Last time, in fine villain tradition, Leck has shown up ahead of Katsa.

Katsa felt immediately that there was something she didn’t trust about this man who said such nice things, and in such a nice, warm voice. There was something about him, some quality that kept her senses strung out to a high readiness. She did not like him.

How the fuck does Leck’s grace work, seriously. He just says “Hi friend!” and suddenly Katsa’s mindwiped again.

That aside, this is really creepy, although I feel it’d have been stronger from Bitterblue’s POV. Come to think of it, the book would have been generally better if the Leck thing was more direct, because looking at it from the view of someone who’s all calm and muddled is a lot less immediate.

See, Bitterblue’s nearly immune by this point, so she’s sobbing hysterically and screaming about how Leck’s a liar and they shouldn’t listen to him.

“He’s lying,” she kept saying.
“He’s lying.” Katsa looked at her blankly. Clearly the child didn’t like this man, either. Katsa would take that into consideration

I mean, this is nightmare territory, where no matter what you say, no one understands. What we get here is at one remove. Which is still pretty awful in its own right.

Leck’s mindcontrol seems to kill higher thought, and everyone acts like they’re dreaming.

She tried to pull the girl away from Katsa, embracing her and murmuring to her comfortingly; but Bitterblue began to scream and slapped at the woman, and clung to Katsa like a crazed, frightened thing. Katsa took the child in her arms and shushed her, absently. She looked over Bitterblue’s head at the woman who was somehow Bitterblue’s aunt. The woman’s face jarred into her mind. Her forehead, her nose were familiar. Not the color of her eyes, but the shape of them. Katsa glanced at the woman’s hands and understood. This was Po’s mother.
“She’s hysterical,” Po’s mother said to Katsa.
“Yes,” Katsa said. She held the child close. “I’ll take care of her.”

Leck explains how he got there.

I very nearly decided to sit back and wait. I knew you’d surface somewhere, eventually. But when I made inquiries, I learned that you weren’t welcome at your own court, Lady Katsa.

How did he manage this?

Katsa leaves the morning after threatening the king. Metaleyes spends the rest of the trip complaining about how fast she’s driving the horses. They reach Leck’s kingdom, get the girl right after, and then flee as fast as they can again. Upon getting to the first port, they leave that night ahead of a blizzard, and then proceed directly here far faster than a normal ship because their captain can weave around storms.

Assuming there’s some way of spreading the word faster than they travel, Leck would, at minimum, need to travel to whatever central hub gets that information from where they lose the trail in the mountains, then arrange things in his court for his absence (as the people there would be developing resistance to his grace and can’t just be left alone unsupervised), then set out for a port, then travel on a regular boat to Lienid and collect the entire royal family first.

And he doesn’t even have reason to think he needs to rush, because with his grace he could have talked his way into the castle just as easily.

Katsa keeps feeling weird and like she doesn’t want to give up Bitterblue. She also keeps evading his comments on where Metaleyes is.

“I don’t wish to talk of Po,” she said.
“Don’t you?” Leck asked. “That’s unfortunate. For I do wish to talk of Po.”
He tapped the arm of his chair for a moment, thoughtfully.
“He’s a strong young man, our Po,” he continued. “Strong and brave. A credit to his family. But he’s not without his secrets, is he?”

Katsa’s hackles raise.

“I believe your Po has been hiding a secret from you,” Leck said. “Tell me if I’m right, Lady Katsa, that Prince Po is actually-“
It was then, at last, that a bolt of certainty struck Katsa. In that moment she moved. She dropped the child, snatched the dagger from her belt, and threw. Not because she remembered Leck must die. Not because she remembered the truth of Po’s Grace. But because she remembered that Po did have a secret, a terrible secret, the revelation of which would hurt him in some horrible way she felt deeply but couldn’t remember- and here this man sat, the secret on the tip of his tongue. And she must stop him, somehow stop him; she must silence this man, before the ruinous words were said.
In the end, Leck should have stuck to his lies. For it was the truth he almost told that killed him.

I’m really torn.

It’s an interesting way for her to get past his grace, and it does fit with the idea she’s really good at killing and can only refrain with effort and attention.

But – why would Leck do this? Truth and lies have no meaning to him. He could say Metaleyes’ grace is anything he likes and they’ll believe him. Plus what does it matter? Why would telling Metaleyes’ grace accomplish anything in the conversation? For someone who can make you believe anything he says, he’s quite terrible at this. He doesn’t offer Katsa any reasons for why she should obey him – doesn’t say that he’s worried about Metaleyes and he wants to send people out to help or anything else Katsa would have trouble disagreeing with. He barely even pushes his story about Bitterblue being sick, and never challenges Katsa saying she’ll keep the girl until she’s better.

If his power was weaker, then this sort of spiteful behavior might be all he could do, and if his power relied on some degree of truth, then giving them a real reason to dislike and distrust Metaleyes might help him convince them to get rid of the guy. But as it is this doesn’t make any sense.

Neither does why Katsa can’t remember Metaleyes’ grace. Even if we assume that the grace hits every related subject as soon as he says a word, Metaleyes being a mindreader is irrelevant.

Also, the writing itself is just so, so awful.

But it is a pretty dramatic moment, so there’s that. The scene itself would be a good thing if properly set up.

And now women were screaming, and men were shouting in outrage

The book’s view on gender in a nutshell.

Bitterblue tells them not to attack Katsa, to the shock of everyone else.

you’re protecting the murderer of your own father.”
“I’m perfectly well now that he’s dead,” Bitterblue said, her voice growing stronger and her hand steadying. “And I’m not a princess. I’m the Queen of Monsea. Katsa’s punishment is my responsibility

Hey, remember when Katsa explained she couldn’t kill Pandaman because then Ragamuffin the new king would have no choice but to punish her for killing his dad because that’s how things work?

Bitterblue just says that she’s in favor of patricide so they can STFU.

She then explains Leck’s evil and mindcontrol, and they all slowly come out of their stupor as they remember the things Leck actually said.

“I believe… I believe he told me that he would like to establish himself in my city. Beside my throne!”

Look, if he wanted to do that he could’ve done it any time. I really don’t get this. Either he didn’t care about that or he should have been ruling all the kingdoms.

Also apparently he wanted favorable trade agreements with his own kingdom? Why the fuck would he bother? It’s not like it’s his homeland so he wants it to be dominant, and it’s not like he cares about the commoners having good livelihood, and on a personal level he can just make anyone give him whatever he wants.

Ror stood and began to stride around the room. Katsa rose woodenly, in respect for a rising king, but the queen pulled her back down. “If we stood every time he marched around we’d always be standing,” she said.

I found this amusing. In the vein of Lienid’s generally sueism, but amusing.

Katsa starts to realize what she just did, and it horrifies her.

Yes, Leck was dead, and that was a good thing. But it was because she’d used a dagger-a dagger -to stop someone talking. It was as violent as anything she’d ever done for Randa. And she hadn’t even known what she was doing.

This is a good point – one that’d be stronger if her grace was still killing, mind you, but still. Katsa’s instincts were right for this particular situation, but in any other… She’s right to be worried that this is what she defaults to.

…

But then she just switches over to thinking about how she needs to go get poor Metaleyes. Also, she never told them about the ring, and figures she’ll just give it back to Metaleyes without anyone knowing. Bitterblue insists that of course they have to go together, because she wants to know if Metaleyes is okay as soon as possible.

“Then I’m going to take a bath and go to sleep. Where do you suppose I must go to find someone who’ll bring hot water?”
Katsa smiled, mildly. “Ring the bell, Lady Queen. Po’s servants are a bit overtaxed at the moment, I do believe; but for the ruler of Monsea, someone will come.”

Poor servants.

Then Metaleyes’ mom shows up to chat with Katsa about how interesting it was that Katsa just so happened to chose the moment Leck was going on about Metaleyes’ grace for her murderous flipout. It’s almost as if it wasn’t random but as if she knew about what the grace really was and was reacting to that. So, when’s the wedding?

“I won’t ever marry,” she said.
The queen’s forehead creased in puzzlement, but she didn’t say anything. She hesitated, and then spoke. “You saved my son’s life in Monsea,” she said, “and you saved it again today. I’ll never forget it.”

She is good at being diplomatic, isn’t she? “Well, you appear to be rude and crazy, but you saved my son and everyone and I’m way more grateful for that so okay, whatever, no marriage.”

For some reason we still have four chapters to go.