First Chapter,
Previous ChapterSerpentine: Chapter Thirteen
In Which Melanie's Ego Literally Fills The Room
I have mixed feelings about this chapter. On the one hand, it feels like three pages of filler which is an improvement over the former ten page filler chapter. On the other, we actually get some plot movement even if that movement is backwards.
Basically, Melanie dislikes her working hours being interrupted but what she sees as an insulting generalization made by Micah. Micah, whom she refers to by his surname of Callahan. It's an interesting difference to note as Anita is still Anita and Nathaniel is Nathaniel. Still, she's pissed that Micah assumes she would know about a curse from Ancient Greece because she is from Ancient Greece. It's a logical assumption to me, and I can't think of why Melanie would be upset over it other than LKH's need for pointless confrontation.
Melanie explains how gods don't use lingering curses on family lines, and Anita throws another insult at her by questioning the veracity of her gods. Melanie lifts herself on her tail in her offense and explains how she was worshiped as a god. Reading between the lines, Melanie is all but confessing to having cursed people to death. Anita, being a dumbass, doesn't realize this and instead further insults the woman she came to for help by informing her bodyguards that neither silver nor lead bullets will work on the Lamia.
Because that is how you perform a consultation. You brainstorm ways to kill your informant right in from of them.
Nathaniel contributes nothing to the questioning that necessitated him seeing the pictures. He just pets Melanie and helps calm her down after Anita makes her death threats. Rightly, Melanie asserts that she does not feel indebted to Anita for killing her Earthmover - since Anita did it to save her own life and Melanie's was just happenstance.
Micah admits to being at fault, then we get the infamous What Does That Mean along with an immortal creature not understanding metaphors:
“No, no, I'm laughing at myself for wasting both our times and grasping at straws.”
“Grasping at straws - what does that mean?” (p.114)
Take a drink!
Chapter ends with Ser Jamie doing his job like the motherfucking master of Zen he is and shuffling his Queen's questioners out so the next group of paying customers can come in and fawn over her scaled beauty.