As usual, I post a Q&A and more questions come in! So, I’m doing another one. If any more show up, I’ll do a final next week. Same caveats as before: please don’t read if you haven’t read both parts of Ignite the Fire as there will be spoilers.
Question 1: So, the objects back in Dante’s were fed with godly energy or magic? Or a combination or both? At first, I thought it was magic, so I had this super weird thought that maybe she could go get some energy from the magic leakage in Hong Kong, but then they specified godly energy and I got confused.
Godly energy is magic, just their version of it. The little fey creature was designed to feed a god with the meal he liked best. It was selectively bred to be able to generate a lot of godly energy and to shed it easily (see Q&A #72).
When Pritkin grabbed it in Romania, the little guy didn’t fight him because it wanted to get out of that castle and he was taking it out. So, he was doing what it wanted. But once they were back in Vegas, it tried to run away, only to find Pritkin and Mircea opposing that. And they turned out to be harder to shake that it had expected. So, it dumped a bunch of godly power all over the suite so that the suite’s furnishings would fight them while it escaped. And, since it was godly energy fueling them, they were still doing that days later when Cassie returned.
Question 2: Considering the appearance of the gods is by the time Cassie is 24, does that mean that the previous future was around the same time and there could be another young Roger around? Or was it originally farther in the future?
Well, to answer this question we have to answer another: what happened in the original timeline, the no-Cassie timeline?
We see part of that in Hunt the Moon, pieces of which take place before Cassie’s birth. The Spartoi, the sons of Ares, came to the Pythian Court to kill Artemis. But originally, there was no Cassie to help her, and no Roger, either. He didn’t make his move until the gods came back and they hadn’t done that yet. So, Artemis stood alone.
Did she survive nonetheless? Probably not. She barely did it with Cassie and Roger’s help; she almost certainly did not get away without it. But even if she did, the Spartoi likely just found her again later, or she died of hunger, as she couldn’t go back to the Pythian Court with her enemies knowing to look for her there. And being excommunicated cut her off from her only source of food.
Either way, she died and the gods returned, because without Artemis’s soul, her protection spell around Earth failed. The gods quickly killed off the magical community, except for a garbage man who fled into the desert. So, Roger spent a good deal of the time that Cassie would have been growing up, had she existed in that timeline, seeing his world burn and then running for his life. He then spent more time in the Badlands with his pet ghost, trying to avoid the gods in one of the few places where even they weren’t looking for anyone. And after that, at about the same time that Cassie would have reached adulthood and been Pythia, he finally met up with some other magical refugees and started conspiring with them. They eventually managed to dig up some old spells, of the kind that frequently made time travelers explode, and pooled their energy for one, final Hail Mary, sending him into the past.
Once in the Stuart Age, Roger was apprehended by Agnes, dragged to the Pythian Court, and thrown into time jail, where he met Artemis. This was pre-Spartoi, so she was alive and well and acting as Agnes’s heir. She and Roger figured out that they had something in common, namely wanting to avoid having the gods return, and teamed up. They formed a plan, and Roger went to rip off the Dark Circle for the energy to make it happen.
Artemis stayed behind because the court’s power was the only thing keeping her alive, and because there was nothing she could do to help him anyway. Of course, that meant that the Spartoi showed up, right on cue. But this time, there was something new. This time, there was a crazy blonde demigoddess who appeared out of nowhere and assisted her in getting away. This time, there was Cassie, who hadn’t been born yet, but who would be because Roger and Artemis had teamed up.
So, that’s a very long-winded way of saying that, no, there’s no younger version of Roger wandering around. The Crucible rewrote everything, grafting itself to the old timeline and erasing the former world.
Question 3: Is Elena also considered a demigoddess, given that her species was technically also part of the experiments from the gods? Or would she be the kind of experiment that the vampires and weres are?
Elena was an experiment at creating super soldiers, but a different one from the previous attempts, which had proven to have too many weaknesses and to be far too rebellious. She was a new creation, a prototype for the ultimate army that the gods had been trying to come up with for a while, and the most powerful one yet. But she escaped before they could duplicate her and has been causing trouble ever since.
Question 4: Is Jotunheim a separate realm (like hell, faerie, earth) or is it part of faeire?
It’s a separate realm. More on this in later books, but if you read Norse mythology, it mentions nine realms and Jontunheim is one of them.
Question 5: When Cassie gave energy to the dead demigods inside Aeslinn, did they end up going back to him? Or did he lose them? And was Nimue part of them? I got confused at that part, because Nimue lived without her godly part for a while, while the others apparently didn’t.
He got some of their gifts back under control, and lost others. But no, Nimue wasn’t among them. She lost a lot of power in that last fight, and was ultimately living on borrowed time thereafter, but she got away with her soul intact. Aeslinn received no gifts from her.
Question 6: Was Caedmon in the last war conference when Cassie attacked Gabriella? If so, what was his reaction? For some reason, I always imagine him smiling with excitement as soon as there’s a fight, but then again, he could be normal and be freaked out or mad at the possibility of a spy….
No, Caedmon isn’t there for most of the war council’s conferences, as they are mostly meetings of the six vampire senates (the new World Senate) to which he doesn’t belong. He’s only there when there’s about to be an invasion where his help is needed, as was the case with Issengeir. At the moment, he’s busy besieging Aeslinn’s remaining capitol with an army.
Question 7: What happened to Pritkin and Mircea?
They are off on their errands for Faerie.
Thanks for your questions, guys! Hope it was helpful. :-)
Thanks, I read both the Q&As and they were both helpful! My questions were pretty consistent with the ones other people asked.
Howdy! Well obviously Marco and the family know about Zeus being back with the whole battle scene and all, but I was wondering, did Cassie give the Vamps back their memories that she took when Marco was prying into Cassies mind for info about her scars and bruises?
Cassie doesn’t know how to do that, and even if she did, a lot of that info was very personal. So, no.
If I hadn’t read this and the previous Q & A I would have gone on believing that Rhea was was still Pythia. I would have thought there were other reasons why Cassie may have retained abilities like shifting so thanks for clearing that up.
Yeah, I didn’t think to remind everyone what an heir does for her Pythia. But it was mentioned in previous books that if a Pythia becomes unable to fulfill the office for any reason, the heir will take over until she found/recovered/what have you. Or in this case, resurrected by a pissed-off fey deity.
I need to know… are Pritkin and Mircea alive? And will Cassie see them again? The way it was left at the end of book 12 is scaring me a bit.
They are on their own journeys currently, and you will see them again soon.
Hi Karen, I’ve been reading your books for many years and just wanted to tell you how much I love the world and characters you have created. I’ve reread them many times and always catch something new. The Cassie Palmer series is honestly my favorite book series and I’m impressed by how real and fleshed out your characters are. John Pritkin may be my favorite fictional character I’ve ever come across. Losing myself in your books has helped keep me sane in this crazy world so thank you :) I was curious if in the future we might get more Pritkin pov short stories etc? I understand you might not be able to answer that though. Thanks for reading my ramblings and have a lovely day :)
Thanks, Nicole! I’m glad that you’re enjoying the series. Yes, I do have a Pritkin novella planned, but can’t release it until after the next Cassie book, as it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. But you will get it then. :-)
You just made my day :) 😀 Ty!
Hi Karen, love this series, thank you so much for bringing it into our lives! I know Cassies been pretty busy focusing on the war but I was wondering why during the battle in farie and the preparing for it, there wasn’t a plan to also find Toni with Cassie’s parents in the trap too. Isn’t that pretty important given that if it’s destroyed the barrier between the gods drops?
They’re working on it. But until recently, Cassie’s side in the war was spending more time reacting to things the other side did than in taking the initiative. They didn’t have a choice, as the timeline difference between Faerie and Earth was unfavorable, resulting in them literally having a fraction of the time that Aeslinn did to execute plans. That has evened out now, and as soon as it did, they went on the attack and captured one of Aeslinn’s major cities, but Tony wasn’t there. At the moment, they have to do three things at once: protect Earth, attack Aeslinn’s remaining capitol, and find Tony. But Aeslinn has kept them busy with the first two, forcing them to hope no one figures out how important that little paperweight is until they can find and retrieve it.
Hi karen.im so in love with your series. I’ve read it like a hundred times but never get bored of it.i just want to know when hijack the seas is coming out.im seeing things like it was published,2022 but I can’t find it anywhere.let me know please.love you!!
Hey, thanks! Hijack was supposed to be out this past year, but although I managed to get two books out, it wasn’t one of them. My dad has had heart problems all year and I don’t write too fast when stressed, and I’ve been very stressed. However, I am making progress now and plan to announce a new Dory book this month, which will likely be out in February. Another Dory is right behind that, sometime this spring. And then HtS! I am hoping for summer for that one, but we’ll see. Honestly, a lot depends on how my dad does. He’s having surgery Monday, so please send up a little prayer if you believe in such things and have the time.
Hi Karen, there are no words that can describe what your books mean to me but I can say thank you for writing them. I particularly enjoy reading the story from multiple vantage points.
I hope things go well for your father and wish you and your loved one health and happiness.
Please do not stop writing until you have told your story in all its beautiful aspects.
Thank you. Dad is back in the hospital after a brief home stay and things are unfortunately not looking well. But he’s a fighter, so I haven’t lost hope. I am seeing him tomorrow, in fact.