This is the first book in the series that Lavender, Francesca, and Solan do not appear in, and the only one that takes place entirely outside Crystalbrook. It’s also the longest so far, although it still ends up short for a fantasy novel (just under 60,000 words).
Spoilers follow.
Once I’d decided Berry was aroace (which just felt right for the character), I wanted to explore three different reasons that the trio hadn’t formed any romantic attachments outside their group. Of course they have isolated themselves in the otherworld for the most part, but it felt like an opportunity to differentiate them from each other. (Because not all asexual people are the same!) They think they’re all the same, because they’re Not Talking About It, but under the surface they all have different reasons.
At first I wasn’t entirely sure where the story was going other than “friendship dissolves, drama ensues,” but once Henry got involved with others at the College, things started to fall into place.
The decision to open with an adventure came from my spouse. I had originally started with the letter from Berry. I’m kind of worried about that mage. I might go back there, at least in a short story. But so far only one character from book 4 has gone into what being immortal can do to your psyche, so maybe it was time for a reminder.
I blame a throwaway line in Therapist 3 for Henry’s backstory: when Lavender says she’s a therapist, he seems surprised that she’s a) nice and b) accepting of queer people. That turned pretty dark here. In this book we also get an idea when he’s from — somewhere in the early ’90s, when Usenet was becoming more mainstream and gay panic was raging. We still don’t know when Burleigh came from, although he makes a reference to dialogue boxes in video games that suggests no earlier than the late ’80s. [If you’re just tuning in, time in the otherworld doesn’t match up to Earth, and Visitors don’t always reach it in the same order that they departed. One pair of brothers died about 15 years apart on Earth but were separated by 100+ years in the otherworld. They still met up. It’s fine.]
More notes on my headcanon song choices are below with the playlist, but overall, there is no Right Answer when it comes to the songs Henry and the other bards play. I don’t write lyrics, so this is a story about bards that contains no songs on-page. Plus, when I read a book with a big chunk of lyrics a character is singing, I still don’t have any sense of what the song is like. Maybe it’s just me. So this depiction of a bunch of bards leans into what Henry is feeling as he performs, rather than the words being sung.
Galan plays a couple of kinds of drums along the way just to make it more “visually” interesting. In his audition he has something like a conga drum, and for Ragash’s assignment he’s playing a bodhrán.
The toughest part of this story was taking Burleigh from a buffoon to a believable antagonist, and then unraveling that so that he can eventually do better. I always say that to really depict a character well I have to relate to them in some small way, and there is a part of me that relates to Burleigh’s fear of abandonment.
However, let’s note that Burleigh does not get his old life back. That’s not the only happy ending; I’d argue that that’s not a happy ending at all, not without massive changes to their dynamic. But I consider it an optimistic ending for him to figure out how to do better next time, with new people.
I have some plans for our dramatic ex-rogue storyteller down the road, including fully controlling his demon, which in this series means getting to a healthy place with his codependent tendencies. The band would be fun to come back to, too. But that’s a story for another day.
Obviously, I made a playlist for this one; it also stood in as a Post-Breakup Adventurer Team playlist.
- “Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend – I listened to this song so much during the early planning and writing that it became my most-listened-to song of 2023. Oops. Two little references made it in: the timing of the Winter Solstice altercation, which worked anyway; and the form of Burleigh’s demon. [Note: For some reason, the official audio on YouTube is a closeup video of various insects. Just in case that’s an issue.]
- “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” by Sugar – The situation between Henry and Berry isn’t romantic, but this song still reminds me of that.
- “Making Plans for Nigel” by XTC
- “Heroes” by David Bowie – This was my headcanon for Henry’s audition. (Galan calls it “Legends” later on; this series doesn’t use real-world titles/references in the story.)
- “Come Sail Away” by Styx – my headcanon for the song Henry plays in his first lute class. Ragash recognized it, which is the only clue we have to her Earth life at this point.
- “Fight Test” by the Flaming Lips – Exactly the vibe, even though the lyrics are mostly the inverse of this story. Funny how that works.