Weeeell, I accidentally lied to you and finished the whole book today, @pyororon. Honestly, as much fun as it is to zoom through to drive into it all, thereās a lot that went on that I want to discuss with you; itās just more fun to have someone to talk to and theorize with in the heat of the moment imo. So Iāll definitely be taking a short break until you catch up with v. 14 (no lies this time, promise).
Some thoughts/mysteries after finishing the book:
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How could Ward and his men have known Geoffrey and Kaitoās plans to go to the Hoe? That information shouldāve been known to only them and Lily and Sam (since he had to go plant the flag). I find it hard to believe any of them would have leaked any information.
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What happened to Kazuya? Kaito saw him step through the portal, but he never appeared. Did he go to another world, a different one? Or, more interestinglyā¦ Weāve been assuming that Kaitoās visions/dreams of him are true and accurate, but weāve never actually seen any proof of that. Maybe Kazuya is just chilling back in the 21st century and is going to get the surprise of his life when a near-death Kaito shows up.
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They didnāt really go into detail as to why Geoffrey couldnāt accompany Kaito; his being unfamiliar with 21st century life is true, and his sudden appearance would cause untold complications probably, but it didnāt feel like there was enough page space to justify the decision. Like, I understand why ę¾å²”å ē wants to keep the main narrative in the 16th century, but raising such a tantalizing possibility and then waving it awayā¦ Thatās rough.
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I just need to give up, I know, but Iām pretty sad Nigel was in no way involved in the events of the last chapters: Kaitoās origins confession + the last stand on the Hoe. Like, I can accept Kaito and Geoffrey are endgame, but Nigelās such an important part of the cast, imo. :\ And it does make sense why he needs to keep up the facade of āeverything is normalā for Walsingham, but still, it stings. Especially since his big scene in this book was literally kidnapping Kaito because he couldnāt bear to do nothing. :\
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Still harping on Nigel: thinking about it, absolutely nothing was resolved with his character in this volume, which feels weird given his big incident. Iām not sure what to think about this. ę¾å²”å ē didnāt like Nigel? She wanted to write more but was limited to a page count? Sheās cleverly building tension and will definitely bring it home in a future book? All I can hope for is the third option.
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As always, I get the feeling that ę¾å²”å ēās books are simply not thick enough for the amount of detail and space that I want to read about; I feel like the majority of F&B books could be twice as thick, no lie, and still have plenty to talk about.
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I know/assume from being an omniscient reader (i.e. seeing the covers of later books) that Geoffreyās likely going to be fine, but I wonder how this is all going to play out. Itās super unreasonable and has a 0% charge of happening, but I would love for Vicente to take the stage again and rescue Geoffrey.
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Kaito said heās be back soon; I donāt have the book in front of me at the moment, but it seems like he said itād be a few months? But unless I misunderstood his and Lilyās conclusions in an earlier chapter, wouldnāt the next tunnel opening be in summer? So heās got a good 6 months to go, assuming he doesnāt miss that opening.
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I didnāt think about it at the time, but during chapter 9, when Kaitoās laying out his āIām from the futureā proof, heās laying down a ridiculous amount of cash in front of Geoffrey.
He shows him a 5 pound and 10 pound note, very roughly equivalent to Ā£1,023 and Ā£2,046 for Geoffrey according to this website. Granted, Kaitoās money wouldnāt have been seen as legal tender in the 1580s, so it would have been worthless, but I thought it was still interesting in hindsight. I wonder if Geoffrey will look back at some point and ponder just how rich Kaito actually is, haha.
Thatās all Iāve got for now; Iāll have to ponder events while I cook supper, and will add on more thoughts as they come to me.