Topher Lydon

K, so Mrs. Ryder doesn't want a male heir, she wants a female one. She is obsessed with this, to the point of abusively exploiting Mickey, a task she is in the process of switching to Dimitri. She is a ghoul. She does need to be stopped. Hughie is a unique AI because he is Mickey's AI, cared for, built with love and care. Mickey struggling in his mental illness to build a friend he can always count on. Note, no one calls Mickey on his BS quite like Hughie does, and Mickey takes every single scathing comment that Hughie directs at him. Hughie is very much his Jiminy Cricket

It explains why, when he ran, he took Hughie. On some level he knew he needed a safety net, and Hughie never leaves him, and refuses to give up on him. Due to programming, and his own loyalty system/fondness for his Captain. It also explains why, in the last book, Hughie let Jesse into the ship without hesitation. Those two have been working for years to keep Mickey alive

A piece of early art I was toying with for the coverart of this one.

For all his protests, Hughie has been true and loyal to his Captain

You're probably not surprised.

12 years before The compound smelled like lavender and antiseptic, which was appropriate because it was a tomb. Mickey Ryder sat on the edge of a bed that cost more than most people made in a year, staring at his hands. They were clean. They were always clean here. His mother believed in cleanliness. She believed in order. She believed in the careful, surgical management of assets, and Mickey was an asset. He was fourteen years old. "You understand what I'm asking of y

Absolutely, and Raymond will use any and every "Sign from God" to push his claim to become King of Jerusalem.

Raymond has more pressing concern, as he faces the Boar.

Wylan, also, is coming into his own as a Magi. His whipping up of the dust on the plain to cover the siege engine advance, his constant push back against the Sister's of the Nile and their noise. Jerusalem has a massive cistern system and water table, but it is also built upon stone. The revels now are ended... and a fight is brewing. Wylan is a mighty little man.

Darien is very over protective of Wylan. Val is right to wait for him to shout himself out, because Darien will realize it himself.

Ashot's time to lead Team Squire. He's been building to this since Antioch. This is his type of assignment.

The Judean summer did not merely burn; it suffocated. It was a heavy, physical presence that wrapped its blistering hands around the throats of the Crusader host and squeezed until men went mad from the sheer, unending oppression of it. By the first week of July in the year of our Lord 1099, the grand army of the West, the righteous host that had marched thousands of miles across the known world, had been reduced to a sprawling, dysentery-plagued camp of starving, delirious beggars. The Val

I've never done a traditional murder mystery before. I hope I did it well enough.

This one has 20 chapters. So we are closing in. I will take a break before releasing Lost in the Sand. I have a murder mystery I want to put out in this slot. Just as something new. When Vickie Morrison's body is found in the river behind Grey Harbor High, all eyes turn to Caleb Holloway—the quiet, medicated boy who can't remember what happened that night. As the town closes ranks and whispers turn to accusations, Caleb discovers the pills his mother forces down his throat aren't just controlling his emotions—they're erasing his memories. Desperate to prove his innocence, he must unravel a web of blackmail, buried secrets, and a truth someone is willing to kill to protect. But the deeper he digs, the more he realizes: in Grey Harbor, everyone is hiding something.

Granny Ryder's abuse is what broke Mickey, and Isaiah will not stand for it.

Granny Ryder And Grandfather Bell Are both being set up for the final book of the Trilogy There will be a reckoning for the horrors of these two monsters.

They are in the next chapter, not forgotten, just no need for them on the page during the past few chapters. Wylan is not under threat.

I do like that Isaiah stands up to Granny Ryder. Dimitri needs someone to do so.

one of the inspirations for this section.

Uncle Jesse can always find Mickey.

The Vega Vixen III hung in the black like a held breath, her running lights dimmed, her engines cold. She was hiding in the shadow of a dead moon, waiting for something Isaiah wasn't sure would ever come. Isaiah sat in the pilot's chair—his chair now, the one that had molded itself to his spine over months of sleepless nights and desperate searches—and stared at the sensor display. The data was hours old. Mickey's trail had gone cold again, vanishing into the vast, empty expanse of the oute

Darien is stubborn as we all know. He isn't going to let a little thing like prophecy stop him from securing a future for his Wylan. I am now picture him standing in front of st. Peter, little glasses on, and a copy of the prophecy in hand. "Pursuant to section four, paragraph three, sub-section two. I am technically not supposed to die." St. Peter sighs, "Did you have to bring Dewy, Suem, and Howe?" Darien glances up, "best lawyers in the afterlife, now resurrection please. I have a husband to get back to!"

Whether it be the Crusades, the Ottomons, Germans, British Empire, the Soviet Union. The Baltics survived, grows, and remains a proud place. I have close friends in Croatia, I lived in Kosovo for close to two years teaching. I have friends across the region. And I have found them all to be proud, fierce, and loyal.