“So House Andrews are on tour and Mod R is ‘in charge’. Pah. As if we need a babysitter. When did we ever get in trouble?”
“I have the alphabetized list here somewhere…”
“All right, so we’ve occasionally been in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one can link it back to us.”
“Mod R is cool anyway. She supports Horde rights.”
“And more importantly, she comes up with defenses for Horde wrongs. Which never happened.”
“Nice save.”
“Focus! What’s the situation?”
“Only four sleeps until This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. Tuesday, we ride at dawn!”
“Um, I can’t actually ride at dawn. I couldn’t take time off work, sorry.”
“We ride at lunch break!”
“That works, thanks.”
“FOR MAGGIE! She’s one of us, one of us, one of us!”
“Imagine, dropped into her own favourite story… historically, we’ve dealt with that very well.”
“Have we, though?”
“Well, we’ve done Nav.”
“Eh. More like Nav did us.”
“The point is: CASTLES! Politics. Assassins. Questionable decisions. Emotional compromise. That’s our natural habitat.”
“Maggie’s adventures are a trilogy, Ilona confirmed it. Seems unsafe to me. That means w*iting for two sequels.”
“Dollar for the swear jar, we’ve talked about this. It’s not like House Andrews even do actual cliffhangers. Cliff-leaners, at most.”
“But with no one coming to save us…”
“Think about it. That means no one’s coming to stop us, either.”
“Ooooh. Game changer! So we can do anything.”
“Even better, my friend. We can do everything.”
Mod R: “Okay, let’s remember fluffiness … is that Andrea’s crossbow?!”
“It’s fine, I’m practically an honorary bouda.”
Mod R: “No weapons during Horde strategy! It’s Ferret Safety 101, people. We are regrouping, we are being chalant, we are—”
“Barsa?”
Mod R: “Resting. You need your strength.”
“Can we get a bedtime story? We’ll lie down and pretend to nap.”
Mod R: “Once upon a time, in the great world of readers, there lived a Horde…”
“Not a nasty, pillaging Horde!”
“The best Horde.”
Mod R: “…and they were given a book, for them and for all readers who have ever wished to get lost in a story…”
“And then, we made it into a bestseller?”
Mod R: “And then, we made it into a bestseller indeed. And we devoured dushegubilly ever after.”
“Read it again, Mod R?”
