Last time, the book was amusing, although probably not intentionally.

Ragamuffin is in his mad science lab, doing medicine chemistry. He takes in the fact the two of them look like they’ve beaten the shit out of each other and guesses they’re now BFFs. Did you know Katsa’s dress is not only muddy but shredded? If you’re so for the plight of the commoners you could try respecting their labor, Katsa.

Anyway, serendipitously the guy has just now woken up, allowing him to verify their story! Because otherwise they are sort of holding a guy who was kidnapped and that generally comes off rather badly.

RANDA’S CASTLE was full of secret inner passageways; it had been that way since its construction so many generations before. They were so plentiful that even Randa didn’t know of all of them

Hello assassinations.

Look, I know this is a common trope and it’s fun to have secret passages everywhere but unless the place is unspeakably ancient or the entire ruling class have gotten incredibly complacent, the king at the least would want to know which wall of his bedroom needs to be locked and when his nobles are meeting secretly to plot against him.

The underlying problem here is that the story has no idea how the aristocracy functions. If we’re at decadent court level, where there’s no real change and everyone just gossips instead of ordering hits on each other, then sure, people could afford not to know about secret passageways. If we’re in the sort of cutthroat viciousness that’s locking old guys in cells to die of hypothermia, you either know the secret passageways or you die.

Prince Ragamuffin knows about the secret passages because as a child he was talented in noticing signs of them. No one else knows about him noticing secret passages because as a child Katsa was good at standing in place and making everyone else suddenly realize how much they wanted to be on the other side of the castle.

Bann was Raffin’s friend of many years, a young man who had worked in the libraries as a boy. One day Raffin had stumbled across him, and the two children had fallen to talking about herbs and medicines and about what happened when you mixed the ground root of one plant with the powdered flower of another. Katsa had been amazed that there could be more than one person in the Middluns who found such things interesting enough to talk about

We continue to see no sign of women involved in an area traditionally given to women, while we continue to see women excluded from areas traditionally given to men.

I’ll get you some ice from the vault

You will get some WHAT?

Do you have any idea how hard it is to store ice? How incredibly valuable it is and how many, many things you can use it for?

So they bring Metaleyes up and Katsa tells him that Pandaman has no idea about this and they’re not telling him and he must never know! God Katsa you are the worst at secrets.

Teaprince is happy to see Metaleyes, then notices Metaleyes looks like he’s had the shit beaten out of him.

Tealiff snorted. “A friendly scuffle. You look worse than she does, Po.”
Po burst into laughter. He laughed a lot, this Lienid prince. “I’ve met my match, Grandfather.”

While the execution like everything here is childish and irritating, I guess I can’t really argue with the idea. They have matching graces so that what would worry other people is instead something they bond over.

Teaprince also thanks Katsa for the whole life-saving thing and she’s all no no Prince Raqamuffin did that!

“Yes, Raffin’s a good boy,” he said. He patted her hand. “But I know what you did, you and the others. You’ve saved my life, though I can’t think why. I doubt any Lienid has ever done you a kindness.”
“I’d never met a Lienid,” Katsa said, “before you, Lord Prince. But you seem very kind.”

While the execution here is similarly lamentable, again I think the principle here is a good one. Katsa is doing good things because that’s just what you do, instead of it being something that requires a lot of explanation.

I suspect her treating it like this is probably just meant to be her not realizing how super awesome she is for feeling like this, but still, I’ll take what I can get.

Teaprince suddenly passes out and Ragamuffin’s just like yeah he does that, no big deal. Way to sloppily end conversations, author.

Ragamuffin’s procured ice for Metaleyes to waste on every bump and bruise. Katsa’s all pfft losers my head’s actually bleeding and I don’t even feel that!!! Don’t be smug about a probable concussion, Katsa.

“I suppose you’ll have to retire this dress,” he said. “Helda will give you a terrible scolding.”
“Yes, I’m devastated about the dress.”

YOU SHOULD BE. Do you have any idea how many people worked to make that? People had to tend the silkworms, gather the dyes, weave the fabric, transport it from god knows how far away, then sew it by hand to fit you. This is a pre-industrial society! EVERYTHING IS HANDMADE EVERYTHING REQUIRES HUMAN LABOR.

KATSA HAD five rooms. Her sleeping room, decorated with dark draperies and wall hangings that Helda had chosen because Katsa had refused to form an opinion on the matter. Her bathing room, white marble, large and cold, functional. Her dining room, with windows looking onto the courtyard, and a small table where she ate, sometimes with Raffin or Helda, or with Giddon when he wasn’t driving her to distraction. Her sitting room, full of soft chairs and pillows that Helda, again, had chosen. She didn’t use the sitting room.
The fifth room used to be her workroom, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d embroidered or crocheted, or darned a stocking. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn a stocking, truth be told. She’d turned the room into a place for the storage of her weapons: swords, daggers, knives, bows, and staffs lined the walls. She’d fitted the room with a solid, square table, and now the Council meetings were held there.

Speaking of people not understanding how much effort it takes to do things. She goes on to have her second bath of the day because man, those servants who have to cart around the water? Fuck them.

Also look, more women’s work Katsa hates because it’s a stupid waste of time. And wall hangings are just dumb girl decorations with absolutely no practical function like insulation or anything.

She fed her dress to the sleeping- room fire and watched its smoky demise with great satisfaction.

BECAUSE THE DRESS COULD BE RECYCLED FOR MANY USEFUL THINGS BUT ALL OF THOSE THINGS ARE DONE BY STUPID GIRLS BEING STUPID SO KATSA WILL BURN IT ALL INSTEAD

YOU’RE WELCOME, STUPID GIRLS

So she heads to her nice knife room full of knives for the council meeting, because Katsa likes BOY THINGS not STUPID GIRL THINGS.

Giddon gets there and flips out at Metaleyes for attacking delicate little Katsa and oh my god you scratched her faaace. Katsa is offended, but does not punch him or anything because Katsa, for all her talk, is basically a wimp.

Metaleyes apologizes to Inexplicably Still Conscious for messing with his Katsa-chan’s face, then realizes Katsa’s trying to see if her grace lets her kill people by glaring hard enough and quickly mimes that he’s super sorry for having to say that behind the guy’s back.

Sixteen Council members attended the meeting, in addition to Po and Lord Davit: Katsa, Raffin,
Giddon, Oll, and Oll’s wife, Bertol; two soldiers under Oll’s command, two spies who worked with him,
three underlords of Giddon’s rank, and four servants-one a woman who worked in the kitchens of the
castle, one a stable hand, one a washerwoman, and one a clerk in Randa’s countinghouse. There were
others in the castle involved with the Council.

So it’s almost all guys. The only noblewoman is the wife of one of the ringleaders. At least we get fifty/fifty on the servants, which continues to be the only area women reliably show up.

Also, there’s even more people total? It’s not a secret council once most of the castle is in on it!

The guy from supper explains that he’s there to tell them that he doesn’t know who took Teaprince, but he does know who didn’t.

My lands border Estill and Nander. My neighbors are the borderlords of King Thigpen and King Drowden.

This is the same sentence.

Anyway, these guys are also in with the council, because absolutely fucking everyone is, and they say their spy network says neither king was involved, because god knows when a member of a kingdom says they weren’t involved in doing something that’ll probably cause a war, you know you can trust them.

Then they explain to Metaleyes that they don’t want anyone to know what’s happened, but if he can just send a message saying things are okay to people back home without specifics, that’d work.

He wants to stick around, so they decide he’ll say he’s going to train with Katsa for a while. He can still poke around because Middle Kingdom is in the middle, remember?

Then he apologizes again for apologizing to Giddon and says he just didn’t want to make an enemy.

He brought his fingertips to her chin suddenly. She froze, forgetting the question she’d been about to ask, regarding Giddon, and what in the Middluns his position should be. He tilted her face to the light.
“It was my ring.”
She didn’t understand him.
“It was my ring that scratched you.”
“Your ring.”
“Well, one of my rings.”
It was one of his rings that scratched her, and now his fingertips touched her face. His hand dropped, returning to his side, and he looked at her calmly, as if this were normal, as if friends she’d only just made always touched her face with their fingertips. As if she ever made friends. As if she had any basis for comparison, to decide what was normal when one made friends, and what was not.

Katsa is tripping over friends.

Incidentally, Katsa, your first instinct was right, it’s actually not so normal. But he’s your love interest so you should expect this sort of business.