episode 5

In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the final novella of the book "The Assassin's Blade". They talk about how the main character, Selina, is trapped and alone in the future, contrasting with the fairy tale ending of the previous novella. They also discuss Selina's plan to leave the Assassin's Guild and her struggles to find new assignments and make ends meet. She takes on an assignment to take down two powerful crime lords. The hosts analyze the beginning, middle, and end of the novella and express their suspicions about the assignment and the motives of the characters involved. Alrighty, let's put a bookmark in it so I can welcome you to the Fiction Corner. I'm your host, Brenna, and with me again is my lovely co-host, Marissa. Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me again. Oh, yeah. Well, we have officially finished The Assassin's Blade, so we were going through the fifth novella, which we just did that one for our final read, and now we've completed the whole book. So, for this podcast, we are skipping both the quote and the debate, just diving right into it just because so much happened. It's crazy. It really was. So, we're going to talk about that novella specifically, kind of give our final review on the book, and then set you up for what we're doing from there. So, Marissa, you want to kick it off? Yeah. So, in this last novella, we actually start with some time in the future with Selina trapped and alone. We're not really sure what exactly has happened, but obviously, it is nothing good, which is a huge contrast to our fairy tale ending that we talked about in our last novella. So, the second chapter then jumps back in time with Sam and Selina adjusting to life outside of the Assassin's Guild. So, they plan together to leave Rifthold and the Assassin's Guild forever, but then they need a large sum of money to do so. However, unfortunately, since they no longer have jobs with the Assassin's Guild, they struggle to find new assignments and make ends meet since that was always handled by Erevan himself. So, in order to obtain that money, Sam and Selina take on an assignment from a stranger to take down two of the most powerful crime lords in Rifthold, Jane and Farron. And then stuff happens. So much stuff happens. So much stuff. Alrighty. So, we're going to try and break this down into kind of like a beginning, a middle, and an end just because, like we said, so much happened, so much to go through. So, in the beginning, like Marissa was saying, we're starting kind of after all the events have taken place. So, we just see Selina in this kind of cage wagon being taken somewhere. At that point, everything's very fuzzy. We don't really know what's happened. We just know that she's gone through some trauma and is very disconnected and just oppressed right now. You know, one of the things we talked on our last episode is we knew something was going to go down. But like Marissa said, they had this fairy tale ending and we're like, oh, that's wonderful. I know. It's not the last novella. It was too happy. It was way too happy. It was way too full of light and hope and like the future and freedom. Singing birds. Yeah. I was like, oh, this is too nice. Yeah. And then this one opens with darkness and lack of hope and sadness. Literally complete opposite. So, it's just, you know, we're trying to figure out what has happened. And the biggest thing, at least that I picked up on, was where is Sam? Sam is obviously not in this cage with her. She's super depressed. I'm already getting depressed because, again, not feeling hopeful. And then, you know, we start jumping then back in time. So, we're going through her mind's eye into, I think it was like 11 days prior to that what led her there. Sam and her are going back and forth over how they're going to finalize breaking free. And the last kind of step for them is removing themselves from the guild, which I didn't even know that was part of the whole process. It kind of sounds like, you know, you become an assassin and then you join a guild and pay dues. But to then leave it, you also have to pay dues to your guild leader or whoever that is. This is kind of like crazy. Like, it seems like in the last novella, they were free. Like they were free of Arabid and they were done. But then you find out a little bit more about this organization and that to leave the organization as a whole, you have to pay more money, essentially. And so that's when Arabid is still kind of trapping them in a way because then he's like, oh, actually, you still owe me a lot of money to even leave the guild itself, this organization. It was funny because with like medicine, you know, Brenna and I are both in medicine and we both pay dues to be like in like different organizations of podiatry and, you know, to keep our board qualification status. So I think that was kind of kind of funny because it's kind of it kind of reminds me of that with them having to pay monthly dues. And yeah, it really does. It really does. For anyone who has to pay dues to keep your certification or be a part of an organization, it's a pain in the butt. It really is. But yeah, exact same thing here that they have specific dues to be in and then specific dues to be out. And so when they finally decide, you know, hey, we're breaking that final cord. We have to go talk to Arabid, let him know that we're doing this. He comes up magically with a sum of money that perfectly matches what they have in their savings. So it definitely made it feel like he's trying to trap them even further, like, hey, no, you can leave, but you're going to be destitute. Right. Which I feel like it's like he kind of like it almost seems like he knows that they want to leave Rifthold. And so this is what he's doing to kind of keep them there, because how could they possibly leave that area, let alone like leave the continent if if they don't have any money? And so it's like he definitely knows how much money Selena has, and he's definitely like exerting his control again. Yeah. And Marissa made a good point that they have been going back and forth over, you know, leaving and they hadn't truly decided, you know, they want to leave the Assassins and the Assassins Guild. However, you know, are they going to leave Rifthold? Are they going to leave the continent that all of that is up in the air? And one of the big things that we see throughout the series is Selena compared to kind of everybody else has a very pristine lifestyle that she's used to, that even before returning to the guild after the desert, she takes like five baths after being in the sewers. She literally bathes all night long until there is no hot water left. So it's, you know, this very pristine lifestyle that she's accustomed to having compared to Sam, who's like, I'm good, let's go. So, you know, it was an interesting contrast there. But, you know, I think for them to truly get out of Erebin's grasp, they would need to leave. And I think Selena is kind of coming around to understanding that. Right. Sam is definitely more on board. He, like, realizes way more than she does that, like, if they stay, like Erebin will always have some sort of control over them. Yeah. And I think he even says that at one point, like, if we're here, we're going to be under his control in some way. So we have to leave, at least Selena will be. Right. And I do think that comes up multiple times throughout the rest of this novella. So then moving into the middle section, they now realize the only way that we're going to have enough money to actually leave Rifthold is taking at least a few more, one more mission to have money to go anywhere. And so now they have this mysterious stranger show up specifically to Sam, not to Selena. Selena never meets this person, but he presents this offer to Sam. Martha, did you want to give your kind of initial thoughts on that? Yeah, so this is what I thought was interesting because I was like a little like I still really did not trust Erebin from the start. I was like, you know, as we talked about last week, he's just very spiteful. I just didn't think that he wanted to give them up that easily and wasn't going to let them walk away. So I honestly thought he was kind of behind this assignment just because we didn't see it from Selena's perspective. We just thought from Sam's perspective, he's clearly way more desperate to leave than Selena is. So I think him presenting the information to her like he definitely wants to do it way more than she does. And it's obviously a very dangerous mission and taking down these two crime lords. And so I definitely think, oh, like this is Erebin's doing, like he somehow plotted this whole thing to get back at them. So I was a little nervous from the start. I don't know. How did you feel when you first heard about it? I definitely was nervous, especially because we find out, you know, they've never set up their own missions, that it's always been Erebin going through someone else and then kind of handpicking or giving it to someone. They've never done this on their own. So for them to know, like, reliable contacts or who to contact or what's the fair, like none of that is available to them. So they're just kind of flying by the seat of their pants. So the fact that they continue to say, oh, it's this stranger. Oh, it's this random person. I was like, ugh, leave that alone. And like, how are they contacted? How did this person find them? Did Sam reach out to someone or did they just come up to him? Like, it was just all very, like, secretive. Like, we don't know any of that information. So it just didn't feel right. Yeah. And outside of that, the only times that Sam is kind of on his own is like when he's gone to the vault, which Selena hates. So it's like, where did you even meet this person? Like, is it this other back alley area that is also sketchy? So, again, bad vibes all around. But the people that they've been asked to kill and it does take them a little bit of time to officially decide is like Marissa Zambi's two crime lords. Jane, who's the top of the food chain, and then right below him is Farron. And that's who they really focus on for the remainder of the novella. Like, I feel like they didn't really talk about Jane. They were like, oh, yeah, he's the top guy. But Farron, and just like they go into this whole creepy orphan backstory on, you know, how he would pick on other kids. And I was telling Marissa, this is someone that I can see, like, kicking puppies. He's just he's just not a good person. And he gets joy out of it. So, you know, they're going back and forth trying to decide this. And I think, Marissa, you were the one who pointed out kind of what pushed them or what pushed Elena to decide to take this job. Finally learns to, like, trust him fully, like trust Sam fully and, like, trust their relationship. And I think it's like a big step for her because after her betrayal with Ansel and betrayal from Arobin, like, it's obviously more difficult for her to trust people. And, like, Sam and her have been big competitors growing up. But now she's, like, really learning to care for him a lot more. And then so she's like, OK, I'm going to trust you in this. We'll do this, you know, assignment. I'll trust that this is going to be fine and we're going to be fine and we're going to get out and whatever. And then obviously, like, one thing leads to the next. And it's just a sad ending, I feel, for her. Yeah. But I think the biggest thing that kind of made her agree to it was Arobin showing up. And you had mentioned this, that, like, one, how did he know where they were? Like, yes, they're assassins. They have kind of spies all over the place. But he shows up, breaks in and is just jay chilling on on her couch. And he does it in a very sly, very manipulative way. And you had mentioned it to me that, like, because of her pride, he made it seem like, oh, I would never, ever go after these guys. Like, this is just a horrible idea. It's so dangerous. You can't handle it. I know I couldn't handle it. You know, it just it's a very gaslit way of turning her pretty much against herself almost to be like, no, no, no, no, I can do this. Yeah. Super manipulative. And yeah, that was like a crazy part. Like, that's when I feel like I knew that he was behind it when he showed up in her apartment. Because it's like, how the heck did you know? Like, who did you hear this from? Yeah, that's a good point. And that's why I was thinking, like, OK, he definitely sent whoever it was to Sam to get him to agree to the assignment. And yeah, I definitely think he was using her pride against her. And just because, like, he knows Sam and Selena absolutely hate him right now. So, like, he knows that they would just go against anything that he was going to advise anyway. Yeah. And he never confronts them together. I just realized that, that he always like the stranger just meets Sam, not both of them. Erevin only meets them one on one. It's never together. Right. Strength in numbers. And he knows that. And then they can kind of, like, you know, evaluate the situation together and also, like, look at it differently if they were together. Yeah. Definitely uses that against them, for sure. No, for sure. And then Erevin also brings up like, hey, do you actually trust Sam? Like, this got me very nervous because he was like, well, you know, maybe Sam is trying to mislead you. Like, you haven't even told him about your past and all these other things. Like, do you really trust him? Can you trust him? And just like kind of twisting all of that. And it sounds like, you know, Sam kind of mentions it in passing that he does run into Erevin again on his own and Erevin tries to get into his head. And Sam's like shutting that down. But it does kind of throw, again, Selena off kilter a little bit through all of this. But then, like you had mentioned, in the end, she's like, no, I hardcore trust Sam, which almost ends up being part of the downfall, which just sucks. But yeah, that was crazy, too. Like, he's definitely trying to get in their heads, too, and play this game of like, you know, trying to get them to be against each other in a way, too. So it's like there's all these little things. It's like, oh, you are a big part of this and you are still like trying to control them. So yeah, it was wild. Yeah, we definitely said on one of the previous episodes, he's very calculated that he plans things out very meticulously, that for his last betrayal, he spent like months planning that. So when did this kind of, you know, change happen for him? When did he start planning stuff? And because he's known them so long, he knows how to play them appropriately and what gets to them. But so they end up agreeing to take this mission, both kind of individually and together, and they start plotting. And so they decide they're going to take down Farron first and then go after Jane, because for whatever reason, it seems to me they see Jane as more of a threat when it should be the other way around, because, again, they keep mentioning Farron and just how creepy this guy is. But one of the big things they do is, you know, they spend a couple of days kind of following him, watching him. And one of the things that really stuck out to me was when they first start watching him and he goes into his coach, Selena and him make eye contact and Farron just smiles at her. Yeah, it's like he knows who she is. I know this is going to happen. Exactly. And at first I was like, oh, Selena likes to boast that she's very pretty and kind of hard to attain and all this stuff. And that was kind of my first thought, like, oh, he's just kind of being sleazy. But then at the end, I was like, oh, he knows her. And it's just like, I'll see you soon. I know I was between the two, too. I was like, oh, it's in her head or like, no, it's for real that he knows, like, what's going to happen. But yeah, we were sad to find out that he knew. Yeah, seriously. So then we get to the point that, you know, they kind of split up who's taking on who. Sam is going after Farron and they've got that all plotted out and they go through how he's going to use arrows from the rooftops and so on. And then Selena is going to take on Jane after that's completed. And Sam specifically has Selena promise him like, hey, I want to do this on my own. I need you to firmly trust me on this, that I can handle this. This is our designated hour. If I'm not back by then, then sure, you can come look for me. But trust me to get it done and I will be back by then. And like Marissa said, that was like the final thing that she was like, yes, I trust you. I believe you can do this, which just is like another nail in the coffin for all of our hearts. But he kind of says his farewell and he's asking her to pack because she hasn't been packing. And she has not said I love you to him at any point. Her final words to him are like, I hate packing. And he heads out. And I was like, oh, no. I know. Like, come on. Yeah, it was killing me when she was like watching the clock and just kept watching the clock and would like fall asleep for a little bit and then stare at the clock again. And then, you know, going out and looking for him briefly and coming back and just like it's like in her deep self, she knew something was wrong, but she was like trying not to like admit it, I think, that she didn't want to believe something actually happened. Yeah, the clock was huge. Yeah, the clock was huge for this last like kind of end point of the novella that, like you said, she's watching it take past minutes and trying to read or trying to nap. And then she's watching it take past hours. And then finally, she's like, OK, it's an hour before he's supposed to be back. He's still not back. It's the time he's supposed to be back and he's not back. It's an hour past then. And everyone is you're just getting more and more anxious and nervous. Like, what do you do? Do you keep trusting him? Do you go and do something, you know? And so, yeah, like you said, she finally goes out to start looking for him, which this part was just it was sad for me. It was like a lost puppy, just like trying to find him, especially when she's out looking for him. And she goes, oh, he's I probably just missed him. He's back at the house. And she like rushes back. She like thinks that he's going to be back there waiting for him. Yeah, I was like, oh, he's not. I know he's not. So she gets back. And at this point, you know, I can only assume she's just so exhausted. She hasn't slept. She's pretty much sick with worry. And she falls asleep. And when she wakes up, surprise, surprise, someone's knocking at her door. And it's Erevin. Yes, of course it is, of course. So I thought this scene was actually very important, going back and thinking on it for myself. And I want to hear your thoughts on this, Marissa, that Erevin tells her, hey, Sam has been killed. He's been dropped off at the guild, verse here, because they thought he was still part of the guild. I was kind of iffy on that. I was like, you know, just something again seems off that he's trying to play her, bring her back. But the one big thing she says is, I want to see his body. And again, Erevin's like, no, I don't think you want to. However, thinking back to the very first novella, the exact same thing happened. Ben was killed, who she was friends with, and he was on some unknown mission that he wasn't really supposed to be a part of. We don't get any of these background details. And same thing happened. She says, I want to see the body. And he refuses. What are kind of your thoughts on that, that these two things now are mirroring each other? Yeah, because, yeah, I mean, there was definitely things that we suspected that they weren't telling us about the assassin killed and about Erevin, even from the beginning. So it definitely makes me curious now that you brought that up. Like, did Erevin orchestrate Ben's death as well? Yeah. Did he have a part to play in that? And I'm sure we might, I mean, maybe we'll find out later in the series a little bit more about that. But I'm curious if he kind of did the same thing. If like Ben found out too much, didn't like what Erevin was doing. And so Erevin had him killed. Yeah, especially because, like I said, it was apparently on this mission he wasn't supposed to be on. And it just was like, I'm covering it up. You can't see the body. You can't do this. All which kind of went against their code. And so I was like, oh, I don't like this. Yeah. So she, again, demands to see the body, goes back to the guild and is shown Sam, which was just heart wrenching all over the place. Yeah, this was like the worst, like seeing his like basically tortured body and like his eyes were missing. And that was terrible because he was saying like, oh, my gosh, like, I don't even remember what color his eyes were. Like, were they brown? Did they have flecks of like a different color in them? Like that, like broke my heart because she's like worried about forgetting what he looks like because of how badly he was tortured, which is awful. Yeah. Like you said, the eyes was the worst part for me, you know, unfortunately and again for me and Marissa, we both been trained in medicine. So we see cadavers, we're trained on cadavers and, you know, we have to practice somehow. That's that's what we do. But with this, like you said, the eyes missing was just terrible, especially because the eyes are considered the doorway into the soul. And so that was just just painful. And so, you know, in her misery, they take her up to her room at some point and coddle her, change her into something comfortable and just put her to bed. And at some point, realizing when she's woken up, Erebin and another one of the assassins are outside the door talking about going to get revenge. What were your thoughts on that? Yeah, I thought that was too perfect. Like, yeah. Like, why is Erebin talking right outside of her door? Like, that just seems like very planted. Like, why would he do that? You know, why would he say that right outside? Like when he knows she's going to be listening and hearing. So, yeah, I just I definitely did not. I was definitely not trusting him. Yeah. Because again, he's trapped. He's able to probe her perfectly. So he's saying, I'm going to take your revenge away from you. And oh, by the way, here's how you get in to the house. Like, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Mm hmm. And so she, you know, cops together her really terrible weapons and scales down the wall and she's running to get out, which at one point she does say like, oh, there's no assassins to stop me, but they're all busy. So that's why. Where it's really like, oh, why is it a little too quiet? Yeah. Like, it's way too easy for you to get out, except for Leslie. And I thought this was another kind of mirroring of previous novellas that she runs into Wesley and he immediately goes, this is not what you think it is. Do not do this. And I immediately thought of Philip from the Donneville novella, where he said the same thing before he was killed. He was like, you are on the wrong side. You do not understand what's going on. And Wesley is saying the same thing. And we know Wesley liked Sam. Like, they were actually pretty decent friends, it seemed like. And he's trying to tell her. And in her grief, she's just not listening to it. And just, you know, making that same mistake again. You know, thankfully she doesn't kill Wesley, but she's not listening to it again. Yeah, that was hard. That could have ended it right there. Could have stopped her, you know, from going forward with it. But, yeah, no, she knocks him out and gets on her way. Yeah. So, yeah. And then this part was crazy, too, when she, like, runs to, you know, get inside the house and, you know, try to take her revenge on Ferret and Jane. And then, you know, she's, like, running, like, on a rooftop to try and hurl herself, like, through that window. Yeah, what were your thoughts on the description of the window? Did you take much from that or you're just like, oh, that's fine? Yeah, so I did. I definitely knew that something was going to be waiting for her. But, yeah, I didn't really, like, pay attention as much to the window. I know they said that there was, like, a curtain that you couldn't see through. It was open. Why was it open? But then she's thinking to herself a lot, I guess. Looking back on it, I was like, like, oh, yeah, OK. She's, like, thinking a lot about this window. I guess she's running towards it. She's like, oh, well, no one could jump this, like, jump over this high from this building. So, like, that's probably why it's opened. And she's almost making up excuses of why she shouldn't look into it more. Like, right. Because as a trained assassin, she should be looking into it more and being more skeptical of it. But, yeah, she's so ridden with grief that she just doesn't even care. She's like, nope, doing it. You know, she already got it in her head from whatever Bennett said. So she's like, this is happening now. Yeah. Actually, she falls into the trap. Yeah. So she jumps through the window and surprise, surprise, there's a whole host of guards plus Starrin plus Jane. And one of the things Marissa pointed out to me earlier was Jane actually looked surprised. So at first I kind of thought like, oh, this is a trap from both of them. But it, you know, looking back, Jane was not expecting this, that he was sitting there having a nice cup of tea in a meeting and, you know, assassins start flying through his window. That was like Barron's plot, right? Take Jane's place like he wanted Jane dead, but didn't want to do it himself. He didn't want to get blamed for it. So he had to come up with another plot to, you know, be head of his little crime. I don't know what you call them. They're not assassins, I guess. They're crime boss. Yeah. Seriously. Crime lord. Oh, my gosh. We've watched way too much Netflix. Yeah. But yeah. So one of the things that I noticed was when she jumps through the window, there's like this initial guard unit set up. But, you know, Farron waits until Jane is killed to kind of bring in this second unit. And the big importance to that is they all have gas masks. Which she doesn't really notice until she's like, what is that smell? Shoot, that smell was on Sam. Oh, crap. And starts, you know, losing. Yeah. And so the last kind of thing she sees is Farron just that creepy smile again, where it's like, I saw you before. I know you. I remember you. I was waiting for you. And it's just like, oh, my gosh, that was like the final. I know it was it was killing me. I was like, oh, no. I like it's like you kind of expected it, like all this stuff to happen. Like I knew bad things were going to happen. I knew that, you know, we knew from the first chapter that they shared that she was going to be captured in some way. So you kind of knew going in. But like the way everything happened with Sam's death, too. Like, I don't know that I expected him to live, honestly. But like the way he died was so gruesome. Yeah. Like, dang, this is crazy. Like so much happened. It was crazy. And then at the very end, too, with like Erebin discussing everything with Farron after they had already captured Selena and she was on her way to the prison, you know, he like, Farron was asking him, why didn't he help Selena escape? Like, it's like honestly asking because he was. Yeah, he was actually confused. Like, yeah, like you could go grab her right now. There's like the wagon, like your your people could just take that down easily. And his response for asking, like for Farron, asking why he did what he did. And he said, because I don't like sharing my belongings. That hit me so hard. Yeah, they're just like, oh, God, you're a piece of turd muffin. I know. I was like, yeah, yeah. And I think that was really important because Farron also said, like, well, you know, they you thought she was going to be beheaded and you said you were going to save her from that. And he was like, yeah, but then changed my mind. She can go into slavery. Like, oh, my gosh, dude, I know. And I did think it was like a very fitting punishment, though, from him, like being that she was against slavery the entire time. And, you know, and that's where she ended up. Yeah, complete full circle. Yeah, he had to have been planning this for, like I said, some time that he was like, OK, I you ruined my plan to have slaves. Now I'm going to punish you for that through putting more people into slavery as well as yourself. And you're going to lose the most important thing to you. Yeah. And the other thing that I thought was interesting was, you know, the time of the dungeon, not much really happens again. She's kind of in this haze. And she finally meets the king who we've never been introduced except for like little tidbits of he's a very awful person. Right. So if she thinks that about him and we know this background on Farron and Jane and Irvin, how much worse is this guy going to be later down the road? So I am interested about that. Yeah, we only get a really small taste of him, too. In this book, it's like a very small introduction. So I'm curious, like, you know, if we're going to hear more from him in the later books here. Yeah, especially because, you know, he goes to he reads through her sentence and everything and kind of presents it to her. And her one request is just make my death quick. And he thinks this is, I don't want to say hysterical, but he just kind of chuckles to himself. And he's like, oh, I'm going to punish you for far longer than that. And so that's where the, you know, her sentence into slavery comes from. But like Marissa said, it's very fitting because of how this whole story has played out. Yeah. And so the final kind of thoughts, the two last things are her two week ride to the salt mines. And one of them is seeing the stag and kind of what that represents. And then her final words, Marissa, what were your takes on both? Yeah, so like I definitely think, you know, you know, during this journey, she's kind of broken. She's lost Sam. She's super depressed. She wants to die. And then seeing the stag, I think, reinstalls her hope in wanting to live, even after everything that she's been through. So I liked that part. And then obviously her words of like, I am Selina Sardossian, I will not be afraid. That's what Sam used to say to make herself feel better. And that just, you know, it's like it was really fitting, heartwarming, but also really, like, I'm, you know, really sad for her. But I'm glad she has that memory of him, that good memory of him to carry her through. Yeah, no, I completely agree on both of those. So that's where we're left off with her, that we're, you know, going into the salt mines with her. She's not left in a very happy position, that it is completely opposite of how the Assassin and the Underworld, I think, had a previous one finished. So very, very different. But what are your final thoughts on the book overall? Your full rating of the book before I get into where we're going from here? Yeah, I loved it. I thought that she did a great, the author did a great job of setting everything up. And I thought the characters were great and awesome. And Selina is a really cool main character. So I think overall, I give it a five out of five. I thought it was really entertaining. That last section was awesome. So I'm really excited to see what's going to happen next. Yeah, I agree. Like I said, there were so many points that mirrored each other and that it really did come full circle that it was just so well done and a very good build up that some parts were a little bit slower. But then at the end, you're like, OK, I need to take a backseat real quick. So with that being said, the next book we are jumping into is the actual Throne of Glass. I'm happy we started with a prequel. I know there is another version where you can read it as a third book. I'm happy we started with this because the Throne of Glass starts with her in the salt mines, in slavery, and her being called to the kingdom and her trying to fight for her freedom or win her freedom from the king. And so we kind of know why she's there and what led to that. But the plan will be to read the first 17 chapters, which I know sounds super daunting, but it's about 130, 35 pages. So by keeping that rhythm, it'll break it into three parts. And so it'll take about three weeks to finish the whole thing. Again, you do not have to read at that pace. Listen when you want to. We're still here. We're forever on podcast. So with that being said, any final thoughts, Marissa? No, no. I'm really excited to read the next one. All righty. Well, thank you, everyone who stuck around to listen to our lovely voices and finish our first book with us. And I'm excited to dive into the next one. But until then, go read my little bookworms.