#nicolette belanger

[refractedglade]

The Ritual in Station Promenade by reddit user u/00aquila00

[theaudientvoid]

*AKA Heartbreaker.

**Given name unknown.

***For the purposes of this poll, consider both Nicolette and Seth to be Alexander's adopted children.

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 3.z

this security shell is weird. cool! but weird and terrifying. It also feels like a great way to lose apprentices who aren't quite up to being technomancers

Looks like they're pulling out the big guns, if teachers are getting involved. And I guess this means nicolette got herself away from the wolf and is ok

Black tee, black leather jacket, jeans, hair slicked back in a very different way than Ray had. Some might have said it was a 50s style, but it was timeless, as far as Zed was concerned

fair enough

Nice to use this interlude to meet some people from the school, instead of being dumped in with all new characters later on. Looks like two from Belanger, two from Durocher, one from Ray, and one independent?

She was killed, and the way Black Dogs work, they punish the people that kill them with curses. Most of the time they come back again and again. She was put down for good. The curse was a big one, it was stored away, and it manifested as the Hungry Choir ritual.

hey! this was one of my theories. Or technically two, if you count the curse as part of her corpse being used. Which means the question is who manufactured this, and why?

“I’m looking forward to summer school for once.”  Nicolette smiled as she said it. “Me too,” Zed agreed. “New crop of students.” “Exactly.” They were on the same page. Similar oaths. Similar awareness.

this feels somewhat ominous

“By the accords of Solomon!” Zed called out.  “By the order of man, I summon you to audience!  Obey or cede this territory!  Black Dog Yalda, come!” “I ask a second time! Black Dog Yalda! Casualty of war and child of Famine! Come!” “For the third time, with your worth and power at stake! Black Dog Yalda!”

one of the neat things about the otherverse is that do a certain degree the magic runs on rule of cool

There was a way to challenge the ritual, and tonight, with the malice biasing the challenge, would be a great time to do that… except there was a rub. A trick. Rad Ray Sunshine had explained it at one of the rest stops. It was easy for a ritual like this to jam some hidden trick or secret into things. A magic word, a hidden verse, or a secret a way to make the animals behave. Like… playing music. Or something. Not that Zed had his.

oof. well now I'm glad they didn't try that. who gave the Kennet Trio that advice again? Looked it up and: it was Maricica. Was that one of her traps? I think at one point they guessed that some of her "minor" traps might be deadly things that she would save them from.

They couldn’t get in between her and her prize.  The very being of the Devouring Song was tied into that.  She couldn’t be obstructed from eating.  Hurting her mid-meal did that, so the nibbling on the licorice from that king-size bag served to protect her.  Any lasting harm or death was similar, because she couldn’t be kept from future meals.

this fucks. using the choir against itself

Brie’s weight pressed the Black Dog down.  She kept eating.

gods this is fucked up

“Are you the murder weapon, used by others to kill the Carmine Beast?”

damn. ... I don't think I ever theorized about method

“Yes,” Yalda said.  “I killed the red wolf.”

mystery solved! story over

It was one of the eight original ritual participants.  The kid with the mask.  He carried a gun.

what happened to no weapons?

Yalda :( The Choir was fucked up, but I can't help but feel bad for her, it doesn't seem like she ever had many options. At least she got to pass on a final message to John? I hope she was at peace.

He did have his worries, though.  The degree of intent behind the Carmine Beast event… the premeditation, the covering of tracks, and the creation of something like this, implied to be done well in advance for that specific purpose?

so this plan had to have been in the works for at least nine years... that changes my thoughts on motives

[lunar1an]

there's something really sad about how nicolette, scrappy practitioner with a nontraditional Awakening with a hallow in her head and a skill for manipulating omens and curses, victim of alexander who feared being married off by him, has pretty much slipped into being an establishment practitioner as post arc 13 pale went on.

we see it in her telling the trio that if she wants to be successful, she has to stay in the same circles as Musser's faction to network with them (she had friends like zed and raymond was helping her earlier, but that's not truly being a Successful Practitioner, now is it).

she encourages the BSW to Awaken, with legitimate benefits listed, but she repeatedly talks about how she can broaden her augury and be more versatile. with her remark in arc 18 about seeing her past self in the eyes of the belanger circle and wanting to get away with that, it's hard not to read it as a form of internalized shame--nicolette wanting to get as far away from the image of being the "crazy" girl with ghosts in her head as possible.

which like, yeah, fair, that was a shitty time for her, no one likes having uncontrolled ghosts in their head.

but all of this attempting to be someone Successful in the eyes of a fucked up society has its consequences, and i think we see the culmination of that in how she ends up roped back into Belanger family conflicts, how Jen Ross is so easily able to manipulate her by playing the "i was a victim of alexander too" card.

and now she's spearheading the family who created the environment that led to Alexander, that led to Jen (as much as she blames Alexander, and later Wye, a guy half her age, for everything bad in her life), that led to Seth, who consist of mostly parasitic layabouts with insular traditions who expect the Belanger circle to feed them money while they don't do shit. She's allied with the woman responsible for marrying people off, when she previously feared that outcome for herself so much.

a parallel could be made here about how the trio have also fallen into becoming a part of the Establishment as well, and how the pursuit of power or "building something" in the Otherverse necessitates compromising your values and warping your goals into a twisted parody of what they once were. but pale desperately keeps trying to convince us that actually it's okay when the trio and their friends do it so. alas.

[regioonlineofficial]

Dordrecht - De online wereld is niet meer weg te denken uit ons dagelijks leven. Van chatten tot online je bankzaken regelen. Toch voelen veel Nederlanders zich nog onzeker in deze digitale omgeving. DigiHandig wil de digitale kloof dichten. Daarom introduceren zij tijdens de Week van Lezen en Schrijven een nieuw lespakket over de smartphone en tablet. Het lespakket is vanuit Bibliotheek AanZet in Dordrecht groots gelanceerd via een online uitzending. Bouwen aan een digitaal inclusieve samenleving Het belang van digitale geletterdheid groeit in een wereld die steeds meer online is. Uit recent onderzoek van de Alliantie Digitaal Samenleven blijkt dat minimaal 22% van de Nederlanders worstelt met de digitale wereld. De digitale wereld is complex en vereist de nodige oefening. Tegelijkertijd is het belangrijk dat er altijd een vangnet is voor degenen die er even niet uitkomen. "Te veel mensen beschikken niet over voldoende vaardigheden om mee te komen in de digitale samenleving. Het is essentieel dat we iedereen helpen hun digitale vaardigheden en kennis te vergroten", vertelt Nicolette Faneyte, senior beleidsmedewerker Digitale Inclusie bij het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. "We moeten vanuit de samenleving bepalen wat nodig is om aan deze belangrijke behoefte te blijven voldoen. DigiHandig is één van de instrumenten om op een laagdrempelige manier kennis te maken met de kansen en risico's van digitalisering."  Gratis lespakket ontwikkeld met bibliotheken en buurthuizen Om bij te dragen aan het vergroten van digitale vaardigheden introduceert DigiHandig een innovatief lespakket. Het pakket is speciaal ontworpen om mensen vertrouwd te maken met een smartphone en tablet. Hiervoor werkt DigiHandig samen met het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties. DigiHandig Het lespakket is gemaakt en getest in samenwerking met een breed netwerk van bibliotheken en buurthuizen. Nu komt het pakket gratis beschikbaar voor hulporganisaties, zoals bibliotheken, zorginstellingen en gemeenten. Met het pakket kunnen deze organisaties in een handomdraai fysieke workshops organiseren. Declan Mackrodt, Coördinator digitale basisvaardigheden bij Bibliotheek AanZet is dan ook erg te spreken over het lesmateriaal. "DigiHandig is een gave app die nu is doorvertaald naar een strak en fris lespakket. Zo kun je met een veilig gevoel op je eigen apparaat oefenen met bijvoorbeeld de online bibliotheek." Aandacht voor plezier in leren In het DigiHandig lespakket staan sociale verbinding, flexibiliteit en laagdrempeligheid centraal. Organisaties kunnen zelf de onderdelen kiezen die het beste aansluiten bij hun doelgroep. Binnen het lespakket is er speciale aandacht voor het plezier in leren. Dit komt bijvoorbeeld tot uiting in de smartphone bingo waarin kennisgemaakt wordt met telefooninstellingen. Daarnaast hebben de deelnemers de mogelijkheid om na de workshop thuis verder te oefenen op hun eigen telefoon. Hiervoor kunnen ze gebruik maken van de gratis DigiHandig app. Via deze weg kunnen deelnemers ook thuis op hun eigen tempo leren over de digitale wereld en zelf de onderwerpen kiezen die ze willen verkennen. "Veel mensen hebben angst voor de digitale wereld. Met het DigiHandig lespakket en de app bouwen we niet alleen aan kennis, maar ook aan motivatie en zelfvertrouwen. Veel digistarters hebben meer in hun mars dan ze soms denken." Aldus Kristel Thieme, oprichter van New Future Lab en aanjager van DigiHandig. Chris Knoop, deelnemer aan het DigiHandig lespakket vertelt: "Ik vond de lessen bijzonder gezellig en er was veel aandacht. Ik kan nu beter omgaan met apps." Kosteloos en direct inzetbaar Het DigiHandig lespakket is kosteloos beschikbaar voor organisaties die zich hard maken voor digitale inclusie en digitale vaardigheden. Meer informatie via www.digihandig.nl/lespakket. 

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 2.9

So excited to see the Forest Ribbon Trail.

oh gods i love this opossum. do the animal companions always talk, or that a opossum-specific trait

It was a kid, no older than eight, possibly younger, with messy blond hair, a jacket, a top, and bare feet.

oh no. Do boon companions always appear as humans, you'd think someone would note that on the instructions! Is that part of why you're supposed to ask not remember?

she wore an adult-sized t-shirt that came to her knees, black. It was printed with ‘I have class, I have sass, I scream at own ass’.

I love this opossum

“In the practitioner and Other sense, not the ordinary sense.  You’ve never bled or tasted blood?” “I have. Both,” the girl said.

welp. don't think we have any details on what that means

“What story is this?  All things Other have some roots in the annals of man,” the baby opossum said.  “Fairy tales, fantasy stories, myths, religions, and urban religions.  There are no original stories.  So I ask you… what kind of story is this?  Don’t jump to the obvious answer.  Give me a good answer and I’ll tell you something you should know.”

Hmm. My first thought is Little Red Riding Hood (traveling through forest with a wolf at the end). But also, in more general terms, classic fairy tale story: you go on a journey, have an animal companion to aid you, pick up strange tools that will help you later, and face down a monster at the end. I'm also reminded of the Babylon sequence from Diana Wynne Jones's book Deep Secret, but I don't think that's what they're going for.

It's also really hard to tell how much of what's going on is normal for the Forest Ribbon Trail, and how much is about the animal blood fuckup (I checked the instructions and there were no notes about what happens in that case). I do not trust the roadside opossum though.

I thought it would be more cut and dry but it’s only constant confusion, a strange place with strange people.

well now I am thinking Alice in Wonderland

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Avery said.  “That’s it, right?” “A bit of Wizard of Oz, with the yellow brick road, or the Path. A lot of Alice in Wonderland,” Avery said.

hey!

There was a giant doll head, the girl who carried the other opossum, the normal man, and the whispering cat.

Cat... cheshire cat? or maybe cowardly lion? who else is in Alice in Wonderland: Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse, Caterpillar, Queen? Or is the thing that isn't supposed to be here whatever's causing the thumping?

This is the second reality you have to face, as part of your journey along this trail. The world is bleak, terrible things happen, and you cannot fix it, whether you are a thirteen year old girl or a master practitioner in her seventies.

:[

hmmm. People keep talking as if the coin is the object that lets you bring some of the Lost back, but the instructions in the Extra Materials say that's the skull. Not sure if this is authorial error, or if Avery is misremembering and the Others are cuing off of her.

She was supposed to come to terms with something about herself, like Alice and growing up, or Dorothy and the idea of home. Every single trap so far had been marked by indecision. Hesitation. Even her boon companion evoked it.

yeah! character development

A glamour, to bring out her best self. But to capture it, she needed to chase it first. Mark it like warpaint, worn after the battle. After she was sweaty from a game well played. After she was brave. After she was noble. It stressed that she had to decide who and what she wanted to be, then solidify it.

brave and noble...

“Nicolette Belanger?” Avery asked.

oh shit

“The gimmick. The opossum. It plays dead even when it doesn’t mean to, fainting. Deceives when it doesn’t mean to. It says the opposite of what it means to, but it can deceive well enough to bring a token item into the Wolf’s negotiation.”

oh... so when she said she didn't like the name Avery gave her...

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 10.a

“Three groups,” Horseman said.  The snow caught on his eyebrows, and his breath fogged.  “There’s the group responsible for the hillbilly truck out front.  Been here for a while.  Possible PMC.”

is he a Dog of War? One of John's old group?

“Yes, might have some PMC in them.  Yes, they’re yours.”

ah yeah, group of War Dogs incoming

“You got a last name now,” Horseman said, voice low, as he stepped close, his face inches from John’s.  “Good eyes, those.  Except they’re too sad to suit your old nickname though, Carnivore.”

the way that Dogs of War only gain selfhood (including a sense of morality) through more killing is sad and fucked up!

“You want mercy?  Anything but what you’ve got coming to you?  All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,” the POI said.

looked it up, and the bit in italics comes from the same Shakespeare speech as "Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war". And it is about war breaking out to a degree that all normal decency gets forgotten

“We’re you, your deeds made manifest, from the uncounted dead.”

metal line

John shook his head.  “According to the words he used, only a member of their family can bring back any of those four, and they’d still be bound.”

I wonder if John still has those tags in the present day? Could be worth a try to bring them back and contact the Leonard family to arrange favorable terms.

Songbird would be their official, unofficial commanding officer.  She would give them someone to spoil, would be one who cared from the outset, instead of picking up that caring from among a Dog’s scraps, like John had.  They had war as their starting point and built up from there.  She started from the sympathetic.

I hadn't put together before that part of why John's been such a good ally to the Kennet Trio is that he was built around protecting and following a young girl who was an innocent pushed into combat.

They wore bright colors, painted stalls and shops and had decorated the metal tiles with an irregular pattern of three stars, the eclipsed crescent, the sun, and the cross inside the circle to represent earth, painted in iridescent red.

I think this is John seeing the tiles as patterned rather than color-coded

It was hard to shake the mental image of Lucy’s face, that night he’d put a bullet into Alexander Belanger.  How small her shoulders had been.

:(

Lucy was talking back and forth with Verona, and John had a hard time dissociating her from the fresh mental image of Yalda.  Which was strange, because the two were so very different.  Yalda sang and Lucy listened.  Yalda had retreated into being a child and Lucy fought so hard to be like an adult.  Yalda had been bright and cheery, sympathetic and open, with moments of sadness, but she’d been dangerous, a killer even by accident, sowing wrongs wherever she went.  Lucy was tougher, more walled off, seemingly perpetually upset at things, but with moments of brightness like this one, here.  And as walled off or grim or serious as she might seem to be, Lucy had fought so hard against the wrongs of Alexander and Bristow, rallying others.

I hate Alexander so damn much right now for cutting this bond

A true end to the cycle of violence.  Being an actual dog would be nice.  Sitting in the sun.  Warm touches from family.  He could become human when he desired, and play his guitar, in a mediocre way.  He could sing songs he’d learned from Yalda, very poorly.  He could let his guard down.  He could rest.

John as an actual dog would be really nice

Nicolette put her hands over her ears, even though the sounds of the pipes and train whistle were dying down.

right, she'd also have Wolf trauma

“Are you sure?” Lucy asked.  “John?  This is dangerous.” “Tell me not to and I won’t,” he told her. “I don’t deserve that trust,” she said. “I don’t know enough about any of this.”

yeah, he's fully slotted Lucy in as his commanding officer

“Ropes and clocks, what else?” Verona asked.  “Nicolette!”

hey, that's two of the five objects! What do you want to bet that knife, coin, and skull would effect things? Actually, if clock controls movement timing, and rope I'm not entirely sure but is letting the wolf fuck with everyone, could each of these items be different exception/aspect of the rules of this place? With coin as the market stalls, and skull as the smiling Others? In which case knife is left to try now, and John seems well suited to that.

Knives cleaved closer to connections, to Self, to personal power.  Momentum and physics didn’t always matter, and to many, a bullet was simply a smaller amount of metal than a knife or sword, with less meaning and history ascribed to it.

an elegant weapon!

He would have seen the goblin, the Faerie warrior, the burning ghost-spirit, Miss, and the practitioners Matthew Moss and Charles Abrams.

which makes all of these suspects, since they were around for Yalda's death after which the Choir was made. I wonder which goblin?

“Infants quartered with the hands of war,” the Wolf told John, catching his wrist.

also a quote from that Shakespeare passage

Timepiece for Time, cable for the threads of Fate.  The edge…

I was right about the theming! Wrong about the particulars though it looks

“Don’t hold anything back,” he whispered.  “It’s not as if I’ll need to draw on you again past this summer.”

:(

God I hope John makes it. I think he'd be a good Carmine Judge.

“This is what you are.  Either you’ll be a sacrifice, or you’ll perpetuate the cycle of violence and loss.  Whichever you do, whatever you do to those girls, they’ll cry and they’ll lose more innocence, more childhood.  The closer you are to them, the more it will take from them to lose you.”

I think that is going to happen to the girls regardless

But he couldn’t tie her to him when there was a very real chance that he could pull the trigger one day and see that expression on her face again, that he could pull the trigger at some point and not see that expression, because he’d allowed his presence and violence to change her like he’d allowed it to change Yalda, or the look on her face at the end of that road, when he had to shoot her because of what she’d become.

I think all the various types of Black Dogs are tied to conflict, so Yalda would have ended up there regardless of John. But on a subconscious level I don't think his presence as a Dog of War is what he is blaming: rather, the actions of the soldiers from whom he exists, taken on a civilian population from whom in turn Yalda as a Famine Dog was born

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 7.9

“Why are you being nice to me?” Avery asked. “Was I mean before?” “You weren’t… this.” “You came. You went looking.”

:)

Jessica’s face was very close, and her expression was very intent, and she was being caring and even though Jessica wasn’t the build she really liked, the rest of those things were enough together to get her attention.

... yeah

“You’re turning blue,” Snowdrop said.  “You’re getting cold.” Avery’s face felt warm. Was she flushed?

oh poor Avery. Somehow I'm not surprised she blushes easily

“You don’t keep your third in the loop?” Jessica asked.

I like that she's watching out for Avery

The Wolf stood opposite Avery.  Old, hunched over, but big, wearing a startlingly red dress.  Laila laid at the woman’s feet.

oh. My first thought was this was a flashback, but Laila being there rules it out. And I'm inclined to think it isn't a normal trauma dream.

“Both at the same time.  The world’s dream, your dream.  One and the same.  Humans make up the world and that has its border.  Its sharp edge.”

Cool way of looking at the world/paths. Interesting to see it defined as the border of the world humans define... I wonder if the Paths were already there when the world was run by Others, and how they've changed?

Also, we haven't heard much about the wolf and the forest ribbon trail, but it left a mark on Avery. Feels weird to say, but I'm glad it's coming up again rather than lurking in the background or getting glossed over

So was Clementine, unconscious.  So were some other adults Avery didn’t recognize.  Alexander was waking students.

more of Bristow's Aware? not sure which ones, I think most of those we've heard about are accounted for

Mist over everything.  Motion made more real.  She could see connections, and she could see movement.  Changes in expression clearer than expressions themselves.

oh neat. We knew about the connection aspect before, but not sure if the movement part has shown up. Very fitting for Avery.

The step away gave her a better view of her little friend.  Her companion, and the way connections between Lucy and Snowdrop were dissolving.  The connections between Snowdrop and Avery.

bad! Is this something like Sharon, where she makes things more mundane, and Snowdrop is affected as an Other?

You’re a Lost, denizen of Paths.  You can’t hold onto stuff, you told me that.  Not weird you lost your grip on it.

oh fuck she lost the protection from the eye

“If I die here, I’m going to leave you without a cool shirt on,” Snowdrop said.  “Funny.”

no! not allowed!!

Snowdrop had fainted.  Kevin’s influence had pulled away, thinking his job was done.

fuck yeah oppossum!!!! play dead !!!!

“No,” Rae said, again, before adding, “I can’t be alone.  I won’t ever be alone again.”

very thematic to be Avery's opponent

Avery turned, took a running start, and leaped from the rooftop of the workshop to the canopy over the outdoor dining tables.

parkour! Zoomtown keeps being useful practice!

“Uncle!  Reid!” Raquel shouted.

Enjoying how them not paying attention to Raquel gets back at them. I don't think there's time to work at it now, but long term I bet she could be convinced to defect from her family

“I guess I’m giving up on a really cool position with a group of Augurs.  And ending up on the bad side of both Bristow and Belanger,” Nicolette said.  She pushed Avery and Lucy behind her.  “I’m probably going to be in a lot of debt as far as deals I’ve made, I might lead the rest of my life destitute, doing this.  But… I think I can make do.”

I want to cheer for this, and I am very proud of Nicolette here, but mostly I'm worried. She's right that she's made some powerful enemies over the past few days, and I don't think she has a plan for settling things so she can walk away. I suppose this might win her some forgiveness from Alexander? I doubt it will make him trust her, but maybe not press on what she owes? I wonder if Kennet could step in... having an Augur around could be handy.

And this wasn't what they were planning on, but I think it counts as a second win.

“Did you forget I’m better than you?” Chase asked. “You are… as an augur,” Nicolette said.  “I’m pretty darn good with some scary arts, you know.”

also just better in general as a human being

"Two students who barely rate? Lesser daughters from lesser families?”

wow. way to show what you think of your students.

“Four,” Verona said. “Mccauleigh has doubts, and Nicolette’s abandoned you."

ok, so Nicolette is being counted as part of the "students leaving" victory, not as her own one

“And!?  For all this petty teenage drama, this interference, this petulance!?” he asked.

Bristow is reminding me of Verona's dad here. Huh. That might be a factor in how eager she's been to challenge him

Taking Clementine’s hands.  Avery’s momentum was such that she circled around Clementine, spinning the woman in a half-circle.

yes! Alexander may have brought her here, but the girls are the reason she thought of leaving. They recruited one of Bristow's Aware! That's a third victory!

“They’re kids!” Clementine spoke up.  “They’re kids, and I don’t understand anything, but they were kind to me and they should be listened to, not talked over, especially by their teachers.  I think they were fair to me, when they could have been harsh.”

Clem is currently winning for best adult. Also nice to see mercy and fairness offered to opponents come back to help down the line. We've also seen that with Nicolette and Brie.

So do tenants who think you’ve failed to do a very good job, because you’re spreading yourself too thin. My sink still needs fixing, I can speak on behalf of a few others who have wanted your help or attention but haven’t been able to get in touch.

... I should contact my landlord, it's been literal months since they said they'd do fixes

“I am in my rights,” she said, glancing at Alexander, “to demand an answer now.”

oooh. Look like someone should have kept a planner of all his outstanding obligations!

“Question one,” Clementine said.  “How may I, Clementine Robertjon, or anyone I designate to search on my behalf, access the most valuable pieces of information you keep on me?”

I went back and looked at the deal, and she gets to ask ten and he picks one to answer. Tricky to pick ten that are all evenly valuable. I wonder if Alexander gave her guidance on questions Bristow can't or won't answer to force him to pick from a smaller field? Either way, this would be good to have answered to whittle away at Bristow's control, though maybe not immediately useful since this would just be where to get access to information

“How many I, or anyone I designate to search on my behalf, access the most valuable pieces of information you keep on Ted Havens, tenant and assistant manager of the building?”

oh. ohhhh. She can ask over and over again, for different tenants each time. Technically different questions, but they all lead back to the same diagram of information.

Everything you have on them, to keep them under your thumb? It’ll be long gone by the time you even cross the provincial border.

oh, nice. He takes Alexander's power base, Alexander takes his.

“In a little while, bad things will come to pass. Things that end cities. I don’t know what they are, but the conditions are right. What I was going to build here would have prepared us. Yes, it’s harsher. Yes, fewer students make it through, but we’d be ready and organized against threats to come. It won’t be in the next few years, it may not even be in the next decade, but I think these wrongs are coming in your lifetimes. And I damn the lot of you to it.”

... well. That's ominous. Reminds me a bit of the end of the first Mistborn book.

And I'd imagine that what's essentially a dying curse would carry weight.

I wonder what this could be? For conservation-of-narrative reasons, I'm assuming it's connected to Kennet and the Carmine Beast. Which would make it ironic if Bristow was so focused on his solution that required him to be in control as the hard man making hard choices that he missed the actual clues.

“You’re not headmaster,” Nicolette called out.

yessss

“The alternative is having me as a very dangerous enemy.” “Understood,” Ray answered, quiet, very serious.

well done, Mr. Sunshine

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 8.4

"Jess had an escape route ready, but it was close."

I like that Zed nicknames people, I think he's the only person we've seen not use a full first name on Jessica and Nicolette

My advice was that you might want to focus on those who would actually take the time and make the effort, ignoring everyone who might be powerful and upset, but ultimately irrelevant once they go home

so the Tedds have been brought up for this, I'm concerned about Fernanda. Not sure who else? Maybe the Hennigars, they seem prone to violent solutions and might have an additional grudge for having Alpeana go after Mccauleigh. I don't think we know enough about the personalities of most junior students to speculate. Concerned about Chase and Tanner (and Wye) though.

for now, part of what I’m passing on is a recommendation: steer clear of the Tedds, and stay away from the Belangers.

right, forgot the Belangers were brought up last chapter for this

“So those things bundled together are numero uno.  Number two?  Can you throw a cold drink at Verona on Avery’s behalf?”

yeah she deserves that

“Just wanted to say I miss having you around and stuff.  Glad you’re doing this, hope it’s doing what you need it to, but I’ll be glad when you’re back.”

awww. And this is exactly the kind of reassurance I was hoping Avery would get. That talk Lucy had with her therapist did wonders

“Is this a Talia type of situation?” Verona asked.  “Scary mom?” “Very scary, but not at all like Talia’s.”

yeah, giving a pre-teen easy access to explosions seems more like poor judgement than abuse. It's something that he can control, and doesn't seem to be an active danger or something that comes with cruel stipulations

“Ohhh, she’s close to Durocher,” Verona commented.  “Cheeky-kissy close.”

... I mean, Durocher is probably french-canadian, so that might not mean much (do french canadians do cheek kisses as much as french europeans do?)

“Nooo,” Sol groaned out the word.

I'm reminded of the horrible teens from Gideon the Ninth

and, of course, most challenging of all, I’m a mom.

why would you ever say this in front of classroom containing your son.

“This is the first year I get to teach a class with my son attending.  Sol!?  Where are you?  Looking through the benches, Sol?  Sol!  Solarisse Blaze Ferguson, I hope you’re in this class!”

oh no. That name. I was assuming Sol was short for Solomon or something. No wonder he only lists the nickname on the student directory.

“I…” Mrs. Ferguson said, touching the edge of her palm to a partial diagram on her arm- A violent blast of wind scattered papers all across the room, made students lose their pens and pencils, and made pages flip in books and notebooks that sat open throughout the retrofitted church. “Love…” she touched another portion of her arm. A geyser of flame shot through the middle of the room, over the heads of students who were already ducking low. “Elemental practice!” The third point of contact produced a spray of water. Droplets reached Lucy, moisture dotting the page she had just opened.

nevermind she's great

“Then if you don’t know, it’s your own fault.  Figure it out, now.  It’s dying, by the way.” Sol’s posture was rigid as he read through the page, turned it over, and read the list on the back.

yeah, this is a nightmare. We've seen some other teachers use their children/apprentices as class assistants, or even things that seemed more like tests for the assistant as well as the class. But putting him up in front of everyone else, with no distractions, and quizzing and criticizing him like this... no wonder he didn't want to go to class

“I’d like to get to know my son’s schoolmates and friends.  I’ve heard your name, I’d like your help for the demonstration, if you please.” “We’ve never really talked, but I’ll help out,” Raquel said

ouch

"The human body. You are a very pretty young lady, Raquel. You seem to be in good health, fit." “If you’d face my son?  Sol, stand here?” “Describe her,” his mother said. “As detailed as possible, now."

this is actively worse than when one of my middle school teachers made us feel each others heartbeats

Raymond: You found him? Wye:  No.  It bothers me I can’t.

ok, seems like they're suspicious but don't know for sure. I'm hoping they won't figure it out until the Kennet Trio are safely home. Though I guess if it gets figured out soon, the girls have the protection of being students

Wye: No.  This wasn’t him.  The car interior was torched, I found his wallet and phone in the muck.  His wand, too. Raymond: You think he’s dead?

well. I guess I will find out how it goes! I wonder if they're going to be immediately suspicious of the girls? I feel like it's logical to look at people involved in the conflict at the school first, but maybe they'll feel its implausible power-wise and think some other enemy of hi seized the opportunity? For motives, the Kennet Trio had openly opposed him, but also were even more anti-Bristow. And having got rid of one headmaster right beforehand does not make them look innocent. Other people with motivation... some of the Aware, Nicolette, teachers who sided with Bristow

“They think Alexander might be dead,” Lucy whispered to Verona, picking her words very carefully.

I hope Verona (or Avery) don't start trying to solve this murder, maybe in an attempt to prove their innocence

Fernanda hadn’t really taken a side in the whole back-and-forth thing, and she’d settled in the middle when they’d made their final play against Bristow. To go from that, to being this unhappy?

Given that the major factor holding up her family was Chase's apprenticeship, I'd imagine that losing both potential sponsors comes as a blow. Probably an element in how other students are treating them as well: the Kennet Trio wiped out two useful patrons and showed themselves as uninterested in standard, low-grade social climbing

Students who’d been for Alexander who looked like they’d had something important ripped from them. She hadn’t realized how much they cared.

even leaving aside pragmatic concerns, he's been some of their teacher for four years

Nicolette is the person who knows the most that the Kennet Trio had a motive, but I think her oaths might prevent her from revealing it? Though there were other members of the circle there for the negotiation as well (Chase and Wye)