I wonder if the passwords are a way for the author to document Zelu’s character progression, or if it is a way to depict her state of mind? Or maybe it is nothing at all, but I thought it was a curious thing to mention so specifically. I’ll be collecting them as we go through the book nonetheless 🤷🏻‍♀️

So far we have:

Conan - Brawny senselessness and power (ch. 1) 
Groke - Icy, lonely mysteriousness (ch. 4)

I can't quite make up my mind about Hualit. It does seem to me she wants well for Luzia, but she's also clearly holding her cards a bit to her chest. And like... at the end of Ch7 she says "You've fucked us now" to Luzia, but then we find out she sort of orchestrated the situation, herself telling Don Victor about Luzia, and it now seems like she even knew the full degree of danger Luzia was in and didn't properly warn her (which imo isn't quite the same as a set up, but it sure also isn't protecting her to the fullest). Plus who taught her "Simple, stupid, graceless. All the things she's been warned she must be."? Was that Hualit too? Was that protection, or was that driven by her bitterness that she doesn't have a "talent for magic"? Maybe both.

Also - her mom seemed great, but not to badmouth a dead man (and yes yes cultural differences, etc), her dad also has my eyebrow raised a bit since Ch2 with "If you work in a sinner's house it will be the end of your virtue. You will never have a husband or a home of your own." as if there is more value in a hypothetical husband than an actually existent present loving aunt? Idk I just feel like is anyone actually prioritizing what Luzia needs, or just what they want her to need and do and be?

(For reference: I am just now at the point where Valentina tricked Luzia with the dress tear.)

I'm INCREDIBLY intrigued by Valentina's character and what Bardugo will do with it. Honestly, even moreso than I'm interested in Luzia right now.

In Ch1, the whole scene with her husband vomiting half-chewed cherries mid marital consummation on his wife's painstakingly hand-embroidered linens feels like we are so clearly being positioned to sympathize with her, but then her horrible behavior of "swooning with pleasure" about getting to complain and make her staff's lives miserable whiplashes us to the other end of how much she sucks. But if she was meant to be all villain kind of evil-stepmother vibes, I wonder why give us the sympathy to begin with?

There's just clearly a lot of dynamic in her character. The way she bullies her household screams of insecurity, but she also seems to have some surprising degree of awareness of power that is either nuanced or just keenly intuitive. Like I think she knows she doesn't truly have power herself? Even when she confronts Luzia about the burnt bread in Ch2, "Valentina had the uneasy sense of the two of them alone in this room, of the silence of the house, of her own weakness. She felt as if she'd opened up a cupboard and found a wolf." That alone is so interesting because it is simultaneously two things: (a) deeply insecure to feel intimidated from the simple challenge of eye-contact, project a perceived threat onto it, and immediately back down, (b) fairly intelligent to refuse to implicitly dismiss and underestimate Luiza's potential power just because of her position.

And what really sealed my interest in her is that I always find the writing of hungry women incredibly compelling. And Valentina is seeming to fit perfectly into that. She wants more for herself and evidently is willing to go to extremes to get it. Her going so far as to slap Luzia after orchestrating such a mess is bold as hell, and I adore the description of her in this moment: "Valentina felt breathless, frightened, as if she'd slipped her reins, as if she'd gone suddenly mad. There was nothing she might not do." I kind of want to cheer?? It is SUCH an improvement over just a couple paragraphs earlier feeling "sick with disgust" and ashamed about her desperate desire for more in her life. Because isn't that just ambition?

Idk maybe I'm wayyy off base but I feel like she and Luzia could make some pretty fascinating partners in crime. Or take each other down. Or both. And all of those possibilities sound great?

Okay, I’m enjoying it so far, but the writing style of the Hume chapter is giving LinkedIn influencer 😂

I dont hate it, but that’s all I could think about while reading it (okay, maybe not all, but it did pop up in my mind more than once)

Ankara is part of Zelu's identity so I suppose this little rusted robot is an extension of her. Cut from the same cloth as it were.

After being fired and getting her novel rejected, she has projected onto a machine, one unable to generate its own stories yet hungry for storytelling so much so that it becomes a scholar. It is everything she is and isn't.

A woman gave him a fake number and his instict was to run after her and keep pestering her??? 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

The absolute brutality of Satangel letting Garavito be eaten alive is 👀 Not to say I disagree that the punishment fits the crime, seems absolutely to be what he deserves, but the casualness and even boredom of it has me properly realizing Santangel is not to be fucked with. That plus his whole reflection on wanting revenge on Victor, who has perfect awareness of all the aforementioned brutality, makes me really not believe Victor would ever actually let him be free. Because why would he ever take the risk to himself, wouldn't he know Santangel's first stop would be to hurt him once he can?

I feel like my perspective on Mrs. S hugely shifted in the second half of the book.

For the first half I was really feeling pretty negatively about her honestly, I was getting massive misgivings about how she kept giving the matron her husband's clothes, his pocket knife, taking her to their spot in their car. So many comments made about how he wouldn't notice and how much she envied the teenage girls, it really felt like she was kind of in her midlife crisis era of wanting to feel fresh and bold and different and rebell and do something to force her husband to pay attention. And I didn't want the matron swept up and used by her in that. It just felt like Mrs. S was taking advantage of someone in a really vulnerable position.

But in the second half I think we got so many more moments of Mrs. S that showed her interest in the matron to actually be genuine and a true effort to explore and understand herself and her own sexuality. I think there are probably a lot of queer folks relating to that stuttering and often flawed self discovery, certainly I do. A few moments from this second half that I particularly liked:

At 72%, when the matron gives Mrs. S the broken stained glass and she worries about the vicars reaction but is torn and still wants to keep the gift. "I think she is also frightened. And yet. [...] Oh, here she is, caught between her worlds." Thought this was really interesting, with her torn worlds being accepting this show of love from a woman or denying what she is drawn to for the sake of the men in her life and what they may think, how it may impact them. I just love this depiction of how much friction there is when you even consider decentering men from your life. It feels like such a threat and that's real.

At 83%, when she tries to understand the matron wearing a binder. "Her empathy is working overtime, she prides herself on an instinct for those that struggle. [...] But she doesn't understand. And yet understanding is everything to her, she cannot see the ego in it, her need to grasp it all, rather than accept what she does not know." Honestly this part I just deeply related to and prompted a lot of self reflection for me. Even within the queer space there is so much diversity, and we all have to learn to be allies to one another and love our loved ones in a way that meets their needs, not our own. It does really feel to me like the most intimacy is found in complete understanding (which I realize isn't even attainable), so I gave this line a lot of thought that if understanding comes at the cost of someone else's comfort, that's really quite a selfish thing. I've always believed that a lack of understanding doesn't preclude me from accepting and embracing others, but I hadn't really considered that seeking better understanding could actually be harmful and make others feel more burdened rather than better seen.

At 87%, asking the matron when she knew she was a lesbian. "I sense that she is not asking to get to know me, but to understand herself, to use my history to search for some crucial indicator in hers." This is real, and I also think it's one of the more beautiful parts of queer community and storytelling. Yes, I was just saying right above this that I see that seeking understanding from others can be burdensome and selfish, but offering each other our stories and helping folks find themselves through them is such a kindness. Representation is important. Combating heteronormativity is important. Being able to offer someone a piece of your own story that makes theirs feel more normal is important. So in this part I'm just really feeling for Mrs. S and how she genuinely is trying to find and understand herself, in a way she didn't get to even while having wlw experiences younger.

Did y'all's impression of Mrs. S also shift a lot during the book? Did any of these parts really speak to you too, or any others?

So what if he’s got a lil demon in him the horns make good handle bars

Something I’m finding very interesting is the very fine line that separates “holy” magic and “demon” magic in this story. The only difference between being a saint anointed by God and being demonized as a witch seems to be who is wielding the power. There is a very clear distinction between who is “supposed” to have it and who isn’t. The same exact power in the wrong hands is no longer holy, which really drives home the hypocrisy of the situation. It’s giving “love the sin hate the sinner”.

I don’t know a lot about the Spanish Inquisition and I’m curious how much of this story is accurate to what happened vs magical realism.

Either way, I can’t help but think this parallels the way the modern church bars anyone from leadership in the same way who is not the “right kind of person”. A straight white male preacher is holy and anointed by God while any other preacher would be a “vessel of the devil”. Same message, it’s just that some people are persecuted for it and others praised.

To ride in a coach down the street, to see the world passing by in such colors. She would have happily ridden around the entire city that way

Bardugo is so good at making me feel bad for Valentina. I have a feeling there's going to be some big reveal about Valentina. Why else would the author keep making me pity her

“Luzia, your tongue has split and I need you to sing to heal it.”

Her tongue split??? Like Valentina mentioned earlier about sin????

Chapter 14, specifically page 93 in my edition:

[Valentina’s confessor had] told her the story of a young countess who had pined after a ruby brooch with such fervor that she’s woken with a forked tongue.

The part right after may be unnecessary for my point, but I want to add it anyway.

So Valentina knew that both her soul and her tongue were in danger as the coach rattled over the streets, and yet she couldn’t stop her wayward, venal thoughts.

What do you think, am I connecting something or nothing here?