It was interesting to see Effa’s perspective on the noble’s quarter. She never really knew how much money Myne had even back in her commoner days either. Poor Gunther has a crappy job, but all to defend his home. Seems that Ferdinand was a lot angrier with Letizia than I suspected as well.

Anyway, really looking forward to continuing the main story next week!

I wonder what will happen if/when Gunther and Hartmut meet. It’ll either be a moment of joy, where they both gush about Rozemyne’s greatness, or a moment of extreme tension, with both of them being jealous of the other and exchanging barbed remarks about how Rozemyne favours them more. Either way it’d be hilarious to read about. ^^

Ferdinand tasting his very own rejuvenatin potions and immediately thinking that such a vile liquid can only be poison was hilarious. :D

But on a more serious note, it is very fortunate to the kingdom that Ferdinand didn’t get his way and be allowed to die. When he resigned himself to die, so Rozemyne could have the Grutrissheit, he overlooked two MASSIVE problems with his plan.

1. Erwaermen was very specific about Rozemyne having to obtain Ferdinand’s feystone, to complete the Grutrissheit. Now it’s possible this was a figure of speech, to avoid saying “kill him” outright, but if it’s not… If he had died, as he resigned himself to, his feystone would have either remained in Ahrensbach, or gone to Lanzenave, as far as he knew. Meaning that to complete her Grutrissheit, Rozemyne would have had to infiltrate or invade either a foreign duchy, or even country anyway, but without the added motivation of saving his life (and the allies this enabled her to get, but again, he didn’t know about that at this point yet).

2. He was aware of Georgine launching an invasion. An invasion I am quite confident Ehrenfest would not have been able to fend off, if it hadn’t been for getting help from Dunkelfelger and the Ahrensbach knights that switched to Rozemyne’s side. So if he had gotten his wish and Rozemyne had done nothing to safe him, Georgine would most likely have won the war with Ehrenfest. And if she did, Rozemyne would have been on the chopping block, or more likely tortured to death over a longer period of time, in short order, for being part of the reason why Georgine’s beloved uncle was executed.

Now the first could go either way, but the latter I am very certain of. I hope someone in the story will come to the same realization and call Ferdinand a fool for overlooking such a massive flaw in his plan. Justus might be a good candidate for it, just prior to giving his name to Ferdinand again (which I’m sure will happen sooner or later). Rozemyne saying it would be more satisfying, but I doubt she’d spend time thinking about what-ifs like that.

I loved this section - Effa’s point of view, learning just how far her daughter has risen; Gunther learning his sickly daughter is now leading a squadron of knights; and Ferdinand, hearing phrases like there’s no point in saving a country without you in it, and his thoughts about how he’s never been anyone’s top priority before.

I am even more curious about the circumstances of his adoption, though - it seems he was smuggled out? So maybe he was someone’s top priority, once, just before he remembers. I wonder how Aub Ehrenfest became involved in that - and I guess his sister? Did someone just decide to stop sending Lanzenave mana (and man, what a weird way to do it!) or did someone become fond of him in particular? And then what did happen to his mother?

For that matter, I assume the death of the Aub’s sister / Ferdinand’s guardian was at Veronica’s hands.

Rozmyne committing war atrocities so bad that not even her own dad believes she is capable of doing.

Ferdinand is so detached from the concept of kindness and unconditional love that he is baffled when someone shows him just an ounce of it. Interestingly he is so well trained in containing his own confusion due to years of experience with certain gremlin that he swiftly pivots towards destroying archnsbach.