The following chapters are each broken into three or more “pages” in order to make it easier to read the text on the screen. However, if you would like to read each chapter in its entirety, then start here, and the end of each chapter will have a link to the chapter following it.
Where All The Important Settings Are Set, And Those Who Are Setting Out To Do Things Set Out To Do Them.
Wherein Gaul Finds Out That Swing, Her Closest Friend In DEAD, Has Been Keeping Secrets From Her That Will Change Both Of Their Lives, As Is Usually The Case With These Kinds Of Secrets
Wherein Gaul Goes To The Old Tower And There Discovers All Manner Of Dangerous Things That Change Her Life, Though It's Not Clear If The Change Is For The Better Or For The Worse
Wherein Gravinstad, In A State Of Agitation, Wonders If The True History Of Valice Is, In Fact, Its True History, And How This Leads Him, A Man Who Never Smiles, To Smile.
Wherein Gaul Meets Another Feathered Creature Who Guides Her From One Land Of Dreams To Another, Where Gaul Learns She Can Only Be Free When She Starts Having Nothing Left To Lose
Wherein Gaul Adds A New Word To Her Vocabulary, Learns That A Fall Can Be An Uplifting Experience, And Meets A Boy Who Is A Man Who Is A Boy
Wherein A Pair Of Cut-Up Assassins Makes Their Entrance Upon The Stage, Where They Minister To A Very Frightened Gentlman As The Gentleman Gets In A Few Digs
Wherein Gaul Meets Two More Feralz, Sees More Than She Wants To See, And Finds Her Emotions Swinging Back And Forth More Than She Ever Did As A Flip In DEAD
Wherein Divot Comes Back To His Life -- In A Manner Of Speaking -- And Gravinstad, Surrounded By Incompetence, Is Nonetheless Tickled By A Feather
Wherein Gaul Gets More With Her Meal Than The Bread In Her Hand And Words Float Upward Like Electrical Sparks
Wherein Pym And Swiddle Pick Up A Further Employment They Wish Had Not Come Their Way, Though, Being Businessmen, They Give It As Fair A Hearing As They Can
Wherein Gaul Learns Her Fate -- And Her Fate Learns About Gaul xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein War Comes And Goes, And In Its Coming And Going Prove That Defeat And Victory Are Often Difficult To Tell Apart
Wherein Gaul Learns Several Meanings Of The Word “Face” And Must Face Her Situation With A Face Both Old And Newly Minted
Wherein Swing Is Not Dead (Though He Might Wish He Were) And Gravinstad Demonstrates The Terrifying Power Of Change
Wherein Gaul Has Her Mind Made Up For Her While She Is Making Up Her Mind, Learning In The Process That Nothing Is Ever What It Seems
Wherein Gaul Emerges Into A World Literally Outside The Only World That She Had Known And Finds That Life Is No Different Outside Than It Had Been Inside
Wherein We Meet The King And Queen Whose Names No One Remembers xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein Elfrida And Bensole Pray That What Was Lost Has Now Been Found And That What Has Been Found Will Replace What Was Lost
Wherein Rufus And Gaul Encompass A Compass And Pym And Swiddle Prepare Themselves To Be Bogged Down In Pursuit
Wherein A Congress Of Ravens Counsels The Queen And Bensole Learns That There Are Many Worlds Kept Within And Without The World Of The Keep
Wherein Gaul And Rufus Meet The Creatures Whom No Human Tongue Can Pronounce And Pym Turns Dog-Like In His Dogged Pursuit
Wherein A World Made From Pain Becomes A World Torn Asunder xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein A Lullaby Keeps The Assassins Calm, Perhaps More Calm Than They Have Ever Been In Their Lives, And Helps Ridicule Overcomes Anger
Wherein Pym And Swiddle Find Deliverance With Bruises, And In A Manner Of Speaking, So Does Bensole
Wherein The Queen And King Come To A Certainty, And Rufus And Gaul Do Notxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein Elfrida And Bensole Escape Into The Ambiguous Company Of The Boatman, Who Had Once Led Life With His Eye On The World
Wherein Exile Becomes A Sort Of Home, And A Woman With A Third Eye In The Middle Of Her Forehead Is, Believe It Or Not, Someone To Be Trusted
Wherein The Worries Of The World Fall Upon Gravinstad, Which Is Good News For Swiddle And Pym xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein Elfrida And Bensole Meet An Angel Carried To Them By The Boatman xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein A Resolution Is Made Among Thieves And A Strange Grace Falls Over Everything xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein A New World Appears Like An Egg Inside The Old World And, Like An Egg, Is Both Fragile And Nutritious
Wherein Gaul And Rufus Have A Visitation That Makes Them Think More Deeply About Deep Matters That Need Deep Thinking
Wherein Q Is Saved And Mothers Do Not All Think Alike xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein Bensole And Poly X Come To An Understanding xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein Things That Had Been Closed Now Threatened To Open xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein All The Others Feel Their Own Intimations And Shiftings xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wherein What Was Sought Has Been Found And, In Being Found, Gives More And Less Than What Was Expected