Stone 25

**Chapter 25**

Back to Zedd and Adie, who are fleeing Bony the skrin atop their nameless horse. Zedd has *“tried tricks and spells and wizardry of every sort,”* but nothing works. Zedd muses that *“Admitting defeat established a mental state of resignation that would make it certain.”* Which is a fine thought, but it doesn't seem to fit with someone whose mantra is “nothing is ever easy.” So, never admit defeat, but expect everything to be hard? This is Zedd's philosophy?

We learn that the skrin is *“taller than the horse,”* so there's another tiny scrap of description.

They start seeing flashes of Creepy Green Light, and Adie deduces that Bony is somehow *“bringing up the underworld.”* Apparently skrin can do that. Zedd figures out that Bony is tracking them through the skin bones that he and Adie wear (I'm not sure how, since they've both been wearing them for weeks with no ill effects), so he throws them into the underworld and Bony follows. Poof, no more skrin.

They head back to Adie's House o' Bones, which is now Adie's Broken Pile o' Bones. Adie is concerned about the round bone that started all this ruckus, but Zedd doesn't think she'll find it. He's found a footprint of *“a woman's boot,”* that isn't either of theirs, so obviously some strange woman wandered by and stole that particular bone at that particular moment.

Wait; how did Zedd know it was a woman's boot? Did it have a stiletto heel?

Zedd says that the Bone Burglar has hidden her tracks with magic. Rather than try to detect them with magic (umm...wizard of the First Order? Hello?) he immediately gives up and promises to hide *their* tracks with magic. I don't quite understand either of those decisions; at minimum, it would be nice if Zedd commented that the Bone Burglar's magic was unusually powerful, or that he was always bad at tracking spells, or some such. I expected more from the Gandalf clone. \~/

Adie immediately takes the word of Zedd the Optimist that the Evil Cue Ball is gone, and grovels to him for daring to have a different opinion. She starts collecting other bones which she claims are important, but Zedd refuses to allow her to take any. His reasoning: *“the Keeper knew where we were by one of the bones* [not technically true; the **skrin** knew where you were by the bones **you disposed of**]. *He's been watching you. We can't know if he would recognize any of these, too. We must leave them, but we can't risk having someone else taking them; they must be destroyed.”*

Seems like some pretty thin reasoning, but it's just possible so I'll let it go. Adie begs Zedd to let her take some bones, but he refuses. I'm not sure what authority he has over her – oh, wait; he's a Man and she's only a Woman. That's it. \~/

Adie says that the bones were how she was going to reach Pell (which doesn't seem to have worked so far). Zedd promises to help her contact her dead husband's ghost. Adie begs for reassurance for nearly a full page in a magnificent display of empowered feminism \~/ as Zedd simply repeats that he gave his word, he is a wizard of the First Order, etc.

We also learn that, at some point, Zedd used his wizard's rock to call up the ghosts of his dead parents, who told him to stop bothering them. Not kidding.

Anyway, Adie finally agrees with Big Strong Zedd and asks his forgiveness for not instantly agreeing with him. \~/ She thinks several of the bones are missing, to which Zedd replies, *“I know.”* Because it's easy to look at the shattered wreckage of a house that was full of bones and *lined with bones* and immediately tell whether a few specific bones are missing. \~/ If either of these idiots used magic to determine this, we lowly readers certainly aren't informed.

So Zedd and Adie decide to help Richard, since he's *“the only one who can close the veil.”* They ride off on Zedd's horse as fire spontaneously erupts among the bones.

Drinks: 5

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