Calculated Risks

Official cover

**Calculated Risks** is the tenth novel in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire. It features Sarah Zellaby.

## Synopsis

Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn't get worse, she's had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize. While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control.

Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny.

Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is--including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship--and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with?

And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they've forgotten her, safely home?

## Plot

*TW: Arachnophobia beginning in ch. 13.*

**Prologue**: Nineteen years ago, Angela takes Sarah to visit her cousins in Oregon for the first time. She'd already met Verity, Alex, and Antimony when Angela found her, but this is the first time she's meeting Elsie and Artie.

**Chapter 1**: Sarah wakes up in another dimension, tied to a chair, with her companions Annie, Artie, James, and Mark having no memory of her and treating her with suspicion. The first half of the chapter is a recap of the series so far, especially the previous book.

**Chapter 2**: Sarah asks them to have the Aeslin mice verify her identity. While the humans are discussing this, Mark tells Sarah about his reason for helping them (his sister Cici), and reveals the Kairos genocide (which involved killing Fran's parents).

**Chapter 3**: The Aeslin mice with them verify Sarah's identity as a member of the family. After Mark confirms that Sarah didn't mess with their minds, Annie unties her.

**Chapter 4-5:** The others constantly argue with Sarah over simple matters of trust as they figure out their situation. Antimony reverts to her most violent, suspicious self around Sarah while Artie withdraws and tries process his patchwork of memories.

**Chapter 6:** The girls and guys split up to find the other survivors. They also encounter zombie-like husks of cuckoos whose minds were fully wiped by Sarah's interdimensional math.

**Chapter 7:** Sarah and Annie fight off the zombie cuckoos. Sarah compels a giant flying millipede to help by eating some of them.

**Chapter 8:** They rejoin the boys in a library classroom and have more arguments around their missing memories and distrust of Sarah.

**Chapter 9:** Artie retreats to a different room and Sarah follows him. Artie shares how confused and broken he feels trying to piece together his life, his actions, with Sarah missing from them. She shares a memory of his birthday party, which both consider a turning point in their early relationship.

**Chapter 10:** The group checks back in with the students in the cafeteria. Mark convinces the humans that this whole experience is a really immersive LARP, but the cryptids know better. There are three cuckoo children present as well, who are very suspicious of Mark and Sarah.

**Chapter 11:** They are confronted by a scout group of humanoid creatures riding praying mantises. After a brief fight, the scout group are excited to realize Artie is an incubus. Sarah uses telepathy to bridge the language barrier. When the scout party gets nervous about approaching dusk, Sarah's group agree to be restrained and taken back to the scout party's home base. More husked-out cuckoos arrive, and both groups fight them together.

**Chapter 12:** Sarah makes a quick stop at the school store for proper clothing and snacks. Sarah chats more with the scout party leader, who is anxious to leave before the night-hunters arrive. After some arguing, Sarah's party goes with them, but the scout party is anxious to leave and spur their mantises into the air before Sarah is securely on board. She falls.

**Chapter 13:** She lands on the giant jumping spider that had been attacking the mantises. She telepathically controls it to take her to safety, and then to believe that she is a littermate that needs to be protected. She convinces it to carry her to the humanoid beings' home base, despite its fear of the hunters. Sarah is reunited with her allies.

**Chapter 14:** They learn more about the incubus who came to this dimension several generations ago, along with a sorcerer named Betsy and several cuckoo. Sarah is given the equations they used to leave this dimension.

**Chapter 15:** Sarah and Mark work to modify the equations into something they can use for the entire Iowa State campus. Greg the spider is given prey to feed on.

**Chapter 16:** Sarah continues working on the equations. James asks to pet Greg.

**Chapter 17:** Sarah's group is escorted back to campus to attempt to return them all home. Mark and the others are sent to gather the students as well as the zombie cuckoos (as cannon fodder) to prepare for the ritual.

**Chapter 18:** Sarah uses the zombie cuckoos to fuel the equation. She also takes the maternal memories from the cuckoo children, with their consent, and uses their minds as well. Sarah is injured by a mantis stabbing its foreleg into her gut, but continues working.

**Chapter 19:** Amid the chaos and attacks, Sarah completes the equation to send them home.

**Chapter 20:** Sarah awakens in St. Giles hospital. Her loved ones and Greg all made it back to Earth. The rest of the Price family is gathered and relieved to see she is okay. However, Artie is in a coma, and when Sarah checks him telepathically his mind is a complete blank slate. She uses the memories of all their family members to restore his very being, and adds herself back in as well. He wakes up and embraces her.

## Characters

### Major

Sarah Zellaby: Recently ascended into a cuckoo queen and prevented her own transformation from destroying Earth.Antimony Price: Sarah's cousin, though she's currently forgotten that fact. She becomes more violent to compensate.Artie Harrington: Sarah's cousin and longtime mutual crush; currently can't remember who she is.
* James Smith: A recent Price family adoptee and a sorcerer specializing in ice magic.
* Mark: A cuckoo who fights his own homicidal instincts for the sake of protecting his human younger sister and the planet she lives on.

### Minor

* Dr Morrow
* Angela Baker
* Martin Baker
* Evelyn Price
* Kevin Price
* Elsinore Harrington
* Jane Harrington-Price
* Theodore Harrington
* Drew Baker
* Shelby Tanner
* Alex Price
* Sam Taylor
* Verity Price
* Dominic De Luca
* Laverne the Aeslin mouse
* Greg
* Kenneth
* Morag
* Lupe
* Ava
* Terrence

### Mentioned

* Ingrid
* Frances Healy
* Alice Price-Healy
* Thomas Price
* Betsy, a sorcerer
* The McNally's - Sarah's human parents
* Rose Marshall
* Mary Dunlavy
* Sarah's bio brothers

## Field Guide

* Johrlac
* Lilu
* Aeslin mice
* Cornwife
* Bogeyman
* Chupacabra
* Caladrius
* Unnamed sapient society
* Giant millipede
* Giant mantis
* Giant jumping spider
* Giant weaver spider (mentioned)
* Termite-like "cows" and larvae
* Giant snakes (mentioned)

**Mentioned**

* Fortuna
* Jink
* Werewolf
* Lindworm
* Madhura
* Bogeyman
* Boob Fairy
* Waheela

## Locations

* Iowa State University (transported to another dimension)
* "Giant Bug Dimension"
* St. Giles Hospital, Manhattan, New York City

**Mentioned**

* London, England
* Tempe, Arizona

## Objects

* "Ghost cage," likely Mesmer cage
* Runes

## Continuity

* Sarah believes Fran coined the term "cuckoo"
* Sarah and Artie and Annie attended Emerald City Comic Con together

## Quotes

**Mark:** We're not *magic*. Magic doesn't exist.

**Sarah:** Says the man keeping company with two literal sorcerers.

**Mark:** Sorcery is just physics gone feral. We're psionic. It's not the same thing.

### Epigraphs

**Main Article: Epigraphs**

Includes quotes from Mary Dunlavy, Evelyn Baker, Frances Brown, Enid Healy, Jane Harrington-Price, Angela Baker, Alice Healy, and Jonathan Healy.

## Pop culture

X-Men, Babylon 5, Firestarter, Doctor Who, Pinocchio, Teletubbies, It's a Wonderful Life, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, Good Omens, Lilo and Stitch, Ramona Quimby, A Wrinkle in Time, The Wizard of Oz, Scooby-Doo, Lord of the Rings, George Romero films, Star Wars, The Muppets, The Core, She-Ra, Star Trek reboot films.

## References

1. ↑ The prologue has Sarah first visiting Oregon "19 years ago". Since she was adopted in 1999, the earliest the book can take place is 2018.