Page 370: “Why would the Black Swan set fires around humans—and why were they yellow this time? Why did Alden need Grady to help? And why did Grady refuse?”
Sophie should know—or at least think she knows—why Grady refused to help Alden investigate the fires. It makes more sense here for Sophie to assume that it's because of Jolie and how she died. That might not necessarily be the whole truth, but it's probably what Sophie would think.
Page 370: “‘An Insider's Guide To Pyrokinesis.’”
An insider? What does this mean? Was it written by a pyrokinetic? Or was it just written by someone who knows a lot? If it was written by a pyrokinetic, it must be really old. How have the pages held together? It's been millennia!
Page 371: “‘I've never even heard of it—and I thought I knew them all.’”
This line is one of the Foxfire librarians. She's talking about the book An Insider's Guide To Pyrokinesis. Why would she think she knows them all? Is she secretly a pyrokinetic who read as many books on pyrokinesis as she could to understand her power? No. I'm fully aware that she's referring to the fact that she thinks she knows all of the books in the library. But it would be cool if she was a pyrokinetic.
Page 374: “‘Frissyn is the only way to extinguish Everblaze. The formula is highly classified’”
Why is it classified? The elves don't seem to be worried about Everblaze, so they wouldn't worry that someone was making Frissyn. The only thing I can think of is that they would worry about someone getting Quintessence, but people don't know where to find the unmapped stars anyway. Actually, now that I think about it, that's probably the reason. They don't want elves to realize that the unmapped stars exist.
Page 374: “‘I'm afraid they might be—but I've been overruled on that opinion.’”
It's not really an opinion, though. It's annoying when people label things that aren't opinions as opinions.
Page 374: “‘it's not our concern.’”
Here, Alden is talking about the Council's decision about the fires. The issue is that it feels like they should at least put out one for. See, on page 324, we're told that there's a fire near Eternalia, and it's affecting the air quality. This would give the Council an incentive to extinguish the fires, or at least the one near Eternalia. I also know that this has to be part of the Everblaze because they aren't in San Diego anymore. They're in Eternalia, which is on a completely different continent. Also, the San Diego fires have been extinguished already anyway. Therefore, one of the Everblaze fires is close enough to Eternalia to affect the air quality, and the Council has a reason to do something about this. It's not just affecting humans, it's affecting elves.
Page 377: “‘I'm sure they wrote the article’”
Who wrote the article about Sophie? I genuinely don't remember who it was. Was it the Neverseen? I don't think they had a good reason to because it would be easy to remain inconspicuous so they could just kidnap Sophie, but they also set the fires, so I guess it makes sense. I just don't remember who wrote the article.
Page 378: “‘Many things could cause fire to be that color.’”
Fun fact: according to google, sodium can be used to make yellow fire. Some sites specify that you can use sodium chloride, which is just table salt. I know this isn't what happened, but now I'm imagining the Neverseen dumping a bunch of salt on a city before setting it on fire. Something tells me that's not what Alden meant when he said this, though.
Page 382: “‘In accordance with your request, adoption proceedings for Sophie Foster have been canceled.’”
In my opinion, this reveal is really well written. I don't tend to get too emotional over books, especially on rereads, but this still makes me sad every time I read it. Sophie had just started to bond with Grady and Edaline, and now they've decided not to adopt her. The thing that makes this hurt more is the fact that this means they were going to adopt her, which I don't think was fully confirmed. We basically knew it was going to happen, but still. I also love that we get clues to this in the previous scene. Alden clearly knows that Grady and Edaline canceled Sophie's adoption, and at first, he doesn't realize that Sophie doesn't. Alden doesn't tell her what's happening, but when Sophie leaves, he does tell her that she can talk to him about anything. This is good foreshadowing; he's letting her know that she can teach out to him because he knows how upset she'll be when she learns that Grady and Edaline canceled her adoption. So yeah, this reveal is really well done.
Page 385: “‘I can't replace Jolie and I guess you don't want me.’”
This line is really good. They've all been avoiding the subject of Jolie, and Grady and Edaline don't even realize that Sophie knows about her. Because of that, this line hits hard. Normally, Sophie would never say something like this, but in this moment, she's so angry at Grady and Edaline for canceling her adoption and not even telling her that she doesn't bother trying to be nice. Sophie is saying both what she's really feeling and what she knows will hurt the most, and I love it. This whole scene is amazing.
Page 392: “‘But I'm your best friend.’”
I wish this was true for the rest of the series. Bring back the platonic relationships! Sophie barely talks to Dex in the later books, yet she repeatedly says they're best friends.
Page 398: “‘You’re already like my little sister—this would just make it official.’”
I just want to start this off by reminding you that I don't want any ship wars in the replies. I'm going to be talking a bit about Sophitz, but I'm not saying it's a bad ship. I personally ship Sokeefe, but I have nothing against Sophitz, and I don't want anyone to fight about it. This is all for fun, and I'm sick of people arguing about ships. Anyway, I don't like lines like this. It makes Sophitz becoming canon feel a little out of nowhere. In the earlier books, Fitz shows no signs of a crush on Sophie. He clearly sees her as a little sister, and he says that here. This remains true for a while, and then… he has a crush on her. It feels like it came out of nowhere. I don't think Fitz should have had a crush on Sophie in these earlier books, but I wish this sort of thing wasn't emphasized as much. It's especially an issue because it reminds us that Fitz is older than Sophie, and it shows that Fitz sees this age gap. Sophie is older when they get together, but still. I wish lines like this had been cut so that Sophitz becoming canon made more sense, and I wish Sophitz had been hinted at a little more before it became canon.
Page 401: “‘Balefire.’”
I just realized that every Balefire crystal must be super old. After pyrokinesis was banned, I doubt they would be able to make more, so all the Balefire we see had to have been made before this. This means that they have a limited supply of Balefire, and every Balefire crystal in the series was created millennia ago.
Page 402: “‘I asked them to put all the Pyrokinetics under secret surveillance’”
I thought the Pyrokinetics were under surveillance already. I might have been wrong, though. Let me know if you remember if they were already under surveillance or not, because I definitely don't remember.
Page 403: “‘Della and I would love to have you live with us.’”
Is there an AU where Sophie went to live with the Vackers instead of getting adopted by Grady and Edaline? If not, someone should write that. I think it's a really interesting premise, and maybe she could learn more about the Vacker Legacy and find something secret hidden somewhere at Everglen.
Page 404: “‘Probably because my father's always off chasing phantom rebels,’ Alvar said from the doorway. Sophie and Alden both jumped. ‘Sorry. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to sneak up on people.’”
Looking back, Alvar is incredibly suspicious. Every time we see him, he's eavesdropping on some kind of top-secret conversation. How did I not catch on sooner? This is good foreshadowing.
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