A great deal of descriptive space is dedicated to how the funeral home, until recently Flannery's Funeral Home, now Quiet Acres, has declined under corporate (rather than family) ownership, and how they didn't do a very good job with Reuel's body. I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to convey. I do think it's a little odd that neither Titania nor Aurora made higher quality arrangements. Aurora is insane, and was the one who had him killed, but she doesn't want anyone to know that. Mab wouldn't let this happen to Harry, although she might have for Slate if he'd gotten a funeral in the mortal world. Lily wouldn't let this happen to Fix. We'll let the Mothers off the hook since they don't generally seem to take much of an interest in the Knights unless the Knights approach them first. If I had to guess, we're meant to understand that the changeling squad were left to handle funeral stuff, but Reuel had money, and presumably life insurance. Maybe he had it set up so the kids were the beneficiaries, and either they went with an inexpensive option because they needed the rest of the money, or he asked them to, if something happened to him, just handle his funeral cheaply and use most of the insurance money to take care of themselves. And of course, if Reuel was secretly J. R. R. Tolkien, the fancy funeral and burial stuff all happened back when he faked his own death before becoming the Summer Knight, and he wouldn't be too fussed about doing it all a second time. This does also underscore the disposability of the Knights, but it might have benefitted from a little more explication.
Harry goes in without his staff or rod, because in most mundane circles, walking around with a big stick is looked at somewhat askance, and in magical circles, coming in with that kind of firepower makes it look like you're trying to start a fight. This comes up in a few other books, but I think this is the first time it's been discussed. We're told that the funeral is already underway when he arrives, but from the description (open casket on display, people awkwardly hanging out), it sounds like this is the viewing, which in my admittedly limited experience is a different thing, usually held on a different day (occasionally a couple days) before the actual funeral. There aren't any obvious bad guys in the viewing room, nor does anyone show the odd or anarchronistic fashion choices of a fairy trying to pass for human. The possibility of someone hiding under a veil is raised, but not followed up on, but short of opening up his Sight I'm not really sure what Harry could do about that. We didn't do any potions during the Infodumo With Bob this book, and Harry knew he was coming here, so if the story had called for it, he could have mixed up a potion that would help with veils somehow, but since there isn't anyone hiding under a veil, this would have been a waste of time and page space. Presumably in the interests of thoroughness, Harry slips into a back hallway, just in time to overhear several people talking about how Lily is missing, although they don't use her name, and that Harry's here, which they seem to think is a problem. Fix says Harry is rumored to be a decent sort, and Ace says that people who get in Harry's way have a tendency to end up dead, but they both defer to Meryl, whose name I may be spelling wrong because it's not in this chapter, when she says they should leave. There's a detailed description of the hallway, which I'm sure would be very helpful if this were a TTRPG campaign and it wasn't yet certain where the confrontation would take place, as Harry follows them outside.
Fix sees Harry, and squeaks. Ace goes for a gun. Meryl just backhands him, giving him his first concussion of the book. (If you "see stars" after getting hit in the head, that's a concussion). Harry tries to ask them to hang on second, but it comes out rather garbled, on account of the fresh head trauma, causing Fix to panic further, until Meryl throws Harry into the dumpster. To be clear, this involves throwing him about ten feet through the air, which is our first unambiguous indicator that she, at least, isn't entirely human.
Harry lies there for a minute, trying to recover, while the changeling squad runs off. A minute later, Billy appears. He brought pizza. I don't think it was actually established anywhere that Harry asked Billy to come here or do this, but I may be forgetting something, if it happened earlier than Chapter 11.
I apologize for the lack of pictures, and likely greater than usual incidence of typos, in this post. I spilled tea on my laptop charger, like the block part, apparently killing it, which I did not know could happen. It's not like I haven't spilled tea on my charger before. My charger is if a mildly unusual type, and I don't live within easy reach of a decent electronics store, so my new charger won't arrive until tomorrow. (Being this rural also means that sometimes I just straight up can't get overnight or two day shipping, even if I'm willing to pay for it.) It's coming up on the end of my working year, so I'm gonna be trying to get as much done as possible between now and October 1st, but also Silksong just came out which is... likely to affect my productivity. Until next time, be Gay, do Crimes, and read All The Things!
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