Great work, as always. Here’s more thoughts that no one asked for. (seriously if these get annoying CJ, let me know and I’ll stop. I just figure talking out loud might be interesting for you to see someone else’s thoughts)
1 - I was super caught off guard and really intrigued with the circumstances of Alistair’s name. I won’t delve too deeply more into that for super spoiler protection.
It did lead to the obvious question in my mind of “Well what is her name then?” I now think back to how Bolden (whom we know knew WAY more than she let on) kept calling her ‘Alis’ and Alistair didn’t seem to like it. I’m half obsessed with the idea I have a guess at f her name and half afraid of it because then the ‘through the looking glass’ reference Ben literally makes would be so on the nose. But hey, we’ve had an anthropomorphic rabbit and his obsession with a pocket watch as canon for 4 years so we can’t say it’s not foreshadowed if it turns out that way.
2 - Ghostly women. The image in my head of Marjory as ghost visibly attached to Borden as seen through the mirror (I admit I had trouble visualizing this part so I may have read it wrong) really struck me as reminiscent of the ghostly woman we heard about way back in the Secret Society days attached to the lighthouse keeper. Took me a bit to dig it up, but sound familiar? From 4.5. The Search for Magiq: All Ascender Notes
I guess we’ve met Marjory before…or at least Knatz has.
3 - I actually think Zev’s betrayal just became b-tier to the Caretaker. I realize we know nothing about him other than a few paragraphs at the beginning, but I thought someone living in a kinda magical world wouldn’t have been such a complete jerk. I was like “Yay, they found her and are taking her somewhere safe.” Yeah no. And what was with him murdering all the forest animals? How can she keep finding new, even more, horrible people than the last? It’s a gift.
Everyone except maybe Alistair’s aunt/uncle and Ben have horribly betrayed her, and long plotted behind her back. At this point I’m not discounting the concept even they will. I don’t know where this is going but I hope she eventually gets a break.
4 - By the way my own internal joke when Ed said that “What the Mountaineers know could fill a thimble” is to think of it like Pirates of the Caribbean. When everyone kept telling Captain Jack he was the worst pirate they ever heard of his response was “But you have heard of me.”
Sure, the Silver doesn’t think we know anything…but they have heard of us. 