The goons] just didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to make him angrier. “Go,” Roen said. He didn’t want them there anymore. He didn’t want to kill them. If he killed them, he would be as bad as them. All he wanted to do was know what they had done with Layane, and he wasn’t going to get it out of them. “What?” said the man. He was edging towards the door, the woman behind him. “Go!” he shouted, moving around the counter towards them. He pointed the gun the closest he could manage to their face, his finger on the trigger.

Phew, okay! Maybe Roen doesn't escape, and we can still see Layane and Jezirah rescuing him! I mean, surely the goons are going to subdue him, seeing as he's barely alive and has just made it clear he doesn't want to harm them.

Also, Roen: these are the people who kidnapped a child, kidnapped Layane twice, and killed her as far as you're aware. I think it's okay to murder them.

[The goons] ran. He heard the front door close and open as they left.

I... okay. I guess they could be getting weapons and coming back. Right?

Right?

[Roen] wanted to get out quickly, but his feet were refusing to cooperate. He ended up sinking to the floor again, pushing himself through the room using his hands and elbows. Pain shot through his arms and upper body. He was getting weaker. He looked around the door before leaving the kitchen. The front door was wide open, moving slightly in the wind. There was no one there. The man and woman were long since gone. The house was completely empty.

Right?

Roen... looks around the apparently EMPTY house for the bag of tagliatelles and... actually finds them.

What he cannot find is Layane.

I'm not sure if we, the readers, are meant to think she's dead or not. I assume we are, even though we already know it can't be true. Aside from the goons not knowing what Roen was talking about, Real Layane is scampering around the local area while Yakety Sax plays, refusing to go back to the flat until she finds Roen. Fake Layane said she was caught after Roen gave her location to the goons, and unless she was taken from the flat, Roen couldn't have given up her location.

I guess he could have told the goons she was nearby, and the goons happened to spot her wandering around, but that's not really Roen giving her location away, is it? That's just... a natural result of walking around a town where you know some bad guys are actively after you without making any real attempt to hide your appearance.

...

You know, the more I think about it, it would be more realistic if Layane had been captured and killed.

But he knew he couldn’t stay at the house. The kidnappers would eventually come back for him. They would vastly outnumber him. He pulled himself to his feet. All he had to do was get out of the house. Get out, and hide. He could... he could find Elint. Tell him to go to Geviria, and tell G-slur that Roen had found the kidnappers. And then she’d kill them. They deserved it.

You could have killed them, Roen. I mean, I have no idea why they didn't grab the other guns from the table and kill you, but given the circumstances we, the readers, were presented with, you very much could have killed them.

Roen throws a tagliatelle over himself and leaves the house. Across the road is a patch of woodland, which basically confirms that Layane and Jezirah walked right past the Kidnap House without realising. Exhausted, Roen throws himself into the undergrowth to rest.

I'm never going to cut myself any slack ever again. What the hell is the plot of this book?

Layane is a teenager with a mysterious past whose parents are missing

Layane and her sister are kidnapped

Layane is saved from the kidnappers by her stalker, Roen, who tells her about the magical land he came from, and that they should go there for help

Layane hangs out in the magical land, not doing anything to help her sister. Roen, who turns out to have a tragic past too, does not do anything to help Clemant either

The gang leave to save Clemant... but before they can, Clemant is released by the kidnappers

The gang then kidnap Clemant themselves

The gang decide to find out what the kidnappers want, and in the process, Roen is kidnapped

Layane goes to try to save Roen, but in the meantime, he gets away

At least it follows a three act structure. If by 'act' we mean 'kidnapping'.

The chapter ends with Roen falling asleep in a bush.

Across the road from the Kidnap House.

Seemingly immediately across the road from the Kidnap House. So close that the bad guys could probably fucking see him, if they returned.

It's not even going to be difficult for Layane and Jezirah to find him, isn't it? At least they'll have to nurse him back to health, which I'm pretty sure is why I wrote all this to begin with.

The first thing he saw when his eyes opened was the blood. It dripped down from above him, into a gathering pool. He screamed when he saw Layane’s dead, decaying, dumped body just a few feet away from him.

And now he's screaming, making his location even more obvious.

...

Maybe he'll get re-kidnapped before the others turn up, and we'll finally get to see the World's Best Rescue Squad in action.

A girl can dream, eh?

[intothedraft]

Chapter 19: The long walk

Yeah, you're definitely going to want to play this in the background as you read this one.

It has been OVER TWELVE HOURS since Layane and Jezirah set off on their plan to find the house. Since then, they have been walking down streets and marking them off on a map.

Apparently there are so many roads in this place that meet the criteria of:

Not many houses

Near a wooded area

Old house

One of the roads they walked down yesterday

that they have been doing this for over twelve hours and there's no end in sight.

Oh, if you were wondering, streetview has been around for five years at the time this is set. There might not be a computer or smartphone in the flat, but they could try to find one.

Failing that, they could show the picture of the house to people and ask if they know where it is. It would be a bit weird, but arguably more productive than what they're doing.

They had covered the map in thick, black lines along the way. The paths stretched upwards and outwards from the place they had marked the apartment like tree branches. It would, or course, make it a lot easier to find the apartment when they decided to turn back. The only downside the map had was showing them clearly how far they had walked.            

Huh? How exactly is that a downside?

Also surely the way this is described means they keep going back on themselves, before making new 'branches'? Did they do this yesterday, too?

They stopped to consult the map. “We didn’t try these roads,” said Jezirah, pointing at a blank part of the map. “That’s because there were more houses along them,” she said with a sigh. “Oh yeah...”

I thought I'd forgotten that Layane remembered a few details of the road. Clearly not.

Or maybe I just forgot that the full extent of what Layane remembered was:

She pictured it being along a deserted road, near a wooded area.

not just that the road was pretty empty.

The pair are exhausted. Jezirah asks when they're going back to the flat to sleep, and Layane says they aren't. They need to find Roen.

Okay, you can pause Yakety Sax for this next bit. It's actually kinda sweet.

“Roen loves the sky,” [Jezirah] added. “What?” It was the first time she had mentioned him that day. Layane assumed she was too worried to speak about him. Or too angry about the alcohol. Or both. They set off back the way they came, aiming for one of the roads they had overlooked. “He said. When we first... met, I think. That he didn’t like Geviria because he loves the sky.” “Oh.” She started to cross off the new road from the map. “I hope he can see the sky,” added Jezirah.

That's really sad.

Aaaand hit play on the music again, because Layane says they can't stop now, they need to keep walking around aimlessly in the dark, because this is the ONLY thing they can do to find Roen.

“We’re not going back until we find him,” Layane said. “Okay?” “But what about... sleeping?” “We can sleep out here... somewhere,” she said. “We’re just not going back.”

Choosing to read this as Layane gradually becoming more like Roen (sleeping outside, obsessively looking for someone) as a form of character development no one has ever attempted before.

On that note, the (very short) chapter ends. If you want more of it, I'd suggest picking a random town in south west England on google maps, going to streetview, and clicking around with the music playing.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 18: Whump

We've finally made it to the reason I wrote all this: that fresh, organic angst.

Not to take away from this lovely moment, but just five seconds ago Roen was on his feet and trying to batter the door down. Yeah, the chapter ended with him having collapsed on the mattress, but he was very much walking around (somehow) prior to that.

“You know... how they found me,” Layane said. There was anger in her words, but her voice was weak and powerless. He stopped. He was a few feet away from her. His heart dropped when he saw the full extent of her injuries. On her forehead was a long, deep gash; it had long since stopped spilling blood. She sat very still, her hand on her stomach, which was bleeding profusely. Her eyes were half closed, and she was taking quickening little breaths. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t, what are you...?” “You... you told them.”

If only I knew what 'whump' was. Sixteen-year-old me would be all over that.

The fact that when we last saw Layane, she was setting off to find the Kidnap House, throws a bit of a spanner into my plan to make it ambiguous if she's really been captured or not. I don't think it completely destroys the possibility that this is real (Layane could have gone back to the flat at some point and then been captured), but from what we saw of Layane and Jezirah, it feels far more likely that if they were captured, it would be because they tried to free Roen from the kidnappers completely unarmed.

Never mind. Roen says he can't have told the kidnappers. He would never have given up Layane like that.

He held his hand out to her. All he wanted to do was comfort her, but she stiffly lifted her arm to swat it away. “They came for us,” she croaked. “In the night. They knew exactly where we were. You told them.” He shook his head, sending waves of pain around his skull. “No,” he said. “No! I didn’t say anything!” “Clemant and Jezirah are dead.” The pain multiplied a thousand times over. He felt numb. Dead. He sank further down to the floor, hiding his face. “No.” “They are. And it’s...” She coughed a hacking, sickly cough. “...your fault.”

Layane's head droops down, and Roen can't tell if she's conscious. He drags himself over to her and shakes her uninjured leg.

“Layane!” he shouted, as loud as he could. “Wake up! I’m sorry!” She opened her eyes a little. “Why did you do it?” she said. A tear rolled down her cheek, cutting a path in the dried blood.           It hurt a million times more than any beating Winchester could give him. Maybe it was his fault. He had let the men take him away. He had abandoned them at the apartment, unarmed and alone.

Even though Layane has already said that Roen supposedly told the kidnappers where to find them, he thinks she means, 'Why did you let yourself get kidnapped, abandoning us?'

Going to give Roen a pass on that one, on account of all the brain damage.

“I tried to get away from them! They ambushed me! I couldn’t...!” She tried to shake her head, and it lolled from side-to-side. “I don’t mean that,” she spat. She didn’t seem to be regaining any energy, but her tone had lost its weakness. It was acid. “You told Winchester where we... we were.” “No,” said Roen. He was still clutching her leg, and was surprised that she hadn’t forced him away. Maybe she was too weak to. “I didn’t, I swear...” “You did,” she said. She lifted her bloody hand, and placed on his hair. She started to feebly tug; she may have intended it to be a threatening gesture, but her grip on his hair was gentle rather than harsh.

Roen thinks that he couldn't have. He would never. If you're thinking I've already mentioned this, that's because earlier he outright said to Layane that he couldn't have, that he'd never.

Again: free pass on account of the brain damage. Layane gets one too, on account of being a hallucination her injuries.

A disgusting thought came to him; one that made him look away from her in sheer hatred of himself. Winchester had tortured him. He couldn’t remember the torture. What if he had let something slip? No. He couldn’t have. That wouldn’t have happened. It was impossible. He couldn’t understand how he felt about Layane. But whatever the feeling was, it was strong. Her safety had kept him going. He would never have told Winchester where she was.

Horrible, awful, etc. But I'd love to know if Roen even knows what the address of the flat is.

They weren't there very long and for some reason Jezirah was given all the information, not him. I'm not saying he couldn't have said something incriminating enough to lead Winchester there, but surely it would have been one hell of an ordeal to get anything usable out of Roen.

Also, what you feel towards Layane is luuuuurve (and maybe some weird variation of Stockholm syndrome, seeing as Roen fell in love with the girl he's being forced to stalk by his sort-of mother).

Layane is in a very bad way. She keeps fading in and out of consciousness and is ice cold.

“No – you’re not going to die!” [Roen said] He wrapped her hand tightly in his own. It was cold and still. She didn’t seem to notice at first, but when she did she didn’t pull away. Maybe she couldn’t. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “No... we’re going to get out.”             He looked into her eyes – filled with hopelessness – and tears started to roll down his face. She opened her mouth a little, but no words came out. She was gulping for air. “We will,” he said. “I promise.”             “You... didn’t keep your last promise.”             “I... I don’t care! I’ll keep this one!”

Ouch!

Roen looks over her injuries, trying to work out what to do to keep her alive. One of his hands in Layane's, he notices she is no longer breathing.

“Layane?” he said. He held her hand close to his lips. Shook it a little to wake her up. “Layane! Wake up!” Her head fell to the side. Her breathing stopped. “No,” he said. “No...”             He reached forwards and took her head in his hands. Her eyes – which had been a bright blue, and full of life - were open and glassy. Her final tears still sat on her cheeks.

I get that he's in a bad way, but it's pretty funny that we know Roen tried to perform CPR on mutilated Anakah, but doesn't remotely try to do the same with Layane.

Also... Layane has blue eyes?

He fell forwards, and buried his face into her jacket. She barely knew him. She wouldn’t have mourned his death. He didn’t understand why he felt this strongly. But she had meant so much to him – and all that was getting him through his torture was her safety. Her safety, and Clemant’s and Jezirah’s.

Roen, you clearly love her. Not sure why you can't say the words.

By which I mean I'm not sure why I didn't write the words, because Roen crying about how much he loves dead Layane is exactly what I'd want to be writing. Maybe it's meant to be ambiguous?

He pulled away from her. Shut her eyes. Lay her against the wall; she could have been sleeping. And then he ran to the door, and threw his fists against it. “WINCHESTER!” he shouted. “WINCHESTER! COME... HERE!” He didn’t know what he would do. He couldn’t attack him. Winchester would kill him. He looked over at Layane. She was resting peacefully against the wall. Her clothes stained with blood. Her hand still resting on her injured stomach. And then he didn’t care what Winchester would do to him. It couldn’t be any worse than this.

I can't believe we're going to go from this to a Layane chapter that I just know could be scored with Yakety Sax.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 17: My teleportation powers only work when it's convenient to the plot, sorry

We travel back in time just over a day, to the world's best planners.

It was frustrating. They had been walking around for hours, and had found nothing.

You mean your plan to wander around aimlessly failed? I had high hopes.

I do my favourite thing in the world, which is to open a chapter with the relevant bit and then backtrack. We find out that Jezirah and Layane left early, leaving Clemant alone in the flat.

Layane had given Jezirah a description of the car, and they... I guess just wandered around the local area looking for it?

The Clemant chapter confirmed that wherever this house is, it's pretty close to the carehome. Presumably the kidnappers drove Layane and Clemant around for a while to throw off anyone who might be following them, before backtracking.

Which... I've just realised means the kidnapmobiles caused a huge commotion when Layane and Clemant were kidnapped, before basically returning to the scene of the crime.

The cops here are fucking terrible.

Ignoring that, the house where Clemant was held is nearby, so it would make sense for Layane and Jezirah to be searching the local area. Or it would, if Clemant had told either of them that the kidnappers took her somewhere close to home, which she has not.

Plot-induced clairvoyancy at it again.

Layane had her hood up to cover her face. She didn’t know how interested anyone would be in her, or if anyone would notice her at all, but she felt comforted that she was trying to hide a little.

Sure, because people in England aren't generally interested in trying to find young, white, missing women with Netflix Unsolved pasts. It's honestly a miracle that no one has spotted her.

“We could... go to... the police?” panted Jezirah. They were both starting to wear down, to the point that their determination could no longer mask their exhaustion. “They didn’t find Clemant,” said Layane.

A good point which becomes an even better point the further we get into this novel.

“Do you think they took Clemant to somewhere near here?” asked Jezirah. Layane shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?” “I hope they did. It would make it easier to find.”

Did... you not have this conversation earlier? I get that Jezirah is sort of a kid, and it can be read as innocent naivety, but it just reminds us, the readers, that:

They have NO PLAN other than 'walk around and hope for the best', even though the kidnappers could have taken Clemant to another country for all they know

The house IS nearby but Layane and Jezirah have no way of knowing this and STILL think their plan is 'helping'

Layane and Jezirah stop at a bench to rest. Layane asks if Jezirah blames her for what happened to Roen. Jezirah says no, but can't meet Layane's eye, which ramps up Layane's guilt over what happened. Then, finally realising their plan is just as pointless as staying in the flat doing nothing (if not more so, because at least if they were at the flat they would know if Roen had already escaped and returned), they decide to head home.

Unfortunately it sounds like they've been walking in a straight line for the whole day, so they have a long way to walk back.

“Can’t you do your... teleport thing?” asked Layane. “Only if we wanted to get over there,” Jezirah said, and she pointed at a tree a hundred metres down the road. “Otherwise I can’t really... control it.”

Okay to be fair to the World's Best Planners, Jezirah's teleportation is clearly a lot less useful than I thought it would be. I don't understand why they can't Nightcrawler their way home, though, and how the hell Jezirah managed to -

Layane furrowed her brow. “You got back to the flat from the hospital fine,” she said.

Oh my god, is this finally going to be addressed?

“Yes. But I didn’t mean to! And I don’t really know what happened...” “What do you mean?” Jezirah put her hands together, and in front of her. “I was at the hospital with Clemant,” she said, and she put her hands to the left. “And then... I was outside the hospital, and me and Clemant were with Roen.” She moved her hands to the right a little. “And then I just... vanished.” “That seems to be the whole point...” “Yes, but I didn’t mean to! And then I woke up at the apartment.” “It would be very handy if you could do that again,” Layane said, kicking a stone.

Sigh.

It's sort of been addressed, then. Jezirah can't control her powers so she just vanished after taking Clemant to the woods. Maybe the implication is that Shafinah, who was hanging around, did something? I don't know.

It also doesn't explain how Roen knew where Clemant was after Jezirah teleported her to the woods, nor how he knew where in the hospital Layane was. Oh well!

There's a timeskip, and it's 9am the next day. (So around eight hours before Roen started getting visited by ghosts.) I think we're meant to be worried that Layane is heading for disaster, seeing as Roen saw her bloody and beaten body, but seeing as he also just saw the ghostly images of G-slur and a dead man, I don't think the hypothetical readers of this book would be too concerned for Layane's wellbeing.

Layane wakes up on the sofa, after she and Jezirah got back from their long walk in the early hours. Jezirah comes in and asks if they should 'start looking' again, and Layane (sensibly) doesn't see the point. She even suggests they sneak into the police station and see if they've found anything, which just yesterday was an absurd suggestion when Jezirah brought it up.

Desperate times, eh?

The sketchbook on the table caught [Layane's] eye. It had been left open at a drawing of a house. And it looked strangely familiar. She leant over and picked it up, and flicked through the pages. Clemant must have spent almost all her time alone drawing. The sketches changed colour as Layane flicked through the book, as Clemant must have exhausted the various coloured pencils. She had obviously put the most effort into the picture of the house. Clemant had always been good at drawing. The house was large and quite old fashioned. It brought up a clear image of a similar house in her mind. Where did Layane recognize it from?

I like that I couldn't think of one distinctive thing to describe about this house. Instantly recognisable, though!

Of course it's the house Clemant was brought to. Did the police not think to ask Clemant to draw the house or her kidnappers when she refused to talk? Write something down? I don't know, seems like it would be a pretty basic thing to try if your victim is ten years old and not talking.

And even if the police didn't think of asking Clemant to draw what happened (because they suck), why didn't Layane, who is supposedly very close to her sister?

Anyway, here we fucking go.

“Clemant,” [Layane] said carefully. “What is this place?” She didn’t look up. She twisted her fingers together, and seemed determined to avoid Layane’s gaze. “Is this where the people took you?” Layane asked. A nod. Layane put the picture down. She tried to keep her anger at Clemant to a minimum. She could have told them earlier. She obviously remembered a lot, as she had managed to draw such a detailed picture of the house.

How about you be angry at yourself, Layane? If you'd stayed at home with Clemant rather than going ahead with plan Let's Walk Around And See What Happens, you would have got answers sooner!

Naturally, Layane and Jezirah recognise the house.

Excitement flooded through her. She wasn’t completely sure, but she thought she had seen the house very recently. She pictured it being along a deserted road, near a wooded area. What this meant slowly washed over her. They had walked past it? “They drove really far,” Clemant suddenly said. “What?” “They drove really far when they took me there,” she muttered. “But when he drove me back it was short.” Her voice started to quiver. She was looking down at her hands. Layane put her arm around her. “So – it’s close?” A nod. “That’s daft!” she said. “It’s near here? Why would they do that?” “We didn’t notice them!” said Jezirah. “And the police didn’t!”

I'm going to take this one character at a time.

Clemant, I knew you were only going to start talking when it worked for the plot. Or, I guess... not really 'worked for the plot'. More like 'when Roen had been tortured for long enough to start hallucinating'.

Layane, if you didn't think it was possible for the house to be nearby, why THE FUCK did you and Jezirah spend an entire day walking around the local area?

Jezirah, what point are you trying to make here? Are you defending the kidnappers' plan? To what end? Other than, 'to show readers that the author knows this is silly but the world of the novel allowed it to happen anyway so deal with it', I guess.

“Come on, then,” Layane said, standing up. “We’re going. Can you remember the way we went?”              Jezirah shrugged, which gave Layane the impression that the plan to find the house was going to be as successful as their plan to wander around aimlessly.

I mean... at least you have a destination in mind this time?

There's a few paragraphs where Layane is having doubts about the plan, because she was super tired yesterday, and she's going off a kid's drawing, so maybe she's wrong and they didn't pass the house. And even if they do find the house, they don't know that Roen was taken to the same place as Clemant. It reads like they've already set off, but then Clemant asks if she can come too, so clearly they haven't.

“No,” said Layane. “Why would you want to? Just... stay here...” She snatched up the picture of the house.       “What are we going to do if we find it?” Jezirah asked. They walked quickly, and Layane tried to visualise the exact route they had taken the day before. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we have to make sure they don’t just get us as well.”

Actually, I retract my previous statement. Even though Roen was hallucinating earlier, maybe readers would genuinely think Layane is in danger. Layane has no ability to fight off attackers. Jezirah has powers that are apparently super temperamental, and the invisibility balls haven't been brought up this entire chapter, so maybe they ran out or Layane dropped the bag when Roen was taken.

These two (completely unarmed) teenagers are setting off to find a house that may be full of people who want to kill or kidnap them both.

With no plan.

Best of luck, girls!

[intothedraft]

Chapter 16: Roen is visited by three ghosts

It's now 15:30 on 18th October and Roen is very much still kidnapped, so I guess Layane and Jezirah's plan to 'walk around until something happens' failed. What a surprise.

Roen has just come to, which means he's been unconscious for... what? Over a day?

How is this guy still alive? I'm choosing to assume that Gever have preternaturally strong resistance to getting kicked in the head.

Unsurprisingly, he's in a bad way. He has a splitting headache, has thrown up multiple times, and his hands are covered in blood and bruises and he can't remember why.

[His hands] were battered, bruised, and shaking. He could see the blood vessels pumping on the backs of his hands, purple and swollen. They moved grotesquely, like tiny, wriggling worms under his skin.

This guy definitely needs a doctor.

His hands apparently don't hurt, but look like they're rotting. He doesn't have much time to think about this, because two of the goons appear.

Roen's ears are ringing, and he can't hear what they're saying. He expects them to beat him for not answering questions, but to his surprise, all the goons do is lift his hands one by one, inspecting them.

A wave of shock passed over Roen. His hands were completely fine. The damaged skin had gone. There were a couple of bruises, but other than that, there was nothing wrong with them. He blinked a few times, making sure he was seeing it right. Smooth, pale skin covered the horrible mess he had seen earlier.

Seriously, unless one of the goons is a doctor, I have no idea how Roen is still alive. He's delirious. Seeing things. After being kicked in the head.

This scene is the only scene in the second half of the book I could remember before reading this. Not-so-fun fact: I gave Roen hallucinations due to alcohol withdrawal, not because he got kicked in the head repeatedly. While that is technically possible, I like that that was my reasoning behind this, not, you know, he's been hit in the head with a crowbar and kicked in the face repeatedly.

This is such a rich tapestry of horrible.

The new man was inspecting Roen’s piercings with a greedy smile on his face. “They’re real diamond,” he said to the phone-man.

Phone-man = man who was talking on the phone outside the carehome

The goons decide that in Roen's weakened state, he can't do anything if they remove his piercings. As a reminder, Roen's piercings are subdermal piercings, although I'm not sure I knew the term when I was writing this.

Roen, who is barely conscious, doesn't understand what they're doing, so doesn't react.

“Where’s Winchester?” the newcomer asked. “I doubt he’s bothered by this,” the phone-man said. “He can just sit at home and bathe in his money while we do the dirty-work. Isn’t that the point?” “You’re right.” The newcomer crouched down next to Roen. “We’ve worked twice as hard as he did. Even at Louis’ company before all of this. I wonder how old Louis got involved with Winchester in the first place.”

No matter how dumb it would be, I'm annoyed they don't go into more detail here. What company? How did Winchester make all his money? Are Winchester and Louis two old, rich guys who decided to take on Four Arms Narnia together after Louis' yacht crashed into the cave?

Roen watches as the men eye his piercings.

Roen had most of the piercings on his arms done when he was just a child. It was a religious tradition, and one that Gever generally carried on to separate themselves from humans. He had sixty in all: ten on each of his arms, ten on his face, and ten on his neck and chest.

We're never going to get any more information about the religious significance of the piercings, or what religions there even are in Geviria, are we?

Roen suddenly realises what the men want to do. Unable to fight them off, the men yank the piercings out one by one.

Ouch.

There's a short timeskip. It's now 17:49. Roen comes to, having passed out from the pain. The men have bandaged his wounds, presumably because they were told to keep him alive. He throws up into the sink, before collapsing back onto the mattress.

“Brilliant.” What? Was he saved? He turned around as quick as his failing body would manage him, and looked across the room to the source of the voice. G-slur was sitting across from him. He thought this could have been the first time he had been pleased to see her since he was a small child. Somehow, she had found him and come to save him. She might not be pleased, but she was there... She was sitting on a throne. A tall wooden throne, which scraped the ceiling.

Roen, having been kicked in the head repeatedly and going through alcohol withdrawal, thinks G-slur is really in front of him, and brought the throne along with her for some reason. But he's confused, because why would G-slur turn up to rescue him if she wants him to die?

“No, Roen,” she said. “You know I can’t have you be killed. I need you.” “What?” They had been the first almost-kind words she had said to him in a long, long time. Why was she saying them now? “I need you... to do as I say.”

This sent a shiver through me. If this was part of a much better book, it could have hit hard.

G-slur starts to rattle off the rules he had to follow to be a Protector, making the scene a warped retelling of the night she told him about his new job. The first two rules: he can never form any kind of relationship with a human, and can never be seen by the humans he's protecting. She asks if he's followed that rule. Roen stays silent.

“Did you leave the humans alone, Roen? Or did you fuck every pretty, drunk girl in sight? And you showed the girl that you were meant to be Protecting exactly what you were, didn’t you?”

I genuinely think the entire rest of the book was written just so I could write this scene. If only I could have come up with a better way for Roen to end up kidnapped.

Roen shouts at her to stop, but G-slur continues.

“We know you were seen by the girls,” she said. “And you’ve put them into more harm than they’ve ever been in.” The voice rang clearly, even through the barrier he had put over his ears. “What?” he shouted. “They’re fine! I saved them!” “Did you?” said G-slur. “How do you know they’re not dead right now?” He dropped his hands. His heart started racing. “What?”

The non-chronological storytelling does have a purpose! We have no idea if the Ghost of G-slur Past is telling the truth or not!

What's kinda funny is that in a recent draft, I told part of the story in alternating chapters across two timelines, to lead up to the reveal of how Layane got into a Situation. I remember coming up with that and being so pleased with myself.

...and I'd completely forgotten I'd already done this six (I think) years prior.

“Layane was alone, wasn’t she? Alone, and very near where you were taken...” “She was hidden!” Roen screamed. “She was hidden! No one got her!” “... and Clemant and Jezirah were also very much alone, weren’t they? Very unprotected now that you are... incapacitated.” She spoke with a cruel sneer. Roen watched as she seemed to pluck a glass full of a transparent liquid out of the air, and took a sip. “They’re dead, Roen,” she said. Tears started to stream down his face, making his cuts burn. “No,” he said, but his voice wobbled. Even he couldn’t believe it. How could he know what had happened after he was taken? Maybe G-slur was right... She held out the glass towards him. “I think you need a drink,” she said. He tried to take it, but she pulled it away. Well, it seemed to vanish completely.

I'm annoyed I ended this section with such a poorly-worded line, because it's great! Yes, it needs work, but I really like it! No wonder this is the only part of the second half of the novel I can remember writing.

The room is empty. Roen isn't certain if he imagined G-slur, or if she did some kind of magic to leave. The 'phone-man' comes in to check on Roen, and Roen demands to know if they've found Layane.

Who Roen claimed not to know the day before.

Naturally, the phone-man asks if Roen has anything more he wants to say about Layane. When Roen says nothing, the phone-man leaves, presumably to get the others. Roen is just relieved that Layane and Clemant are safe, and tries not to think about all the imminent torture.

Before he had any time to worry about that, he realized he was face-to-face with someone who had been standing behind the phone-man. He could have come in with him. He might have been there the whole time. But he couldn’t have. It was impossible that he was standing there. A shiver passed over Roen as he stared at that familiar face. His skin had a greyish tinge to it. Blood was pouring down his chest, and from his back, where his wings appeared to have been hacked off. Around his neck hung a thick noose. It had dug into the skin, creating a row of burns. He was the Anakah Roen remembered most. The memories of him in his younger, more charming days had been distorted by this version. He no longer saw him as his partial namesake, or a short-lived father figure. He was a corpse. “Hello, Roen,” Anakah said with a smile. Blood dripped from his mouth as he spoke, but he held himself with the confidence of his that Roen remembered. “It’s been a while.”

We were for sure told that Jezirah's parents died suddenly. Do the details of Roen's hallucination mean they were mutilated?

Also, Anakah being Roen's 'partial namesake' is very funny. That means G-slur kidnapped this kid and renamed him in honour of her married boytoy, AS WELL AS the name meaning 'time of peace' to piss off her political enemies.

He opened his eyes. Anakah was still there. He leant casually against the opposite wall, one of his feet pushed up against it. He didn’t seem to notice his fatal injuries, and tossed the noose over his shoulder as if it were a scarf. In his hand was a glass, half-filled with what Roen guessed was vodka. It was his favourite drink. His favourite human spirit.

Calm down, past me, you only need to make that joke once. In the middle of this scene is really not the time.

Roen asks if he's really alive.

Anakah walked over to him, a slight limp ruining his usual swagger. One of his legs looked oddly lumpy underneath his white trousers, and Roen dry-heaved when he realized a lump of flesh was missing.        “Of course I’m not,” said Anakah. His voice was sarcastic, and he laughed a little. He stood above Roen and stared down at him. His sparkling blue eyes bore into him. They still stood out; even on his injured face.

Naturally, Roen is terrified. He tries to convince himself this is a dream, but then Anakah puts a very solid hand on Roen's shoulder.

 “You’re quite like me, Roen,” Anakah said. He took a sip from his glass, his eyes still fixated on Roen’s. Roen didn’t understand where he was coming from. Anakah was nothing like him. He didn’t know why Anakah would want to compare himself to him. “No, I’m not,” Roen hissed. “I’m afraid you are.” He laughed. “Well, you’re trying to be like me.” Another surge of cold passed over Roen’s skin. “I’m not,” he said. Anakah didn’t seem to register what Roen had said. “Of course you want to be like me! Look at me!” He pointed to his face. He stood up, and looked down on Roen.

When I first read this I assumed Anakah meant that Roen wants to be dead, because he's drinking himself to death. But then the narration starts talking about Anakah being loved by his people, so I think the intention may have been to suggest that Roen fucking around with humans is a sign he's like Anakah (?), or maybe this is just to show us that Anakah was a douchebag who only thought about himself, and therefore can't understand why Roen wouldn't want to be him. It's a bit unclear, and I prefer my first reading.

Anakah sets his glass down next to Roen.

“You were like a son to me, Roen,” said Anakah. Roen stared as the glass as he spoke. He tried to ignore the bloody stain Anakah’s mouth had left on the side of the glass. “I did some good things for you. I got G-slur to pay a lot more attention to you. I took you out of the walls for the first time, without taking you to some boring ceremony.” It was true. Roen only just heard the words; he wasn’t paying enough attention to Anakah. He started edging his aching hand towards the glass. “I know you hate me, Roen,” said Anakah. “Why?” “You know why.”

Uh... I don't know why. Could you tell me why, Roen? Way back after the flashback in Geviria, it sounded like Roen hated G-slur for what happened, not Anakah.

I guess we did get most of that information second-hand from Elint, rather than Roen himself. Then again, surely the flashback suggested that Roen was on good terms with Anakah before his death? Does Roen hate him simply because he had an affair?

Come to think of it, presumably G-slur killed Anakah and his as of yet unnamed wife. I doubt anyone knows this, but does Roen think she killed him? And if not, what does Roen think happened to Anakah, for him to have died so violently?

Maybe one day we'll find out...

Roen reaches for the glass, which vanishes.

“Thanks for trying to save me. It’s a shame you were too late, Roen.”

What?? Roen tried to save him? Does that mean Roen found him like this?

...is this something we already knew?

I went back to check Elint's Exposition Corner and the earlier Roen chapter, and the answer is no. Elint mentioned that Anakah and his wife 'died suddenly' and that Roen was 'broken up' about it, but not that he literally found their bodies!

Maybe Roen didn't tell Elint that part? I can't see that being the case though, seeing as Roen is just godawful at lying.

Anakah had gone. He had vanished with the drink. But the pool of blood remained on the floor, and it was still growing. He quickly checked his body as best he could, making sure he was not bleeding that much. But the only blood on him was on his arms, slowly seeping through the bandages. And there was nowhere near enough to create the morbid pool. The dripping continued. He looked up. There were trees above him. Tall, twisting trees, covered in moss. Their tiny leaves were falling noiselessly onto the forest floor.

Oh dear.

Roen finds himself in a Gevirian forest. He hears someone crying, and follows the noise. Before he reaches the crying Gever, he hears the scuffle of feet, which turns into heavy footsteps as they run away from him. He calls out, but they don't respond.

Then, he saw something. There was a large, red pool on the ground. And it was slowly growing. He looked up, and backed away. He wanted to scream, but his throat seemed to be locked. There was a Gever hanging in the tree. Most of their body – and he couldn’t even tell from the back if they were male or female – was covered in blood. His automatic reaction was to run, but then he realized he couldn’t. He had to help. He was a Protector, after all. This was just like him doing his job.

Roen springs into action. He flies up and frees the Gever, whose wings have been torn off, and other parts of his body hacked apart. Roen only recognises the body as Anakah once he's back on the ground.

Returning to my previous question: what does Roen think happened to Anakah? And a new question: why the hell did G-slur let him find the body(/ies)? Surely that's asking for trouble?

Roen breaks down, and even though Anakah is clearly dead, tries desperately to save him by doing CPR, which he somehow knows how to do. I would maybe assume it's a requirement of being a Protector, but we already know that canonically, Roen had no training at all.

Anakah’s eyes were open. The light blue had vanished, replaced with a dead white. Tears started to fall down Roen’s face as he desperately tried to keep him alive – bring him to life – he needed to be okay, he had been who he had been most looking forward to seeing when he came back down from the Upper World for the first time.

This might be a bit nitpicky, but does this not muddy the timeline? This has been phrased like Roen's first foray to the Upper World went broadly okay, when we know he nearly died of hypothermia.

“Help!” he yelled into the jungle, but predictably, no one was there. “Help me!” Blood fell on his face from above, soaking his hoodie in the thick, red liquid... What? He looked up. There was nothing above him. Where had the blood come from? “Wake up!” He opened his eyes. He wasn’t in the jungle; he was in the small room. He wasn’t with dying Anakah; he was with his captors. And it wasn’t blood they had thrown over him, but water.

Not a bad transition. It's going to take a bit more than a glass of water to undo all the brain damage you've inflicted on Roen, though.

We're not told which of Roen's captors are here initially, which I'm going to read as them all blurring together because of said brain damage. I assume it's the usual squad.

Louis (who is apparently here) asks Roen where Layane and Clemant are, now that he's basically admitted he knows. Before Roen can attempt to lie, Louis frowns at Roen's bandages, and asks who did that. No one offers any answers, so Louis removes some of the bandages and sees that Roen's piercings are gone.

“Did someone... take his piercings?” [Louis said]             Winchester approached Louis. He put his hand on his shoulder. “What did you tell us about the diamonds from Geviria?” he said.             “They... they allow Gever to pass through.” He buried his face in his hands. “We should have done it ourselves...”             “They weren’t diamond. They were silver. I saw them,” said the other man from across the room.             “Well, some of them must’ve been. How else could he come up here?” said Winchester.

You... you KNOW THIS?

And you didn't use this to GO INTO GEVIRIA YOURSELF?

The ONE (1) saving grace for these guys was that the narrative hadn't EXPLICITLY said they know it's diamonds that let Gever enter and leave Geviria. Sure, they know about the Key, and they know Roen can presumably enter and leave somehow, but maybe, just MAYBE, these guys hadn't put two and two together and realised Roen's diamonds work the same way as the Key, and assumed because he didn't have a Key in his pocket that they couldn't get in.

NOPE. APPARENTLY THEY FULLY KNEW.

All these guys want is to get into Geviria and steal diamonds, and when the opportunity lands in their lap they... ignore it completely.

Note to self: if you want to write a story just to write one horrible scene, MAKE SURE THE PLOT YOU ADD AROUND IT MAKES SENSE.

Louis and the two goons who were in the room with them leave for Louis to interrogate them about what happened, leaving Roen alone with Winchester.

“Tell me where the girls are,” [Winchester] said shortly. Roen toyed with the idea of telling him that there was no point of finding Layane and Clemant. They did know nothing, after all. But he didn’t think Winchester would believe him.

I mean... that might help, Roen. What is there to lose at this point?

Instead of saying that, Roen says, 'no.'

We skip to 4am on 19th October. Roen has just come to, making this the... fifth? - I think it's the fifth anyway? - time he's fallen unconscious and come to.

This man has a superpower. That superpower is 'not dying when he's kicked in the head repeatedly'. And Roen has 'fresh bruises on his face' which suggest he's been hit or kicked in the head again. And he DOESN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT WINCHESTER DID TO HIM.

Not to critique the torture methods of these bad guys, but HOW is this supposed to yield results?

Somehow, Roen manages to stand up and walk to the door. Locked. He hasn't eaten in days, and keeps feeling like he's going to throw up. He hammers his fist on the door for a while, then collapses to the floor.

He didn’t feel angry or sad anymore. He just felt empty. Helpless. He knew he would probably die there, alone. No one would come for him. “Roen?” He summoned every piece of strength he had to turn around, and face the back of the room. She was lying under the boarded-up window. Her hair was matted with blood; her face was bruised and battered. She was positioned awkwardly, and her leg appeared to be broken. What was she doing there? How had they found her? “Layane?”

Dun dun DUUUUNNNN.

[intothedraft]

The best thing about this dialogue is that these guys are related and both have the surname Sovance. They're two of the bad guys, and it's meant to be a murderous family feud, but I think I kept forgetting that while writing them.

So I choose to read this as a passive aggressive dig, like, "I can't believe you haven't asked about your newborn niece once since I came back to work as your evil henchman, Alex."

Need everyone to know that this part of draft 1 killed my fiancée, so now if she asks me what I'm doing I can crack out, "Oh, you know, just giving birth to baby Clara Sovance," and she absolutely loses it.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 15: Wait, Roen's an alcoholic?

When I was writing the last post, I asked myself: is it really true that Roen was unconscious for eight hours? Am I just exaggerating for comedic effect? It didn't feel like Layane and Roen had been outside the home that long, but there were no timestamps after Layane's arrival and there was a timeskip in the middle of that section, so theoretically they could have been staking out the home until the early hours of the morning...

Then I scrolled down and saw this, which means it's been at least nine hours, and I'm even more surprised that Roen is still alive.

Also, no, I have no idea why these chapters aren't in chronological order. Maybe I'm building up to something. I don't know. I'm in the middle of a heatwave and my brain is soup.

Colour fell back onto her skin as she ran. Her sides were splitting with pain from the effort it was taking her to run. Her eyes stung as the cold air hit her face; or she might have been crying. She couldn’t tell.

That's very dramatic and all, but I'm not convinced anyone could mistake cold air hitting their face for crying.

Layane keeps running until she reaches the door. Shit, she realises, I'll have to tell Jezirah what happened.

You know what would have been interesting? If it was established that Layane never told Clemant anything bad or scary, not wanting to scare her little sister, and unintentionally started doing the same thing to Jezirah. That would make sense of the whole not-telling-Jezirah-about-Roen thing, and with a few tweaks could have been linked to the reason Clemant was kidnapped, if Layane knew something about what happened with their parents that she refused to reveal to anyone.

Or maybe it could be framed around Nicola's refusal to tell Layane anything that might upset her, which eventually leads to Layane realising she's doing to Jezirah (and Clemant) what her mother did to her.

I have no idea what I was going for here, especially because both Jezirah and Clemant feel more like Plot Enablers than developed characters, so I'm going to choose to imagine it's something like that.

[Layane] felt dreadful; but she knew Jezirah would feel worse. She didn’t even know why she was feeling so terrible about it. Roen was nothing to her – bar being someone who had followed her around for years. And who had completely failed at his only job to protect her. He had accidentally killed Sue. He allowed Clemant to be captured. She was completely justified in hating him. Then it hit her. The only reason she was feeling bad was that it was her fault. Am I really that selfish? she thought, and am I any better than him? She didn’t know if she could have done anything to stop the men from taking him, but the thought that she might have been able to sat at the back of her mind painfully. And what if he died? Everything felt like it was her fault.

Every time we see Layane's feelings towards Roen laid out like this - and it's happened several times - it reads like I'm trying to justify Layane caring about him to readers. You know, because they're meant to be together, honest, even though I've given Layane precisely no reason to be interested in him.

While Layane is trying to convince herself that what happened is not her fault (even though it is), Jezirah spots her and opens the door. She asks what happened, and Layane tells her everything.

“He’ll escape,” [Jezirah] said. The way she looked couldn’t be considered ‘happy’, but she certainly looked more hopeful than Layane could have imagined. “They... they hit him on the back of the head with a crowbar and drove him away,” Layane said. “Sorry, Jezirah I don’t think he’ll be able to es...” “He will, okay?” Jezirah snapped. “He’s great. He’ll be fine. He’ll probably be back tomorrow.”

Layane realises that Jezirah is in denial, and is trying to work out what to do when she realises that Roen was probably taken to the same place Clemant was. Clemant could tell them where to go! Layane goes to ask her.

It's not the worst plan, especially seeing as Layane is right. However, because she is right, surely that means:

If Clemant does know where exactly she was held, why are the bad guys still hanging out there? I get that they WANT Layane to find them, but surely Clemant could have told the police everything?

Even if she didn't say anything, couldn't the police have traced the car's movements using CCTV? Yeah it might be tricky, but as far as they know, Layane is still being held by these people, and Clemant just got re-kidnapped by them! Aren't they trying?

If Clemant is going to tell the gang where the house is specifically because Roen is in danger, did no one at the police try to get information out of her by suggesting that Layane might be in danger if they can't find the kidnappers?

Jesus, the cops in this novel are terrible.

Layane asks Clemant where she was taken, and... Clemant still doesn't want to say anything.

Very convenient. For the plot, I mean. Not for Roen.

Jezirah tells Clemant it's fine, because Roen isn't in danger! It doesn't matter if she stays silent!

“You can’t seriously believe that,” said Layane. “He could be dead already.” “He’ll escape.” “No, he won’t! He was overpowered so easily! And he looked ill, or something, when we were waiting for the people to turn up so that won’t get any better...” She remembered him cold and shaking.

I checked. There is no reference to Roen looking ill, cold or shivery before his kidnap. Must be a retcon.

Jezirah isn't convinced. Roen was ill in Geviria, but he was fine then. Ignoring the fact that Jezirah was super concerned for Roen when he was ill (read: hungover), Layane is sickened that Jezirah has no idea that Roen is an alcoholic.

Then she realises something she has realised many times before, but never quite in the right words.

Shit. Roen is an alcoholic.

What was Roen like completely sober? She thought back, trying to remember him without a bottle in his hand. The only time she had seen him sober – as far as she knew – was that day. And he had been looking agitated and shivery. It didn’t bode well, whatever it was. She hoped it was just the weather affecting him.

I really don't think that's the case, Layane.

Finally, she decides that Jezirah needs to know the truth. She leads Jezirah to Roen's room, which is full of evidence that he's trying to drink himself to death.

I'm not going to think about what that room must smell like, especially right after a one-night stand.

...

Come to think of it, how the hell did Roen explain to Jezirah who the girl was?

I assume it doesn't matter, so let's move on. Layane shows Jezirah a bottle and tells her that Roen is clearly addicted to alcohol, so he's probably not in a fit state to do much of anything, never mind free himself from the kidnappers.

The words seemed to have little impact on Jezirah. She was holding the bottle’s label close to her eyes, as if she was trying to read the foreign letters. “You don’t have to understand everything,” Layane said. “Just know that Roen’s... ‘weakened himself’ quite a lot.” She was fixated on the bottle. She wasn’t just looking at it; she appeared to be in a trance. “Um, Jezirah?” Layane said. There was a sudden flash of light, which seemed to come from Jezirah herself. It burst away from her like a firework, sending Layane flying backwards into the wall; but Jezirah didn’t move. Her hair blew backwards as the light passed over her; her eyes were open and glassy. As quickly as it appeared, it vanished. Jezirah blinked, and kept looking at the bottle. Layane, who had landed painfully, wanted an explanation but none came. Instead, Jezirah said, “Roen’s killing himself.” “What?” Layane said. “Jezirah, what happened?” Jezirah looked down at her. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s the Ager.” She held out her hand, which Layane accepted, and pulled her up. The explanation didn’t resolve Layane’s confusion. “What?” “When I come across some things,” she said, “that the Ager thinks I ought to know about in my adult age, I just sort of – know it.” She put the bottle down. “I didn’t notice it was happening at first. It used to happen a lot. But now only rarely, and I can sort of tell when it’s happening.”

That's horrifying. The spell that took away her childhood randomly plants information in her mind?

How does it know what information is needed? Does someone control this? What exactly does it respond to?

I really hope this isn't the only time it comes up. Ignoring that surely Jezirah should know what alcohol is by now, seeing as she's been around Roen a lot and he left loads of bottles in her house, it's interesting! If someone (G-slur?) is controlling it, surely that has major ramifications for Geviria's leadership?

Also... does the Ager always go off like a bomb, blasting people around the room, every time it helps Jezirah learn something? Did Roen know about this when he decided bringing Jezirah to the Upper World - where she would be surrounded by things she's never seen before - was a good idea?

Maybe that's what happened in the hospital corridor: Jezirah learnt what a cop was, blasted him across the room, and teleported away in surprise.

“So it... makes you know what an adult should know?” “Yes. Sort of.” “Can it make you know that we have to go and rescue Roen?”

Did I only introduce this element of the Ager's power to make a joke? Knowing me, probably.

There's something here, though. Layane and Clemant's childhoods were taken away from them due to forces outside their control - so was Jezirah's. It's a shame I hadn't realised this. Maybe I would have come up with a better plot than 'characters repeatedly get kidnapped and released'.

Jezirah now believes Layane, and finally agrees they should go and look for Roen. Not until the morning, though. He can wait.

Honestly, that's fair enough after he failed to tell Layane there wasn't really a search party looking for Clemant when they were back in Geviria.

The world's best planners come up with another exceptional plan: walk in the direction the bad guys' car was travelling in. and hope for the best.

Yep. That is the very best plan two characters who can turn invisible, teleport, and potentially enlist help from hundreds of other magical people, can come up with.

Not only is it stupid as hell, surely this plan carries a major risk of Layane being spotted? If not by the kidnappers, by the general public, who would recognise her as a high-profile missing person?

Guess I forgot about that.

“At least we’d be doing something that might be useful.” [Layane said]

You keep telling yourself that.

Layane goes back to her room, where Clemant is waiting for her in bed.

“If you ever want to tell me about what happened, please do it soon,” Layane said. “It might help us.” Clemant bit her lip, and didn’t respond. Layane got into the bed. She closed her eyes, but stayed slightly alert in the hope that Clemant would soon say something. “I hope they don’t hurt him too much,” Clemant said, before she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Good luck getting any sleep tonight, Layane.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 14: I sure hope these goons have medical training

Completely forgot my queue had run out, so I'm writing this post today. Good thing the next few chapters aren't that long!

I was going to say 'a normal chapter length' before remembering recently I got feedback that a 5,000-word-long opening chapter is a turn-off for agents. So if we're classing The Human Spirit's chapters as abnormally long, that's a habit I still haven't managed to kick.

Anyway!

Roen time!

Roen wakes up in the purpose-built cell where Clemant was previously held. He takes a while to recall what happened the day before, which is unsurprising seeing as the timestamps suggest he has been unconscious for over eight hours.

After being hit in the head with a crowbar.

Roen should be dead.

As a random aside, I told my fiancée about this, and we agreed that this came about because I was using Movie Logic. Yeah, people can get hit in the head with a crowbar and come to all the time! "Just like Formaldehyde," my fiancée said.

"Formaldehyde?" I asked.

"No, wait, not formaldehyde, you know when people get knocked out in movies."

"OH," I said. "Amitriptyline."

"No, not - "

"Wait that's my medication..."

"It begins with a F."

"I'm sure it begins with an A."

"CHLOROFORM."

Hope you enjoyed this insight into the capacity me and my fiancées' brains are operating at today.

Speaking of people whose brains surely can't be working at their usual capacity, Roen realises he isn't alone. There are four people in the room with him, two from the car, two strangers (one of whom is clearly Winchester), all smartly dressed.

I really hope we get some information on who these people are. Is Winchester making them dress this way or is this some kind of Goons R Us uniform?

Winchester - who to Roen is just a man whose face is badly burned - asks who Roen is. Roen Uno-reverses the question and asks who Winchester is, leading one of Winchester's goons to kick him in the stomach.

Winchester then holds up a bag of tagliatelles, which doesn't quite track for me because I thought Roen gave Layane his bag, but never mind. I guess there was another bag of Invisibility Balls in his bag, and he took it out to give to her, which wasn't made clear at all in the last chapter but that's hardly a huge concern. Winchester asks Roen what they are, and a horrified Roen realises Winchester already knows.

Roen felt a pressure on his back when Winchester threw it at him. He didn’t look at them, but heard a scuffle that suggested to him one of the people had recoiled in shock, or horror. He looked to the side to see his wing stretched out to its whole span, almost touching the wall. “What the hell is that?” the woman shouted. “That,” said Winchester, “Is exactly what we need.”

Hey, Winchester? Can I call you Winchester? I'm going to call you that because even though I created you, I have no idea if that's meant to be a first name, last name or codename. Maybe we'll find out at some point. Anyway, just wondering: why didn't you tell your goons about the Gever? The whole purpose of this is to get information about Geviria, but they clearly have no idea what Gever are or what Geviria is. Surely that's a major risk? What if Clemant had said something about the Gever, but your goons had no idea it was useful information because they had no idea what it was you were looking for?

I only ask because I assumed the reason they knew nothing is that you didn't want them to know anything, and now you've revealed the existence of Gever to all of them. Wouldn't it have been easier if they knew all along, even if they did think you were crazy? Surely if you're paying them enough that they're kidnapping and torturing kids on your behalf, knowing you're doing this to get into Four Arms Narnia on top of that (?) wouldn't really matter?

Back to Roen's Wild Ride. Winchester asks where Layane is. Roen claims to not know her, even though he was found loitering outside her home. Unsurprisingly, Winchester doesn't believe him, because not only is it obviously a lie, he was also spotted at the hospital at the time Clemant vanished.

Does that mean the police have seen CCTV of Roen flying around? Let's not think too hard about that.

Winchester also knows - somehow - that Roen is a Protector, so it sounds like he knows a great deal about Geviria and how its people operate.

Possibly more than the author.

Roen says nothing, earning him some kicks in the head, which is... just the absolute worst way to torture someone who you're trying to get coherent information out of. Where did Winchester get these goons?

Then we find out that...

Actually, I'm just going to paste this section in its entirety.

“Louis,” Winchester said, turning to one of the men. “You wanted to ask the thing something?” Roen looked up, and saw Louis walking towards him. He crouched down in front of Roen. “I’ve been to your ‘country’,” he said. “My boat was wrecked on the shore. There was a cave, and I went in for shelter. Imagine my surprise when someone walked out of the wall.” Roen listened to the words, but his mind wandered elsewhere. He glanced around the room, to see a boarded-up window. At the time, he felt too weak to attempt to escape that way, but if he waited for a while it could be ideal. “You!” shouted Louis. “Listen!” He turned back to face him. “I went to your... ‘country’,” spat Louis. “Accidentally. And I was allowed in – but sent away. “They told me that humans had arrived before! They had been showered with gifts and cared for just because they found the cave while on holiday. But they sent me away. They didn’t even help me find my wife. She must’ve died in the collision.”

I guess one of the goons isn't just a goon. And the reason this is happening is... this guy got shipwrecked on the island with the cave, his wife was killed, and the Gever... brought him inside, probably patched him up, and then made him leave?

Have I got that right? This isn't even because the Gever's actions killed his wife?

He's doing all of this because he crashed into an island by mistake and wasn't showered with gifts as a result?!

(Who knows how Winchester plays into this.)

I probably meant that the Gever brought him inside and then immediately kicked him out to the mainland again, but the fact he was 'let in, and then sent away' is pretty ambiguous, especially considering he seems to have picked up a lot of information about Geviria when he was there.

Roen apologises on behalf of his people because he doesn't want to get kicked in the head again. Louis says he doesn't care about all that any more. What he does care about is all the diamonds he saw in Geviria, and how much money he'll have if he sells them.

Ah. So there was a point to that market chapter. Foreshadowing for this. Right.

Roen’s head was pounding. The kidnappers’ motives brought him a fresh anger. He didn’t know why they wanted Layane and Clemant, but he didn’t really want to believe that the only reason they had been put through this was for money... “The other humans who arrived,” said Winchester. “Who of course you know to be Simon and Nicola Thompson – were given a Key. This Key – as I’m sure you know – allows humans to pass through the walls of Geviria. We need that Key.” Roen laughed. “If you know anything about Geviria, you’ll know about G-slur,” he said. “And she’s been looking for it for a very long time now. If she can’t find it – you have little hope.”

So Louis' wife was killed, and all he takes from this is: DIAMONDS! Not, hang on, there's a secret magical civilisation underground, just WOW DIAMONDS.

I have no idea why they didn't just go to the island and wait. Preferably with guns. There was really no need for all of this.

Louis says that G-slur was the one who turned him away, which does make me wonder why she didn't just kill him. Surely if you don't want humans sniffing around, it's much easier for him to disappear? His wife just died in a shipwreck, wouldn't everyone assume he'd gone the same way? Also, why the fuck would you tell him about the Key?

I'm trying to work out if he could have found out about the Key another way, but I'm drawing a blank. If G-slur or another Gever didn't tell him about the Key specifically, he might have managed to find out about it from Nicola or Simon, but for that to be the case someone must have told him about them, which is just as bad as (if not worse than) telling him they have a key to get in.

Louis asks Roen how much he knows about G-slur, and Roen says 'a little'.

The two men looked at each other. It was plain to Roen that they didn’t believe it. “You’re a lot younger that the other Protectors I’ve heard of,” Louis said. “Yes, we’ve heard of others,” he added. “Why is this?” “I’m just... awesome,” said Roen.

I like that 'yes, we've heard of others' is definitely in there because I realised that didn't quite make sense. Surely to have obtained this information, they would have had to speak to other Protectors? Or at least manage to track them down and spy on them? In which case, how the hell hadn't Geviria found out about these idiots until they kidnapped Layane and Clemant? The Protectors are meant to be looking out for threats and they didn't notice this motley crew hanging around?!

The only other option is that Louis was inside Geviria long enough to get this information, which again suggests he was there for a pretty long time, and -

Hang on.

Their aim is to get into Geviria. Roen can get in and out of Geviria, as a Protector. These guys seemingly know how Protectors work. Why the fuck do they need the Key? Can't they jut force Roen to take them inside?

Honestly, Roen is so lucky these guys are dumb as a box of rocks. Maybe they don't know he can enter and leave at will, because they think you need a key that looks like the one they're searching for, and they haven't noticed that Roen's piercings work the same way.

Louis points out that a tattoo on Roen's neck - no, I can't remember this being mentioned before, either - is remarkably similar to the distinctive tattoos G-slur has.

Yes, this followed on directly from Roen saying he's awesome. I assume Louis has worked out that Roen must be linked to G-slur and is therefore important, and that's why he went from asking about Roen's role to G-slur's tattoos, but it is a bit random.

“G-slur had that exact tattoo,” Louis said. “I’m just wondering why this guy has the same one.” “Coincidence,” Roen said.

I love that Roen's only consistent character trait is that he's terrible at lying.

He could have said, 'it's a common design' or something else to that effect. Nah. 'Coincidence.'

Not suspicious at all.

Louis asks how close Roen is to G-slur. Roen says he isn't, and gets kicked in the chest repeatedly. When he curls up to protect himself, one of the men stamps on his wing, breaking it. Then, for good measure, he's kicked in the face.

How is this guy still alive?

After Louis drops that line of questioning and asks a few questions about Nicola's whereabouts (which Roen can't answer), Winchester, Louis and the goons go to leave.

“We’ll be back later,” said Winchester, straightening his shirt. “To see how much you want to tell us about Layane then.” He turned to the others. “Keep him alive,” he said. “I think you must’ve given him a concussion.”

Why the hell were you letting your goons kick him repeatedly in the head, then?

Now alone, Roen crawls to the sink and drinks some water. He hopes someone will rescue him, even though he's certain G-slur won't send anyone, because this is what she wanted to happen.

(But didn't want to happen, but wanted to happen, but didn't w- )

He stared at the reflection of the stripped-down room in the surface of the water. He began to wonder if he would ever see Layane again. It was strange; even though she hated him, and even though he had hardly ever spoken to her, she felt like a friend to him.

Of course he thinks about Layane before Elint or Jezirah. That's romance, baby!

His reflection in the shiny porcelain looked sadly back at him. His mouth and chin still had patches of blood, which was dripping onto his clothes. Some of his hair was plastered to his face with sweat. Then, there was a large, dark form behind him. His heart started to pound. The water distorted the shape; he turned to expect Winchester behind him. But his eyes met the wall. Nothing was there.

Roen flops onto the mattress and fishes a cigarette out of his pocket. Unfortunately, his lighter is broken, so he just lies there with an unlit cigarette between his lips. The chapter ends with him falling unconscious.

Again.

If Winchester and Louis want you to stay alive, I think the goons are going to need a miracle.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 13, part 2: The plan is... to sit in a bush and see what happens

[Layane] spent much of the night thinking about what exactly she would do. Her plan was quite simple. She would go to the home. If Shafinah was right, there could be someone there waiting for her. She would hide herself somewhere around the house and wait. It wouldn’t be hard to find a hiding place – apparently Roen had used one for years.

Or... you could not do that. You could take Clemant and leave.

At least we've finally been told what the 'bait plan' entails. Up until now they've just been saying, 'let's use Layane as bait!' with no further context.

Clemant would only worry if she knew she was going, so she didn’t wake her. She changed her clothes, packed some food into a small bag, and left.

Hang on. Your plan is to do this alone?

Maybe I could have worked that out from the way the first paragraph was worded, but I assumed that couldn't be the case because that's the stupidest thing I've ever read.

The whole reason for the plan is to draw the kidnappers out, so The World's Best Planners can grab the bad guys and find out why they're doing this. I assume they're planning on doing a bit of torture themselves, even though no one's said it aloud. What else could they mean?

Anyway.

That plan sort of works if Layane is the bait, and Jezirah and Roen are lying in wait nearby to nab the bad guys. Yeah, Jezirah and Roen wouldn't be my first two choices either, but Roen does have experience grabbing people from the ground and flying them away, and Jezirah can teleport as well as probably having other powers we haven't seen yet.

Layane's plan is to... what? Sit in a bush and wait until the kidnappers accidentally explain their whole plan in front of her?

Has Roen's one-night stand rattled her this much?

She took Clemant’s pencils and made a brief note. She scribbled down, plan time.

Clear as fucking mud. Let's hope you don't get in trouble, Layane, because based on that note, no one is arriving to intervene.

Layane just... fucking leaves. Walks out of the front door, heading for the carehome where presumably her whole plan is to sit there and wait for something to happen, and be unable to do anything if it does.

She didn’t know what she would do if she caught someone snooping around. She wouldn’t be able to just walk up to them and ask why they had taken her sister, and if they were adults she would have little chance of overpowering them. Only this made her want someone else to come along with her.

THEN WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS THE POINT OF DOING THIS?

But seeing as her only option was Roen – who probably couldn’t do a lot to restrain one of the kidnappers either – she tried to ignore this worry.

I get it, Roen is a piece of shit, you hate him, etc etc, but he DID rescue you from a moving car and accidentally murder someone via surprise flight. He's not completely useless.

Also: Jezirah????

It transpires that Layane's plan for if the kidnappers spot her is to scream very loudly and hope someone comes to help her. Yep. That is the entirety of her plan.

[Screaming if something happened] would certainly ruin the fact that no one knew where she was. But even if it did – what did it matter after everything was solved? If it weren’t for the imminent police attention and likely news coverage, she would be looking forward to her life going back to normal.

I have no idea why I thought any of this made sense at the time.

Layane, if it doesn't matter if the police find you, YOU AND CLEMANT CAN JUST LEAVE AND BE DONE WITH ALL THIS.

I get that she doesn't like the police, but surely by doing this plan she is guaranteeing one of the following will happen:

Layane hangs around the carehome, no one shows up, and she has to return back to the others having done absolutely fuck all

Layane is caught by the kidnappers

Layane is not caught by the kidnappers, but only because she caused a scene which led to the police stepping in

If the BEST CASE SCENARIO is either 'nothing happens' or 'the police step in', why don't you just go to the fucking police?

Layane, for some reason, decides to go through with this anyway, and sits in the bushes outside her carehome and waits.

The longer she sat there, the more she wanted to go back home. She saw half of the children leave at one point, for an outing into the town no doubt. She felt strange watching from the bushes, as if she wasn’t supposed to be there. But she was supposed to be there.

The police in this town really do suck, to be fair. Clemant has just been re-kidnapped and there's not even a police presence outside the home?

She hoped Shafinah was right. She started to feel like a creep, watching the area for any sign of movement not cause by the children. It was long since daybreak when she began to feel tired again. It was no doubt the monotony of what she was doing that caused it. Boredom was all she felt. It had completely overtaken any worries she had earlier.

'I really super hope that the bad guys are going to show up and start loudly talking about their plans so I can go home...'

Worth mentioning that I assume Layane's plan is to overhear something. She hasn't explicitly said this, so according to the actual writing, her plan is to wait in a bush and see if she spots anything suspicious.

Without any real ability to investigate further or fight back if things went south.

Great plan.

I do love that the structure of this suggests that most of the kids living there left 'before daybreak'. So before 7am. 'For an outing to the town.'

Layane realises, in the very finite amount of wisdom that she has, that if she's hidden, that means she isn't really using herself as bait. She's just hiding in a bush. So, naturally, she stands up and starts walking around.

Yep.

After a while, she becomes paranoid that someone is going to appear and kidnap her. Which... is the whole point of doing this, but never mind. She leaps back into a bush and hides. Then she hears footsteps.

She expected a warning before anyone came up to her. She thought she’d see them coming from across the park, at least. But then the speed of the footsteps increased into a run, and she didn’t see them before a pair of legs appeared right in front of her. For a horrifying moment, she thought it was over. He had trapped her. She would be taken, and tortured like Clemant must have been. It was incredibly unlikely that Roen or Jezirah would be able to find and rescue her. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

I guess there's meant to be a park next to the carehome? Or maybe I'm referring to the carehome's grounds as a park now? Who knows.

Anyway, in a lucky break for Layane, it's just Roen, who somehow managed to interpret the note she left perfectly.

Maybe they are soulmates.

Layane looked up, and groaned. “Can’t you guess?” she said to Roen. He looked messy, as if he had hastily dressed himself.

Why does this really read like Layane did all this because she's extremely jealous?

Roen points out that Layane doesn't need to sit in a bush, there are other hiding places that are a bit more comfortable, and they head over to one of them. The narrative confirms they are outside the carehome, and there's no further mention of a park, so I must have called the grounds around the home 'the park' for no reason.

“I was fine alone,” she said.

Were you, though? Were you really?

“You know I have to help,” said Roen. He stood under part of a tree, using it as a shelter to smoke under. “Well, I don’t want you to,” she said. “I was doing fine on my own, wasn’t I?” She looked at the cigarette, and added, “Do you have to do that?” “Why don’t you?” he said.             Layane scoffed. “I think you could probably guess why! When did that girl leave in the morning?”             “Are you jealous?”             She laughed sarcastically. “Are you still drunk?”

I mean, it really does seem like you're jealous, Layane. Sorry. I do agree that Roen shouldn't be smoking while you're staking out the home, though.

Roen tells Layane that Clemant is very worried about her, and he left Jezirah trying to console her. In response, Layane tells him that Jezirah nearly stayed up all night waiting for him, because she was worried about him.

Maybe focus on the matter at hand, guys?

“(...) after this, G-slur can sort out the kidnappers and everything will go back to normal.” Roen sighed. “I wouldn’t take her word on anything,” he said. “We’ll just have to... see what happens.” Layane didn’t understand his distrust. G-slur had cared for him when he was younger – maybe not directly, but she did. And she was perhaps a little selfish in why she needed information on the kidnappers, but other than that Layane saw nothing wrong with her. At any rate, she did not seem to be as despicable as Elint had painted her to be.

Roen: I grew up with Glur as a guardian. She is evil.

Elint: I have lived in Geviria my whole life and work with G-slur regularly. She is evil.

Jezirah: I work alongside G-slur, and haven't outright said she's evil, but when Roen said she was going to kill him I believed him!

Layane: I've met her one time and she seemed fine!

Layane asks what Roen's problem with G-slur is.

For a long time, he didn’t reply. Then, he said, “She didn’t send out a search party. She told you she was going to... to punish me.”

I actually remembered that Layane didn't know this. This whole situation is deeply stupid, so I figured we were going to get to the end of the novel with this as an unresolved thread.

Kudos for proving me wrong, past me.

However I'm going to rescind the kudos already, because for some reason, this does not start an argument. Layane is stunned, can't figure out why that would be a punishment for Roen, but ultimately decides to drop it.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself:

“What?” Layane didn’t believe it. How could that have been a punishment for Roen? The only person who would have got punished through this was Clemant. If it was true, did that mean that she only had to be waiting around outside because G-slur didn’t want to send out a search party? “Just... don’t expect that everything will go to plan,” Roen said. He raised a trembling hand to his mouth, which Layane watched. Was he really that worried about G-slur? Layane didn’t know what would happen if the kidnappers weren’t ‘dealt with’ – as G-slur had put it. She could have to stay at the apartment with Roen and Jezirah, she guessed.              [Page break] Layane was thankful that for most of the time, they didn’t talk.

I mean, there is another choice, Layane. You could go to the police and explain all this in the least insane way possible, and keep you and your sister safe.

Never mind.

It's getting dark, and is now raining heavily. Layane and Roen have been sitting around for hours, Roen chain-smoking the entire time. Somehow, no one has noticed the smoke coming from a tree in the grounds around a children's home, proving that the overarching theme of this book is safeguarding failure.

Suddenly, a man shows up.

A man had walked across the park a while ago. He had glanced over at Roen, and then left. But then he had come back again, and hung around.

Again, by 'park' I assume I mean 'the grounds'.

Also, aren't Roen and Layane meant to be hiding? Has Roen just been standing around this whole time in full view?

The man, who is wearing a suit for some reason, is hanging around and has a few short phonecalls, but he's too far away for our protagonists to hear what he's saying.

Hey, maybe if Layane stayed in the other bush, her 'wait until I overhear something weird' plan might have actually worked!

Roen thinks he recognises the man as being one of the people who kidnapped Clemant, but he isn't sure. He gives Layane a bag of the Invisibility Balls and goes to get a better look.

No, I'm not sure why he didn't throw one over himself.

Layane crept forwards a little to watch him. He flicked his cigarette butt to the ground, and followed the man across the grass. Layane wondered what he would do if it did turn out to be who he had seen in the car. The man was slightly shorter than he was, but Layane doubted that Roen would be able to overpower him if he needed to. As he was about to leave Layane’s sight around a corner, she was tempted to throw one of the lights over herself and follow him. But when he reached the corner, he paused; Layane couldn’t tell why.

Uh oh. That doesn't sound good.

Then, she saw them. Whoever the man was – and Layane thought it very likely that he was ‘the man from the car’ -, he was not alone. She held the light in her hand, bracing herself for if they noticed and ran over to her. But they hadn’t noticed her; they had noticed Roen. Two of the people – a man and a woman – stood very close to either side of him. Roen was looking ahead, maybe oblivious to them; they looked as if they were ready to stop him in case he tried to get away.

Firstly, no, I have no idea how to picture what's happening. I assume that Roen is on the carehome's driveway (so still fully visible to any passersby), and the people in suits* have approached him, but were previously obscured from Layane's view by the trees. Or maybe Layane moved to be able to see them? No idea.

Secondly, why the hell haven't you made yourself invisible already Layane? What do you have to lose?

Thirdly, if you idiots had realised that Clemant was kidnapped so her kidnappers could get information about Geviria out of her - which is really fucking obvious to anyone with one braincell - maybe you would also have realised that sending an actual Gever to check them out is a really stupid idea?

* At least Winchester has a sense of style.

Layane watches as someone pulls up in a car, and one of the suits gestures for Roen to get inside.

She didn’t take her eyes off them for a second. One of the men started towards Roen, and grabbed his arm. Within a second of him doing so, an invisible force had knocked him to the ground.

If it's unclear, Roen used his invisible arms (or wings?) to knock the man to the ground.

Chaos erupts. The goons surround Roen, who tries to fly away, before... landing next to the punched man? It's unclear exactly why he did that, seeing as surely the best plan would be to run at this point. Lights start turning on in nearby houses. Layane is rooted to the spot, trying to work out if she could do anything that wouldn't make the situation worse, or bring attention onto her.

(Evidently I've forgotten she can make herself invisible.)

It happened very quickly. The other kidnappers looked as though they were about to swarm him, when one of the women stepped forwards. She had vanished behind the car, and come back with what looked first to Layane like a stick. As she swung it against Roen’s skull, Layane realized it was a crowbar.

This post I made three years ago comes to mind:

Roen falls to the ground. Presumably fully in view of the nearby houses, the goons pick up Roen's unconscious body and haul him into the car, before driving off. Layane remains in the bushes, soaking wet.

Layane blanched. This wasn’t something they had expected. The men wanted her, not Roen. And she didn’t even want him to come. She didn’t make him come. She made it quite clear that she wanted to do the plan alone. So why did she feel so guilty?

Because you're one half of the greatest OTP to ever OTP.

Not knowing what else to do, Layane crushes one of the Invisibility Balls over herself and runs after the car. Which is, you know, a car. So she loses it pretty quickly.

Her face burned in the cold air as she ran. She struggled to keep her unseen feet going; they kept slipping out of control on wet drain-covers and grassy areas. When her sides started burning, she gave up. She couldn’t tell what she was more upset about: Roen being taken (and it feeling like her fault) or the answers about what happened to Clemant being whisked away from her. She felt like screaming. The plan had failed, and her hands were slowly starting to materialize in front of her. She didn’t know what else to do, so she ran back to the apartment.

One thing about this draft I could remember before rereading was that at some point, Roen gets kidnapped. I only remember this because of one very memorable scene that I assume is just around the corner.

As a result, as the last few chapters progressed, I was waiting for Roen to get kidnapped the whole time.

Roen was left alone for an extended period at the apartment... and doesn't get kidnapped.

They all get separated while rescuing Clemant... and Roen doesn't get kidnapped.

Something creepy happens to them on their walk home from the rescue... again, Roen doesn't get kidnapped.

Roen leaves the apartment at night to get drunk and is gone for hours... AGAIN he isn't kidnapped.

Now, after Layane sets off to do a plan she thought was safe enough for her to go alone, Roen comes to help out and finally gets kidnapped.

I dunno, Layane. Maybe you feel bad because Roen being here stopped this from happening to you? What did you think was going to happen?

I would love to be able to ask past me what she thought the plot of this novel is...

[intothedraft]

Chapter 13, part 1: Bumps and giggles

“Why were they asking about a holiday?” Jezirah asked. “I don’t know,” Layane said.

For fuck's sake.

It's the next day. Well, it's 10pm the same day that Layane 'rescued' Clemant at midnight.

No, I have no idea why Jezirah and Layane are just having this conversation now. Is this suggesting they've been asleep for around twenty hours and have just woken up?

Not outside the realm of possibility for one of these books, to be honest.

Clemant was sitting in the living room with a colouring book Jezirah had bought for her from a nearby shop. She had been happy during the day and had not mentioned anything about the time she had been missing.

Guess not. Sigh...

Layane isn't sure what to do. She needs more information from Clemant, but Clemant isn't saying anything to any of them.

“When are you going to go?” asked Jezirah. Layane knew she meant the bait plan; she had told Jezirah earlier not to mention it in front of Clemant. “Tomorrow,” she said. “When Roen gets back?” “Yes,” she said, through gritted teeth.

I'd love to know how the bait plan is going to work now that 1) Shafinah didn't reveal anything of use and 2) Clemant still can't talk about what happened.

Are they going to just put Layane in public and have her yell that she's that missing girl whose sister was kidnapped and then released and then kidnapped again?

I guess!

Turns out Roen is at a bar, getting served without his ID (even though the earlier narrative suggested this was impossible). He promised he would stay sober for the Bait Plan, but figured getting wasted the night before was fair game. He's been gone for hours.

Oh, and just to confirm, I have no idea why:

Jezirah hasn't questioned where Roen is yet

Layane didn't try to stop Roen from going out drinking

Layane hasn't just told Jezirah that Roen has an alcohol problem

Layane hasn't questioned why Roen lied about G-slur's plan

Layane hasn't brought up Sue since The Reveal

Layane hasn't asked where Jezirah was when she disappeared twice when they were getting Clemant from the hospital

Layane hasn't just left with Clemant, seeing as there is no real plan to keep them safe

Shafinah even turned up because all she did was remind Layane and Roen of a plan they already had

Turns out the gang haven't slept since their adventures last night, but Layane figures it's about time. Makes sense, seeing as the narrative suggests Layane and Jezirah have been awake for almost forty hours. Jezirah hesitates, worried about Roen.

“I wonder where he is,” she said. “He’s been gone for a long time.” “Maybe he’s gone for a walk,” said Clemant. She pushed aside her drawing, and sat next to Jezirah. “A long walk. Some people like to walk at night.” “She’s probably right,” Layane said quickly, although she knew that the only way Roen would be on a walk was if the walk included large quantities of alcohol.

I'd really like to know what Layane has to lose by telling Jezirah that Roen has an alcohol problem. Sure, Jezirah would be concerned and maybe panicked, but that panic would be squarely aimed at Roen.

Who would hate it. And Layane hates him.

At a certain point, Layane not telling Jezirah because she'd be sad (?) I guess (?) becomes kinda silly.

Because I don't know how to pace a story, they talk a bit longer, and Layane tries to get Jezirah to go to bed. She doesn't. Then Layane tries to get Jezirah to go to bed again, and again she doesn't. And again.

I have no idea why Layane and Clemant don't just go to bed and leave Jezirah waiting for Roen on her own.

Somehow we end up here:

“Will you stay up and wait for him?” asked Jezirah. “Yes,” Layane immediately lied. “’Course I will.”

Finally, Jezirah goes to bed. Layane puts Clemant to bed, briefly pretends she's going to wait up for Roen, before going to bed herself.

Not sure what the point of any of this was.

The moment she had started to drift off to sleep, was the moment that Roen burst through the front door. He slammed the door behind him, creating a racket that Layane was sure would wake Jezirah. But thankfully, she didn’t wake up; at least Layane couldn’t hear her. She sat upon the bed. Roen seemed to be lingering in the hallway, so she decided to take this as an opportunity to tell him to stay quiet. “Is Jezirah out there?” Layane looked over at Clemant, to see she had woken up too. Layane couldn’t tell what she meant. “No,” she said. “Jezirah’s in bed, what do you...?” Then she heard what she had missed. Roen wasn’t alone.

Oh.

I guess the reason for all of this is... to find out Roen fucks.

She and Clemant could hear her voice slightly. They didn’t recognize the voice at all; it just belonged to a random girl. It explained why Clemant had thought Jezirah was out there, but Layane thought she couldn’t be further from the truth. Layane had assumed Roen would be at a bar. Or anywhere where he could consume large quantities of alcohol, really. But him bringing someone back to the apartment had never entered her mind.

I know I probably imagined Roen picking up this girl at Generic Club/Bar seeing as this isn't set anywhere in particular, but if this town is basically my hometown, there was actually one club there. It was called Decades. The one time I went, someone who worked there warned me not to buy the drinks on tap because the taps were never cleaned, the floor was covered in miscellaneous liquid, and a middle-aged couple made out on the otherwise empty dancefloor the entire time I was there.

That's where I'm imagining Roen met this girl.

“What’s happening?” asked Clemant. Layane went back to the bed; she didn’t want to walk in on whatever was going on. “I really don’t want to know,” she said. “Now get to sleep and ignore it.” Luckily, she could not hear a lot through the wall, but she put her pillow over her head to drown out the occasional bumps and giggles from the room next to her.

Bumps and giggles.

Somehow that's worse than the narrative explicitly saying Layane can hear sex noises.

If I was Layane, I'd be trying to work out how this girl hasn't noticed that Roen has four arms and wings. Like, they're invisible, but they are clearly solid, so -

Oh fuck.

Either this happens in multiple drafts or I got the years wrong and I'm talking about this one's sequel. Which is unfinished.

But there's around 50,000 unfinished words of it.

I'm not sure which is worse.

Somehow, Roen has managed to hide the fact he has four arms and wings from this girl. Maybe he's insisted she go on top and not touch him. Or maybe they're both just so drunk that neither of them would notice something like that.

Clemant crept over to her and shook her shoulder. “What’s happening?” she repeated. “I’m going to murder Roen.” Clemant looked over to the wall, and then back at Layane. “Actually murder him?” she said. Layane smiled; she looked legitimately worried.             “Maybe,” she said. “I’m undecided.”

This whole section (which was 2,000 words long) was included, I guess, because I wanted readers to know that Roen fucks. If Layane had any goodwill towards Roen left in her, I guess it could also be to make Layane jealous.

But actually all that happens is it gives Layane yet another reason to hate him, because he's not only got drunk, but also brought a random back to what is essentially a safehouse, and is now loudly (?) having sex when everyone is trying to sleep, after being awake for well over a day, when the only reason they weren't asleep already was that one of them wanted to wait up for him.

...

Just leave, Layane. At this point, what the hell is there to gain from this situation? Tell the cops that you don't trust but kinda do that someone is after you and Clemant because they - for some reason - think you and Clemant have access to Narnia and get put into protective custody. How would that be any worse than this situation? You even said you wanted Roen out of your life the moment you found Clemant, just a couple of chapters ago! And he's given you even more reason to distrust him since then!

OTP to end all OTPs.

[intothedraft]

Chapter 12, part 2: A totally normal mannequin-like face

A cloud of black smoke billowed behind Roen, who was looking away. It vanished as quickly as it had come, and in its place was a Gever. But she didn’t look like any of the Gever Layane had seen.

Oh.

I mean... fair enough. I figured Shafina(h) would show her face at some point. It's a little weird that she's here now, but...

Never mind. Hi, Shafinah!

Her back-arms appeared to be connected to the tops of her wings; the arms made up the tops of her wings, and were covered in small feathers. Her fingers made the barely-visible hand-shape at the edge. She wore a dress that clung to her tiny frame, which was almost covered by the vast cloak-like sheet which was wrapped around her arms and flowed to the ground behind her.

Glad to see you're still creepy as hell. I assume she's still meant to be thousands of years old, and she has different wings because eventually Gever evolved to have wings and two separate sets of arms, rather than one set of 'normal' arms and one set of winged arms? I'm not sure that really tracks, but at least I put some thought into the fact that Shafinah is ancient this time.

Shafinah (who has not been named yet) looks around, and uses magic to conceal her winged arms. Even though she's terrifying, Layane is relatively calm until Roen instinctively backs away. Now Layane can see this situation is scary to Roen, she panics. Clemant also looks terrified, and is rooted to the spot.

The Gever stopped a few yards away from them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” she said, in a thick, heavily accented voice. “Especially you, Roen.” She spoke in a calm, mystical way that reminded Layane of fake fortune-tellers she saw at carnivals.

Is that even more anti-human bias? At least she's not speaking through a lizard called Bozo this time.

Shafinah is quite short for a Gever, but floats upwards so she's eye-level with Roen. Layane can't see her legs, so I assume that, like the other books, Shafinah doesn't have any.

“I have not seen you since you were a baby,” the Gever added. He gulped. “Shafinah?”

As soon as Roen says the name, Layane remembers the carvings on the cave wall.

But in the carvings she had looked like a hugely powerful figure. Now – everything about her seemed too normal.

Normal?

The ghostly woman who appeared in a blast of black smoke, had wings that are unusual even for Gever, and who is now levitating in front of you, looks NORMAL? Is that really the word you want to use here?

“Why are you here?” he asked. It sounded rude, but Shafinah either didn’t realize it or chose to it. “I’m trying to work that one out myself,” she said. “What are you doing? I might be meant to help you.”

Shafinah randomly showing up to help the gang has become a bit of a trope at this point.

I do like that she doesn't appear to have control over it, but... if she is here to help, why didn't she show up earlier? As far as I can tell, the gang is fine at the moment, if a little traumatised (on Clemant's part).

Shafinah appeared to be in her thirties. If she was one of the oldest things on the planet, she had certainly aged well. The only weird thing Layane could spot in her appearance was how her skin was completely unmarked. There were no wrinkles, scars, blemishes – nothing. The effect it had wasn’t a good one. It reminded Layane a little of shop-window mannequins.

She just looks so fucking normal guys. Super normal.

Roen explains that they're basically fine. They're just trying to get back to a flat that's just down the road.

Shafinah, who is now certain she's here to help, says that can't be it. She turns to Layane and Clemant and asks them if they are Nicola's daughters, to which Layane says they are. Shafinah asks what happened to them and Layane explains that Clemant was kidnapped.

“She was kidnapped? By Gever?” “No, by some humans.” “...and we have to work out why,” added Roen. “For G-slur.” Shafinah thought for a moment. “G-slur would want to know,” she said. “She wants the Key back. It must be about the Key; humans did steal it from your parents after all.” “Uh... yeah,” said Roen. “Something like that.”

I got really confused reading this, because the 'your parents' seems to refer to Roen. I think she means Layane's parents, i.e. the Key was stolen from them (if you believe their story).

However, I did spend a couple of minutes thinking Shafinah meant Roen's terrorist family, and was trying to work out if that dialogue was a Reveal or just a weirdly-worded reference to the fact that G-slur gave the Key (that used to belong to them) to two random humans.

Shafinah (sensibly) asks why they don't already know why the kidnappers took Clemant, seeing as they could have asked her, or found out when they rescued her. Roen explains that no, they didn't rescue her, they picked her up from hospital.

Suddenly, Shafinah vanished. She instantly reappeared on the other side of Layane, and stood next to Clemant. “Someone already saved you?” she whispered to her. Layane sighed. If she couldn’t get a response out of Clemant – Shafinah certainly wouldn’t be able to. As expected, Clemant said nothing. “Did someone ‘save’ you?” pressed Shafinah. “Or did the kidnappers release you?”

Clemant nods, and Shafinah tells Layane and Roen that it's a miracle they weren't caught. The kidnappers, whoever they are, are clearly using Clemant as bait.

Roen then brings up the bait plan.

Did... I put Shafinah here just because I couldn't figure out another way for them to have this conversation?

“Roen, you don’t want to use her as bait?” [Shafinah said.] He looked awkward. “G-slur is... sure something will go wrong,” he said. He avoided Layane’s gaze when she looked over to him to demand an explanation. “It’s sort of a... punishment. For me.” “Why didn’t you tell...?” Layane started furiously, but Shafinah put her hand in front of her to stop her. “G-slur will have done that to plant doubts in your head,” she said. “But what if...?” “But nothing,” said Shafinah. “I know G-slur well enough to know what she was doing when she told you that. Just... be on ‘top form’ when you do the plan, okay?”

Nice headhopping. Although, there's been a lot less of it than I expected, to be honest.

Let's go through this point by point...

Roen has basically admitted that he lied about what G-slur told him. Layane has noticed this. Will this have any ramifications on anything? Only time will tell

I have literally no idea what Shafinah means by 'place doubts in Roen's head'. Like no idea at all. I assume she means G-slur intended to fuck with him for good reason but what exactly does this achieve? Please comment what you think she's going on about if you have any ideas

Shafinah, are you saying you know G-slur well enough to know what she was doing with the plan that needs to succeed but also fail but also succeed but also fail? Really?

The Gever seem to have super powerful, random abilities. If everyone knows about Roen's various problems, and they for some reason need him to be doing super important shit, why has no one ever magically intervened?

Shafinah has a suggestion. Maybe instead of making Layane's location known, they could sneak up on the kidnappers!

Hopefully she plans to tell Layane and Roen where the kidnappers are (even though that would defeat the point of finding them, as surely Shafinah could just ask the kidnappers what their deal is) otherwise it's a really pointless suggestion.

Roen stopped. They had reached the apartment. The houses were so repetitive that Layane hadn’t realized they were nearing it.

There was no indication at all that they were walking rather than standing where they first saw Shafinah. Nothing at all.

Layane turns to ask Shafinah something, but she's disappeared. Straight up gone.

“She could have stayed to help,” Roen said. “She’s probably the most powerful Gever there is, it would have been easy for her...”

He storms into the flat and goes to sulk in his room.

Layane, who the previous day announced that once Clemant was back she was going to remove Roen from her life for good - and that was before he admitted he lied about G-slur's plan - seemingly forgets about all of that and takes Clemant to her room to talk.

Clemant won't tell Layane what happened until Layane explains where she was, which is fair enough. Layane tells Clemant everything, and Clemant takes it 'a lot better than expected'. Layane also tells Clemant that Jezirah is fine, but stay away from Roen.

“Clemant, what happened?” she asked. She spoke immediately. “They kept asking me about a holiday.”

I mean, that says it all, doesn't it? Layane and Clemant's parents found Geviria when they were on holiday in Spain.

It would sure be weird if our characters couldn't work out what was meant by that.

(To be continued.)