QUESTION 1: How did Rosier become aware that he had a living child? He made so many attempts, did he keep tabs, or did he magically know? Also, why did he claim his kid and take him downstairs, as it were, when he did?
Of course he kept tabs; wouldn’t you? There was no reason to try his experiments if he wasn’t going to keep up with them. As for the timing of Pritkin’s going “downstairs”, that came only after he began to demonstrate appreciable amounts of incubus abilities (i.e., after he became sexually active). As Pritkin told Cassie, had he ended up as just another mage, with little to nothing of his father’s magic, then Rosier couldn’t have used him. In that case, he would have had no reason to move him from a place where he fit in, however awkwardly, to one where he never would.
QUESTION 2: When Pritkin made his bet with Cassie in the beginning of Hunt the Moon, he promised her a picnic. What did he include in his picnic that left Cassie still starving hours later? I guess she forgot Mac’s warning to never let Pritkin be in charge of food!
She answers that later in the book–remember the “you feed me tofu but you eat here?” comment at the pizza parlor? That was in reference to the tofu and spinach wraps Pritkin had decided were appropriate picnic fare. Cassie, who had been hoping for fried chicken, was not amused.
QUESTION 3: When the incubus Chavez introduced himself, he explained to Cassie what his name meant, and I was wondering if the names of other incubi in the series have any special meaning? Rosier, Rian, Emrys, etc?
Rosier is the traditional name for the demon of lust in medieval/early modern demonology. Rian is one of those names that can go either way (be used for girls or boys). It seemed something an incubus might choose, because in my universe, they don’t have a fixed sex. Emrys was one of the traditional Celtic names for Merlin.
QUESTION 4: Whatever happened to Chavez after he presumably took off with Dracula’s prison and freed the vampire? He didn’t seem to be around when Dory was dragged before Dracula. And why didn’t he try to interfere again in the final duel between Mircea and Dracula?
Vlad had some of his dark mage friends banish Chavez, knowing that he would try to undermine his objective, which was basically suicide-by-brother.
QUESTION 5: In the beginning of Claimed by Shadows, Cassie was trying to get information about the geis from Casanova, and at one point Casanova was laughing about an inside joke that only an incubus would get. So what was the joke about?
Well, part of the answer you get in the next few paragraphs of that chapter. Casanova thought it very funny that a little girl (that’s what ‘chica’ means) like Cassie was going to try to oppose a geis as powerful as the one that had been laid on her, and by Mircea no less. But he also thought she had a slight chance of success, because the duthracht is treacherous. He thought Mircea’s pride might have led him to bite off more than he could chew this time, because even an incubus would think twice about using something like that.
However, part of the answer lay with the jealousy Casanova evidences from time to time towards Mircea in the books. He thought it would be funny to see handsome, successful, wealthy, powerful Mircea (all things Casanova wished to be, but only one of which he was) brought low by some chit of a girl. It was foreshadowing to the problems Mircea was later going to have because of the geis.
QUESTION 6: How much of the formal training did Pritkin go through with the Corps? What kind of apprentice would he have been? In the short story about Cobb’s End, he seemed to already know everything he needed to work for them. Did he ever go through the Trials? If he did, what did he have to face?
He was “apprenticed” to Jonas, because it was Corp’s policy that you be trained by somebody. And since Jonas’s specialty was demons, it seemed a good fit (and kept the other Corps’ mages from having nervous breakdowns having to deal with him). But yes, he did have to go through the Trials, which put you in an experience in which you have to be willing to die to defend others. And, of course, for someone in Pritkin’s state of mind at the time, that was a cake walk.
QUESTION 7: The Corps seem to have quite a few mages in their ranks who have some mixed-heritage, such as Pritkin, Lia, and David Dryden. So they go through all the training and they don’t get the circle tattoo, are they still considered full members of the Silver Circle? Are they treated any differently at all?
Other people get the Circle tat, just not Pritkin because part demons are not among the usual inductees. In fact, the Circle had never accepted one before, and wouldn’t have then had Jonas not pushed so hard for it. And even then, he was only able to get them to go so far, because nobody trusted demons (who had, after all, powers the Circle didn’t always understand, which was why they needed Pritkin in the first place). So they put up with him, but kept him as far away from the source of their power as possible.
Lia and David, etc., however, were known quantities. The Circle knew what Weres and Selkies could and could not do, so they weren’t really viewed as threats. So, yes, they went through the training and were considered full members of the Circle (you heard about Lia’s training in “Vegas Odds”). But there was still some discrimination there, mostly in her case as the Weres and the Circle had had a rivalry going for some centuries. It didn’t help that she was a woman, and some of the old prejudice against female magic workers left over from the Coven Wars was still in place.
QUESTION 8: Before Mircea broke Rafe’s bond with Tony, why wasn’t anyone concerned about him ever betraying them because Tony could order him to do so, like the way Sal did?
Sal was a low-level master and therefore a lot more susceptible to that sort of thing. Rafe had shown the ability to throw off his master’s hold (recall when he visited Cassie to tell her about Mircea’s ‘illness’, despite instructions not to do so? Or when he called Mircea to tell him about Cassie when she was a child, thereby ignoring Tony’s strict command to do nothing of the kind?) Rafe was at the level where a lot of masters are emancipated, because their Makers start finding them too difficult to control. Plus, he was totally loyal to Cassie, and would have done nothing to hurt her.
QUESTION 9: In the unlikely possibility that Dory and Pritkin ever team up to work together, what kind of team would they make? And how well would they get along with each other? I would imagine that they’d be practically kindred spirits with the similarity in their background: half-breeds not quite fitting in either of their parents’ world, their fathers are sort of “royalty”, they have this love-hate (maybe more hate than love, actually) relationship with their fathers, they made attempts to kill their fathers, grew up shunned by the people around them, and are looked down upon as homicidal maniacs who are experts in hunting “their own kind.” And how deliberate was it for these two have such similar experiences?
People sometimes accuse me of unoriginality—not that I’m saying that’s what you’re doing here, by the way, just that I get it a lot—because I like to use marginal characters, and preferably those with multiple strands in their heritage. I find it more interesting to show how they cope with the various problems that brings up, rather than to focus on someone who is already a comfortable part of the establishment, with little reason to bend the rules.
Having said that, however, Pritkin and Dory’s life experiences have been quite different. Dory has never been to hell and would have no way to function there if she had. Pritkin understands very little of vampire life, especially the exalted circles she occasionally inhabits because of her parentage. They also have very different abilities. Dory has to buy her magic; she can make none of it herself. Pritkin is not only a powerful mage, but has both (limited) fey abilities and demon skills that add to it. Yet Dory has some unplumbed depths you haven’t seen, as well, that make her equally interesting. They are also drawn to very different kinds of people and have very different relationships.
So basically, they have some surface similarities, because that’s the sort of character I like to draw. But the differences are far greater. And I do not know that their abilities are necessarily complimentary–as I said, Dory’s gifts would do her little good in hell—nor that two fiery-tempered people would be the best compliment to each other in the field. But YMMV.