Just got back from Astronomicon 13 (more on that later), so here is a snippet from Rembrandt’s Station, the next Tolari novel, which comes out on January 5, 2023. What follows takes place just an hour or two after the end of Food Fight.

Bertie frowned to himself as he laid in another slight adjustment in their trajectory, then put the shuttle on full manual control for the landing. Even if the Monral insisted the roof had been adequately reinforced long since, Bertie still didn’t trust it. As skids touched stone with barely a whisper or a scrape, two figures in robes of Monralar lavender appeared from the stairwell—their escorts. Bertie knew one of them from the stronghold guards. The other must have rotated in from the city.

He popped the hatch to let the “diplomats” out, surreptitiously waving through the forward ports at the familiar guard. The guard made a gesture intended to look random but meaning, Welcome home.

Welcome home. Yes. He grabbed his frock coat from the co-pilot’s seat and shrugged into it, taking a deep breath of salt sea air as he stepped into the equatorial summer heat, still working the coat’s buttons. The guards led him and Monralar’s guests down to the cool of the stronghold’s main floor and into the audience room, where the Monral stood on a low dais, wearing his authority like a cloak. He was, like all Tolari, dark-skinned and raven-haired, though his eyes were an almost glowing amber rather than the medium to dark brown typical of his people. His height was unremarkable, neither short nor tall, but his powerful build showed even through the robe—loose, in the style of the equatorial provinces, and lavender, the color of Monralar, worn by both its ruling and guard castes. The Monral’s robe uniquely bore bright white embroidery from collar to waist, in curvilinear patterns that apparently told the story of Monralar’s founding.

Someday, Bertie thought, he would learn to read it.

Bertie, as well as I can represent him in Guild Wars 2.

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