Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okayy....so this was a bit less eventful and we get a slight sense that things are moving on at least a tiny bit so that's a good sign so far. The ending got a little bit problematic, just a teensy bit, but otherwise, solid end to this chapter.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Mr. Haifei only stared at Ilami once she finished her story. It was unnerving, more so when she felt the heat in the office heightened several degrees. Subconsciously, she wiped the sweat on her forehead. He might not say anything to her, but it was certain he wasn’t in a good mood.
‘Child,’ he finally said through gritted teeth. ‘Haven’t you learned from your mistake? Have your forgotten the demise you brought upon yourself with your foolishness? Two of your friends almost died. You thought with this plan you made with your teenage friends, you could do better? Or is it your wish to die?’
Okay...that was kind of what I was expecting to have as the reaction to Ilami just divulging all the plans. Well, well, let's see if this leads to something good...right now though, it looks like it just only going to end up getting shut down before they inevitably just do it anyway in secret.
Ilami blinked. She didn’t know about this.
‘All of you are dealing with something bigger than yourself. Foolish, foolish child.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, then took a deep breath. ‘This plan of yours, when are you going to carry it out?’
‘Next week.’
‘Praise Serra!’ he said. ‘I can still stop your idiocy from being fully manifested. This is what you’re going to do. You will go to Gael and tell him there is a change of plan. Do not tell any of this to Felaris and her friends – especially Veris. I don’t trust him.’
‘I – ’ seeing the fire in Mr. Haifei’s eyes, Ilami didn’t continue. ‘Fine. Tell me what you’ve in mind.’
Okayy...a little inconsistent here now if Ilami is going to end up just listening after all just because someone yelled at her a little louder than usual. But...umm, Mr. Haifei's yelling is justified I suppose. Their plans can be a bit silly once you analyze them a little bit further down and really thing, but also I feel like he's now breaking his own rule of being quiet by shouting and he could end up revealing this to anyone nearby listening in.
Mr. Haifei looked at her as if she had just shrunk to the size of a child. ‘Do you expect it to be squeaky clean, brimming with moral? Once everything is over, your friends will understand. Now, go and persuade Gael to help you.’
‘He doesn’t know you like I did,’ Ilami said, frowning deeper. ‘Are you certain he’s going to trust you?’
‘You don’t trust me,’ Mr. Haifei said. ‘You gave me information because you knew I had better chances to stop the Church’s experimentation, and yet somewhere in you, you doubt me. Our common goal is the only thing that puts us in the same side. There are many things you don’t know about me.’
Okay...well Mr. Haifei is certainly an acquired taste I will say. Its good to see someone being honest for once, but also after some time of him just continuously berating Ilami, its getting just a tiny bit annoying now how he seems to have a ego the size of a planet.
He tilted his head. ‘Who could be certain you know enough about Gael? The reason he doesn’t have a blessing, and the reason Venaria allowed him to study here? You haven’t thought about any of this, and yet you trust him, because you trust who he is in the present.’
Ilami gritted her teeth. She could just feel the needles Mr. Haifei slowly pushed into her skin. She opened the door behind her. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said, and left.
Well...Mr. Haifei's words are definitely sounding like that even to me, so I can't imagine how Ilami is feeling at the moment. Poor girl has probably gone through enough in the last couple of days.
‘Um, let me understand this right,’ Gael said as he sat on his bed. ‘Mr. Haifei told you he was a spy from another church that coincidentally –‘ Ilami frowned at the word ‘– has the same goal as us. You wanted to be a part of the church – a part of this stopping-the-experimentation mission, in fact – and he rejected you because of how close you were with Mrs. Venaria, his enemy. For the last resort, you told him our plan and now, he asked you to tell me about his plan.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know. I know I’m optimistic, but don’t you think you’re trusting him too early?’
‘I don’t trust him!’ Ilami said, sitting next to him. She rubbed her face, tired of rehashing what had happened. ‘It’s just – it’s obvious he has a better chance in this with Xesar’s church as his back up than us, mere students.’
This is a weak argument I think. I honestly would trust Mrs. Venaria more than Mr. Haifei at this point, he just went on a bit too much about how great he was and how terrible everyone else was. Also..well, when Gael sums that up there, you can actually see kind of how silly Ilami was being there in that office. I suppose it goes to show where her anger can really be her undoing sometimes.
Gael nodded. ‘Understood.’
Ilami stayed there, watching him. There was no way he forgot the thing she asked.
‘What?’
He did. Of course he did. Sometimes men were clueless. ‘The thing between you and Haka. What happened?’
For some reasons, Gael’s face reddened. ‘Um, what are you talking about?’
‘At first, I thought the way both of you showed your affection on each other was only friendly in nature. But from what I saw last time when we were with Felaris and her friends – you being cheerful, Veris being crestfallen – I knew there was something more. Now, I can give you a reasonable guess, but I prefer you clear it for me. Makes everything easier.’
Well, the Veris situation is still not satisfactorily sorted out to be honest, I still don't like Gael's done at all here....but I like that Ilami has remembered to dig this particular bit of information out. I don't think Gael is going to try to hide this.
Ilami could only raise her eyebrows. ‘Oh. Oh, that’s why. I didn’t know I could be right in this. Interesting. Interesting, indeed.’
Gael opened his eyes slowly. ‘You’re… you’re not mad?’
Ilami blinked. ‘Why should I? Boys can like boys. I just learned it now.’
‘And you’re okay with that?’
Ilami gave it some thoughts. Mother, Jaxin – everyone in her family, in fact – never made it a point that a boy couldn’t love another. Perhaps it was because that wasn’t important in the family – both Alyosha and her weren’t interested in courtship and flings. Father led Alyosha in business while Mother shaped her to be an assassin. Now that she knew anything was possible, she had to make her own opinions about things.
Hmm....well, I'm not surprised by Ilami's reaction at all, but hmm, Gael's seems to have had some proper fear about how that reveal might go. Well, I suppose that is going to be dealt with quickly now. I just hope that the relationship isn't going to be nearly as cringey as it was in that first part where things went a little too fast.
Gael smiled and took a nervous breath. ‘Is it?’ He paused. ‘And now I have to save him.’
‘And Aleveri. And you’re not going to do it alone.’ Ilami grabbed Gael’s hand. ‘For once, we finally have an adult to back us up.’
‘Hopefully it’s the right adult,’ Gael said.
‘Don’t ruin it,’ Ilami said, rolling her eyes. She looked at Secca’s bed. ‘Where’s Secca, anyway? We’ve been in your room quite a lot lately and I rarely saw him.’
OKayy...well I don't think its the right adult there, but it probably is not the wrong adult, there's a bit of a grey area there...and I guess this is now going to start a different kind of change in plans here with this new development.
Another boy drama? To be honest, she’d prefer to not know about these things. Romance and jealousy weren’t her strongest department, and they didn’t interest her. There were other things much more important than those two. Like knowing what happened to Zivil’s dead son, for example. But this was Gael they were talking about, and like it or not, she had to listen to him as a friend. Well. Not everything could go her way. At the very least, she might learn something new from this… love triangle? … between Gael, Haka, and Veris.
‘Alright, alright. Spill it.’
Hmm...this seems to be blown a tiny bit out of proportion here given that we haven't seen Gael even take to Veris since that relationship reveal earlier. I also how to wonder if a love triangle is really suited to this moment right now. There are so many more things going on, dangerous things that need addressing and so throwing a love triangle into the mix is just not a good idea and is a little unnecessary at the moment. Those are best reserved either for the earlier parts of a story where things are quieter or if the entire story itself is mainly romance themed, here there are so many more important things happening, and this just seems like an unnecessary detour more than anything else.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I think its a good chapter. There's some interesting information getting tossed about, but then also this now feels like a slight bit of a stagnation point here because there's this new plan we're told nothing about and another plan that's not going to happen, it all seems like quite a bit of chaos at the moment and that bit of excitement isn't quite there anymore.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 253238
Reviews: 4095
Donate