One thing I enjoy about writing this series is that so much of the magic Siobhan learns has wide utility, if one has enough control to start exploring the edge cases and permutations.
Discussion welcome!
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…he’s just as gullible as Damien when she uses this trick on him. She’s so brilliant. And he’s so human 
It’s midnight and I’ve been working late nights the last few days so I’ll have to come back in the morning to reread (and re-re-re-read) the chapter. I just can’t resist commenting as soon as I read a chapter, though. The fan girl in me is eternally squeeing over them.
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I love how she recognises the irony of her now being able to travel through shadows!
Also, holy shadows those beacons are going to be so useful and powerful to navigate the spirit realm and Legion can peak in on the destination before so she can understand what she’s stepping into. Couple that with them inevitably exploring more of the viewing magic from the spirit realm she’s going to be fulfilling some more of those rumours about what the Raven Queen is capable of in the not too distant future I reckon!
Interesting to note that a) Legion has some challenges of their own in the spirit realm and b) S is already being congnisant of that but testing out their navigation skills against the beacons. Speaks to the combination of her already paranoid and survival oriented mind coupling with her proactively making plans for her own powerful future
I was wondering if we were going to get this from Lacers PoV but I’m glad we got to see the internal struggle she was having and how she has deliberately chosen this deception in the moment when the opportunity arose.
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I do wonder if the right ritual or conceptual affiliation at a location might make it easier for her to get to a spot faster. May be able to do the “Raven Queen can be in multiple places” idea kind of work due to speed. Might even have some useful potential interactions with her ravens if she binds them into a network
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Makes me think Damien is going to get into serious trouble at some point and the Raven Queen is going to have to step through the shadows to save him
Also, she’s going to have to find some way to test out whether or not she can bring others through the spirit realm with her safely, though she’d have to do it on someone she would happily leave there if it goes wrong. Maybe if Hite survives long enough to meet her again
Speaking of Hite though, hopefully Thaddeus doesn’t find out that he hasn’t actually (knowingly, anyway) touched Sebastien, or else her lies could really catch up to her. Not that Hite seems the communicative type
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Hm some thoughts percolating from this. Causality in principle is symmetry raising the inflection point for any asymmetry to form.
As a plus from her “lie” Sebastian’s framing may work with Lacer learning of Hite sponsoring basically contractors for kidnappings. He could thus extrapolate from other sources like the Undreaming Order finding kidnapping victims that Siobahn was already acting on the topic and then was stymied by their fight. Its a very workable lie, which could be further adapted in justification if anyone like that girl Sebastian saved was further involved in conflict with Hites goons.
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Yes, she finds a ton of strategically powerful magics, but her competitors often have trouble innovating, or they make it too expensive, complicated or classified for others to use their best tools.
Grandmasters and archmages with vast proprietary spell arrays may be able to come up with ever-more-complex permutations on their magic… but someone has to write out that complex spell.
Freecasting? Worse still. You have to keep it all in your head.
Secret components, like Aberrant parts? The Red Guard might find out and kill you. Or the Teragen, depending on your universe.
Secret magic? How beholden are you to the teacher or organization you got them from? What price did you pay?
And so on.
Siobhan, being a genius with a photographic memory and a willingness to use unorthodox resources - blood magic, a tamed Aberrant, etc - can mix and match more effectively.
In part because she’s used to having limited means and having to work with what she has in desperation.
So yes, she knows it can blow up in her face, but she also knows the risks of not acting.
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So. My prediction regarding what happens to Hite…
Assuming Something Bad Happens involving the Raven Queen:
Hite simply disappears into a shadow. Probably in front of someone, whether suddenly being engulf or just walking into a patch of darkness and never reappearing.
Then, some time later, a group of Red Guard notices a small object rolling out of a shadow far away. Possibly in the middle of a Red Guard base.
A sphere of glass and metal, etched with precise golden runes.
Hite’s eye.
Oh, and if the eye comes rolling out of the shadows - bonus points if it’s first audibly bouncing down a set of stairs before coming into view.
Then, depending on how negotiations go, the Raven Queen may politely inquire if Hite’s attack was Red Guard policy or the actions of a rogue member.
A letter to this effect may be attached to his artificial limb.
The answer will determine whether the Red Guard gets Hite back at all, and in how many pieces.
(Best guess, he has a lot of detachable parts - artificial artifact teeth, etc.)
Of course, just yanking him into the spirit realm may be devastating to him mentally, or even fatal. Or he might be a rare person capable of surviving there. Lacer may well be able to, and even capable of escaping on his own power.
But a short sojourn there followed by the dazzler might be an effective way to disable him, weaken him for a brief magical interrogation, and then to strip him of the recent memories which would let the Red Guard know he had been mined for information.
Leaving no mind control traces, but perhaps getting him answering in stream of consciousness while not fully rational and stimulated by powerful but real information could draw out tremendous information while leaving no memetic traces.
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Also, even before Siobhan realized she could cast two spells at a time, much less three, she was already mixing and matching with the limited tools she had - such as bolstering her philter of shadowed perception with her shadow familiar spell and vice versa.
She did the same thing by using multiple battle potions, which we’ve seen other characters doing more of as the stakes have risen.
These things seem simple, but when each one is a supernatural effect, who cares if it’s weak?
Being able to slow your fall and land like a feather is huge. Much less levitate straight up. Much less fly at a fast walk.
There was a comic book miniseries once, Arana, in which the “master mage” running things consistently used only the equivalent of 1st level AD&D mage spells - and he looked amazing.
Jump, spider climb, feather fall, sleep, shield - everything gamers think of as boring came across as awesome… in the Marvel universe.
Siobhan is still dealing with tons of ostensibly more-powerful people, but we’re finally seeing a tipping point in which her actual abilities are catching up with the powers everyone attributes to her.
Wondering if this will have some effect on Lacer.
I think he eventually is going to try to focus on breaking his Red Guard vows.
Basically his apprentice is telling him I trust the Raven Queen more than you. You’re a member of the organization that is trying to hurt me. I can’t fully trust you. That has to hurt Lacers pride I suspect. In part because its true. Lacer is not in full control of his own life therefore he cant be fully trusted.
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I wonder if anyone has, “One of us murders him before the Raven Queen can.” in the betting pool…
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Now she just needs to come up with the opposite of the crown of madness to spy on the mundane realm from the spirit world.
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I feel like it’s either going to backfire badly or Lacer is going to try to remove Hite himself without asking question thus making the Raven Queen using deception to get rid of him without even lifting a finger !
Yeah, she learned that lesson very painfully :x
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Technically, the Raven Queen’s Undreaming Order did save Sebastien from injuries sustained during an assault by a member of the Red Guard.
It’s just that the member is Thaddeus himself.
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One question I’ve had about all the “coincidences” surrounding Siobhan is the shamanic power in which the shaman reshapes the world to bring about their intended outcome.
Yes, there’s the whole idea of the Raven Queen growing into the role people imagine for her.
But I have to wonder…
Did Myrddin choose an intended outcome of “the Work” without being able to specify the precise path to get there?
Is Siobhan the outcome of this shamanic path? Or the instrument taken up by it to achieve its ends?
And in terms of shamanic reality warping - what about the Red Sage? Or whatever the Titans chose to do before they perished - if they did?
Are the Architects of Khronos another such band?
And were Myrddin, the Red Sage, Khronos or other would-be world shapers able to look forward in time to grasp at least some of the consequences of their machinations?"
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Ive been wondering about that too. Especially the mentions of Myyrdin living backwards. It feels like a suggestion that she does something to her own past. With how much her life seems to mirror his.
My other guess is Myyrdin did something and she is the product of that. The very first chapter in the first book, they found his hermitage because the wards broke. I could see that as being intentional rather than a “shifting of the black wastes”. I mean he died over a 1000 years ago didn’t he? It feels damned unlikely they just happened to break for the books to be there for her to just happen to end up with the amulet. Either Myyrdin did something or Siobhan’s future self does.
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Time seems to flow strangely in the spirit world, perhaps under the right circumstances it can even flow backwards
I have occasionally wondered if Siobhan might somehow be Myrddin, and she at some point in her future went back really far into the past. There doesn’t seem to be any historical information on him prior to the time in which he cast the void shield; how did he manage to stay under the radar until he was that powerful?
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Iv’e contemplated that too but I don’t think so. The first page of her book mentioned he thought about writing it in his original language but didn’t feel comfortable with it anymore. But what he writes it in is Siobhan’s original language, just archaic.
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Yeah that’s the main obstacle for the theory I think. I do wonder though, if someone (English specifically in this example) from modern times went back to Chaucer’s day and lived there most of their life, would they feel the same about their mother tongue of Modern English? Calling it a different language wouldn’t be quite right though, and both Siobhan and Myrddin seem like they’d be sticklers about that
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