The gutter
minded
will not
stop me
using
cum
You may take that as out of context as you need to.
Thank you, because I definitely did when I read the email.
You all bring me so much joy.
Okay, the next scene we get with Tidus and the Puppy absolutely needs to start with Tidus asking âYou sold Midnight Thunder? Why?â
And then taking a bit for anybody who isnât in the tread to find out that it is actually the name of the horse
Please remember the size changing boots were a gift from Oliver, she didnât think about that
Having quick change clothing is not something a lot of people think about, itâs a gimmick at best for normal people
Some former spies and bad guys admit to using them, but for everybody else itâs a trope
Heck even trying to find out how to make them is kind of a secret, itâs a magic trick
Trust me, Iâm still on the devolving stage for my quick change from our girl to her male form,
~~ I am not even going to bother trying to have it done in time for con this year, less than two weeks is not enough for me
I live to bring chaos.
Occasionally joy, but mostly chaos.
I really wonder what would happen if the Red Guard ever managed to actually grab hold of our girl and tried to read her memories.
Imagine the absolute hilarity. âThereâs no Raven Queen, weâve all been punked by a snot nosed brat whoâs been running around and playing us for absolute fools.â
I feel like they would not accept it
The Raven Queen had to continue for the egos of all the people whoâve been scared by her.
i was re reading the chapters and i was wondering am i missing something?
What is the reason for animosity towards thaddeus?
Unless there is new development in future chapters, Thaddeus had only 2 choices to kill her or wipe her memory.
People struggle with the idea that sometimes doing something bad can be the only good option by dint of being less bad than the worse option.
People are angry that he didnât find a way around it. Theyâre angry that he broke her trust. They want to believe that he had options beyond what he had.
It also doesnât help that Thaddeus isnât a morally good character which means people are more willing to tear him to shreds over this and find stuff to point fingers at. And the conversations they had after she had her mind wiped and he was trying to act normal - possibly a bit too successfully. But that, again, is a protection because if he acts weirdly it can cause dissonance and lead to the same scenario again.
I completely understand Siobhan hating him. Sheâs his victim.
I think for the readers itâs more of an instinctive revulsion of his actions coupled with the fact that he seems in control of himself, even though he feels trapped. We donât know the consequences of him not upholding his vows, or if itâs even possible.
Some people just genuinely think he should have killed himself before going after Siobhan (if even thatâs an option once the vows are triggered!).
Yes, to him changing memories is bad, but itâs also something normal. For her itâs a horrible violation, and in this case it also almost killed her⌠the experience was so traumatic that it ended up creating another split in her Will.
Out of the whole ordeal the thing that upset him the most by a long shot is remembering that he is a slave to his vows, not what it made him do.
And I donât think he was unable to try to steer the conversation in another direction before in went too far.
Could he have, short of refusing to talk about aberrants to anyone as a rule? He was seemingly compelled to investigate the moment Siobhan asked the question.
This is the best description of the situation so far. Thank you! Itâs difficult to put into words exactly why people hate him now.
Iâve had a feeling since book two that he would do something absolutely awful to her⌠but I figured that it would be out of avarice or convenience, not compulsion. In my view that makes it better. Motives matter. They donât excuse anything, but⌠yeah.
Itâs something normal for him because the Red Guard has made him do this so often that heâs become inured to it. This is their modus operandi. It is all, supposedly, for the greater good.
Thereâs been this undercurrent throughout the series that knowledge is dangerous. Even in Myrddinâs journals where he talks about how before he would have used a large scale divination but now heâs afraid of what it would reveal - even unto the final chapter of the book where the creature inside Siobhan laughs at her and points out that the spell causes understanding and uses that to pull her into her memories.
But he was upset at what he had to do. He was angry about it. Not just because he was forced but because he didnât want to do it to Siobhan.
Thatâs part of why she gets away with so many of her secrets intact - he refused to strip her or to attach his mind to hers to directly view her memories. He refused to go through her bag to find its secrets. He justified this to the vow as âunnecessaryâ, âdangerousâ and âlikely to raise suspicionâ respectively. He was happy when he realised he forgot to ask her how she came to her conclusions so there was even more that he left behind for her.
He could have stripped her curiosity from her. He could have stripped her Will from her. But he refused to do either, despite knowing that she might well come across this knowledge again. He did just enough to remove the knowledge from her so that he wouldnât be forced to kill her.
siobhan and thaddeus are very similar people and we cant hate one and forgive another for the same attributes and being morally grey is not exclusive to thaddeus.
Siobhan can be a bit of a hypocrite.
She was actively interested in memory modification. In fact, she wanted to be able to use itâshe just didnât have access to the spells or skill at the time. Sheâs not upset because the act is evilâsheâs upset because she was the victim, not the wielder
She even says things like - If only I had memory magicâŚâ or âI wish I could just erase that memory.âThaddeus is just more powerfulâhe actually has the tools Siobhan lacks. If she were capable, she absolutely would have erased memories under the same threat.
Infact Thaddeus was also a victim of this situation and he wasnât responsible for these circumstances. He was in that position because of her.
Siobhan took the risk of exposure willingly and got caught. Thaddeus didnât seek to punish her out of cruelty; he was following protocol, and even then gave her the least damaging option. Some egs are:
If not for his vows⌠Thaddeus squeezed down on his Conduit so hard that he feared something might break. The laughably, tragically ironic part of it all was that he did not even know why they required this.
Instead, he stopped for a moment, taking deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, and cast a gentle spell to speed his recovery. He had been trying to distract himself, to chase her ineffectively for a moment, but the vow would not allow him to continue when he could do better.
His lips moved against his will, as if to say something to her insensate form, but no sound escaped. Apologies were useless, and he would not insult her with them, even if she would never know. He had gotten himself into this situation when he got involved with the Red Guard. Despite all his painstaking work to loosen the shackles of his vows, this particular issue was not an area where he had succeeded yet, and thus he had little choice. Thaddeus was a slave. The thought sent a white-hot bold of rage through his brain, and he had to take a moment to breathe with his eyes closed before he could continue.
(In fact, the experience forced him to confront his own lack of autonomy)
As he began to prepare the spell array, he considered stripping and searching her, as was standard safety protocol with prisoners. The vow did not force him to do so. He decided against it.
Truly accessing another personâs memories, by necessity, required one to experience them. Connecting two minds like that was dangerous for both parties, and in his current state of relative fatigue, especially so. He did not have to, and so he did not.
He knew that it was likely a certain kind of person would eventually come to ask the same questions again, but he refused to go so far as to try to strip the curiosity out of her. If events one day replayed themselves, hopefully by then he would be able to make his own choices
He remembered belatedly that he should have questioned her about the source of her knowledge, and barely held back an expression of triumph at his successful evasion of the Red Guardâs geas. It was too late now. And this was one more small sliver chipped away from the walls of his prison. He had time, and he had the Will. One day, he would be free entirely.
He knows now that she has lied about her familiar being harmless and intangible. There are several implications from this discovery and can bring a lot of danger to her if he really wanted to act maliciously towards her.
Her anger is emotionally valid and understandable but not ethically justified. He was raging against his lack of freedom, just as she was raging against her loss of agency. Theyâre two sides of the same coin. Both trapped. Both angry. Both powerful, and still helpless.
From previous eg with oliver situation we know that she can assume worst about a person just after one setback or percieved betrayal and go emotionally nuclear on them
Whatever has happened to siobhan in oliver situation she has done the same and more to other people and only acknowledged her hypocrisy after facing the similar consequences herself eg damien situation.
So, maybe now that she is the victim of this violation (memory wipe) she may hesitate but when she had access to possible knowledge of this spell. She was all for its helpfulness and benefits And saw it as as a useful tool, not a moral line and it was fair game for her if the choice was between violating (wiping) someoneâs memory and people discovering secrets
about her and possible risk that it can bring to her.
Thaddeus exercised restraint, repeatedly choosing the lesser harmâdespite being in a position of power. If roles were reversed she would have wiped his memory if not for lack of skill and she even admits in later chapters that if she had access to mine she would have used it on thaddeus even after she knows that he is oathbound and acting under compulsion and in this situation only because of her .
And from both situations (oliver and thaddeus) she seems more upset about being the victim, not the principle of it. If its wrong, it should be wrong no matter who does it. She is quick to cast judgment, but often acts with the same ruthlessness when itâs convenient or necessary.
And in both altercations (thaddeus and oliver), the hate and outrage by readers is less for morals & ethics and more for the romanticism towards main character.
So, NO thaddeus isnât innocent or morally upstanding but neither is siobhan.
I think part of it is also that - despite how amazing she is - we see Siobhan as weak and Thaddeus as strong.
Weâre more accepting of the weak having to do what they must to survive but are less accepting of it in someone strong. In fact, reading some of the comments, it felt like people couldnât accept that Thaddeus was weak and under someone elseâs power.
Thereâs an element of hating the strong character for oppressing the weak one without acknowledging that he, too, is a victim.
And yes, part of it is because Siobhan is the main character. We were with her as she was chased, twisting and fighting and just barely getting away. We saw her make a deal with her inner demon to get away by casting impossible magic - and it still wasnât enough.
The horror, the rage, the frustration when he finally caught her, the unfairness of it all, thatâs also colouring peopleâs perception of Lacer.
Itâs not rational, but itâs human.
Edit: for the record, despite my sympathy for him, if Siobhan had used his blood to curse him I would have supported her and cheered her on. My morality is very skewed.
I think too, this group read the Patreon version of the book. In that version, Lacer seems to have more free will.
I was on the typo hunting team and the portrayal now emphasizes slightly more Lacerâs inability to fight the curse.
Heâs not even certain why the oath hard-codes this behavior. In his mind, the Red Guard is a failing institution, and he wishes he could have Siobhanâs help instead of upholding the oath.
The new material also slightly emphasizes that during the fight he subconsciously was trying to have her escape (he entirely allowed himself to be tricked by Siobhanâs illusion), which helps emphasize the compulsionâs severity.
Itâs maybe a 1- 2% difference, but Lacerâs attitude focuses slightly more on doing the absolute minimum the oath requires, and while thatâs horrible for Siobhan, heâs coming across more sympathetic.
Frankly, it seems that if Lacer could split his will, heâd rip that oath out by the roots, much the way S. fights the memory modification.
Mmm, I did read the original version and I felt that it was fairly obvious from the beginning that he hated what he was doing (I think I have long comments about this somewhere ) and loathed being under control.
But yes, Azalea emphasised it further in the final edit.
As story is from her POV we are deeply aligned with Siobhan as the protagonist . Her struggles, fear, anger, and righteousness are so well-written that we feel them even when they arenât justified.
The narrative often tilts in her favor, not just situationally, but morally. The framing of events, the emotional tone, the excuses made â they all soften Siobhanâs flaws while casting suspicion or critique on others for similar or even more generous actions.
This is a harsh world as it should be and we see people struggle and have actual consequences from the beginning.
Siobhan is brilliant - no question. But luck repeatedly bails her out, and the story leans into it instead of letting her fail in meaningful, humbling ways.
For eg we see tanya camelo in a predatory bargain with university professors where she is treated little more than slave one that reduces her to an exhausted, underpaid servant for the privilege of education
in comparison siobhan was a criminal and actually on streets and she did get predatory bargain with 50% interest but she didnt even haggle at the time as she did later in the story and does get fair deals whether it is with oliver or someone else.
In the first scene with liza, she justifies her price as it could strain or effect her will and take her some effort and siobhan gets to know that it wasnât even close to that. but liza manipulated her because she could,because of the position siobhan was in and siobhan didnât know better.
oliver and siobhan were similarly strangers and they had to haggle to get the best deal from each other.
We know he feels and is indirectly responsible for theft and siobhan being in this position at this point.
But after that he hosts her at his manor and there are several instances where he goes a bit far for her and she could depend on him like she has will strain he takes her to healer, she wants to talk to her father he taker her to liza, he constantly checks in with his harrow hill informants for her and all this was in the very beginning of the series.
There are so many little things oliver does for her as a person throughout the series and worries over her wellfare as a friend.
Not all of them can be justified as âwell he was indirectly responsible for the theft of book â so all this care and hosting was her right.
She is much more directly responsible in newtonâs death and that pendragon copsâ capture, torture and imprisonment and several more egs and we do empathise with her situation and we do understand why she canât go after rescuing him. IThere are many similar egs where she is directly and indirectly responsible for such circumstances.
And all the points said by oliver were true in that confrontation with siobhan but alas muddied on the emotional level by his manipulation tactics.
All this care and favours are maybe normal for an ordinary person but we know that siobhan never had something like this after her grandfather died and her horrible father. Therfore this should greatly impact her. But siobhan either feels uncomfortable with this (rightfully so with her situation) but there is no deep emotional acknowledgment from her of this safety net even after all that has happened. In no circumstances should all this be diluted into well he put me in this place or shallow or short acknowledgments.
True, oliver later manipulates her for verdant stag âcriminal activitiesâ in lieu of paying back her loan. But isnât she doing the same when she is in power in other dynamics throughout the book.
i do acknowledge their fallout was necessary and for the better as oliver had more power in that dynamic and it is more palatable now that they are on equal grounds.
But isnât she implicating damien and ana in treasonous position. Imagine if there partnerships comes out in open in current circumstances. How will they feel and how it will affect their lives both on emotional and professional level. How much can high crown punish both of them if this comes to light? damien has unknowingly betrayed his family when he was feeding her information. And will affect him so much more on personal level if this is revealed now instead of later when there are few consequences and implications as her character gets more power and something good comes out of undreaming order.
oliverâs plot just got reveled at the point where it was unfavourable for him and she had just got out of her deal with him and can cut ties for good if she wants to.
And even after 5 books all she acknowledges is oliver has once betrayed her but he has never acted maliciously towards her when she has a use for him. There should be more emotional ties in that friendship.
So, these are two egs of predatory deals for university fees where hers is cushioned from actual harsh realities.
A lot of her power and wins are justified by her talent and circumstances up until now.
For eg she kills rogue red guard agent with mine and her use of split will or her win with pendragon heir because he was arrogant and pompous.
so even when faced with people with more power and better position she came out of it on the winning side either because people were more leaned into her fanatism & legend or by their own characteristics default.
She is going by her life because either she is best/briliant or people are ignorant.
Compared to her fight with thaddeus should never have come this close to her escaping.
Thaddeus was the only character that was equally fantasised and brilliant from the beginning of the series . He was the only other character that had his own legend.
Heâs not just a free-caster ( as said by oliver there is a free caster then there is thaddeus lacer when he was interrogating oliver). Heâs a former war mage, Red Guard-trained, has a thousands of thaums of Will and near-genius-level intellect.
So with all his brilliance and thousands of thaums of will and experience with so many types of aberrants and such altercations and so much knowledge and so many beast cores. There were no similar strategies or brilliant moves all he did was use brute force and tunnel through the cliff and chase her even in the face of possible escape. There are no clever manuevers to just subdue her without harming her.
Yet the outcome is a near-draw?
Thatâs not just implausible â itâs narratively convenient.
(Before her escape into spirit realm all that chase).
Not to say we dont want her to win.
any other character from the series even archmage Zard or liza or red guard or anyone else in the same situation opposite siobhan with this result would have been more plausible and palatable.( and only if they are also ignorant fools and fodder for her level ups bcz the skill gap is so huge)
There are no meaningful losses for her and even her losses often end in net gains from the narrative standpoint.
Like she has her memory intact and third split will from this altercation. And thaddeus is the new villian for some months (like oliver was).
And while in these 5 books Siobhan grows in power, skill, and legend, she barely changes emotionally as a person. Her arc is heavily focused on external achievement, with very little internal transformation â and what little introspection there is often gets reset or brushed aside by the next crisis.
Only significant change is that she does acknowledges damienâs relationship with her after he bends over backwards for her.
Meanwhile, other characters show real emotional arcs:
Siobhan, by contrast, is emotionally flat. Her moments of self-awareness (such as realizing her hypocrisy in the Damien incident, or feeling momentary guilt after lashing out at Oliver) are fleeting. She doesnât evolve â she just levels up. And the narrative doesnât pressure her to do better (emotionally) because it always vindicates her choices in the end.
Edit :
And even if we take the damien case- we see how miserable things are for damien is academically, financially etc because she has put all that workload on him and dangled the carrot of becoming actual membor of organisation in front of him. Yes, she feels guilt as she is responsible but where is the feeling of loyalty, protectiveness etc for him. We have so many instances where damien feels all sorts of feelings in this relationship. hearing about her childhood rat incident, fekten incident, asking titus (who is the only actual, loving family member of damien) to back off, his protectiveness and worry when he discovers oliver incident, his emotional state in her recovery from that memory incident and more there are nuances and gradual development of feelings in this friendship from damienâs side . we get nothing from her it is as usual emotionally flat.
it goes from how can i exploit this to damien isnât betraying me i am betraying him because that friendship is so obviously feels predatorial if we wont read the same emotinal arc development from her side. she hears about damienâs dad and goes i wont pry because i dont like when someone else does the same to me. Fair but where is that inner dialogue of anger that this is my friend and this is horrible. where is that out of random afterthought of this instance where she feels protective and care for him?
We see all this and more from oliver, thaddeus and damienâs side but not from her. these are the most important and close people in her life and not random colleagues or acquaintances.
There is grounds for emotional, righteous defence for those characters.
And even her level ups (power/wins) dont align with her skill growth. i wish she would actually actually level up academically and skill wise intead of just winning because of singular will in all the nations which can split into three though under 1000 thaums, only person with a working brillian mind who can trick and strategise and she is the main protagonist.
Not saying that she is not growing but she cant be besting powerful people left and right because luck or they dont take her seriously.
she should get tools and skills which helps somewhat to balance scales and only wins by thread if she is facing someone with so much skill gap.
⌠I believe at some point she has a bit of self reflection and sheâs like [oh, wow, I am a cold hearted b*tch, how do I feel about that?/meh, lacer is a jerk and look at how cool he is! So maybe me being a bitch isnât so bad⌠But maybe I should try to be nicer to those who I dream worthy of it yah?]
I want to point out thatâs sheâs so busy with the external crap in her life, or trying to be perfect, she doesnât seem to believe she needs to grow
One of the things that Azalea is good at is having relatable problems.
Trust me, I know people in their 40s/50s who still havenât had an ego blowing humbling moment,
Why should they change? They are perfectly happy with how their life isâŚ
By the end of book 4 our girl had only started to stop running around with her head chopped off
However, something else happened by the end of book four that is prob also subtlety effecting our girl
Thereâs a quiet theme in the series, magic responds to the popular desires, the red guard and university seem to be trying to guide magic (to a favorable way to them)
I know somewhere I have made a joke
Let me say it in a different way
This seems less of a practical guide to sorcery and more of a âhow to accidentally become a godlingâ
⌠How much is the general populations beliefs effecting our poor girl?
I disagree about Siobhan being emotionally flat.
Sheâs still paranoid, yes, still suspicious, still more comfortable with trades than accepting kindness. But she is the product of her upbringing.
Sheâs been betrayed by almost every single person sheâs ever loved or trusted.
Her mother abandoned her when she decided to cast through her flesh - and then keep casting.
It doesnât matter why she did it - to a child itâs just a betrayal. Emotionally, it will always be a betrayal no matter how much she can rationalise it and understand it.
Her grandfather trapped a nightmare inside her head and took away her memories. Yes, to protect her, but you can see how much that has scarred her from the way she would prefer death to having it happen to her ever again.
Her father went from being a (presumably) decent enough parent when her mother was alive to abandoning her to her grandfather, coming back later and then dragging her around here, there and everywhere, running cons, sleeping around and finally selling her off in marriage to a family she knew nothing about and giving away her last memento of her mother. Even after all that she struggled to give him up until she thought that he sold her motherâs gem and replaced the celerium with a fake. It was wrenching to watch her throw that all away and come to terms with the fact that the loving father she wanted was just a childâs wish and not someone who existed anymore.
In Oliver she saw the same patterns repeating and acted based on her fear of betrayal - she saw the slyness, the smug self satisfaction and it triggered alarms in her brain because sheâd seen the same signs in Ennis before. She made a lot of assumptions based on that because of her inability to trust and fear of being taken in. Letâs not forget that she genuinely liked and trusted Oliver and was at least a little bit infatuated with him and this likely scared her all the way off because she was terrified heâd be another Ennis.
She trusted Thaddeus Lacer as well. He was her hero before she came to university, he was the reason she got into university and he helped her with seemingly no benefit to himself at several points. He spoke to her relatively freely, even letting her know things she shouldnât, things that could incriminate him. He was a father figure in many ways - and then he punished her for asking questions by chasing her down, beating her and stripping away all her defences and taking her memories and tampering with her mind. (Yes, he has reasons for all of this, but the feel of it is terrible).
Despite all of this, she has still grown emotionally to the point that she goes to Oliver for help instead of trying to do everything by herself.
Her aloofness is a defence mechanism from her childhood. But sheâs still made friends and acknowledged them as such. Sheâs even given away some of her hard earned coin to help others - and this is from a girl who starved so badly she ate rats and tried to eat a stray dog. She knows hunger and poverty intimately but is still willing to part with a portion of her security in order to help others.
She has many biases and sheâs been trying to tackle them since the beginning of the series - blood magic, the conversation about nulls with Oliver, causes for Aberrants, the nature of magic, the quality of education in Silva Erde - sheâs actively trying to remember that just because something is common knowledge doesnât make it true. Sheâs also become much kinder to her friends despite them all being nobles and her having prejudice against them at the start. She did take Anaâs criticism on board and it genuinely bothered her and inspired change in her.
Sheâs worked on making her appreciation more apparent. Sheâs patient with other students even when she finds them incompetent. She shows kindness to animals and children and generally anyone whoâs âweakerâ than herself who she canât trade with.
The trading and transactional nature are also a defence mechanism, btw. It comes from a life where if you accept something without knowing what the strings attached are then youâll find out later and it will always be the worse for you. Better to trade and know what youâre giving up and what youâre getting in exchange up front. You never want to put yourself in someone elseâs power. Itâs why sheâs so relieved when Oliver says he could use a favour from her later in exchange for his help with the current crisis. It puts her at ease because it balances the scales between them.
Siobhan is desperately in need of love and therapy. Instead what she has is two lives, a critical lack of rest - not even sleep! - and constant danger hanging over her head.
Look at the other characters whose growth youâve pointed out - Alec was comic relief, sure. But he always had a soft side to him and thatâs implied to be the reason his father was so cruel to him. Heâs lightened up since his abusive father was removed from his life.
Damien also has an abusive father, but he was largely sheltered because his older brother looked after him and ran interference. He was a good kid so it doesnât take much to put him on the right track and heâs had his worldview massively shifted by realising the forces of good can get up to some seriously nefarious shit. Thatâs played a massive role in his development.
Thaddeus has always wrestled with his vows. Thatâs part of why he ended up at the university (implied) and why heâs been punished so much by the Red Guard. His character development has been more regarding Sebastien and his unhappiness in seeing himself reflected in his apprentice and how it brings up his own memories of unhappy childhood and abuse (implied).
Unlike Siobhan all of these people are living one single life, getting plenty of sleep and rest (well, usually) and generally getting periods of downtime.
She hasnât got a single person she can be honest with. Sheâs not even in her real body most of the time. Sheâs under so much stress itâs unreal. You want to talk about emotionally flat? Her whole confrontation with the Red Guard at the end of the book was emotionally flat - because she was numb. Sheâs so broken right now itâs unreal, and it screams at me from the pages. There have been times where you can feel her working herself into a mental breakdown. The whole beamshell arc was an example of her avoiding her problems by trying to mask the symptoms and you could just feel her winding tighter and tighter as she did everything to avoid her grief and terror.
No, no, I do not agree that Siobhan is emotionally flat. Avoidant, overwrought and unforgiving? Yes. Flat? Not at all.
i am not saying she is emotionally flat. All those feelings are just justified and there for a reason i am saying her emotional arc is flat.
i didnt say all those transactions or her emotions were wrong or right. emotionally things didnt develop from A to B in these relationships in her inner monologues. its not about whether alec was a bully, damien was naive and also initially in this friendship for his personal benefit its about in these relationships it went from this to this âthe developmentâ.
Not siobhan is a bad person but we dont get that arc from her side we get all those monologues and care from damien etc after this long. Damienâs feelings in this friendship had that development. iwe didnât get read same development from her side. there is investment there so we should hear about how she feels in this friendship as things change just like we get from others.
i did say that the fallout with oliver was necessary and for good and is more palatable now that things are on equal grounds. all those transactions and instances- its not whether they are good or bad. we did hear how she feels when she feels betrayed or setbacks from other people. we dont get the same emotional gratitude from her side with equal passion as relationship grows.
But we do.
Damien has gone from irritant to useful idiot to friend to âif Damien turned out to be an aberrant would I be able to make myself kill him?â and musings over if this is what itâs like to have a brother.
She had a whole tearful moment where she realised she was lying to him like Oliver was lying to her and she was trying to apologise and acknowledge that even as she realised she could not come clean.
When he spills her secret to Thaddeus sheâs not angry with him, she takes his words on faith that he was trying his best and she subtly asks him if he spilled a larger secret. When she comes back she confides in him what she can.
When sheâs literally dying she thinks about him and his safety and casts magic to change her form so she can alert him to danger. Sheâs literally dying with her mind tearing itself apart and she thinks of his safety.
She lets him take her home and look after her.
In a moment of paranoia she wonders if Damien will betray her only to realise that sheâs betraying him and she likens herself to Ennis, one of the people - if not the person - whoâs hurt her the most in life.
Sheâs deeply avoidant. She suppresses her feelings and tries not to think about them. Even so, itâs very clear how her feelings for Damien have changed massively since the beginning of the story.
Edit: she also lets him touch her, which is huge. She only lets a very few people touch her - Oliver, Ana, Damien and Sharon. Liza to an extent. Sheâs very touch avoidant.