Jhereg - Chapter Seventeen and Epilogue
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i_read_whatSo last time, Vlad came up with a plan. We got to hear a lot about various moving parts, but there's still one open question: how do they get Mellar out of Castle Black to begin with.
Vlad starts us out by explaining that the Imperial Orb connects citizens with the Great Sea of Chaos, so they can power their sorcery. This is a segue to a lesser known use of the Orb, which is to allow anyone, with a bit of concentration, to know exactly what time it was by the Imperial Clock.
Vlad isn't a bad sorcerer, but as we've seen, it's not his primary methodology. But apparently, he really likes to check the time.
This is relevant because Morrolan has a very specific scheduled time that he personally inspects his guards. And at this point, he's not in the banquet hall of Castle Black. Daymar, Cawti, Kiera and Vlad are. Aliera is just outside. There's the usual suspense building interaction, and then they go.
Vlad starts by provoking that Hawklord from a few chapters ago. This bit is tangentially interesting in its own right:
I leaned on the table, briefly raised my nobility a couple of notches, and said, “I say, hand me a glass of that Kiereth, four thirty-seven, will you?”
For a minute, I was afraid I’d overdone it when he actually started reaching for it, but then he caught himself, and turned to face me fully, his voice and eyes cold.
“I don’t fetch for Jhereg,” he announced. “Or Easterners.”
Good. He was mine, now.
I pretended amusement. “Oh, indeed?” I responded, turning on my best sardonic smile. “Nervous about serving your betters, eh? Well, that’s quite all right.”
He glared, then, and his hand went to his sword hilt. Then, remembering where he was, I suppose, he let go of it.
“I must ask Morrolan,” he said, “why he allows inferiors to share his accommodations.”
It occurred to me that I should encourage him to do so, just to see how long he lasted—but I had a part to play. “Do that,” I said. “I must admit to being curious as well. Let me know how it is that he justifies your presence here, among gentlefolk.”
It's a fun parry and riposte of course, but there's interesting notes too. We've seen the odd dichotomy in the way that Vlad presents himself as a fairly ordinary low level fantasy mafia thug, but interacts as friends, and even equals, with some very powerful and important people. It's interesting to see that Vlad can apparently turn on airs when he wants.
It's also an interesting implication that the Hawklord might not "last" if he questioned Vlad's presence to Morrolan. It maybe sheds a little more light into why Vlad is so invested in Morrolan's pride and wellbeing.
Anyway, this guy is an idiot and asks if Vlad is claiming equality with Dragaerans. "At least", is Vlad's unsurprising reply. This is all preparation for this bit though:
He smiled back, having mastered his temper. “What a quaint notion. A Dragaeran would not think to speak to anyone that way unless he was ready to back it up with steel.”
I laughed aloud. “Oh, always, anytime,” I said.
“Very well. My seconds will call upon you in the morning.”
I pretended surprise.
“They will?” I said. “My seconds will call upon you in the alley.”
I turned my back on him and walked away.
“What?” came the enraged cry behind me. I had taken three steps when I heard the sound of steel being drawn. I continued walking briskly.
Vlad knows Dragaerans. And he knows how to cause a distraction. Loiosh, of course, helps add to the chaos. Vlad makes his way to a very smug looking Mellar. Remember, if Vlad kills him, there will be war. If VLAD kills him.
That's leads to part two, and the big question mark: what is Aliera's role. And why does Vlad offer a seemingly genuine prayer to Verra to protect the soul of the "lady who was [his] sister"?
And here we are: Aliera, seemingly very drunk and shrill, is storming the room, demanding to see the teckla who would dishonor her cousin's name. Aliera is carrying a Morganti blade. And well, she's a Dragon. If SHE kills Mellar, there won't be a war. Mellar has to act. His bodyguards get flung aside (one, getting pounced on by Cawti, the former "Dagger of the Jhereg") Daymar makes the bodyguard invisible, and Vlad takes his place. Mellar realizes he'll have to save himself and that he'll have to kill Aliera to do it.
Now, killing Aliera in the normal way isn't that big of a deal in Castle Black. It's pretty normal, and there are plenty of powerful people around to revivify a dead person. That's IF she's killed in the normal way.
If a master thief replaces your normal blades with Morganti blades...
Aliera screamed. It may or may not have been genuine, but it was one of the most horrendous screams I have ever heard. I shuddered to hear it, and to see the look on her face as the soul-eating blade entered her body. Mellar moved forward and tried vainly to draw it out, but its own power held it in as Aliera slumped to the floor, her screams dying away. The blade came free in Mellar’s hand.
Morganti blades destroy the soul. No revivification. No reincarnation. No afterlife. Oh dear.
So needless to say, Mellar isn't going to be getting any protection from Morrolan NOW. He's fair fucking game. We're told that just as Mellar is starting to panic, Daymar sends off a mind-probe that pushes him over the edge.
He yells at Vlad, his apparently bodyguard, to get him out of there. That's a bit of a problem because while Vlad can teleport them, he'd be out of commission afterward. It had been a fifty-fifty shot. But Vlad uses the chaos to play stupid-shocked, so Mellar turns to the other bodyguard instead. Woo.
They teleport, just as Mellar realizes that there's something wrong about Vlad.
--
So now, Vlad is somewhere else entirely, with a now alert Mellar and one other bodyguard. This is the part Kragar didn't like by the way. Vlad can only take out one, immediately. He goes for the bodyguard, since he's a sorcerer. That leaves Mellar and Vlad. And unfortunately, Mellar is the much better swordsman.
But...there may be something else:
At that point I first became aware of my surroundings. We were outside, in a jungle area. That would put us somewhere to the west of Adrilankha, which meant at least three hundred miles from Castle Black. They weren’t going to be able to trace the teleport in time to help me, then; not if the sorcerer/bodyguard had been able to get his spell off. I would have to assume that I was on my own.
That part's not good, but perhaps the description rings a bit of a bell...
Mellar though still has a Morganti dagger. Vlad knows tricks that let an inferior swordsman continue to hold off a superior swordsman, but they won't last forever. Vlad keeps retreating.
Mellar eventually starts gloating. The plan would have worked, he admits, if Vlad were a better swordsman, or if he'd gone for Mellar rather than the bodyguard. He figures the truth about what happened to Aliera will out, and he can just go back. But he does need an uninterrupted two or three seconds to teleport, and Vlad's not letting that happen.
Vlad briefly considers letting him kill him with his non-Morganti weapon. A soul, apparently, has to be alive to be destroyed. But he doesn't want to give Mellar the satisfaction of leaving his corpse there for wild jheregs to scavenge.
That's when Vlad gets an idea. Remember how I said the surroundings sounded familiar? Remember how he got his familiar to begin with?
Vlad still remembers most of that spell. Ritual steps are very useful when it comes to witchcraft, but the power comes from within. And a bit of blood loss fueled desperation helps.
And then, we get the same ritual words from the very beginning.
“Who?” came the thought to my forebrain.
“One who needs you,” I managed, as I almost stumbled. I hung on to my consciousness with everything I had.
“What have you to offer?”
Oh, Demon Goddess! I don’t have time for this! I wanted to start crying, to tell them all to just go away.
He caught my blade with the dagger, and the sword swept down; I squirmed to the side, made it.
“Long life, O Jhereg. And fresh, red meat, with no struggle or search. And, sometimes, the chance to kill Dragaerans.”
She asks what he asks for. Mellar is winning, but Vlad can still answer: in the future, aid in his endeavors. For the present: save his life.
And well, the Jhereg dives at Mellar. This throws him off enough that Vlad can get his stiletto straight in the eye. As Vlad's about to collapse, he hears the new jhereg accept. He does seem to collect cute little wiseass lizard-cats.
--
So Vlad is still conscious, watching the jhereg eat bits of Mellar. She warns other scavengers away from Vlad, until finally Aliera and Pathfinder, Cawti and Kragar appear.
Aliera! HOW?! (I mean, obviously Vlad wasn't going to plan the obliteration death of a friend of his. But HOW?!)
Anyway, there's some rescue and TLC. And Loiosh and the new Jhereg are making acquaintances too. Then fly away. Vlad, panicked, calls after him.
The chapter ends with this enlightening response: “Look, boss. I’ve worked for you nonstop for more than five years now. You’d think I could have a few days off for my honeymoon!”
...this does however really muddy the timeline. Vlad was about sixteen when he got Loiosh AND when he started working for the Jhereg. Does that mean Vlad is twenty-one now? Because that's a little...absurd?
There's an annotated timeline online that places him at twenty-four here, which is slightly less ridiculously precocious though. Not sure where they're counting from though.
Anyway, since this was short, and we're at the end anyway, I figure we can move onto the Epilogue. And an explanation, one hopes.
--
Not yet though. We start, instead, at Vlad's restaurant, the Blue Flame. Where he's meeting with the Demon once again. Loiosh isn't back yet, but Cawti and Kragar are here. And well, there are additional protections too. For example, no spell will happen without Aliera's approval.
It's a good sign, Vlad's finally involving some of his more powerful friends in his more mundane trials of life.
The meeting with the Demon is very civil. It ought to be, since Mellar's body is now found. Vlad's got more to offer though, apparently that mind probe from Daymar that sent Mellar over the edge had a purpose. Vlad found out where the missing money was hidden. The Jhereg are now made whole.
It's done, and they acknowledge it in that interestingly layered way that the Jhereg always do.
He took another sip of his wine. “To the best of my knowledge and belief,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “no one in the organization has anything against you, means you any ill will, or will profit from any harm that comes to you.”
That last wasn’t true in a literal sense, but we both knew what he meant—and he had his reputation to hold on to. I didn’t think he would lie to me about it. I was satisfied.
“Good,” I said. “And allow me to say I hold no ill will over anything that happened—or almost happened—before. I believe that I understand what was going on, and there is no cause there for complaint on my part.”
He nodded.
More than that, the Demon's friends are very happy with the work that Vlad's "friend" has done. There might be more job offers in the future. And likely more complications. It's a long book series after all.
But FINALLY, we end up in Morrolan's library. And there's an interesting note that, more than his apartment or office, Morrolan's library really feels like a home base. Apparently, there have been many times in the past, that Morrolan, Vlad, and Aliera, with others, have sat in this room to be relieved that something is over.
Loiosh is back, with his new girlfriend alongside. Cawti is with Vlad. The new girlfriend's name, by the way, is Rocza.
Morrolan is curious, as the one Dragaeran with a very good knowledge of witchcraft: how did Vlad get two familiars?
Rocza's not really a familiar though. She's there because she likes Vlad and because she's Loiosh's mate. Fair enough. We also learn in this conversation that Morrolan's Great Weapon, Blackwand, essentially IS his own familiar.
That's weird and I'm very interested in how THAT works.
There's some more banter with Aliera about exactly how close Vlad came to dying, when Kragar (who had been sitting in the room the whole time) finally asks what I want to know: how did she survive the dagger.
Unpleasantly, but there IS an explaantion:
“Well, basically, it has to do with the nature of Great Weapons. Pathfinder is linked to me, which really means it’s linked to my soul. When the dagger threatened to destroy me, Pathfinder acted to preserve me by drawing my soul into itself. When the threat was gone, I was able to return to my body. And, of course, we had the Necromancer standing by, just in case there were problems.”
It's a bit of a deus ex machina, on one hand, but those elements were seeded earlier. It makes sense. Besides, I like Aliera, so I'm glad she's alive.
So it's all pretty much resolved. They've gotten the Jhereg money back, they've suppressed the Dzur information leak, and Vlad's got a promotion of sorts. (And Kragar's got more work.) And this is rather interesting:
“Oh, well. Just asking.”
“Seriously, though, Vlad; have you ever thought about quitting the Jhereg? I mean, you don’t really need them anymore, do you?”
“Ha! I’ve thought about quitting the Jhereg a great deal, but so far I’ve always managed to be just a little bit quicker than whoever wanted me out.”
“Or luckier,” said Kragar.
I shrugged. “As for leaving voluntarily, I don’t know.”
Morrolan looked at me carefully. “You don’t actually enjoy what you do, do you?”
I didn’t answer, not really knowing at the time. I mean, did I? Especially now, when my biggest reason, my hatred for all things Dragaeran, turned out not to have the cause I had thought it did. Or did it?
We never really do know what Vlad's fancier friends think about his more mundane job, do we? This sounds like maybe Morrolan would prefer his friend to be doing something different.
Vlad's also come to a conclusion about the whole reincarnation thing, namely that he's as much a product of his own experiences as anything else. He is what he is, as well as what he was. That seems wise, but also maybe a loose end for later. Aliera, for her part, is unreadable.
The epilogue and the book ends with a humorous note as Vlad realizes that he might need to figure out how to housebreak his new friend.
The verdict will come either later tonight or tomorrow. See you then!
Vlad starts us out by explaining that the Imperial Orb connects citizens with the Great Sea of Chaos, so they can power their sorcery. This is a segue to a lesser known use of the Orb, which is to allow anyone, with a bit of concentration, to know exactly what time it was by the Imperial Clock.
Vlad isn't a bad sorcerer, but as we've seen, it's not his primary methodology. But apparently, he really likes to check the time.
This is relevant because Morrolan has a very specific scheduled time that he personally inspects his guards. And at this point, he's not in the banquet hall of Castle Black. Daymar, Cawti, Kiera and Vlad are. Aliera is just outside. There's the usual suspense building interaction, and then they go.
Vlad starts by provoking that Hawklord from a few chapters ago. This bit is tangentially interesting in its own right:
I leaned on the table, briefly raised my nobility a couple of notches, and said, “I say, hand me a glass of that Kiereth, four thirty-seven, will you?”
For a minute, I was afraid I’d overdone it when he actually started reaching for it, but then he caught himself, and turned to face me fully, his voice and eyes cold.
“I don’t fetch for Jhereg,” he announced. “Or Easterners.”
Good. He was mine, now.
I pretended amusement. “Oh, indeed?” I responded, turning on my best sardonic smile. “Nervous about serving your betters, eh? Well, that’s quite all right.”
He glared, then, and his hand went to his sword hilt. Then, remembering where he was, I suppose, he let go of it.
“I must ask Morrolan,” he said, “why he allows inferiors to share his accommodations.”
It occurred to me that I should encourage him to do so, just to see how long he lasted—but I had a part to play. “Do that,” I said. “I must admit to being curious as well. Let me know how it is that he justifies your presence here, among gentlefolk.”
It's a fun parry and riposte of course, but there's interesting notes too. We've seen the odd dichotomy in the way that Vlad presents himself as a fairly ordinary low level fantasy mafia thug, but interacts as friends, and even equals, with some very powerful and important people. It's interesting to see that Vlad can apparently turn on airs when he wants.
It's also an interesting implication that the Hawklord might not "last" if he questioned Vlad's presence to Morrolan. It maybe sheds a little more light into why Vlad is so invested in Morrolan's pride and wellbeing.
Anyway, this guy is an idiot and asks if Vlad is claiming equality with Dragaerans. "At least", is Vlad's unsurprising reply. This is all preparation for this bit though:
He smiled back, having mastered his temper. “What a quaint notion. A Dragaeran would not think to speak to anyone that way unless he was ready to back it up with steel.”
I laughed aloud. “Oh, always, anytime,” I said.
“Very well. My seconds will call upon you in the morning.”
I pretended surprise.
“They will?” I said. “My seconds will call upon you in the alley.”
I turned my back on him and walked away.
“What?” came the enraged cry behind me. I had taken three steps when I heard the sound of steel being drawn. I continued walking briskly.
Vlad knows Dragaerans. And he knows how to cause a distraction. Loiosh, of course, helps add to the chaos. Vlad makes his way to a very smug looking Mellar. Remember, if Vlad kills him, there will be war. If VLAD kills him.
That's leads to part two, and the big question mark: what is Aliera's role. And why does Vlad offer a seemingly genuine prayer to Verra to protect the soul of the "lady who was [his] sister"?
And here we are: Aliera, seemingly very drunk and shrill, is storming the room, demanding to see the teckla who would dishonor her cousin's name. Aliera is carrying a Morganti blade. And well, she's a Dragon. If SHE kills Mellar, there won't be a war. Mellar has to act. His bodyguards get flung aside (one, getting pounced on by Cawti, the former "Dagger of the Jhereg") Daymar makes the bodyguard invisible, and Vlad takes his place. Mellar realizes he'll have to save himself and that he'll have to kill Aliera to do it.
Now, killing Aliera in the normal way isn't that big of a deal in Castle Black. It's pretty normal, and there are plenty of powerful people around to revivify a dead person. That's IF she's killed in the normal way.
If a master thief replaces your normal blades with Morganti blades...
Aliera screamed. It may or may not have been genuine, but it was one of the most horrendous screams I have ever heard. I shuddered to hear it, and to see the look on her face as the soul-eating blade entered her body. Mellar moved forward and tried vainly to draw it out, but its own power held it in as Aliera slumped to the floor, her screams dying away. The blade came free in Mellar’s hand.
Morganti blades destroy the soul. No revivification. No reincarnation. No afterlife. Oh dear.
So needless to say, Mellar isn't going to be getting any protection from Morrolan NOW. He's fair fucking game. We're told that just as Mellar is starting to panic, Daymar sends off a mind-probe that pushes him over the edge.
He yells at Vlad, his apparently bodyguard, to get him out of there. That's a bit of a problem because while Vlad can teleport them, he'd be out of commission afterward. It had been a fifty-fifty shot. But Vlad uses the chaos to play stupid-shocked, so Mellar turns to the other bodyguard instead. Woo.
They teleport, just as Mellar realizes that there's something wrong about Vlad.
--
So now, Vlad is somewhere else entirely, with a now alert Mellar and one other bodyguard. This is the part Kragar didn't like by the way. Vlad can only take out one, immediately. He goes for the bodyguard, since he's a sorcerer. That leaves Mellar and Vlad. And unfortunately, Mellar is the much better swordsman.
But...there may be something else:
At that point I first became aware of my surroundings. We were outside, in a jungle area. That would put us somewhere to the west of Adrilankha, which meant at least three hundred miles from Castle Black. They weren’t going to be able to trace the teleport in time to help me, then; not if the sorcerer/bodyguard had been able to get his spell off. I would have to assume that I was on my own.
That part's not good, but perhaps the description rings a bit of a bell...
Mellar though still has a Morganti dagger. Vlad knows tricks that let an inferior swordsman continue to hold off a superior swordsman, but they won't last forever. Vlad keeps retreating.
Mellar eventually starts gloating. The plan would have worked, he admits, if Vlad were a better swordsman, or if he'd gone for Mellar rather than the bodyguard. He figures the truth about what happened to Aliera will out, and he can just go back. But he does need an uninterrupted two or three seconds to teleport, and Vlad's not letting that happen.
Vlad briefly considers letting him kill him with his non-Morganti weapon. A soul, apparently, has to be alive to be destroyed. But he doesn't want to give Mellar the satisfaction of leaving his corpse there for wild jheregs to scavenge.
That's when Vlad gets an idea. Remember how I said the surroundings sounded familiar? Remember how he got his familiar to begin with?
Vlad still remembers most of that spell. Ritual steps are very useful when it comes to witchcraft, but the power comes from within. And a bit of blood loss fueled desperation helps.
And then, we get the same ritual words from the very beginning.
“Who?” came the thought to my forebrain.
“One who needs you,” I managed, as I almost stumbled. I hung on to my consciousness with everything I had.
“What have you to offer?”
Oh, Demon Goddess! I don’t have time for this! I wanted to start crying, to tell them all to just go away.
He caught my blade with the dagger, and the sword swept down; I squirmed to the side, made it.
“Long life, O Jhereg. And fresh, red meat, with no struggle or search. And, sometimes, the chance to kill Dragaerans.”
She asks what he asks for. Mellar is winning, but Vlad can still answer: in the future, aid in his endeavors. For the present: save his life.
And well, the Jhereg dives at Mellar. This throws him off enough that Vlad can get his stiletto straight in the eye. As Vlad's about to collapse, he hears the new jhereg accept. He does seem to collect cute little wiseass lizard-cats.
--
So Vlad is still conscious, watching the jhereg eat bits of Mellar. She warns other scavengers away from Vlad, until finally Aliera and Pathfinder, Cawti and Kragar appear.
Aliera! HOW?! (I mean, obviously Vlad wasn't going to plan the obliteration death of a friend of his. But HOW?!)
Anyway, there's some rescue and TLC. And Loiosh and the new Jhereg are making acquaintances too. Then fly away. Vlad, panicked, calls after him.
The chapter ends with this enlightening response: “Look, boss. I’ve worked for you nonstop for more than five years now. You’d think I could have a few days off for my honeymoon!”
...this does however really muddy the timeline. Vlad was about sixteen when he got Loiosh AND when he started working for the Jhereg. Does that mean Vlad is twenty-one now? Because that's a little...absurd?
There's an annotated timeline online that places him at twenty-four here, which is slightly less ridiculously precocious though. Not sure where they're counting from though.
Anyway, since this was short, and we're at the end anyway, I figure we can move onto the Epilogue. And an explanation, one hopes.
--
Not yet though. We start, instead, at Vlad's restaurant, the Blue Flame. Where he's meeting with the Demon once again. Loiosh isn't back yet, but Cawti and Kragar are here. And well, there are additional protections too. For example, no spell will happen without Aliera's approval.
It's a good sign, Vlad's finally involving some of his more powerful friends in his more mundane trials of life.
The meeting with the Demon is very civil. It ought to be, since Mellar's body is now found. Vlad's got more to offer though, apparently that mind probe from Daymar that sent Mellar over the edge had a purpose. Vlad found out where the missing money was hidden. The Jhereg are now made whole.
It's done, and they acknowledge it in that interestingly layered way that the Jhereg always do.
He took another sip of his wine. “To the best of my knowledge and belief,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “no one in the organization has anything against you, means you any ill will, or will profit from any harm that comes to you.”
That last wasn’t true in a literal sense, but we both knew what he meant—and he had his reputation to hold on to. I didn’t think he would lie to me about it. I was satisfied.
“Good,” I said. “And allow me to say I hold no ill will over anything that happened—or almost happened—before. I believe that I understand what was going on, and there is no cause there for complaint on my part.”
He nodded.
More than that, the Demon's friends are very happy with the work that Vlad's "friend" has done. There might be more job offers in the future. And likely more complications. It's a long book series after all.
But FINALLY, we end up in Morrolan's library. And there's an interesting note that, more than his apartment or office, Morrolan's library really feels like a home base. Apparently, there have been many times in the past, that Morrolan, Vlad, and Aliera, with others, have sat in this room to be relieved that something is over.
Loiosh is back, with his new girlfriend alongside. Cawti is with Vlad. The new girlfriend's name, by the way, is Rocza.
Morrolan is curious, as the one Dragaeran with a very good knowledge of witchcraft: how did Vlad get two familiars?
Rocza's not really a familiar though. She's there because she likes Vlad and because she's Loiosh's mate. Fair enough. We also learn in this conversation that Morrolan's Great Weapon, Blackwand, essentially IS his own familiar.
That's weird and I'm very interested in how THAT works.
There's some more banter with Aliera about exactly how close Vlad came to dying, when Kragar (who had been sitting in the room the whole time) finally asks what I want to know: how did she survive the dagger.
Unpleasantly, but there IS an explaantion:
“Well, basically, it has to do with the nature of Great Weapons. Pathfinder is linked to me, which really means it’s linked to my soul. When the dagger threatened to destroy me, Pathfinder acted to preserve me by drawing my soul into itself. When the threat was gone, I was able to return to my body. And, of course, we had the Necromancer standing by, just in case there were problems.”
It's a bit of a deus ex machina, on one hand, but those elements were seeded earlier. It makes sense. Besides, I like Aliera, so I'm glad she's alive.
So it's all pretty much resolved. They've gotten the Jhereg money back, they've suppressed the Dzur information leak, and Vlad's got a promotion of sorts. (And Kragar's got more work.) And this is rather interesting:
“Oh, well. Just asking.”
“Seriously, though, Vlad; have you ever thought about quitting the Jhereg? I mean, you don’t really need them anymore, do you?”
“Ha! I’ve thought about quitting the Jhereg a great deal, but so far I’ve always managed to be just a little bit quicker than whoever wanted me out.”
“Or luckier,” said Kragar.
I shrugged. “As for leaving voluntarily, I don’t know.”
Morrolan looked at me carefully. “You don’t actually enjoy what you do, do you?”
I didn’t answer, not really knowing at the time. I mean, did I? Especially now, when my biggest reason, my hatred for all things Dragaeran, turned out not to have the cause I had thought it did. Or did it?
We never really do know what Vlad's fancier friends think about his more mundane job, do we? This sounds like maybe Morrolan would prefer his friend to be doing something different.
Vlad's also come to a conclusion about the whole reincarnation thing, namely that he's as much a product of his own experiences as anything else. He is what he is, as well as what he was. That seems wise, but also maybe a loose end for later. Aliera, for her part, is unreadable.
The epilogue and the book ends with a humorous note as Vlad realizes that he might need to figure out how to housebreak his new friend.
The verdict will come either later tonight or tomorrow. See you then!