When Jessica mentioned that she needed a new assistant, Fury
basically shoved my resume down her throat.
Danica knows something about Fury.
Danica needs access to books to do her research.
Danica probably knows that Jessica has all these books at
this point. Did Danica actually set up Bryce
getting the job? Like literally on my rib cage,
like this thin, thin layer of muscle pain, like something's
wrong, you know? I know, yeah, I understand.
I understand. I've been going to core power
and I've been like. You told me you like.
That I do like it, but I'm not waking up in agony.
So I'm like, am I really getting my money's worth here?
Like, I should be in so much pain, but that might be the
former college athlete in me not understanding what, like, normal
healthy training looks like, yeah.
I don't know. I understand, but it's fine.
It's good. That's good to go to core power.
I feel like I've. Started to get in a good habit
of normal cardio. Like I understand that cardio is
not always meant to feel like your lungs are going to reverse
inflate outside of your body, you know?
But strength training, I feel like I still can't.
Like what's the point if I'm not in pain?
Yeah, yeah. Our listeners are going to be
like, what the fuck is wrong with these two?
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So you remember a couple
episodes ago I told you that we had watched that gorilla
documentary and that I was like, quite traumatizing and I didn't
really enjoy it. Oh yeah.
The other night, Derek was like, what if we just watched Tarzan?
And I was like, that is exactly what I want to watch right now.
That's my speed, yes. It's so good.
Tarzan is such a good movie. Phil Collins, Phil Collins, so
good. The soundtrack is fantastic, the
story great. It all makes sense.
It all holds up. I'm like this movie, this movie.
They don't make them like this anymore.
They. Really.
Don't. Yeah, I think they probably do.
And I just haven't like tried animated movies.
That's true. In a long time.
I'm speaking out of my ass right now.
To be clear, I am not an expert in recent Disney movies, but God
was Tarzan good. I just feel like the early 90s
when we were growing up, they just like really hit it.
They really figured out that animated niche.
They were banging them out. Mulan.
Yeah. Tarzan.
Hercules, I think. Beauty, I think were like my big
ones. Yeah, I think Beauty and the
Beast was early 90s. Too.
Beauty and the Beast was excellent.
Yeah. Can I just say I think that was
probably probably one of my like if I had to choose, what do I
think was, and this might be very controversial, people might
hate it. I have no idea.
I don't read critics reviews of anything.
But I thought the live action Beauty and the Beast was one of
the better live action Disney takes in the last like 15 years.
Did you see that one with Emma Watson?
I don't. It might just be Emma.
Watson. Yeah, I mean, she seems perfect
for the role. I don't think I've seen any of
the Disney live action remakes because I'm kind of like, the
originals are perfect, why would we?
Why would we screw with them? But.
Most of the ones I've seen, I wish I didn't, but not Beauty
and the Beast. Yeah.
So to me, I think that's fair. Beauty and the Beast was.
Wait, this is a perfect time for this story now that Derek walks
in? Did you see the live action
Little Mermaid remake? No, no.
Should I have I told you my connection to this?
Didn't you know somebody? Who was?
Yeah. OK, so the guy who plays Prince
Eric and Derek's gonna roll his eyes because he's heard this
story. So the guy who plays Prince
Eric. Hi, Derek.
I love you. I tell this story.
The guy who plays Prince Eric is an actor in the live action
remake of The Little Mermaid named Jonah Howard King.
Yeah. I went to summer camp with Jonah
Howard King in May. His sister, his old older sister
Margo Howard King was my best friend at summer camp and he was
like 3 years younger. He had a little crush on me.
Margo told me that Jonah Howard King had a little crush on me
when we were very, very small. So imagine my surprise when I
see the freaking advertisements for The Little Mermaid and it's
very clearly Jonah Howard King, who I did not even know was an
actor. I was like, Oh my God, what is
that right now? So that was that was a pretty
wild first full circle moment for me.
But Jonah, I'm sorry, I didn't see the movie.
I didn't go see it. I'm sure you're great in it, but
I did not go see. It Prince Eric had a crush on
you. Well, it's way before he was
Prince Eric. I freaked out when I Derek's
probably rolling his eyes right now because when I, when I found
this out, I would not shut up about it.
It was all I would talk about. But you know, years have passed.
So we're we're more mature now. I'm looking at that Little
Mermaid. Live Ron.
He's he's a good look. He's very good look.
Go look, I don't even know. I don't even know like what the
what the cast looks like. You should look up Jonah Howard
King because I do think he could be cast as a bad boy.
Personally I think he would maybe be a good as real is my
thinking, but that's just my inside thoughts.
Jonah Howard King. Interesting.
Hold on. I mean I feel like he's if
anyone as real but. Yeah, that's what I think too.
I do think it's a hard sell. I don't know I'm.
Not thinking it. I'm not thinking it, but I agree
that he's he's cute. I just think he needs to.
I think I think you need to be bigger.
He's not jacked enough for. It yeah, no you.
Can always go to the gym. You could always go to the gym,
Kumail. Nanjiani can get jacked.
True. It's true.
On that note though, hi, I'm
Ronnie. I'm Abby.
This is Dragons in the Details, the podcast that helps you
better understand your favorite fantasy books through a series
of deep dive episodes. Welcome to the second episode of
our Crescent City season, the season we're focused on Crescent
City. It's officially here.
Yeah. So that's very exciting.
We're very happy to be here. I've also been like, really
pleasantly. I'm not surprised, But you guys
have been excited on our socials and on YouTube.
Like, I'm so excited for Christmas City.
And I don't know what I was expecting, but I feel like these
books have not gotten the love that they have deserved compared
to a Guitar and Throne of Glass. So very excited that we're doing
Crescent City. Excited to be here.
Disclaimer, this episode will contain Crescent, the city and a
guitar spoilers. So we're doing this differently
from last season. Why?
Because one, we've not heard of a single person who was Red
Crescent City without having read a guitar first.
Friends don't let friends do that.
If you have done that, I want I want to talk to you.
I want to know what that experience was like.
I feel like you're maybe confused.
I don't know. I guess maybe the first couple
books are not that confusing, but then it gets confusing I'm
sure. I think you can read book one.
Yeah, I think. You can read everything until
like the last chapter of book 2, basically.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then two, we just wrapped our act, our season, so most of
you are joining us from that. So spoilers for all three
published Crescent City books and all 5 published act guitar
books. So this is May 2026.
So we are through actor 5, we're through Silver Flames.
We will also have a mass verse spoiler section at the end as
usual. That's really just Throne of
Glass spoilers at this point. So same structure as last
season, just we are going to be doing Crescent sitting and actor
spoilers in our first section. Second disclaimer podcast is
rated R. These are still spicy books.
We are still spicy people. We curse.
So please proceed with caution when listening to it with
children. Each week we dive into a
specific topic in depth. This week we are we're digging
into the Bloodhound that manages to stay incredibly active in
this story from beyond the grave.
This is the most active dead character I have ever
encountered. Celine is a fairly active dead
character, but I agree with you. I don't think she's as active as
Danica. Yeah, no, I agree.
Danica 2 full books from beyond the grave is fucking shit up.
I know she's but this week we're just Danica Fendier.
We come with receipts. We have quotes to back up our
theory so you can follow along if you are skeptical.
Announcements Abby Deep dive music as always brought to you
by. Woodley, we are doing something
new this season. So we are asking you guys to
provide the fun questions that we are going to read next
section. So if you would like to send us
a fun question, please reach out Instagram, TikTok contact form
on the website. Send us a carrier pigeon.
However you want to get in contact with us.
If you have a fun question you want us to answer on air, we do
try to keep them somatic. So you guys asking like, oh,
what did you study in college? Like I'll just tell you, but I'm
not going to read that on air, you know, like it's it's we're
trying to keep them on topic, but you guys are great at it.
So send us your fun questions. If you you like our content, you
like what we do, we would love to bring you more of it.
It really helps us when you follow us on whatever content,
whatever platform you like to consume our content on.
So if you like our podcast, follow us on Apple or Spotify or
Amazon. If you can follow us there too.
If you like our content on social media, follow us on
social media. If you like us on YouTube,
follow us on YouTube, etcetera, etcetera.
You guys know this should be all by now.
That is it for announcements. Ronnie, Fun question.
Yes. All right, so as Abby mentioned,
we are reading these from you guys now.
So they are fun questions from you because they are hard to
come up with. All right, so fun question for
this week is from Tasha Tallis, Tasha Tails.
Tasha Tails, I don't know which I assume your name is.
TALES. TALES.
Yeah, I. Feel like tails is fair but you
never know I guess. You really you really never
know, but Tasha TAS, thank you for your time we.
Should start doing. We should just start spelling
these words out instead of pronouncing that.
They're always handled. You really never know.
Yeah. All right, so the fun question
for this week, There are a lot of animal shifters in Crescent
City. What kind of animal shifter
would you want to be I've. Always pictured myself, if I
were to be an animal, such an interesting question.
So in my heart of hearts, I probably want to be a dolphin.
Interesting. Like, like the water.
But I like that they also breathe air.
You know, they're like of two worlds.
You get a little bit of both. Yeah.
I dolphins as a child, we don't really encounter any besides the
mayor. We don't encounter any fish
shifters. I don't think that's the thing.
I know that I know there's some confusion about where the mayor
originates from and we get, we get differing accounts on that,
but like I don't think there's any dolphin shifters who then
walk around on land. You know what I'm saying?
But I think that would be fun. I also have always thought it
would be fun to be like a a cheetah or like a lion, like a
like a big cat predator because I like to run.
I guess lions are pretty lazy. So let's go with cheetah.
I think it'd be fun to be a cheetah and like be a predator,
go hunt things, etcetera, etcetera.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
With the cheetah or the dolphin, those are very different.
Being a predator. Being a predator, yeah.
I figure, Oh yeah, I'd rather be a predator.
Being a human, if you were not naturally on top of the like
animal pyramid in general, because we have intelligence,
it's actually so exposed. Like your organs are literally
just like, come take me. So I'm serious.
That's real. The fact that we stand up is
like very, very dangerous. Stand upright, that is.
So I think it would be fun to be a predator.
I'm trying to think. I think I would really love to
fly, though. Oh yeah, that's a good time.
Something that flies. If I could be a Pegasus, that
would be ideal. I know that they don't exist,
however we're talking in Crescent City, so.
They exist by the end. No, no, I know, but.
You mean in our world? In the world, if I could be one
of the winged horses and that shifting into that would be a
possibility, I think I would choose that because then I could
run fast on the ground, but I could also fly.
Otherwise, yeah, I think I'd go for either a bird of prey or
yeah. I mean, if we're talking
Crescent City, I'd love to be a dragon, honestly.
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I forgot about the Dragons.
I always forget about the dragon.
Yeah, yeah. She's just not very memorable.
I don't know. She's on page for like 5
chapters. Pretty memorable.
I don't know. We will talk about her.
I think we have a deep dive episode scheduled for her.
I don't remember, but we will talk about her.
I don't think we actually do, but.
Because she's only on page for five chapters, but it's fine.
Yeah. Anyways, guys, there's a dragon.
She she is not able to shift because she's a slave fully but
I she can she could in theory. So that is technically an animal
shifter if. We're picking the Dragons.
The Dragons choose great Dragons.
Yeah, yeah. I would pick the dragon.
Yeah, because it can fly too. Yeah.
You know what? Dragon's my answer, Pickle
answer. Dragon, because then I could
breathe Firefly. I wouldn't be very fast on land,
but like, who gives a fuck? You're a dragon.
It's fine. Who gives a fuck?
Yeah, I agree. OK all.
Right, Cool. All right.
Corrections, omissions, social media shoutouts.
Abby, do you have any? I did not have any for this for
this part of the episode. I will have on later.
OK, I have one and it's actually just hilarious coming off of the
back of our last episode where I think I said almost exactly as
many words without meaning to. I was just looking through our
comments. I had posted a video on TikTok
about how House of Sky and Breath is the biggest mind fuck
of all time because the whole book is a lie and Cameron that
is Handel is Cameron Lamb. Cameron Lam commented.
And why is the Autumn King one of the only people who offers
her the truth? And I just wanted to say that's
so true. I think he might be one of the
only characters in this entire book who has not lied.
I genuinely think that I genuinely believe he might be
one of the only characters who's not.
Lied. I don't disagree.
He omits, but I'm big he. Lies.
I'm really mad he's dead. I'm really gonna need I'm really
gonna need us to go back and put Bryce's light through his prism
and see what happens. Like I'm gonna need that to
happen among other things. Grooon.
I do have one omission. I do have one omission we talked
about in our first episode of the season, but it was not a
deep dive about our favorite character.
And we both said that Roon is our favorite character in
Crescent City and I do stand by that.
I do love him. However, I did for forget that
he fucking shoots Lydia in the leg to stop her from saving her
children, which is the most unbelievably bad call I have
ever read of any man in any book.
I truly do not know what Sarah was thinking in that moment.
Fucking insanity. And because it's so does not
jive with Ruin as a character at any other point in time, my mind
has just shut it off and chose it to believe that it did not
happen. So I want to be clear that I do
not agree with that call. I hate that he did that.
I think it was the wrong call on every level.
And I'd like to not walk back my love for Roon, but just make
clear that I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with them doing that basically.
I what I have to say about that is obviously I agree it was
horrible and I don't know how. Again, I don't know how he is
related to Reese, but if that doesn't scream I am related to
Reese on every fucking level, I don't know what does.
I don't know. I am in general a good person
who makes a terrible calls from time to time.
Yeah, I am, in general, a good person who makes, like,
rationalized calls that are fucking horrible and borderline
unforgivable. Like, yeah, horrendous.
This is the same thing, right? Like I'm taking away your agency
to. Yeah.
Yeah, to to be a fucking. It's all over this with my
manliness. Like what the fuck?
Yeah. Yeah, and is her kid like, is
that why you shot her? I'm.
Like right, right, right, and she just forgives him, which I'm
like Lydia, what the actual fuck right now.
Like he I'm not saying you should like walk away from him,
but he should be in the doghouse.
Like there should be something like you fucked up bad here.
But maybe that was what Sarah was trying to do, was trying to
draw parallels between recent room.
That would be interesting. I don't know.
Yeah. Speaking of guess, it's an
omission from our reactions episode.
You had mentioned that Bryce got like self-righteous and annoying
by the end. Her behavior in the caves in a
volun was. Unbelievable.
I believable hated her in that moment.
I was rereading it this morning for like I don't remember why, I
think it was related to the star sword or something and I
remembered that I didn't like her in House of flame and Shadow
but I read that and I was like you actually fucking suck like
she. Suck Tristan and Declan behind.
She left them behind. She was like, she'll deal with
that later. She also was like the face suck
and I'm going to be their queen, but I'm actually not going to
fucking do anything about it. And you guys can walk yourself
into your grave and I think you're dumb Satya for putting up
with the ship, but I'm actually not going to help you at all.
Like icky icky ick. I mean, to be fair, she does
walk that back by the end. So I don't want to.
I don't want to, sure, yeah. But Bryce in the when Bryce
comes back from Perthian and even somewhat in Perthia, she is
tough with the secrets. She's keeping the decision she's
making. Like I definitely, I definitely
have issues with the way that all played out.
But you don't have to love every character.
You don't have to love every an author makes.
There's a reason she wrote Bryce that way.
I think we'll probably find out what it is.
I don't feel like we've necessarily found out what it
was. But and and the way Bryce treats
Hunt too in the back half, I'm like, what are you doing?
Like he literally was just like tortured and you're being a huge
bitch right now. Yeah.
What the fuck he? Was like, I feel guilty.
And she was like, how dare you? I'm like.
Right. How dare you and.
This is not a Bryce like smear campaign.
I'm generally fine with her, but in that book I was like
literally go stand in a corner and think about what you did.
I can't deal with you. Right now, yeah, so not some of
our finest moments from these characters and has flame and
shout out, but that's OK We still like the series.
It's OK, we're allowed to have moments of what the fuck is.
OK, it's OK. All right.
Shall we deep dive? We shall.
OK, Abby, what are Danica's powers and where did they come?
From I love this question because there's really only two
powers that Danica has, which is very nice.
Or at least I think there's only two powers.
Maybe you think there's more, but first power, she is a wolf
shifter. OK, I don't think there's any
question about that. I wrote she could shift into a
wolf. That seems pretty
straightforward. She is the alpha wolf of the
pack of devils. She is also of the Fender line.
She is presumed to be second in line to be prime of all of the
Val Barn wolf. So her grandfather is prime
Sabine, Her mother is assumed to be prime apparent, and then at
one point Bryce says that she is apparent to be prime apparent.
All that being said, we still have some weirdness with Danica,
as we do with all our favorite characters.
Right, so Bryce says it was unheard of for a shifter to have
that sort of power, yet all the standard childhood tests had
confirmed it. Once Danica dropped, she'd
become a considerable power among the wolves, the likes of
which had not been seen since the Elder Days across the sea.
So that is House of Earth and Blood Chapter 2.
This sounds very Cassian and Azrael, right?
Like she has all this extra power.
We don't really know where it came from, it's not really
explained. She is of the Fender line, which
we know we'll get into later, but we know that the Astari have
read the Fender line for genetics specifically, so that
could be the explanation for it. But she has an inexplicable
amount of power. This says for shifters, not even
for wolves, but for all shifters.
She has like an incredible amount of power.
As for where that extra power came from, I don't really have
an answer right now. We know high level, I'll just
say high level. We know.
Rajalis tells us. Danica realized that the
shifters are fae. Bryce blinked.
What? Not your kind of fae, of course.
Only a select few in the entirety of your world could
shift from their humanoid forms to animal ones.
The mid guard shifters were fae from a different planet.
All the fae in that world shared their form with an animal.
Perhaps they once shared a world with your breed of fae, but they
had been alone on their planet for long enough to develop their
own gifts. So we know.
What the shifters were once Faye and Ethan tells us Ethan has
elemental power right He says the shifters were once Faye with
elemental power. So I think there's kind of a
question that we never get answered here.
But that is what type of magic would Danica have have had if
she had taken the antidote, right?
And was she is this extra power that she seemed to have relate
to that elemental power that we don't we don't know what it is,
right. But was she would she have been
super strong in some kind of power like that?
I don't know. I don't know.
I'm speculate anything else about her being a wolf that you
want to add? I mean maybe just like I don't
know this necessarily is defined as a power but it does give her
the ability to impose power on other people.
She is an alpha and that alpha Ness seems to have like a
compulsive impact on other wolf shifters for some reason.
Like Ethan when it's Sabine right?
Help her protect her savior alpha when Sigrid, who is like
nothing to anyone except for to Ethan, tells Ethan to do
something determinedly. He's like feels like a primal
need to obey. So something about being an
alpha, whatever that power is gives you dominance over.
Yeah, it's it's. Very High Lord dominance, right?
It's very, very high Lord dominance.
It's which we've seen. Yeah, Tamlin Ish.
Tamlin is an alpha without a pack.
Yeah, yeah. But we we see it with Cassian,
right? Like Cassian Reese tries to get
Cassian to do something and Cassian said he was using that
like that bastard was trying to use his High Lord dominance on
me, right. So it's it's a very similar idea
of these Faye from completely different worlds, right?
So very, very interesting. I don't know where we're going
with that, but some groundworks being laid.
All right, Second power that Danica has, she is a Bloodhound.
We have discussed the bloodhounds at length on this
podcast. I don't think I'm going to add
anything radically new to what we're thinking, but just some
additional quotes. We learned that Danica was a
Bloodhound first from Fury. So the only other secret I knew
about Danica was that she was a Bloodhound of Bryce St. and a
what hurry signaled the barista for another child a Bloodhound.
She could send bloodlines, the secrets in them.
So we have kind of two things that come from being a
Bloodhound 1, the bloodlines to the secrets in them, which we I
think can probably confirm means the powers in them.
And the reason I'm saying that is that Emil says that Danica
basically sent it out. So Sophie, so he says Danica
found Sophie using her veinier powers.
Emil said she could smell Sophie's gift or something.
She needed Sophie to do something for her.
Danica couldn't do it because she was too recognizable.
But Sophie, Emil towed the carpet.
She wasn't. So Danica literally sniffed out
that Sophie was a Thunderbird. So bloodlines and powers with in
those bloodlines seem to be the gifts that come with being a
Bloodhound. So where did this come from?
We have what we know and then we have what we're speculating.
So we know that this comes from Murdoch, right, Murdoch.
Murdoch. So Murdoch is Danica's father.
Him and Sabine were ordered by the Astiri to breed and that is
how we got Danica. What we know about bloodhounds,
we learn a little bit about this from Jessa Baroga.
So she says that the original wolves that came over from that
other planet had that Bloodhound power.
So she says it was the wolf packs led by a sterry bread
bloodhounds who haunted down my sisters.
I've never forgotten that. Ethan stomach churned at the
shameful history of his people. But he asked bread, wry smile.
The gift already existed among the wolves, but the Asteri
encouraged it, read it into certain lines.
They still do. Like Danica.
Jessica's fingers resume their drumming.
The Fenders have been a carefully cultivated line for
the Asteri. So the gift already existed, but
the Asteri tried to breed it into more wolves, into specific
wolves, to heighten their power. Rageless later tells us the
Bloodhound gift is a gift the shifters should not have.
So he says. Of course.
Her quest for truth began with her Bloodhound gift, not a gift
of the body strength, but of magic such as the shifter should
not have. She could send other shifters
with strange powers, right? So that is Sky and Breath
chapter 73. So this is a gift that is in the
shifters, but a gift that the shifter should not have.
Where did it come from? You know this is really your
theory. I'm going to give you credit
here, right, but it's Thanatos. Thanatos seems to almost
certainly be the answer here. Thanatos is able to smell
Bryce's Starlight. The quote for that is Thanatos
sniff toward Bryce almost as canine as the hounds in the
shadows and said your Starlight smells fresher, right?
So he has hounds and he can smell.
He has a pack of hounds and he can smell.
These are bloodhounds, right? Like it's called being a
Bloodhound. He can smell Starlight.
So it seems to have come from Thanatos.
I actually think there's even a little more evidence from this
than just this line. So we have Baxian saying Danica
learned about Sophie's existence while investigating Thunderbird
lineage as part of her research into shifters and our origins.
She traced the bloodlines and then confirmed it by tracking
debt her down and sending her being Danica.
She didn't let Sophie walk away without answering questions.
So she found Sophie, who is a Thunderbird, and we know the
Thunderbird is a power that comes from hell while
researching the shifter origins and her own bloodlines.
She was, it's presumably I'm I'm saying presumably this is an
ironclad, right? Presumably she was already
researching hell, and then she found the Thunderbirds, which is
also a power from hell. I think the trail is is pretty
like clear there she was looking for the blood in the lineage she
found. Hell, she.
Went to find Baxian who is a hellhound.
Hellhound specifically sought him out and had been looking
into Sophie as a result as well. Who has hell powers too.
It's a lot of hell for someone who seemingly would have no hell
lineage except for the Bloodhound power, yeah.
Yeah. And then I'd say the only other
thing to add about this is Jessica says the wolves already
had the power, right? So did that power come from
Midgard or it doesn't seem like it could have because the
sacking of Parthos happened pretty quickly right from when
the other Faye came over, right? Yeah, the shifters, they came
from another world. It seems like maybe that power
originated on that other world. That's all I have for
Bloodhounds right now. Two other items of note.
I'll say she seems to have some kind of connection to her sword.
Seen a lot of magical swords in Crescent City specifically.
So the quote we have for that is the blade had called to Danica
on her 18th birthday, like a howl on a moonlight night.
The Prime had said to explain his unexpected decision.
So basically the Prime has skipped over Sabine and giving
Danica this sword. This Sword of the Wolves.
That's Sabine places all this importance on that sword is
broken by the end of frost of flavor.
I have to suck doing that by the end of a flavor and shadow it's
broken. It doesn't exist anymore.
It may not matter, but we are in a world where swords are imbued
with magic and that people who have that magic are called to
the sword. So with something like that
going on with the Attica sword, I don't know.
And then we also have this line from Fury, which I thought was
really interesting. Bryce asked you never thought to
tell me this during the investigation Fury says it
didn't seem relevant. It was only one of Manicas many
powers. I'm counting 2 powers.
I'm wondering what Fury is referring to here because it
seems like she has a list of powers that I have not picked up
on that I do not know about so I don't know.
What do you think? Yeah, I mean, strength, speed, I
don't know. Those are all said to be powers
of wolves already. But.
Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. I think it has to be related to
this, like claim that Danica was going to claim a ton of power
when she made the drop. We just don't know what that
power was. How Fury knows what that power
was, I don't know. But I'm assuming again, they
they basically had to go through a bunch of like collateral
sharing, right? Danica came to Fury and was
like, I know what you are. And then Fury learned secrets
about Danica as well. Did they exchange information
like other things that Danica knows, that she's capable of,
understands that she's capable of, that we might not know?
Yeah, I don't know. But she she learned.
We'll talk about this obviously coming up, but like plenty about
her lineage that could indicate other powers that she would know
that she would have if she took the antidote.
Yeah, right, because she knew about the parasite too.
Yeah. Yeah, I think all that makes
sense. I agree, yeah.
Yeah. Anything else on that one?
No, it's pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward question.
We love a straightforward question, all right?
We love a straightforward powers question.
Rare. So rare because we're about to
get into the not straightforward question.
All right, guys. So Ronnie, what did Danica know?
This is like the most loosey goosey question we've ever had.
What did Danica know and when did she know it?
Yeah. So I am focusing this question
on her learning pivotal information but I think that the
when did you know it about that pivotal information is really
interesting. So in House of Sky and Breath
chapter 18, we find out that Danica hid a bunch of college
papers in a secret compartment in her coffee table.
Ethan, who is a bumbling baboon, crushes coffee table when doing
swordplay for fun with Danica's sword on top of the coffee
table. So we can reasonably believe
that her knowledge hunt began in college.
And here's what we learned. This is Bryce looking through
those papers. This table was here when I moved
in. All the furniture was Danica's.
Why would she hide her old college papers in here?
And then in chapter 19 later, she's looking through it?
Bryce's hands shook. She sifted through a few
academic articles, all full of redactions theorizing on the
origin of worlds and what the Asteria even were.
So these are like very early documents that Danica is looking
through on what are the asteri, what is the world.
So the papers found in the coffee table mentioned Dusk's
Truth, which we know now to be the room in the archives that
contains all of the history of the Asteris conquests and the
fact that they are intergalactic parasites.
And at that time, Bryce just recognized it as a term exchange
between Sophie and Danica over e-mail.
So that quote is Dusk's Truth, the same project that had been
mentioned in the emails between Sophie and Danica that Danica
had said would be of interest to Sophie Danica.
Danica had been digging into it since college.
Good question. Bryce inhaled and turned to the
next page. It was completely blank, like
Danica had never gotten to writing, writing down any notes
about it. Dusk's Truth was one of the
things that Danica mentioned to Sophie.
Bryce said quietly. Dusk's Truth and project Thur.
So then Fast forward a bit. Two months before she died, we
see footage of Danica grab a book in secret called Wolf's
Through Time, Lineage of the Shifters.
We're going to talk about this later, but we also should talk
about it now, because what we're going to talk about later is
more extended. I'll call it.
So this is from two months before she died.
Declan said quietly. There was Bryce and a tight
green dress and four inch heels, talking with Lahata about fangs
and bangs. I'm gonna just skip ahead a bit.
A second passed, then two, then three.
Danica moved, swift and focus like she'd been, using the time
lounging at the table to pinpoint where she needed to go.
She headed straight to a lower shelf, pulled off a book.
Glancing at the stairs, she flipped it open and began
snapping photos with her phone at the inside, page after page
after page. Skipping a bit again, I
clarified the image. Declan pulled up a frame of the
book right before Danica's black sparkle painted nails grabbed
it. Wolster time, Lineage of the
shifters. You can see her finger going to
some text there. Declan went on, clicking to
another frame. Danica had opened the book,
skimming over it over the text with a finger tapping something
right near the top of the page as if it were exactly what she'd
been looking for. So this is much later, right?
This is 2 months before she died.
They find that basically every Fender older than 5000 years has
been erased. As for his public records.
And Danica was looking at names of those fenders from before
that time. But in this video, right, it
seems like she was looking for someone specifically.
And those people are Nicklaus, Fendier and Ferris, the first of
the Fendier line. We're not great at
pronunciations. We're getting better.
If you're new here, we're working on it, OK?
We all have things to better ourselves with.
We're working on it, she chewed. On her lip.
I've never heard of them. Declan tapped away on the
computer. Nothing comes up.
Try their kids. Spray suggested, giving him the
names. Nothing.
They went through generation after generation until Dec said
their Katra Fendier from here. Yeah, there's actual historical
record and mentions of Katra from there on out starting 5000
years ago, but nothing thing on any of these vendors before her.
So why does this matter? From that video, she is looking
for something specifically. She puts her fingers on people's
names. Specifically.
We learn that she already knew these people's names back in
college, and we learned this because Bryce tracks down the
prime to ask him about it, and he said that she asked about
them in college, claiming she had a school paper.
This means, right, that Danica already knew these two names.
I think she knew that these people were Faye.
I think she knew their names and knew that they were Faye and
knew it in college and suspected that they were Faye, from which
shifters and maybe even her line already originated.
And she learned in that moment in that video and Griffin
antiquities that the wolves were Faye.
The prime, when Bryce is talking with him, right, says that they
entirely forgot who they were and became tools of the asteri,
which checks out, right? Because when Ethan takes the
parasite antidote, he's like freed of this Heather and is
like, I can be dominant again. The Prime says we did
unspeakable things during the first wars.
We yielded our true nature, lost sight of it, then lost it
forever, became what we are now. We say we are free wolves, yet
we have the collar of the asteri around our necks.
Their leashes are long and we let them tame us.
Now we do not know how to get back to what we were, what we
might have been. That was what my grandfather
told me, what I told Sabine, though she did not care to
listen. But I told Danica, who?
His hand shook. I think she might have let us
back, you know, to what we were before we arrived here and
became the asterious creatures inside and out.
Rajalis does eventually confirm that Danica learned that the
shifters were fae, which is, of course what spurred him to
manipulate Micah into killing her.
Right. And that's how this guy in
Breath Chapter 73 says, of course.
Or quest for truth began with her Bloodhound gift.
Not a gift of the body strength but of magic, which is the
shifter should not have. You just said this.
Yeah. She could send other shifters
with strange powers like Sophie and Baxian.
I could found him through researching his bloodline.
But had she scented it too? It prompted her to investigate
her own bloodlines history all the way back to the shifters
arrival in this world to learn where her gifts came from.
And she eventually began to suspect the truth.
And then later, Rajala says Danica realized that the
shifters are fae. Bryce Blank.
What? Not your kind of fae, of course.
And then we read this last episode.
Your breed dwelled in the lovely verdant land rich with magic
cetera, et cetera. The Midgard shifters were fae
from a different planet. All the fae in that world shared
their form with an animal. The mayor descended from them,
too. Perhaps they once shared a world
with your breed of fae, but they had been alone on their planet
from long enough to develop their own gifts.
They don't have pointed ears. Oh, we brought that out of them.
It was gone within a few generations.
The shifters easily and swiftly forgot what they had once been.
They gladly gave themselves to us and did our bidding, LED our
armies and still do. The primate said something
similar. The wolves had lost what they
had once been. Danica had known that Danica had
known the shifters had been, had once been Faye.
We're still Faye, but a different kind.
So Danica was really inspired to look into what she was because
of her own power. She knew she was like, I'm a
Bloodhound, so I'm not just a shifter alone.
I have powers that shifters like that a wolf shouldn't have.
So like, like, what else is going on with me?
She looks into her own lineage in college, like when she met
Bryce, maybe even like maybe even right after, right before
she met Bryce, found these phase names, found those phase names
in that book about the lineage of the wolves two months before
she died. And that was when she learned
they are fae. The shifters are fae, I think.
I mean I think Danica has known about the shifters and Faye and
other worlds for a long time and I think she has known about the
Asteri not being these like benevolent rulers for a long
time as well. Which makes you wonder, why
didn't she tell Bryce? Why didn't she tell Bryce?
Yeah, OK, so I actually put together a whole fucking
timeline because of who I am as a person.
And it pretty much lines up with with what you said.
I think the trigger, I think the first key piece of information
is that Mordock came to visit Danica when she was 17, which
winds up with everything that you've been saying, right?
So I think that is when Danica realized there is something
different about me, right? We know that visit didn't go
well. We know that Mordock came home
and ate a human couple because he's a fucking savage.
Yeah. And then she goes into college
the next year as a history major, right.
So I actually have years on this.
This is kind of assumed. I don't actually know this, but
I think in 1527, that is when Mordock meets Danica in 1528,
and it come meets Bryce, right? She not only meets Bryce, she
means she meets Fury and Juniper.
So I think a couple of key things there, right?
Danica, as a Bloodhound, would have immediately known that
Bryce had some kind of unusual power right before any of before
she saw her star, before their senior year.
She would have known. OK, there's something weird
about Bryce. I'm going to keep an eye on her,
right? She also meets Fury.
You mentioned this before, but I think this is important.
The quote is, I only know about it because she confronted me
when we first met. She sent it me and wanted to
understand. Fury's eyes darkened.
We sorted our shit out, but Danica knew something dangerous
about me and I knew something dangerous about her, right?
So we have, she's meeting Bryce, she's meeting Fury in her
freshman year. That is 1528.
We have, I'm just going to go through this quickly.
We know that Danica was a history major at CCU, Crescent
City University, but she changed her her major, right?
She changed what she was working on, Fury says.
She once told me she was doing research on something that would
likely land her in a heap of trouble.
But when I asked her later what she'd gotten on the paper, she
said she changed subjects. I always thought this was weird.
I think that paper, this isn't crazy, but is the paper in the
coffee table? So while she was in college, she
was researching the paper in the coffee table.
A couple of a couple other things have happened in that
time. So that's while Danica's in
college. Also, while Danica's in college,
she meets vaccine, right? Because Vaccine said he had two
years with Danica. Danica's one year out of college
when she dies, basically. I think she's 22, which means
they met in college. So the quote we get for that is
that's why your behavior changed.
You met Danica right after I left.
It changed everything for me. Baxi and said, how did you even
meet each other? Bryce demanded.
There was a gathering of wolves, Panjaran and Valbaran.
The Prime sent Danica as his emissary.
And then he says we met because she was researching shifter
ancestry. Mine is unique.
She wanted to know about shifter ancestry, really old shifter and
ancestry tree that manifested in me years after lying dormant.
She was examining the most ancient bloodlines in our world
and saw a name on an early ancestors family tree that could
be traced all the way back to the last living descendant, me.
So she's already researching in college, like you said, the
bloodlines. But something really important
happens with Baxian while Danica's in college, right?
Sandra goes into dust truth and I think that's when Danica finds
out about dust truth because Baxian says he told her about
it. So Baxian says Sandra was the
Asteris pet. You know that.
FLR She made me serve as escort on one of her visits to their
palace. When they brought her down to
the archives for a meeting. I saw them go through that door.
When Sandriel emerged. She was pale.
It was odd enough that I memorized the series of numbers
and letters and passed it to Danica leader as something to
look into. Danica became obsessed with it.
She wouldn't tell me why or what she thought might be in there,
but she had theories was that she said would alter this very
world, but she couldn't go in herself.
She was too recognized so well. So this is all aligning with
what you said about it. This all happening for Danica in
college? I think that fits.
I'm assuming this was 1531 because it's after Danica and
Baxian have met, but it is also after Hunt leaves Sandriel. 1531
seems to be the right time. Ethan theorizes based on this
college paper that Danica already knew the Asteri were
parasites. Right?
So he says like maybe Danica sniffed something out about the
Asteri with her. He trailed off and then added
gifts. If the Asteri power is just
everyone else's power, which we've kind of been told, right,
the don't actually have any of their power, they just absorb
mid guards power. Like has Danica already sniffed
that out at this point in college?
I think that's possible, Bryce says.
Well, why would it even matter if Danica had sniffed out
something regarding the Asteria, their holy stars, beings that
possess the force of an entire star within them on aging and
undying. But as Bryce skimmed article
after article, Ethan doing the same beside her, she began to
see that they challenged that fact.
And then we have that, Danica wrote.
All we have is proof of their so-called sacred power is their
word. Bryce read.
Who had ever seen such a star manifest itself?
If they are stars from heaven, that they are fallen stars.
So exactly like you said, Danica suspected in college, basically,
right? That the Asteria were not the
Asteria. I think there's some other
interesting things that happen after Danica and Bryce leave
college though, right? So obviously Danica sees Bryce's
star senior year when they're breaking up the illegal
smuggling ring. So Danica gets confirmation that
Bryce is star born. This is where it gets fun.
Bryce starts to work at Griffin Antiquities the year after they
graduated from college, right? We know that that took a little
while. How did Bryce get the job at
Griffin Antiquities? Fury?
Right, so the quote is? Hunt again surveyed the space.
How'd you get this job? After I graduated, I couldn't
get a job anywhere. The museum's didn't want me
because I didn't have enough experience and the other art
galleries in town were run by creeps who thought I was
appetizing. His eyes darkened.
Blah blah blah, but my friend Fury hunts.
If stiffened slightly at the name.
He clearly knew her reputation while she and Jezebel worked
together in Pandora at some point, and when Jessica
mentioned that she needed a new assistant, Fury basically shoved
my resume down her throat. Danica knows something about
Fury. Danica needs access to books to
do her research. Danica probably knows that
Jessica has all these books at this point.
Did Danica actually set up Bryce getting the job at Griffin
Antiquities? I don't know.
That's just kind of a fun little side theory that I think might
be true. Yeah, I think the other thing
that is kind of messed up, unfortunately, and maybe it's
not, it's just messed up to think about because like, they
didn't overlap in Bryce's life at all.
But Danica likely knew about Hunt, right?
Because she knew about projects. There.
Yeah, probably, yeah. I mean, we know that Danica and
Sophie connected three years before House of Sky and Breath.
So one year before she died, she's looking into the
Thunderbirds. So yes, I think it is totally
possible that Danica knew about Hunt.
I think that's. I think didn't she send Sophie
projects there? She was like you should read
this. Yeah, yeah.
And Projects There, as we know, was written by Hunt's biological
father, right? Right.
Yeah. So I think you're right.
I do have one crazy quote on Project there.
I just want to throw this out there.
It might not lead to anything with Danica, but for Project
There. Project there, Bryce said.
Was Danica investigating it too. I found mentions of it after she
died. I don't know, Ada said.
But the Angel was researching Thunderbirds at the behest of
the Esteri, who worried there might return.
So that Angel is Hunt's father. It led him to us instead.
When we told him the truth, he offered to help in whatever way
he could. Thanatose was finishing up his
work then, and with a male volunteer, only a female to
breed with was needed. Hunt's father spoke to the
Princess of Hell. Like what in dreams?
Like how I don't like this is kind of crazy.
I totally like glossed over this at the first point.
Like what's that about? And presumably Danica knew that
he spoke to the Princess of Hell because she read project there,
right? So 1532 Danica and Sophie are
swapping emails related to Dust, Truth and project there. 1533
Danica steals the horn and puts it embraces back.
And then 1533 Danica, the pack of devils die.
So she got a lot done in her 23 years of life, I think more or
less pretty impressive, yes. So to sum up, she seems to know
the origins of the bloodhounds, the origins of the shifters and
that they used to be Faye, the origins of the Hellhounds, the
origins of the Thunderbirds, the Esteria are parasites, and the
full extent of Bryce's powers. All of which is pretty, pretty
impressive to get done. In Curious Origins.
All of Fury shit she knows. She knows so much.
Like there's no way that we could list out everything that
she knows. Like, she probably knows the
origin of the Osteria's power. She probably knows whether Bryce
and the Osteria have the same power.
Like, as long as anyone she's been in the presence of, she can
smell their power and their land, right?
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and like it is said that
being a Bloodhound is dangerous. For that reason, like you,
people will exploit you. Yeah, Yep.
Yeah. So that's all I had.
But I think meeting Mordock was the key for this investigation.
Yeah, Yep. Cool.
OK, Abby, why did Danica put the horn on Bryce's?
Back right, so to sum up a little, because I, I had kind of
forgot the order of events here from book one, Micah claims that
he ordered Danica to steal the horn for him because he had dirt
on her for stealing since trial footage from Redner Industries,
which she is working at on the side of her ox job, right?
So Danica or Micah caused the blackout.
He told Danica to steal the horn.
Danica did, but before she could give him the horn, she grounded
up and put it in a tattoo on Bryce's back.
So I think the question is, was this kind of a crime of
opportunity for her? Did she know?
I think we've established she knew that Bryce was start one,
and she probably knew what the horn was based on her research
in college. So the question was, did she
know that Bryce would be able to wield the horn?
Was this a crime of opportunity or did she actually have some
kind of plan here? Did she know that Micah was
manipulating her? I don't know about that, but I
think there's a lot of interesting things to talk
about, about what Danica was planning to have Bryce do with
the horn, right? So we know that she knows.
Suppose that synth could probably fix the horn.
Right. So the quote we have for that,
you caused the blackout that night she stole the horn.
I did. But I underestimated Danica.
She'd been worried of my interest in Sith long before I
leaked it onto the streets. And when I blackmailed her into
stealing the horn, she must have realized the connection between
the two, that the horn could be repealed, repaired by Sith.
So you killed her for it? I killed her because she hid the
horn before I could repair it with the synth and thus help my
people. So Mike was confirming.
Yeah. Danica knew.
Danica knew that the horn could be repaired.
And it was pretty common knowledge that the Starborn Faye
could wield the horn. So definitely kind of
confirmation here. She knew Bryce would be able to
do something about. The question is, what did she
want? What did she want Bryce to do
with it? I think this is kind of
speculation here. I think we get confirmation from
the Oracle. So when Hunt goes to the Oracle
he says why does someone want Luna's horn?
This is back in book one. We get a rasping voice slithered
out of the smoke to open the doorway between worlds.
A chill seized Hunt. They wish to use the horn to
reopen the northern rift. The horn's purpose wasn't merely
to close doors, it opens them too.
It depends on what the bearer wishes, right?
We get no indication that Micah wanted to open the northern
rift, right? Micah wanted to open the gates
within Lunatheon, but there's no conversation with him about
going to the Northern Rift. We know that Danica at this
point, knows that the Asteria are parasites, has probably dug
into the history of the first wars, definitely knows that Hell
created the Thunderbirds. Right?
Because she's interested in the Thunderbirds.
Did she want Bryce to wield the horn and open the Northern Rift
to help overthrow the Asteria? I think.
I think that was Danica's plan. I don't think she knows about
Prythian. I don't think she knows about
Thea Star being distributed between two planets.
I think that's too crazy. I do think she wanted Bryce to
welcome in the Princess of hell, to take care of the Esteri,
basically. I don't think that.
Danica knew that hell were allies by this point.
I don't. I think it would be hard for her
to learn everything that she had learned and not have gotten to
that point. Like if you learned the truth,
which is I think what she did about everything that happened
with Pelias and Helena and Daya and all of that, you know that
Hell was trying to help. So I agree that could be
motivator. I had like a couple different
thoughts, but like all of the lead up I think is the same,
right? Like at the at the end of the
day, Danica made the call to powder up a broken horn and put
it into Bryce's back, which is a wild call.
Like especially given that did not know that an antidote for
synth would be created, that Bryce would have access to that
antidote and that Micah would shoot her up with synth.
I don't actually think that she thought that Bryce would ever
take synth. I don't think that that.
I think she put it into Bryce because she thought that Micah,
the Archangels, the Steri, we're going to use synth to repair the
horn and go conquer other worlds.
And she was like, let me put it into Bryce instead.
She knows what Bryce is. Bryce making the drop would
generate enough first light probably to heal the horn.
So if Bryce had made the drop I think without having taken synth
before that I think the horn would have healed probably.
Talk about the idea of synth healing the horn for a second at
all anyway, because what what we're told would heal the horn
is light. That is not light magic.
That is not magic, right? I know that synth was the
answer, but does that not also sound like the Asteri or ***
born power? Like light that is not light.
We talked about that last episode, right?
Like Bryce's Starlight is not light.
It is not a rainbow, it is an anti rainbow, right?
Magic that is not magic. She doesn't actually have magic,
right? Like in the Asteri don't
actually have magic. They have to take magic from
other people. So I know that the answer was
synth, but it feels like maybe Bryce could have fixed the horn
on her own. Might be a totally moot point at
this point, but. Yeah, I mean, I think it is, but
I think that's probably what Danica was banking on was like,
if anyone's going to be able to fix this, like she's the most
Starborn person to have lived since the first war, so I'm
going to put it in her. And I agree with you that I
think her end motivator must have been to open the northern
riffs. I also think a possibility and
again I I don't know right, like cuz I don't actually know the
extent of bloodhounds powers. But if two things would have to
be true here, right one Bryce would actually need to be part a
steri, but to the Bloodhound power would actually need you to
be able to it would it would need to allow you to be able to
sniff that out. She said that like putting the
horn into Bryce keeps the horn safe.
It also kind of makes Bryce indestructible, right?
Like it makes Bryce collateral like you need you need Bryce
alive, but you can't. It made her impossible to kill.
Like they they could not did not want to get rid of her.
So I think it was also to protect Bryce in a way.
I'm going to make you indispensable, basically, in
case I can't, she says. Mostly to keep you safe in case
the worst happened to me which. It yeah, says.
You lied about the tattoo. Well, Bryce says.
Why did you lie about the horn? I didn't lie, Danica said
simply. I just didn't tell you.
Bryce said you lied about the tattoo to keep you safe, Danica
said. To keep the horn safe, Yeah, but
mostly to keep you safe in case the worst happened to me.
Could be just about keeping the secret, but also like, really?
So we made. Bryce Pretty, pretty safe, yeah.
In one way, it made her the biggest target in the nation.
Did it? Not actually do the opposite of
that actually. But also like Bryce would have
just been killed by now for everything that she knew if she
wasn't their way out. I don't understand, and we'll
talk about this at some point, but in all of houses, Sky and
Breath, right? Rigeless is encouraging Bryce in
one way or another to learn how to wield her power, right?
So when he appears as Aidas, he says you need to be training
like you're not training. I need you training with the
Reapers. He's also trying to get her to
be training, basically, right? And then the explanation we're
given at the end of Sky and Breath was like, he said, I
needed you to wield the horn to open the gates to hell when we
have literally had in not in the book before, Micah just blasting
Bryce with power and the gates to hell opening.
So like, why why does Bryce need to be trained at all?
And why can't rigeless like wield the horn on his own
Because he's an Asteri and the Asteri be at the trove.
You know what I'm saying? Like just always felt really,
really odd to me that piece. And like, yeah, I just, I I
don't know. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, Micah blasting her just like randomly happened to
open the gates. But yeah, why?
Why Rigeless couldn't just blast her and open a portal?
I don't know, Maybe we're going to learn something.
Why can't they cut the horn off of Bryce's back?
And just like, at one point, Azrael says, like, I'll cut it
off you if I have to, right? Like, why can't they?
Just like, why does Bryce need to be alive to wield this horn?
The Asteris should be able to wield it without her.
It's not like, I get it if she's the only one who has the power
to wield it. But the Asteris should also have
the power to be like, they made it.
Yeah, Right. Right.
So it's all very interesting, I think.
But indeed, still, the whole thing feels insane because now
someday like someone's going to harvest your corpse, but
whatever. Yeah, I don't.
I don't, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what
the plan was. All right.
Next question. Another, it's fine question.
Yeah, go ahead. All right, Ronnie, why does
Danica keep so many things from Bryce?
The list that we started was Synth Murdoch being her father,
Ophion, Asteria, the list goes on.
Dot dot let's. Start with the list, shall we?
Let's start with the list. An inordinate number of things
secret from Bryce looting, but probably not limited to it was
start from the top Bloodhound gift.
The fact that her father is Mordock, which is the same
thing. Therefore, the fact that she
knew and when she knew and what she knew about basically
everyone's heritage, Bryces heritage, Fury's heritage,
Baxian's heritage, everything. The fact that she was looking
into synth and everything that she learned about it.
The fact that she stole Luna's horn.
The fact that she tattooed Luna's horn into Bryce's back.
What she learned about her own lineage and the fact that the
shifters were once Faye. The fact that she was working
with Ophion. Everything she exchanged with
Sophie about Dusk's truth and Project Thur.
If she read about Project Thur and looked into it and all and
learned anything about it, anything that she learned about
Hunt's heritage, like a Prince of hell, could have visited her.
Atis might have chatted with her.
I don't know. The fact that she had a mate and
that it was Baxian. Anything else that I'm missing?
Papers in the coffee table, thumb drive in the jacket.
Like a lot of things. A lot of.
Things. Yeah, just like many, many,
many, many many things. I can only think of a few really
two reasons that this would be the case.
The third third being like, we're just going to find out and
we just don't know yet. But one, Danica at no point
expected to live and just did not want Bryce to die with her.
Like at the rate that this girl was finding things out, like she
had to know, right, that her days were numbered and she was
just like, I'm going to find out as much as I possibly can and
try and not put a death order on my best friend as well.
The second possibility that I think is much more interesting,
but I think a little bit further fetched is that maybe she she
might have known about Bryce's a Steri heritage and potentially
some things about Ember on Ember side that we do not fully
understand. And if she had gone down the
path of sharing everything that she learned with Bryce, did she
know that she would eventually find herself in a place and
sharing with Bryce that they found themselves in a place
where Bryce was not very happy with what she learned about
herself? That's a good idea.
I did not have that idea. Like I'm going to save you from
yourself here and like I don't like what I've learned about me
and I'm not going to share with with you what I've learned about
you. That's an interesting line to
walk, right? And it has been the line that's
been walked so far, right? Because she's like leading the
horse to water, right? She's like, I'm getting you so
close right now. But like, if we're right, I'm
not going to tell you that that piece of right, like, yeah, that
you that you're probably descending from a story.
If we're if we're Right, right. She's discovering that she has
ties to hell, which is probably not what she wanted to hear.
Yeah, she's what, going to tell Bryce that she has ties to their
evil overlords? It's not fun either.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that's part of this is that the
world that Danica was in versus the world that Bryce thought the
world that Danica was in was just so, so different, right.
Like Danica basically knew everything that we have learned
over these three books, but she knew it way earlier.
And like Bryce was just kind of being a party girl, which was
fine at the time, right? Like that was fine, but it would
be. It was be so crazy.
There is a quote somewhere about Danica thinking she was going to
die. I can't remember where it was.
It's like she didn't think she would live to see it.
Let me just try to find it. OK?
Yeah. So this is Baxi.
And talking to Bryce. He says she wanted to know where
we came from. The shifters of the fae, all of
us. She wanted to know what we'd
once been, if it might inform our future.
Baxian's throat worked. She was also.
She told me she wanted to find an alternative to Sabine.
She was the alternative to Sabine.
Bryce snapped. She had a feeling she might not
live long enough for that. So it's exactly what what you
said, like Danica thought she would probably die and was like
making making contingency plans for that, I think.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, she, she bought an
apartment and put it in Bryce's name.
Like, you don't do that if you think you're long for this
world, you know? I hear what you're saying.
Both beds in that apartment had accommodation for people with
wings, for Vayner with wings, right?
So either she knew that Bryce and Hunt were mates, or she was
planning to move to that apartment with Baxian one day.
I don't know. I don't know which one than it
is but. I mean, maybe Vaccine was
already spending a night there every once in a while, I don't
know. That would be nice, I hope.
I wish for that for them. Very well.
Yeah. Wait, this is, this is
interesting. Do you think she can smell?
This is pure speculation territory now, but like, do you
think she can smell mating bonds?
I think if you've met, the answer is definitely yes.
Yeah, I don't know if you've never met.
Yeah, Yeah. And Hunt and Bryce had never
met, but. But Danica knew Hunt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting.
I never even thought of it from that angle.
What? She might have known about Hunt,
right? Did she smell the hell on Hunt
too? Like.
Almost certainly, yeah. Yeah, Yep.
The only other thing I had here, which is kind of weak is fear of
fear of Damati, like fear of fear of mind readers, fear of
the Asteri or the Mystics finding out.
Like basically she didn't want to put Bryce in danger, right?
So like, we know there are Mystics, we know there are full
Damati on a ball and right, Like if she could keep Bryce as
innocent as possible, at least while she was still alive, she
was protecting her in some way. But like there are some things
like Mordock being her father, why wouldn't she tell Bryce that
Bryce has a shitty dad? Danica knows about it.
Like what's the justification for not telling Bryce that
besides like kind of being a shitty friend?
I don't really have. I don't really have an answer.
Bryce's secret heritage, right? Yeah, right.
Like you showed me mine or I showed you mine.
You know, not to mention Bryce or Danica knows everyone's
lineage, right? So like, why is she being so
secretive about about her? So I don't know.
That's all I have. For that one, yeah, Danica, she
doesn't have very big hair, but she is full of secrets, so.
Definitely full of secrets. All right, well that concludes
our Crescent City and Acatar spoilers section.
So we are now going to be talking about Throne of Glass
spoilers also from here on out. So if you have not read all
eight books in the Throne of Glass series, we would suggest
that you drop off now so that you are not spoiled.
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spoiled, we suggest that you skedaddle.
All right, Throne Glass spoilers, sections, omissions,
social media shout outs. Do you have any for?
The class yeah. So I have a social media shout
out. So I gave an off the cuff theory
in our Places of Prythian episode, but I think it's
actually very relevant to this episode.
So I give an off the cuff theory about Lydia's ring and I said
that it was the same as Rowan's ring.
However, our listener discorder all around theory.
Badass Anastasia. We love you Anastasia.
Thank you for pointing this out. Pointed out that they are not
actually the same rings the way they are described.
So as a refresher, what we're talking about is Lydia has a
I'll just read the description Lydia's ring that we get.
She wore a gold ring crowned with a square clean cut Ruby, a
subtle hint of wealth that she says was a family heirloom from
her father's side. We know her father is descended
from Brandon, right? So again, that is a gold ring
crowned with a square clean cut Ruby.
So it is gold and it has a Ruby. Rowan wears a very similar ring,
but it is not the same ring. So the quote for that is the
thicker ring held an elegantly cut Ruby within the band itself,
while the smaller one bore A sparkling rectangular emerald
mounted a top, blah blah blah. So Rowan's ring has a Ruby
within the gold ring itself. Lydia's ring has a square clean
cut Ruby that crowns the ring. They're both gold and they are
both Ruby. So I don't know what the fuck
Sarah is doing here if I'm being quite honest.
Because this is one of those things that feels like it's
supposed to be a clue that these are the same rings and not
Lydia. We know she's descended from
Brandon, but it's also descended from Eitlin and Rowan.
But then when you look at it, and I fell victim to, you know,
the social media misinformation campaign, I apologize.
They're not. They do not seem to be the same
ring. Could they have been the same
ring that was reset? Like, yeah.
But it's just it's such a weird detail for them to be so similar
but not the same. Can I just offer the perspective
that it would be kind of the insane if it was not reset?
Like Rowan is a massive. A.
Warrior and Lydia has slender hands and is a deer shifter.
Like, it's probably the same Ruby it's.
Probably the same Ruby. I'm not disagreeing with you,
but we can't say that with 100% certainty is what I'm saying.
I agree without 100. Percent certainty, but I feel
like to say like if I were to put one of Connor's rings on my
hand and turn my hand like this, it would fall off immediately.
I think they probably went to a jeweler.
I think that's what happened, but it's not confirmed.
The same ring. It's not confirmed.
It's a good catch. Thank you.
It's a good catch. Thank you, Anastasia.
Great catch. The other omission I have, and
you probably want to talk about it too, there are bloodhounds in
Throne of Glass, right? So these bloodhounds are Val
creations. I'm acknowledging that we know
that they are able to shift. So we see a Bloodhound that is
able to shift into a human woman.
I believe it's human woman with red hair.
They don't seem to have this power though.
We I don't think we have any indication that the Bloodhound
is able to like scent powers or family lines.
I might be wrong about that, if I'm wrong let me know.
I mean, it's not, it is not explicitly said that they can
send family lines, but it is said I can now taste the wind
smell. It's very marrow just as I
smelled you across the land. So the the smelling and the
tracking down is definitely there, definitely there.
I agree that it's not explicitly said.
It's not explicitly said that's fine.
We know that Sarah likes to plant seeds and then let them
grow later. But.
Go ahead. But I do think we have, and
maybe you were getting to this, we're going to talk about the
fact that it is probably a shifter, like an actual shifter.
No, go ahead. OK so in chapter 46 the
Bloodhound is there. Manon, Alen and the Bloodhound
are having a scuffle, and the Bloodhound blinked at her, then
hissed. Manon let out a low laugh.
Aylan said honestly. You could have just snuck in
here and saved yourself 1000 stupid steps, Shifter.
The thing hissed hungrily enough that Aylan's words stumbled.
Its enormous eyes had gone right to Lasandra, snarling softly in
the corner in ghost leopard form.
Shifter. It hissed again, that longing
twisting its features, and Aylan had a feeling she knew what this
thing had begun as. What Erawan had trapped and
mutilated in the mountains around Morath and shifters in
Irelia have smelled bloodlines. I'm just going to put it out
there. Which?
One, because you're saying Rowan smelled.
Yeah, Yeah. Rowan.
Rowan takes one look at Adian and is like, you are Gabriel's
son. Yeah.
So if this were an experimented on shifter fae that happened to
also have that ability, and we don't really know that it's
unique to Rowan, right? It might just be of the fae
here. Well, it seems.
Like, well, first of all, it seems like I was wrong.
It can definitely set powers right?
Because it immediately knows that Lisandra is a shifter.
Which is exactly what Rowan does too, right?
Rowan looks at her and says shifter.
It says shifter and also aylan. I mean I interpret that comment.
I'm curious how you interpret that comment.
Had a feeling she knew what this thing had begun as after being
longing twisting its features. Seems like that Bloodhound was a
shifter FAE. Was a shifter.
That was experimented on by a Valg and is now a Bloodhound.
A true shifter the way Lusandra's a shifter being able
to shift into anything. Right.
Oh, that's so interesting. So interesting, Yeah.
Gran of Glass was written a long time ago, but it was Empire
Storm so it was a later one. Well.
I think we have some retconning of Throne of Glass because in
Crescent City, Rajala says that Brannon created a race of stag
shifters with Mala's life, right?
Which is there are stags in Terracin, but like, that's not
really the story that we're giving them or about the Lord of
the North, right? We're not told that Brannon
created them, which will definitely unpack it more in the
future. But yeah, I think that's
interesting. So it could be that the origins
of this power are from Aurilia, as we think they are, right?
Because the Bloodhounds came over and sacked Parthos.
Right? But that it's Valk Origin rather
than Hell. But we have talked about at
length that we at least think Valk and Hell are from the same
planet, so it would make sense that a Prince of Hell also had
this power. Or that they're just the same
thing, and that Thanatos might have been doing experiments in
Aurelia. Especially Thanatos.
He's not a good one, you know. Thanatos is not a Kind 1 and
Thanatos would totally make this fucking creature.
Yeah, I agree. I agree with you.
And we're told that the wolves came over to Midgard with this
ability already, right? Exactly.
Yeah. So.
So it does seem to be. It does seem to definitely be
pointing towards this Bloodhound now that I think about it.
Forget what I said before, I'm locking it back.
I think it's this Bloodhound. I don't know, Like we have,
again, we don't know whether it extends beyond Rowan, but Rowan
is a totally fucking normal thing and smells everything.
Shifter. Yeah.
Bloodlines. All of it.
Yeah. True, true, true.
This one is called a Bloodhound, so I used to give it.
I do give it points for obviousness.
Yeah. Yeah, all right.
Any other? No, that's all I had for this.
Do you have anything I? Had the Bloodhound 1.
So all right, why was Danica looking at and what was she
trying to find in Wolves Through Time?
A lineage of the Shifters? Throne of Glass spoilers
version. Throne of Glass spoilers
version. All right.
So I think you've already given a good overview of what she
found in Wolves Through Time. And I think you're right that
basically she was just looking for confirmation that the Wolves
used to be Faye. However, think think we're
missing a piece of this. I want to talk about it.
And I think you got there too, based on some earlier comments
that you made. So, but we can do it here, yeah.
I'm talking about it in the next question, too.
Danica was also researching Brandon's line, right?
And we know that because of what Lydia said.
So she said Lydia had known even as a child that she was pure
power, and she'd kept that power buried in her veins, not which
power she knew her flames were different.
Her father didn't have them either.
She kept them secret, even from the Asteria, Especially from the
Asteria. No other shifters had them to
her knowledge, and she knew what revealing them would mean,
becoming an experiment to be pulled apart by the Asteria.
Then she had run into Danica Fendier, who had somehow learned
things about Lydia's paternal bloodline and wanted to know if
Lydia had any strange gifts. Fae like elemental gifts right?
So this is before the antidote. Danica saying, Lydia, do you
have elemental gifts like the Fae, right?
I would assume that means in her research, in her research into
her own line, she came across Brannon and his gifts and trace
that down to Lydia. So I know there's a very popular
theory out there that the Fendir line came from Fenris Moonbeam.
Maybe I'd like to present a different theory.
I think this is going to be Ronnie's theory too, that the
wolves that least the Fendir line, perhaps all the wolves are
actually related to the wolf tribe of Terrace, right?
Because why would she be looking into Brandon for her own
research into her own family? One.
So the quotes we have about this wolf tribe, the fae who dwelled
in Terrace and were not wiped out so thoroughly?
Aylin said. Lorcan began grinning.
They found a new home with the wolf tribe, for those were
humans also riding those wolves, as all the myths had claimed.
And did you know that while many of them came here with Brannon,
there was an entire clan of fae who arrived from the southern
continent, fleeing you? I think all of them actually
right. So we have this wolf tribe that
lived in the north with Terracin, north of Terracin, who
lived in the north of Terracin was associated with Brandon,
came over with Brandon. Danica has found Brandon's last
living descendant. It also feels like we're getting
set up. Sorry, that was Kingdom of Ash
chapter 114. It also feels like we're getting
set up for there to be more to this story with the wolf tribe.
So we have the quote, the Las Fey of Terracin.
They're giant wolves and adopted human clan with them wanted to
speak to her as much as the citizens of Orinth, how they had
found the wolf tribe a decade ago, how they'd fallen in with
them in the Wilds of the mountains and the hinterlands
beyond. It was a tale she'd soon learn.
The world would learn, right? So that's Kingdom of Ash chapter
118. That's literally one of the last
chapters of Throne of Glass. It feels like we're getting more
of a story here. And then we have the wolves of
Crescent City, right? So again, I'm not clear if these
are actually wolf shifters or if they are Faye who fell in with
some kind of wolves, but it seems like she's kind of willing
to retcon some of the the Throne of Glass lore that we've gotten
to make it fit in with the shifters a little bit.
The Brannon stag examples, right?
So we're told that Brannon made an army of stags with firepower.
That's what we're told Brannon did, which like what?
We're never told that Brandon did that Throne of Glass.
So I could see this being like a little retcon to be like, Oh
yeah, the wolf tribe was Fay Fay who could shift into these
enormous wolves, right? These horse sized wolf.
I think we'll get into it more of the next question, but I
think she might have been looking for that confirmation
when she was looking for the Wolves through time, some kind
of connection to Brannon and Tarrison, and I think she found
it, yeah. Yeah, I like that.
I also think I think what at least at least the subset of
wolves that she was looking into related to Brannon could not
actually have been, and this might be obvious, but like
couldn't have actually been linked to Fenris because Fenris
kind of famously does not have anything other than speed
strength. Like he doesn't have elemental
anything, right? He just has winnowing, which is
like unique and we're going to talk about it, but like he
doesn't have elementals so. Yeah, he doesn't have.
Elemental power Ethan because he Ethan ends up having elementals
that takes out Holstrom's the fend ears.
We don't actually know right? Like I don't know what Danica
would have had. So like maybe that's an option
still for Fenrus, but I think the Brandon 1 is more
interesting, especially because I feel like Brandon in my head
is still kind of like adjacent to a raw power.
Pool but agree we know that Mala gifted him her flames right,
which is kind of crazy. Like what do you mean that's
very we don't know what that means something you said.
The reason I don't think the Fenris thing works and this is
dumb, but his name is Fenris Moonbeam.
We know his last name. It's Moonbeam.
Danica's last name is Fendir. Sure there are 15,000 years
between here and now, but I think it's just like they used
Fen because of Fenrir in Norse mythology, right?
Like that's it's just meant to describe Wolf rather than meant
to like fully put a line between these two characters.
But. Yeah, that's just, I'm going to
talk more about him. I don't think it's really like
that last name dependent, but I don't think.
Yeah, I don't know. I think he's interesting to talk
about, but I don't know that it necessarily means that.
Like they need to be descended from the moon memes, if that
makes sense. Yeah, I'd agree.
But I agree with everything you said.
I think the brand situation is interesting.
We already talked about the fact that bloodhounds are quote a
steri bread, but like that's kind of bullshit as we know.
I do just want to say, and maybe this is obvious, but for anybody
who's incredibly confused, we have 99% certainty that these
fae, the shifter fae are from Irelia, even though it's not
explicitly stated. And that is because Rajala says
all fae in that world shared their form with an animal and an
era fire. We get all Faye possessed, a
secondary animal form. Every single Faye on Aurelian
has an animal form. It's the same.
Yeah, for sure. And Lydia says she can trace her
line back to Brandon. I mean, it's probably the same
Brandon. All right.
Yeah. Why were the Esteri so
interested in the breeding of the Fender line, Ronnie?
So I am going to talk about Fenris in this one because last
one was fair, was not about Fenris.
So. So Jessica tells us directly and
she has seen everything over the last 15,000 years, so she's a
pretty good source. She has no reason to lie that
the Fenders were carefully bred by the Asteria.
So we have already read this quote, but House of Flame and
Shadow chapter 45. The gift already existed amongst
wolves, but the Asteria encouraged it, bred it into
certain lines. They still do like Danica.
Jessica's fingers resume their drumming.
The Fenders have been a carefully cultivated line for
the Asteria. How so?
That's Ethan. She fixed her blazing eyes on
him. This female had lived through
all of Midgard's Asteri history. He could hardly wrap his mind
around it. Didn't you ever wonder why the
Fenders are so dominant generation after generation?
Genetics. Yes, genetics bred by the
Asteri. Sabine and Mordock were ordered
to breed, but Sabine took the title from her brother.
At who's urging? She's an angry, small minded
female. Her brother was smarter, but
clearly no male of worth. If he sold his daughter to the
Astronomer, he was likely deemed unfit by the Asteri who coaxed
Sabine into challenging him. And when Sabine's dominance went
out, they made sure Mordock was sent to produce a line of more
competent fenders. So we talked about Fen Reese
Moonbeam and how he was a wolf shifter in Irelia.
Just to quickly give a, you know, one O 1 on Fen Reese.
Fen Reese and Connell are twins. They both have wolf forms that
are the size of a pony, just like Danica and just like I
think most shifters on Midgard, and they both have sworn a blood
oath to Maeve. I think the reason that that
Fenrus is so interesting and that potential connections
between Fenrus and the wolves in general could be really
interesting, is because I think we have decent reason to believe
that he has lineage that somehow ties to Prythean or to the
Asteria, and that is because he can win them.
So Aylan in Empire of Storms chapter 47 says tell me how your
magic works, how you can leap between places like that.
He's injured at this time, a clever, easy way to keep him
focused. Elsewhere.
Adien scanned the deck, making sure he wasn't needed, and then
carefully sopped up the blood and poisoned leaking from
Fenrice's chest. It had to hurt like hell.
The insistent dropping in his leg was likely nothing by
comparison. No one knows where it comes
from, what it is. Fenrus said between shallow
breaths, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides.
But it lets me slip between folds in the world.
Only short distances, and only a few times before I'm drained.
But it's useful on a killing field.
He panted through his clenched teeth as the outer edges of his
gash began to reach for each other.
Aside from that, I've got nothing special.
Speed, strength, swift healing, more than the average Fey, but
the same stock of gifts. I can shield myself and others,
but I can't summon an element. So he's not elemental, but he
can winnow and seemingly nobody else can.
And it's definitely winnowing, slipping between folds.
Of course, in the world, Fenrus origins and parents are a bit
vague. So mother was a warrior.
Our mother was a warrior, Fenrir said.
Each word labored. She trained us as such.
This is all the same chapter. Our father was too, but was
often away at war. She was tasked with defending
our home, our lands, and reporting to Maeve.
Rasping laboring breaths from both of them, Aiden shifted so
that Aylen could lean wholly against him, biting down on the
weight it put on his already swollen knee.
When Con and I were 30, we were straining at the least to go to
Doran, out with her to see the city, meet the Queen and do what
young males like to do with money in their pockets and youth
on their sides. Only Maeve took one look at us
and he needs a longer to catch his breath this time.
It didn't go well from there. We don't have a great timeline
for the events of Throne of Glass, Throne of Glass versus
the events in Crescent City because Times Rift, but we do
have a very good reason to believe that the Esteri had
already been on on Irelia by the time the events of Throne of
Glass happened. I think there were probably
multiple visits because we're told the mayor descended from
them, but they also predate the Asteri.
That's a different topic. But the reason that we the
reason we have good reason to believe that the Asteri were
there before the events of Throne of Glass, because there
is a Fey territory you've talked about this already called
Asterion. So in Tower of Dawn chapter 33,
only Faye blades could remain this sharp after 1000 years,
said Sartok, setting down the knife he'd been inspecting,
likely forged by the Faye Smiths in Asterion, to the east of
Dornell, perhaps even before the first of the Demon Wars.
A Prince who had studied not only his own empire's history,
but that of many others. History was not, was certainly
not her strongest subject. So she asked Asterion.
Like the horses one and the same great Smiths and horse breeders,
or so it once was before board is closed and the world
darkened. So I think one of two things
could be happening with fenry specifically, and I promise it
ties back to Danica somehow. So I think this could be proof
that winnowing does come from the Asteria, right?
That world walking at one point did come from the Asteria and
that winnowing was is a mini version of that.
That it also could mean, and this would be really
interesting, that somehow a fae from Prythian, if this is a
Prythian abundant ability, had made it to Irelia somehow and
had fun. Reese either way, right?
If there is if there is a wolf shifter out there within a Steri
ability and we have a link between the wolf shifters of
Irelia and wolf lines in Crescent City.
If I'm a Steri I'm pretty focused on that.
Like that can be really interesting to me.
Star born wolf shifters. And it kind of feels like one of
these has to be true. And crossbreeding seems possible
if not likely considering that Tamlin and all of the high Lords
of Prythian have ties to obese form.
Like they have ties to obese form and the shifter Fey are
from Irelia. And if Danica stood on top of a
massive claim to power before making the drop, I would not be
surprised if she were somehow related to.
And stereo adjacent star born adjacent, something wolf shifter
line. There is a wolf star.
There's a wolf star. We've not talked about Sirius,
but there's a wolf star. Napoleon ate her, but she
existed at one point. All this to say, I think
Venreese is very interesting because the fact that he has a
star, like let's just call it a star born ability, because we
don't really know whether it's Prithian ability or an Asteri
ability, But he's a wolf shifter with a star born ability and
he's the only one who has it, could have very interesting
implications even if we don't have anyone descended from him,
even if these timelines are in parallel, like he's descended
from someone. Yeah.
Think yes, I agree with you. I think it's AI do think it is.
The implication is that Danica might be from a star born line
as well, but I think it might be.
I don't think it has to be only one.
It seems like all of these wolves could potentially be
Starborn, because so you mentioned the Astarian fae,
right? And Sartok and Nesrin are
talking about them. They came from east of Dornell,
but now they're on the southern continent, right?
So they're on the southern continent.
That's where Sartok and Nesrin are.
We have Keol and Irene in the desert talking about Irene's
healing gift, which is death, which is very death.
Maiden A, which we talked last episode, seeming very similar to
the powers of creation and destruction that Bryce seems to
have with the terraforming and the black hole.
At the very least, it's very similar to Rune's gift, right?
So we have Faye. Magic is passed down through
their bloodlines. It doesn't appear at random.
Perhaps these people came here, these people I believe being the
hysterian Fae who were originally from the east east of
Dornell, coming to the southern continent and then were
forgotten by the world forces, good and evil.
Perhaps they knew this place was far away enough to remain
untouched, that wars would be waged elsewhere by them.
He jerked his chin to a carving of a Valk soldier.
While the southern continent remained mostly mortal held,
while the seeds planted here by the Fae were bred into the human
bloodlines and grew into a people gifted and prone to
healing magic. So the theory is that the fae
came from Doranal to the southern continent and bred
their healing magic. The Hysterion fae bred their
healing magic, which seems to be potentially starboard magic,
into the human lines. We are told that the fae
actually learned this healing magic from somewhere else.
Right, so the quote is. Irene leaned against the ancient
work table as Hafiz sat and interlaced her fingers in her
lap. She told me that long ago,
before man stumbled here, before the horse looks and the rooks
above the steps, this land indeed belonged to Fae, a small,
Pretty Little Kingdom. Its capital here, Antica, was
built atop its ruins. She rambled about how they had
left their knowledge of healing for us to find, that they had
stolen it from elsewhere, and that their teachings form the
basis of the Tor. So now we have potentially the
Asterian face stealing knowledge of healing.
We're calling it healing, but it might actually be star worn
abilities from elsewhere. Seems like probably from the
Asteri and leaving it for the humans to find.
These are the same fae you'll recall in my last quote go end
up going north, right? End up going north and meeting
up with the wolf tribe, right? So we have from east of Dornell,
we have the Astarian Fae going South of the continent and then
going north to Terrace and to meet up with the wolf tribe.
I think it's totally possible that Danica and perhaps other
wolves as well, exactly what you said, have the cisterry
bloodline, have this Astarian fae bloodline.
It merged with the wolf shifters, and now the Astaria
are like keeping a close, close eye to make sure that that power
does not crop up. Yeah.
I would bet that she is descended from some Starborn
wolf shifter line and the Asteri are monitoring very closely but
also trying to make sure like I mean they are trying to make
sure that she doesn't get too powerful, right?
The thing that breaks like the reason that this doesn't work is
because if, if they are Asteri at all, they can't be too
Asteri, right? Because then she wouldn't.
Bryce did not have any indications that she would claim
any power because she had none. Danica seems to have indications
that she would claim a lot. So maybe she's just already a
very powerful fae that has, you know, a steri ability otherwise,
and that's just the case. But then she can't she it must
be very small, must be like room status.
Yeah, I and I would agree with that.
I mean, I think that lines up with what, like it could be the
the Asteria are actually trying to breed that power out of the
Fendir line instead of like, you know what I mean?
Like they were trying to make sure, OK, this this is the line
that still has that power. We need to make sure that
they're not getting it. I would agree with that.
It also could be that she had some really strong elemental
power and we just don't know what that's going to be.
But I think I do want to talk about Danica's name.
Or did you want to talk about it?
Because you were the one who found this first.
You can say it. I mean, it's, yeah, it's
Morningstar. Right so Danica's name means
Morningstar, right? Like that is the meaning of the
word Danica. I don't think there's any way
it's a coincidence that Bryce has the power of the Evening
Star and her best friend's name means Morningstar, right?
Like that just seems almost impossible.
So is that a clue pointing us towards hey like Danica might
also have some star born power from not from Prithean, from
Aurilia, from a completely different place, completely
different line. Maybe it's from Sirius and we
will still get that story. I mean, I don't know what
Crescent City 4 is going to be, but like are we going back to
Aurelia? It seems like we probably are,
given that Crescent City 3 was so heavily Prythian focused.
And I think we'll at least get answers to the Irelia question.
And I think we have, I think it has to be the wolf tribe in
Terracin because Ethan's element is snow.
It's feeling, it's feeling very north.
It's feeling N, It's feeling N But that being said, Aylin's
power is fire, so I don't know. You know, she's she's also from
the North. Yeah.
I hear.
I hear what you're saying. For sure.
It'd be fun. That would be fun.
I'd give that like a 5% chance of being right, at least how I
feel about it. But like, I think we both got
there independently, right. So that usually means there's
some merit. All right, Abby, what did Danica
want to know about Maxion? So.
We've already talked about the quotes about wanting to look
into Baxian's back story, the similarities.
I don't think this is that crazy.
We know that Baxian is half shifter, half Angel.
We get his back story in Flame and Shadow.
But we know that something about his shifter ancestry is unique,
right? Because he is a hell hound.
He's not like a normal dog. He is literally called a hell
hound. And Danica is looking into his
shifter ancestry. So it's not that it's not that
he's half Angel that interests her.
She's really only interested in the shifter piece.
So the descriptions of Baxian's beast form and the shepherd in
the Bone quarter are very, very, very similar, right.
So we get from Baxian, we get. The latter was currently in his
large canine form, his coat a slick black.
He'd seen Baxian RIP limbs from opponents with those jaws and
move as fast on land as he did and in his Moloch form as a
sensing his attention, Baxian turned his head.
His dark eyes gleamed. So we have very large canine
slick back coat we have. He went still at the site of the
sleek black dog running along one of the dry white cliffs of
the island. Its coat was a strange matte
black. He knew that dog, that
particular shade of black, like the wings it bore.
In another form, we have a black dog, massive, with fangs as long
as Hunt's hands. The hellhound motioned to the
throne with a clawed paw. And then he says, Vaccine says.
I grew up in one of the poorer parts of Ravellus Villous.
Yeah, being half shifter, half hell hound shifter and half
Angel, it didn't make my parents popular with either the House of
Orison blood or the House of Sky and breath made it harder for
them to keep their jobs. So being 1/2 hell hound shifter,
being a hell hound shifter at all seems to be kind of like a
pariah status within the shifter community, right?
And So what is the hell hounds? Then we get the shepherd.
Allow me to introduce my shepherd.
The under king said from the mist ahead, standing beside a 10
foot tall black dog. Each of its fangs was as large
as was as long as one of his fingers, all hooked like a
shark's, designed to latch into flesh and hold tight while it
ripped and shredded. His eyes were Milky white,
sightless, identical to the Under Kings.
And then we later see more of these hounds in hell behind
Thanatos. So it's a hell like is back.
Has Baxian's line also been fucked with by the Princess of
Hell? Was he somehow created by hell?
I think that makes sense. I don't think that's crazy.
We also, of course, have bird hounds, which we've talked about
at length on this podcast, but they're not really dogs.
We've talked about this. They're made of stone.
The quote is the creature Rose, it's Blackstone body cutting
through the water with hardly a ripple.
That's Queen of Shadows chapter 27.
And then her heart leaped into a wild beat and she willed it to
calm as she took in the details of the creature that now stood
waist deep in the pool, water dripping off its massive arms
and elongated Serpentine. Now she'd seen it before, one of
eight creatures carved into the clock tower itself, 8 gargoyles
that she'd once swore and had watched her.
So I think either way, if it's a word hound situation or if it's
a hell hound situation, Hell Valk origins with Baxian most
likely. I think the real question here
actually is similar to Danica's Bloodhound gifts, right was
back. Did the hell hounds exist before
the shifters came over to Midgard?
Did they exist on Aurilia? And does that mean the Princess
of Hell were doesn't were involved in Irelia if they're
not Valk? If they are Valk, then I think
it's obvious, right? But if they're not Valk, were
they still involved in Irelia? I don't know.
That's the speculation, yeah. I want to know who the single
ancestor was for whom he's the last living descendant.
Yeah, I don't have an answer. No, I definitely don't have an
answer. I don't know, yeah.
I think it's fun, yeah. But I think he's I think it's
got to be related to the fact that he was a Hellhound shifter
and that she was looking into her Bloodhound gift, which we.
Think right? It seems like she was very
focused on hell adjacent people, Thunderbirds, Baxian herself,
and then Brannon, right? And that part of Terracin?
Yeah, I'm also sure once they and I'm surprised more people
don't like ask this question or didn't ask this question once
they found out, like once they solidified as mates, wouldn't it
become even more apparent that they, the shifters were fae
because only amongst the fae are mates.
Century, say in Midgard physical bond that is like more serious
than husband and wife. And you wouldn't like
specifically for vaccine and Danica who are like on opposite
sides of the world and vaccine is like not a good guy at this
time. And Danica is just there and
like what? They lock eyes and and that's
it. And you're wolves, allegedly.
I mean it raises the same question for Hunt, right?
Like he has a mate. Like is he Faye?
I think totally possible. But like what are the origins of
the angels? From something right And I would
assume that humans are not the most powerful base to start
with, so. I would agree.
I kind of think that everyone's Faye until.
Until proven otherwise. Until.
Proven otherwise, especially once the Esteri fest UPS of
breeding pointed ears out of the shifters.
I'm like, all right, well, who's even fucking human?
Right. Well, wait, because we also have
the witches who were from Faye and Valk.
They have Round Ears and the Alerians.
Who? Right.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not so Dorian that
you're a human. Well, we know he has Faye
ancestry, yeah. Certainly.
Yeah. All right, precog corner.
Abby, what is your precog corner?
Theory. I love my precog theory this
week. All right when Nesta and Bryce
are in the caves Nesta asked Bryce how she ended up with a
tattoo in the same language as the book of breathings.
So art has the quote is art has a universal language, Nesta
says. Like the one tattooed on your
back. Bryce says.
All right, their turn to ask questions.
Your friend Ameren, she said it was the same as the language in
some book as real asked stone faced.
What do you call it in your world, that language?
Bryce shook her head. I don't know.
I told the truth earlier. My friend and I got it.
We had a lot to drink one night. I barely remember it.
She said it meant through love all is possible.
She claims she picked the alphabet out of a book in the
tattoo shop, but I don't think that was the case.
Azrael asked. How did your friend know the
language? I still don't know.
I've been trying to figure out what she knew for months now.
Why not just ask her Nesta counter.
Because she's dead. We have speculated that this is
word marks. Doesn't matter for my precog
theory. Could be word marks, could not
be word marks. I would like to remind all of
you of this very important passage of the books that are in
Jessica Rogas library. All right, so we have.
Micah loomed over her. She stretched her arm out toward
the shelf. Her tingling fingers brushed
over the titles on the Divine Number, The Walking Dead, the
book of breathings, The Queen with many faces.
OK, so the book of breathings is in Jessica Rogas library, the
library that Danica perhaps set up her friend specifically to
have a job at so that she could go rudling through it to borrow
a word from Sarah. So I think Danica knew the
language that was the Book of Breathings because she has read
the Book of Breathings because it is in Jessica's library.
But this also brings up a very good point.
Whether or not this is wordmarks, The Walking Dead is
right there. The Walking Dead is shelved next
to the Book of Breathings in Jessica's library, right?
So take everything we just said and kind of throw it out for a
second. Perhaps did, did Danica have
access to wordmarks? Could Danica have been opening
portals and talking to people? And is Danica's tattoo also word
marks? I mean, I think we know that it
is. Danica also has word marks
tattooed on her. So I know she's dead.
I know she's dead. But what did those word marks do
to her, right? Because we know it brought alien
back from the dead. It brought her home.
Like Danica has seemed to have a lot of power from beyond the
grave. What is going on here is my
question. But I don't know.
Any thoughts on that one I just got?
That was just kind of like a holy shit moment for me.
I think it makes perfect sense that she tattooed that
intentionally with the language of the Book of Breathings, with
the knowledge that the Book of Breathings would be recognizable
by the Starborn Faye. Somehow.
I think that's interesting. As far as how whether she is
world walking, that would be wild.
It would be wild. That would be totally wild.
I totally put that out there. The Book of Breathings was
written by the Esteri no matter what, right?
We were told that the book of breathings, well, I guess it's
not 100% confirmed, but it is strongly implied that the book
of Breathings is written by the Esteri.
And now Bryce has a tattoo and they're later on we're back,
right? We know that it is in there.
But this is this is how she she just read it.
It was just right there and she read it right.
Like yeah, I love that we never. Learned right?
Like how or why the command through love always possible?
Is the command right? Yeah, well, that's what Danica
said it meant. But Micah says it's instructions
on how to open a portal to another world or something.
Like, I don't actually think we know what this tattoo means.
And I do think do think it matters because it was on
Danica's back, too. They got matching tattoos,
right? Like that feels important.
Yeah. But she just wrote in like their
native language through love all as possible on vaccines chest.
On vaccines, she did, Yeah, Yeah.
Whatever is happening, he's getting left behind.
Speaking of Vaccine, I do want to add 1 quote here which I
think might be important. Vaccine said when he met, when
he told Danica about Dust truth, she started hunting for a way
into a world where we could be together.
Since there was no way Sabine or Sandra or even the Estero would
have allowed a way into a world where they could be together
right? Literally.
I think that was literal.
Yes definitely. I agree.
I mean she she literally found that the shifters.
There are other worlds. The world, yeah, I mean, it
wasn't private that there were other worlds, but she found
basically maps to other worlds, which I don't think was
available before she. Found a lot more than other
people did, right? So like, I don't love this idea,
but like, are we still getting set up somehow for a Danica
vaccine happy ending in another world somewhere?
Because she has potentially word marks tattooed on her back.
Obviously we've dealt with her being dead.
She's been pretty dead. But even that was kind of walked
back, right? Because at the end of Crescent
City one, there's supposed to be nothing left of Danica, right?
Like she used her last scrap of power to do the drop with Bryce.
But then at the end of Crescent City 3, we see her in the land
of resting, whatever that is. We don't really know what it is,
but like, there's clearly some scrap of Danica still out there.
So did she tattoo coordinates on herself?
Is she just waiting for Baxian somewhere and they'll be
together? I don't know.
That would be a nice happy ending.
It would suck for Bryce. It would totally suck for Bryce,
but I. Think no matter what that's
going to happen, even if it's just them dying but.
They're dead together, yeah. In another world, yeah.
I don't know. I don't know.
I still think it's very possible and like, if not likely, that
she was trying to find her way actually into another world,
actually to world walk into a world, into her home world that
was also Vaccine's home world for them to be together and she
just didn't live. And that's also fair, yeah.
I, I, I definitely take that literally into a world, Into a
world, Not a way to change the world, a way into a world.
So and she would have known that Bryce could have helped her got.
There. Maybe that's why she put the
horn in Bryce's back. Yeah, because she wanted her to.
I. Was just going to say she wanted
Bryce to open a portal for her and vaccine to fuck off it.
Yeah. That wouldn't have been a very
good friend. But was Danica a good friend?
I don't. Know I'm not sure, but I do
think that in order for it to be foolproof, you need Bryce to
come with you. Otherwise, Bryce could always
open it back up from wherever she.
Is yeah. OK.
What's your precog? So mine, mine is not new, but
it's just another quote that I didn't bring up the first time I
had this precog, which is the precog that Eris is learning
things from Einer and Morven potentially.
And that is the Ley lines quote, which is not new to either of
us, but maybe is new and interesting to you guys.
I don't think we've read it. Yeah, I keep talking like we've
been talking about Crescent City forever because I feel like we
have been, but it's. Actually, like we have.
So. So Bryce and Ada's are talking
about Ley lines. Bryce says.
Ley lines? Ada's nodded.
These lines are capable of moving magic, but also carrying
communications across great distances, like those between
the gates of Crescent City. The way she'd spoken to Danica
the day that she made the there are Ley lines across the whole
of the universe and the planets like Midgard, like hell, like
the home world of the fae Prythian atop those lines are
joined by time and space and the void itself.
It thins the veils separating us.
So the original like impetus for this quote was the fact that the
caves and of all in the caves of Princess, The Cave of Princess
and the caves under the Hewn city and under the prison are
said to be identical, right? And the caves under a Valin, we
know we're made of black salt. We don't know about the caves
under the caves in Prothean. I'll just say.
But I think this quote is basically confirmation that it
is maybe not confirmation. It's highly possible, if not
probable that you can communicate between those places
because they're both thin. They're both thin places.
And we are told the Ley lines there are Ley lines across the
whole of the universe. They carry communications across
3 distances, and Midgard, Hell and Prythian all sit on top of
them and they sit on top of thin places.
So. So if you are in the caves in a
Valin and you're in the caves in Prythian and you are trying to
communicate between those two places and you have a means to
do it. You don't need to wait for like
Napoleon does, like an autumnal equinox most likely, or
something like that to communicate.
Yeah, because they can carry communications.
I feel also under that how Eris knows everything that he knows,
and I think this is also why the Autumn King is recording every
single thing that he learns in the home language, the Starborn
language, the language that they speak on Prithian, which he just
knows. Yeah, I also caught that and I
underlined it and I was like, Ronnies, right?
Ronnies, right. But what I also think is
interesting base. I mean, we see, we see Bryce do
this, right? We see Bryce do this with Prince
of Hell. She communicates with them in a
thin place. But that also means that the
city of the Dead in Hell is probably a thin place.
And it looks so much like the human city, Right?
So is it another case of like 2 overlapping places?
Like, is it a thin place with the human city?
Yeah. And could.
Do we even need to go to the case?
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. Very interesting.
I love it. Or is Eris just being visited by
Edison told all of this? I don't know, but I feel pretty
good about the fact that Eris has a line of communication to
someone, whether it's in Midgard, whether it's in hell.
He is making alliances with Kier to get into these caves and This
is why. I mean, she's set up so much
potential for what she could do in Perthian based on all of
these rules she's made in Midgard, basically.
And it's basically just going to come down to how much of
Crescent City does she want to overlap in Perthia and how much
does she want to leave it alone? I think, yeah, yeah.
But you have to tell me how Iris knows that the prisons pass.
I have no answers for you. I do not.
Own you, Sarah. Oh Sarah, I agree, we are owed
that that answer. Yeah, yeah, All right.
Read and corner. Abby, what are you reading?
OK so I have read since we last spoke tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow I finished it. I want to walk something back.
I said it was a romance. I thought it was a romance.
It's not a romance at all. It actually says on the back
cover it's a love story but not a romance, which totally makes
sense based on the way it's written.
It's not a romance. It's a beautiful, beautiful book
though. I I really, really loved it.
There is a chapter in this book that I have probably like.
Never felt as emotional about a chapter as this chapter.
I don't want to go into details because I don't want to ruin it,
but if you are looking for a deeply moving fantasy break,
that's still very good. Very well written.
Highly, highly recommend Tomorrow and Tomorrow and
Tomorrow. I am not the first person to
recommend this book by any means, I recognize that, but I'm
just putting my stamp of approval on it.
I also mentioned that I was going to start Shield of
Sparrows as my reward book for finishing Crescent City.
I have finished Shield of Sparrows, like finished it
yesterday. So people are raving about the
Rights of the Starling, which is the sequel all over social
media. I will say I'm 4 chapters into
the Rights of the Starling. I started it last night.
I thought Shield of Sparrows was good, but I didn't think it was
anything special. I was like, yeah, this is a good
passable romantic. See, like not a lot happens.
It's definitely more focused on kind of the romance than any
action. Yeah.
And obviously kind of the gold standard for that is Mist and
Fury and it's not really up there with Mist and Fury in my
opinion. But I was like, this is good,
this is fun, it's passable. I'm 4 chapters into the rights
of the Starling and everything has changed and I'm so locked in
and I'm so fucking excited. So I'm really excited to see
where it goes. I've heard great things.
I hope my feeling is this is going to be like a Shepherd King
duology situation where the second book is just like miles
and miles ahead of the first. Even though the first book is
good, the second book is just like really, really miles ahead.
So I'm very excited. Hopefully I'll be able to tell
you how it ends next time we record.
Or I won't tell you how it ends and obviously, but I'll tell you
how I feel about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But nice. How about you?
I mean I literally just finished House of Claim and Shadow
yesterday. Yeah.
Right. And like part of the issue too
is like, as we kind of guys, we're doing a better job of
outlining our season, which is good news for both you and us.
But it also meant that I read much more slowly.
So I think I'm going to pick up. I think I'm going to pick up
spark of the Ever flame. I think that's going to be my
next one. I'm kind of hesitating because
I'm like, I don't know if I want to jump into like that big issue
immediately. You should take a break.
You should read something not as.
But I don't I just thought as fulfilled by like single tins
and I read like I read lady of Darkness, which was really fun.
I thought about reading the I think it's the legacy series by
the same author, Melissa Rorich, I think is her name, which I've
heard really, really good things about.
But that's another like many book series and I'm like, God,
can I like I know just one small, small.
Like through three books. Have you read The Night in the
Mom? No, I've not read the Night in
Mafia. I mean, it's not, it's a duology
and the second one's not out yet, but it's just kind of like
a fun little little romp. If you're looking for something
easy. Also, may I recommend Tomorrow
and Tomorrow and Tomorrow? That's a single book.
There's no. There's no more than that.
But I need a fantasy, I'm sorry. Yeah.
No, that's fair. I'll add it to the TBR though.
I mean I could read the Year of the Locust which has been on my
TBR for a long time. Is that the follow up to the
Pilgrim One? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. It's been a while since you read
I Am Pilgrim. Yeah, yeah, but it's not, it's
not like an issue to not have as much.
Yeah. First of all, I'm never going to
forget the plot. That book, it's literally burned
into my brain. But second of all, it wouldn't
be a problem if I didn't remember everything from the
first. I guess you'll find out next
time whether I decided to embark on another Behemoth series off
the back of. It's just so bad.
I'm kidding. It's just so big.
Yeah, but it's fun. It's a good one.
I love. I love the man in Spark of the
Everflight. I love him, he's so great.
It helps. It helps.
Yeah, it's he's up there for me for sure.
Yeah. All right.
Well, I'm pretty sure people just showed up for.
Oh, did I tell you we rebranded to Slice Sunday Slice?
Sunday slice. Nice.
Yeah, You went away from solid Sundays, just Sunday.
Solids. No.
Yeah. Sunday slice.
But then I think summer is going to be salads and I figured out
who does the finely chopped salads that you scoop up.
It is actually baked by Melissa. Fun fact.
Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.
So all right, well, that's all we've got for you today.
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