This story is, in my opinion, a bit of a damp squid.

Now, first, the best thing about the story is the resolution of it. It's a powerful scene, which showcases all the main characters and their roles and which is just lovely to listen to.

The rest of the play, however, was a mess. While it does not surprise me that Vella shows up due to her absence from Truth and Bone, she's used like a Deus ex Machina of the worst kind, as her appearance is not foreshadowed anywhere in the set that I am aware of. Her plan is somewhat convoluted, which is to say that I don't really get it at all. Why keep Jenny and Strax in a prison for what seems to be months? Why give them pebbles that turn out to be somewhat useless? This also leads into the whole plot with Queen Victoria, which seems incredibly out of place and is also incredibly uninteresting. They should have left it out.

Last, but not least is the fact that for some reason Anura wants to destroy the world, working with the Tenebrae. While the extensions to the Silurian Anura myth are logical, the fact that they are only introduced in this story made me genuinely confused on why Anura would ever want to work with the squids.

Note that there is a twist later on which recontextualises Anura in quite a nice way, but still.

Add some clunky dialogue and Franz and Rodrigo, both supremely irritating characters, and you got a mess of a story. Shame that the promise of the Ghost Writers was not delivered upon.