Chapter 24: Confessions
Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!
Last time, Kelsey and Kishan made it back home to Ren's sprawling mansion after having some (mostly useless) discussion about Lokesh's backstory, and some (slightly less useless) exposition about how the Scarf works. Kelsey already has a rough plan to save Ren, so all they have to do is find out where he is! Full steam ahead!
Wrong.
Instead, Kelsey and Kishan goof off in the pool for a while. I wish I was joking.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Confessions
They get back home (mercifully sparing me from having to read more sightseeing summaries), so Kelsey takes a shower and changes into some pajamas. She leaves her fairy clothes on some tree branches over the veranda in her room just to see if there are fairies in the real world, which is honestly kind of a nice detail.
She heads back downstairs and hears Mr. Kadam finishing up a conversation on the phone, and after he hangs up, he explains that it's a contact of his that can infiltrate large investigations. Mr. Kadam has sent him to find out who works in the penthouse office in the tallest building in Mumbai.
Hey, Mr. Kadam? You do know that businesses commonly have their addresses and contact information posted in a public place, like some sort of interconnected net of information (or web, if you will), so that people can find them and conduct business with them, right? It's not like Lokesh is using the office as a front while he operates somewhere else--the next book's prologue takes place in Lokesh's office in the building. Why is Mr. Kadam's first move to contact the big leagues to do some simple information gathering?
Mr. Kadam also says that the suit Lokesh was wearing may lead them to Lokesh as well, since it was custom made in India and only two companies specialize in suits like that. Sure, whatever. Kelsey asks if he knows anything about the servant with the distinctive appearance, and he says that he'll have some more information by tomorrow, once he's done some research. Instead of getting to work right away to save Ren (who they know is being tortured at this point), Mr. Kadam suggests that they get a snack.
Ughhhhh.
Kelsey gets some of the fairy food she saved from her bag. I'm going to quote a couple sentences here, because I'm very confused:
Then he carefully tasted a mushroom galette and a tiny raspberry tart as I explained that the Silvanae were vegetarians who loved sugary things. I popped the stopper of a tall gourd and poured sweet, golden nectar into his cup. Kishan walked in and pulled up a chair next to me.
"Hey! Why wasn't I invited to the Silvanae tea party?" he teased.
This section has been highlighted by ten different people. I legitimately have no clue as to why. Every other thing that's been highlighted has been shipping stuff--when Ren kisses Kelsey, or when Kishan kisses Kelsey, etc. But this section is just about the Silvanae food that we've already read about? And Kishan saying a line of dialogue no human would ever word that way?
These fans, man. I do not understand them.
They figure out that the Golden Fruit can reproduce the food, so Kelsey makes a note to remember what they're eating so she can share it with Ren once they save him. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be thrilled when you tell him you were having fun tea parties instead of trying to find out where he is.
They don't go to bed immediately, which means they do actually do some research until the wee hours of the morning. Well, Kelsey and Mr. Kadam do, while Kishan sleeps at Kelsey's feet. This isn't meant to come across this way at all, but it is true that Kishan has a vested interest in keeping Ren as far away from Kelsey as possible, as that increases his chances at getting together with Kelsey. This could be an interesting character moment for him, but nah.
And, hey, Kelsey's actually allowed to find the answer this time! She's finally contributing to the narrative! She goes to Mr. Kadam and says that it's probably the Baiga people. Mr. Kadam immediately says, "Ah, yes, that was one of the groups I was considering," which makes my blood boil. If you've already narrowed it down to a couple, why are the two of you reading entire books to try to find something? Mr. Kadam is deliberately wasting time too, I guess. I can't blame him too much--I would also like Ren to stay away for as long as possible.
Anyway, this gives Mr. Kadam the excuse to exposit about the Baiga, instead of letting a book exposit about the Baiga. They're a nomadic people famous for tattooing and wearing their hair in a bun. Despite the physical similarities to the mystery servant, Mr. Kadam says that it's unheard of for a Baiga person to leave the tribe and serve "someone like Lokesh." I'm not sure if this means serving a cartoonish villain like Lokesh, or serving someone outside of the tribe.
Mr. Kadam says that the Baiga people's lives are centered on their tribe because "they are a simple, straightforward people," which is another extremely loaded phrase.
One of the things that Mr. Kadam doesn't mention about the Baiga tribe is that since the 1960s until at least 2014, the Baiga people have been illegally evicted from their traditional land because it sits in the middle of a tiger preserve. In addition to being a bad thing to do in general, this means that the tribespeople aren't even really concentrated in a central location, which should make them a lot harder to find. Also, if they're serving Lokesh anyway, who says that they have to be near their homeland in the first place? They could still be literally anywhere, especially if they've already shown they're not invested in the tribe's land by working for Lokesh.
Mr. Kadam says that they should get to bed since it's about three in the morning. Kelsey heads upstairs with Tiger!Kishan, who falls asleep on her veranda.
The next morning, Mr. Kadam lets Kelsey know that one of the two Baiga tribes has gone missing, so that's a good lead. He says he'll do some more research to find out where they could have gone, so while they wait for information to get back to them, Kelsey and Kishan should relax. Kelsey says she's not sure if she can, but Mr. Kadam says that he's led troops into battle a lot, and that sometimes what they need is to rest for a little while.
Yeah, instead of pressing their strategic advantage to secretly find Lokesh while he doesn't know they're looking for him, let's just fuck around instead. I can see why the Mujulaain Empire's army sucked so hard now.
Kelsey and Kishan flirt a bit, and Kelsey says that Mr. Kadam told them to relax, so they should go hang out in the pool. REN. KIDNAPPED. Even accepting that there's nothing they can do in the meantime, Kelsey doesn't act like it's frustrating. She's joking around with Mr. Kadam and Kishan. I'm not asking for Constant Angsting, but she barely acknowledges the situation.
He grabbed a towel and scrubbed his face and head. "A swim, huh? It might cool me off." He peeked from around his towel. "Unless you're planning to wear a bikini."
Did Kishan just make a joke about being horny in a book too chaste to say the word "sex"? What is happening?
Kelsey changes into her swimsuit but before she can get in the water, Kishan starts putting some sunscreen on her.
"Hold still. You need sunscreen. Your skin is so white you'll burn."
Yet again, a weird emphasis on pale skin tones.
Kelsey takes the bottle from him after he's done her back, and he ogles her while she puts some sunscreen on her legs. Because of course he does.
He took a step closer. "Hold on a second."
"What?"
He grinned mishievously. "You missed a spot."
"Where?"
"Right here."
He dabbed a giant blob of sunscreen on my nose and laughed.
I punched him and smiled, "You troublemaker!" I reached up to try to blend it in better.
Yeah, tone is a significant problem in this book. This scene happens in the same book where Kelsey murders a few goons with lightning, and her love interest is actively being tortured by the antagonist.
Kelsey jumps in the pool and they splash around for a while, oblivious to my complaints about why the fuck this scene is happening 85% of the way through the book instead of the climax that's been building up for a while. They play some volleyball for a while, and Kelsey is pretty good at it. She says it's because she played in high school, and was good enough to join the team but didn't because her parents died. This is something we've never heard about, even though it was apparently an important part of her life. Okay.
And, once again, a weird section has been highlighted by eighteen people:
"We didn't really have time for sports. We had competitions in archery [which is a sport], wrestling [which is a sport], and some games like Parcheesi, but no team sports."
"Still, you can see I'm barely winning against you, even though you're in the deep end and have never played before."
Just baffling.
Because we've gone a whole page without Kishan creeping on Kelsey despite her not being into it, he kisses her. As is tradition for this book, we're treated to several whole paragraphs about how mind-blowing it is.
All of a suden, the clean, wet, bleached out, non-kiss turned into a very real kiss from a very potent man who was very much not Ren.
Potent???
For the briefest moment, I let myself delight in his embrace. But then, I remembered, and instead of making me happy or blissful, as kisses should, it made me sad.
Last time, Kelsey and Kishan made it back home to Ren's sprawling mansion after having some (mostly useless) discussion about Lokesh's backstory, and some (slightly less useless) exposition about how the Scarf works. Kelsey already has a rough plan to save Ren, so all they have to do is find out where he is! Full steam ahead!
Wrong.
Instead, Kelsey and Kishan goof off in the pool for a while. I wish I was joking.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Confessions
They get back home (mercifully sparing me from having to read more sightseeing summaries), so Kelsey takes a shower and changes into some pajamas. She leaves her fairy clothes on some tree branches over the veranda in her room just to see if there are fairies in the real world, which is honestly kind of a nice detail.
She heads back downstairs and hears Mr. Kadam finishing up a conversation on the phone, and after he hangs up, he explains that it's a contact of his that can infiltrate large investigations. Mr. Kadam has sent him to find out who works in the penthouse office in the tallest building in Mumbai.
Hey, Mr. Kadam? You do know that businesses commonly have their addresses and contact information posted in a public place, like some sort of interconnected net of information (or web, if you will), so that people can find them and conduct business with them, right? It's not like Lokesh is using the office as a front while he operates somewhere else--the next book's prologue takes place in Lokesh's office in the building. Why is Mr. Kadam's first move to contact the big leagues to do some simple information gathering?
Mr. Kadam also says that the suit Lokesh was wearing may lead them to Lokesh as well, since it was custom made in India and only two companies specialize in suits like that. Sure, whatever. Kelsey asks if he knows anything about the servant with the distinctive appearance, and he says that he'll have some more information by tomorrow, once he's done some research. Instead of getting to work right away to save Ren (who they know is being tortured at this point), Mr. Kadam suggests that they get a snack.
Ughhhhh.
Kelsey gets some of the fairy food she saved from her bag. I'm going to quote a couple sentences here, because I'm very confused:
Then he carefully tasted a mushroom galette and a tiny raspberry tart as I explained that the Silvanae were vegetarians who loved sugary things. I popped the stopper of a tall gourd and poured sweet, golden nectar into his cup. Kishan walked in and pulled up a chair next to me.
"Hey! Why wasn't I invited to the Silvanae tea party?" he teased.
This section has been highlighted by ten different people. I legitimately have no clue as to why. Every other thing that's been highlighted has been shipping stuff--when Ren kisses Kelsey, or when Kishan kisses Kelsey, etc. But this section is just about the Silvanae food that we've already read about? And Kishan saying a line of dialogue no human would ever word that way?
These fans, man. I do not understand them.
They figure out that the Golden Fruit can reproduce the food, so Kelsey makes a note to remember what they're eating so she can share it with Ren once they save him. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be thrilled when you tell him you were having fun tea parties instead of trying to find out where he is.
They don't go to bed immediately, which means they do actually do some research until the wee hours of the morning. Well, Kelsey and Mr. Kadam do, while Kishan sleeps at Kelsey's feet. This isn't meant to come across this way at all, but it is true that Kishan has a vested interest in keeping Ren as far away from Kelsey as possible, as that increases his chances at getting together with Kelsey. This could be an interesting character moment for him, but nah.
And, hey, Kelsey's actually allowed to find the answer this time! She's finally contributing to the narrative! She goes to Mr. Kadam and says that it's probably the Baiga people. Mr. Kadam immediately says, "Ah, yes, that was one of the groups I was considering," which makes my blood boil. If you've already narrowed it down to a couple, why are the two of you reading entire books to try to find something? Mr. Kadam is deliberately wasting time too, I guess. I can't blame him too much--I would also like Ren to stay away for as long as possible.
Anyway, this gives Mr. Kadam the excuse to exposit about the Baiga, instead of letting a book exposit about the Baiga. They're a nomadic people famous for tattooing and wearing their hair in a bun. Despite the physical similarities to the mystery servant, Mr. Kadam says that it's unheard of for a Baiga person to leave the tribe and serve "someone like Lokesh." I'm not sure if this means serving a cartoonish villain like Lokesh, or serving someone outside of the tribe.
Mr. Kadam says that the Baiga people's lives are centered on their tribe because "they are a simple, straightforward people," which is another extremely loaded phrase.
One of the things that Mr. Kadam doesn't mention about the Baiga tribe is that since the 1960s until at least 2014, the Baiga people have been illegally evicted from their traditional land because it sits in the middle of a tiger preserve. In addition to being a bad thing to do in general, this means that the tribespeople aren't even really concentrated in a central location, which should make them a lot harder to find. Also, if they're serving Lokesh anyway, who says that they have to be near their homeland in the first place? They could still be literally anywhere, especially if they've already shown they're not invested in the tribe's land by working for Lokesh.
Mr. Kadam says that they should get to bed since it's about three in the morning. Kelsey heads upstairs with Tiger!Kishan, who falls asleep on her veranda.
The next morning, Mr. Kadam lets Kelsey know that one of the two Baiga tribes has gone missing, so that's a good lead. He says he'll do some more research to find out where they could have gone, so while they wait for information to get back to them, Kelsey and Kishan should relax. Kelsey says she's not sure if she can, but Mr. Kadam says that he's led troops into battle a lot, and that sometimes what they need is to rest for a little while.
Yeah, instead of pressing their strategic advantage to secretly find Lokesh while he doesn't know they're looking for him, let's just fuck around instead. I can see why the Mujulaain Empire's army sucked so hard now.
Kelsey and Kishan flirt a bit, and Kelsey says that Mr. Kadam told them to relax, so they should go hang out in the pool. REN. KIDNAPPED. Even accepting that there's nothing they can do in the meantime, Kelsey doesn't act like it's frustrating. She's joking around with Mr. Kadam and Kishan. I'm not asking for Constant Angsting, but she barely acknowledges the situation.
He grabbed a towel and scrubbed his face and head. "A swim, huh? It might cool me off." He peeked from around his towel. "Unless you're planning to wear a bikini."
Did Kishan just make a joke about being horny in a book too chaste to say the word "sex"? What is happening?
Kelsey changes into her swimsuit but before she can get in the water, Kishan starts putting some sunscreen on her.
"Hold still. You need sunscreen. Your skin is so white you'll burn."
Yet again, a weird emphasis on pale skin tones.
Kelsey takes the bottle from him after he's done her back, and he ogles her while she puts some sunscreen on her legs. Because of course he does.
He took a step closer. "Hold on a second."
"What?"
He grinned mishievously. "You missed a spot."
"Where?"
"Right here."
He dabbed a giant blob of sunscreen on my nose and laughed.
I punched him and smiled, "You troublemaker!" I reached up to try to blend it in better.
Yeah, tone is a significant problem in this book. This scene happens in the same book where Kelsey murders a few goons with lightning, and her love interest is actively being tortured by the antagonist.
Kelsey jumps in the pool and they splash around for a while, oblivious to my complaints about why the fuck this scene is happening 85% of the way through the book instead of the climax that's been building up for a while. They play some volleyball for a while, and Kelsey is pretty good at it. She says it's because she played in high school, and was good enough to join the team but didn't because her parents died. This is something we've never heard about, even though it was apparently an important part of her life. Okay.
And, once again, a weird section has been highlighted by eighteen people:
"We didn't really have time for sports. We had competitions in archery [which is a sport], wrestling [which is a sport], and some games like Parcheesi, but no team sports."
"Still, you can see I'm barely winning against you, even though you're in the deep end and have never played before."
Just baffling.
Because we've gone a whole page without Kishan creeping on Kelsey despite her not being into it, he kisses her. As is tradition for this book, we're treated to several whole paragraphs about how mind-blowing it is.
All of a suden, the clean, wet, bleached out, non-kiss turned into a very real kiss from a very potent man who was very much not Ren.
Potent???
For the briefest moment, I let myself delight in his embrace. But then, I remembered, and instead of making me happy or blissful, as kisses should, it made me sad.
Kelsey pushes him away, and tears up a bit. A Single Tear (TM) drips down her cheek, which Kishan notices.
He smiled tenuously. "Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for."
Hey Kishan, WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING? You've kissed her multiple times, and each time she tells you to stop!!! What the fuck is wrong with you?
"I never claimed to be an expert kisser, if that's what you mean."
"I'm not talking about the kiss."
"Then what are you referring to?"
He didn't say anything.
Oh, great, this again. Despite the fact that Kishan has proclaimed his love for Kelsey several times in this book, Kelsey completely forgets about it each time, so each time he does it's like the first time they're having that conversation. It does not help the pacing problems that are already present in this book when the same conversation happens about three times.
Anyway, it's time for a Big Dramatic Confrontation. Kishan says that maybe Ren was taken for a reason, and that maybe Kelsey was meant to be with Kishan the whole time. Kelsey (rightfully) points out that the only reason Ren is gone in the first place is because he sacrificed himself so that Kishan and Kelsey could get away from Lokesh's goons.
It was easy to blame Kishan, but I was more upset with my reaction to him. I felt incredibly guilty about letting the kiss happen at all.
Except Kishan swam over to you quickly and kissed you out of the blue, right? So there was no actual way to prevent it from happening, especially because he's much bigger and stronger?
She does feel bad about enjoying it for a couple seconds, though, so there's that.
"You think I don't care, don't you? You think I don't feel anything for my brother. But I do. Despite everything that's happened, I wish I was the one who had been taken. You'd have Ren. He'd have you. And I'd get what I deserved."
These are some classic manipulation tactics. Notice how he's taking the attention away from Kelsey being upset and bringing attention to how upset he is, so that Kelsey now feels obligated to make him feel better.
"I'm serious. Do you think a day goes by that I don't hate myself for what I've done? For what I feel?"
"I'm so Tortured because of my own actions that I decided to take. Now it's your job to make me feel better for kissing you without your permission."
I really hate Kishan.
Kelsey tries to say something, and Kishan interrupts her by saying he doesn't need to hear her sympathy. She says she wasn't going to say that.
"Good. Then are you admitting that you did like it? That there is chemistry between us? That you are attracted to me?"
"The fact that you keep letting me kiss you must mean that you like it and are attracted to me. This also means that simply because you're attracted to me, we're meant to be together."
"Do you need me to admit it?"
He folded his arms in front of his chest. "Yes. I think I do."
God, he's such an asshole.
Kelsey says that she did like it, and she managed to forget about Ren for a couple seconds, and sarcastically asks if that makes him happy. He says that it does, because he's an unbearable asshole.
Even though he can visibly see that Kelsey is upset, and even comments on the fact that she's upset, he says, "So all I got was five seconds, huh?" because even though he's supposedly in love with her, he still only cares about how this affects him. Kelsey says it was more like thirty.
He grunted. His arms were still crossed over his chest, but he wore a very self-satisfied-male type of grin now.
"I derive joy from making you cheat on your boyfriend with me."
Kishan asks if Kelsey remembers how she escaped from the House of Sirens, and she says she thought about Ren. Kishan finally gives us the dramatic reveal about how he got out--he thought about Kelsey!
No shit? It's super obvious. Why is this treated like a big reveal?
Kishan says that because he thought about her, it might be a sign that they're supposed to be together. He completely ignores the fact that Kelsey just said that she thought about Ren, so using his chain of logic she's supposed to be with Ren, not him. Stupid.
Another Single Tear (TM) falls dramatically from Kelsey's eye, and she says that if circumstances were different, they could have been together.
Water sluiced off his bronze torso. He really was a gorgeous man. Any girl would be lucky to have a guy like him.
Because physical beauty is the end-all be-all of relationships. Never mind the fact that he's an unbearable asshole who doesn't know what "consent" means, he's Hawt!
He asks her to come back over and kiss him (hey, at least he asked this time), and Kelsey says that even though she's attracted to him, she can't because she's in love with Ren. Which, yeah. Kelsey gets out of the pool, and Kishan follows her. He says that he loves her. Duh. Kelsey decides to grow a bit of a spine.
I placed my hand on his warm chest and said, "If you really love me, then don't kiss me again." I stood my ground and waited for his reply. [. . .]
He acquiesced and said, "I won't promise I'll never kiss you again, but I will promise not to kiss you unless I'm sure that you and Ren are through."
Consent, what's that?
Kishan spends an entire paragraph saying "I'm a man of action" in literally seven different ways (I counted), and complains that it isn't fair that the same thing happened to him twice.
Hey, here's a tip: if you keep running into the same problem involving different people, the problem is with you.
Kelsey finally gets Kishan to agree to back off a bit, and heads back inside to actually do some work learning about the Baiga. But she's distracted the whole time, so we get to hear some more Angst.
I didn't want either of them to suffer. My happiness was irrelevant.
This is a great message to send to impressionable teenage girls! Seriously, if you ever find yourself justifying your partner's behavior by saying that your happiness in the relationship isn't relevant, that's a really, really bad sign. Yeah, you don't have to be happy all the time, and you don't always have to agree with the other person, but your feelings are still relevant.
She finds one of Ren's poems and translates it into English. It's a whole page long, and really the only important thing is that Ren loves Kelsey, which we already know. It does say that voices sound "tinny," which is a weird word to use when the author grew up in the 1600s.
A giant tear fell with a splat on the paper.
I can't think of a less romantic word to use here. Good job on killing the mood though, the first time I read this part I laughed out loud.
With her love for Ren reinforced, Kelsey heads to dinner. Kishan pointedly ignores her, but Mr. Kadam says that he has some good news! But the chapter ends before we get to hear what he has to say, so, cliffhanger!
Closing Thoughts
Kishan is really manipulative, and I hate him. Check out this list of manipulative behaviors in relationships, and try to argue that Kishan doesn't exhibit most of them. As much as he says he loves her over and over again, he seems to deliberately ignore how Kelsey feels about all of this, which just sucks to read.
Next time, Chapter 25: Saving Ren! We get the chapter spoiled for us by the title of the chapter, and I at least get to read another action scene before the pace slows waaaay back down.
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