Alice has a new
kitten! She’s going home to her parents to plan her next move with the Lamprey
following her
Of course, home
reunions aren’t great - Alice never really got on with her mother, Stephanie,
in the first place and they start striking sparks instantly. It doesn’t help
that Alice has been alive again for months and hasn’t bothered to visit or even
inform them - Quentin had to do that. Alice’s paranoia over the Lamprey also
makes her hard to talk to in the least.
Life has not gone
well for Alice’s parents: the house is falling apart since it was held up with
magic. They have no income and no employment skills and they have bills coming
in they never had to pay before. Even one of their friends has turned to drink
without magic to change how she looks. Again we see how the lack of magic has
completely devastated the witches and wizards out there.
Alice’s paranoia
leads her to randomly tasing people since electricity hurts Lampreys and
driving out one of her mother’s friends. Her mother’s also not pleased that
Alice suspected this woman was a lamprey and left Stephanie alone with her.
Quentin - who is
actually possessed by the lamprey follows Alice (because exploding cats and
all) but after many shenanigans with cellophane and tasers they decide Quentin
isn’t infected. As Stephenie and Alice fight we learn a little more about the
niffin - how they do anything for knowledge and Alice as a niffin earned the
Lamprey’s wrath by killing its whole family, slowly, to research their deaths.
This is what niffin are - terrifying and horrible and powerful and Alice, not
inaccurately (albeit a past tense would apply), describes herself as “a monster”.
She’s clearly dealing with a lot of guilt over this, especially since the
Lamprey was just one of many victims
When Quentin tries to
comfort Stephanie, she tries to kiss him - which i recall is fairly standard
behaviour for her - which leads to Alice panicking and atsig folks. Because the
Lamprey doesn’t want to kill her but lay its eggs in the brains of everyone
around her. Stephanie is tased. Quentin tases himself to prove his sincerity -
leaving Alice and her dad alone and realising her beloved father is possessed.
The lamprey makes her confess the real reason she killed its family: they make
pretty lights when they die.
Niffin are deeply
terrifying creatures.
The Lamprey also
claims her dad has a heart condition so can’t be tased… after some agonising,
Alice tases him (preferable to having eggs laid in his brain I guess). The
Lamprey is exposed and she tases it. It dies… and it does produce pretty lights
Everyone has time to
recoup and take nasty potions to remove any eggs left in them - and she and
Quentin talk about why she’s pushing him away. Ultimately, this Alice isn’t
Niffin Alice, but she isn’t the Alice she was before either (as we can see from
her new advanced speed reading). She can’t go back to that and Quentin, with
his silent expectations even if he promises he only wants to help, constantly
reminding her of who she was and can never be. I think we have to throw a large
amount of guilt on that as well as another obvious conflict: she may not be
that woman any more, but how much of her wishes she were.
Elsewhere Julia
manages to find Kady and the battery but Kady is firm - Julia helps her save
Penny or she leaves. That’s it. Julia agrees to help. Even when it turns out
the ritual involves summoning a demon and any sensible person would be
perturbed - but Julia who has suffered terribly at the hands of summonings gone
wrong?
Despite this she
agrees and they summon the demon Asteroth. Not Astaroth - different spelling, a
whole lot less titles and he’s also not into the whole bowing and kneeling
thing. He’s actually quite a nice guy who is willing to help with Penny’s
cancer (to eat it - because this is Magicians and everything is awful).
The process is agonising so Penny astrally projects out of his body so he
doesn’t have to feel it.
And when he dies
afterwards, Penny’s astral self is still around. Well, I guess it’s better than
dying dying? At least it gives him a way back and hopefully back into the main
cast as well.
Still faintly amused
that the demon is a genuinely nice guy
On to Fillory where
everything is weird and bizarre. Elliot is still at sea with his little crew
trying to figure out how to use the magic key when pirates attack. Fray is
ready to fight, Fen is ready to do anything she can to protect her daughter. While
Elliot… well Elliot is a powerful wizard without magic. Elliot doesn’t do
physical confrontation. Thankfully there’s a random keyhole appeared in the
side of the ship which fits the magic key. The choice between pirates or
unknown, Elliot goes for unknown
Unfortunately back in
Fillory on the ground, Queen Margo who is already losing her last scraps of
patience to ridiculous fae demands (like digging up perfectly good crop fields
to replace them with mushrooms) hears that the High King may now be in the hands
of pirates. Margot does not need this shit. She needs to get to Elliott asap,
but without magic that’s awfully difficult
So he goes and has an
epic confrontation with the fairy queen pointing out that the kingdom may be
taken over by the fae but if they let the High king to be messed with. The
fairy queen understands the message and agrees to arrange some pegasus to get
them to the ship to speak to the Pirates
And their king. Who is a woman, but she’s the king and if the king says she wants to be called king not queen, you call her king. She’s also super flirty with Margo who is super flirty back but also an excellent politician and keeping sex on the table but not until the king puts out politically and Margo gets what she wants. The problem is that part of what the king wants is for her sentient male ship to have sex with the muntjack, Flliory’s sentient female ship.
When Margo discusses
this with her minions, they point out how ships after this experience are never
the same. The symptoms he describes Margo rightly identifies as PTSD - she
realises that they want her to use her Queenly authority to make her ship
submit to rape.
Margo isn’t happy
about this and goes to the ship’s heartwood to ask the ship what she wants. She
doesn’t get an answer - but she is watched by the queen of fairies who is moved
by her plea. And promptly slaughters the pirates and takes their teeth, as you
do
Unfortunately while I
would have thought the lesson here was compassion, the Fairy Queen has
apparently taken this as a learning point about standing up to people and how
Margo should learn and basically stab people when they defy her. So, not
necessarily the lesson wanted here. She clearly expects Margo to keep doing
this to fulfill her wishes
She also wants
Margo’s eye back which Trick one of her minions has stolen. Margo says it’s her
eye - but Margo made a deal. She gives the eye back, but not before crushing it
in her hand. She also refuses to give up her minion - more defiance; and the
fairy queen strikes back by whispering an extremely annoying song into the head
of one of her minions. Now that’s just evil.
I am desperately
looking forward to the time Margo kicks the Fairy queen out of her court. It
has to happen and I am looking forward to it so much.
Alice is a complex
and painful character at the moment - and painful angsty chaacters are
definitely Magicians things. I suspect we’re going to have ghostly Penny
for the foreseeable future
