#l.doc

I am a fussy fucking reader. All my friends know this. I'm a pedant about plot holes, and a monster about characterisation, and I've written, both academically and for fun, for more decades than I care to disclose on a semi-public webbed site — all of which combine to make me someone who is very prone to not finishing books that bore me, and very prone to picking them apart and saying "well that doesn't make sense, look at XYZ here in chapter four, it's a complete contradiction to the established facts of this world."

The most common (by some margin) complaint that I've seen in reviews for The Second Death of Locke is that Grey and Kier not telling one another about their feelings sooner "doesn't make sense". And leaving aside the fact that I think these reviewers vastly underestimate the human capacity to convince ourselves that something is all in our minds, it does make perfect narrative sense. If you're paying attention to all the things the book is telling you.

Firstly: social context. This is a world where mages are viewed as superior to their wells in basically every respect; where wells are considered to be little more than a power source that requires control and direction. We see this in the very first scene, and it's repeated constantly throughout the book. Grey herself says at one point that her power is nothing without Kier, that "It takes you to make it into something."

Please do not just take my word for this: enjoy some instructive examples from the text regarding the general treatment of Hands.

And from Grey's own perspective:

In addition to this, Idistran society strongly discourages romantic and/or sexual relationships between a mage and their well:

Now, maybe that's only a sentiment that has only sprung up in the wake of Locke's disappearance, or maybe it was always a part of Idistran belief. Either way, the point remains that it's a sentiment that's been hammered into both Grey and Kier since they were children (note the publication date on the interstitial; 4 years PD means Grey was about 12 years old). Which means this is probably not a society where you're going to feel particularly forthcoming about confessing your feelings to your childhood crush, not when one of you is a magic user and the other is a power source and you've been paired exclusively to one another since you were teenagers.

Secondly: character context. Grey and Kier meet as young children, under the least ideal circumstances imaginable, and one of the first things he learns about her is how very, very deep her power runs.

They grow up discovering the extent of her power together, in the society which dictates her worth via that power. From her perspective, Kier may have become her best friend, but he is also a mage, and therefore capable of appreciating exactly how much she's worth to him as a source of magic. And, lest anyone forget, this was a child who was been brought up to distrust the motivation of outsiders, whose entire family was killed because some politicians wanted to control their power. Anyone in that scenario is going to be keeping their feelings very, very close to their chest, for a very long time.

Additionally, we're told (by Grey) that Kier is a tactile and affectionate person; that he always has been. One of their very first interactions is via physical touch, and critically, features an exchange of power:

Their friendship, and their relationship as mage and Hand, is saturated with physical contact:

So yes, Kier may have always been affectionate towards her, but he's also always known that Grey is more powerful — and therefore more valuable — than anyone else. On top of this, their lives are saturated with danger and the ever-present threat of death:

The war they've spent a decade fighting in is a war that arose because of her and her power, and each day they don't die is another day in which her secret might be revealed. In a world that expressly values wells as batteries, the most likely conclusion that Grey could draw (which she does explicitly, at times) is that part of Kier's affection and devotion is due to the power with which she can supply him, and the rest is the sheer relief at not having been killed. Once again, not contexts in which most of us would feel inclined to disclose secret romantic feelings.

Thirdly: character history. The binding scene — a ritual which we have already seen much earlier in the text, which reads very much like marriage vows; I'll come back to this — comes after Kier has exhausted Grey's power, after she's almost been killed (not to mention had her power violated; you do not need me to explain the symbolism here). After she's nearly had her identity revealed while trying to protect him, in the war that wouldn't exist if not for her. And, critically, they bind to one another at her request, after he has explicitly told her that he wants her to go home, to leave him, that she'd be better off without him.

Is it such a stretch that she would believe he does it from a sense of duty and protection, and for the enormous source of power that is Locke, rather than for love? After all, when he asked her to be his Hand, he pointed out all the pragmatism in it. He expressly linked it to her power:

As for why Kier doesn't tell her of his feelings: he does. Constantly. He's been telling her since they were children, including in the passage above. It's just that Grey draws the wrong conclusion, and then keeps drawing it — or, as he put it, "you never kissed back". This isn't even extrapolation, it's literally right there in black and white, on the page. This is a man who swore his entire life, his ability to perform magic, to her:

They've basically exchanged wedding vows, and still, she doesn't kiss him back. Doesn't return his physical affection, which is so clearly the language he uses to express love. What else should he think, other than that her devotion doesn't run as deep as his, or that he's alone in his feelings and should just make the best of it; should accept their pairing as mage and Hand, and her friendship, and forget about anything else they might be as best as he can?