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Nightingale's early life.

  • In the first two books Nightingale implies that he joined the Metropolitan Police immediately after his graduation and was active during the Yellow Peril scare of the late 19th and very early 20thC, when Molly was first brought to the Folly (Molly wears The Edwardian Era full length maid's uniform too, which is even earlier than Nightingale should be expected to have started serving if he was born in 1900 and presumably attended University after his schooling) as the result of a botched operation to foil a note Fu Manchu-esque "white slaver". Yet in books three and four he implies he was a Gentleman Adventurer "out in the Empire" before being called-up in WW2 and Ettersberg. How can these two versions be reconciled?
    • Due to his great magical abilities, he spent two decades being shuffled around the Empire (the 20s and 30s), sent to wherever magical trouble spots were, even if that was London.
    • Possibly he was listed on paper as being with the police, simply because "state-sponsored troubleshooting wizard" wasn't an acceptable thing to include in a government file. He was a "policeman" in the same sense that many spies are "diplomatic attaches". After his colleagues were killed and he had to remain at the Folly to protect its contents, he took up his nominal profession for real.
    • The Yellow Peril incident wasn't something Nightingale himself was involved in, it's something he'd heard about from his boss when he first joined the Folly's law enforcement branch.
    • In Book Four, Peter says that prior to Ettersberg, the Folly was less closely associated with the Met than it is now and was more a social club for British wizards who served King and Empire however they chose. Some did research, some taught, others were cops. But being a unique specialist officer as he was (and a powerful one at that), it's not that much of a stretch for him to be both a cop and to be sent off to the far reaches of the Empire where needed.

Tyburn's other family.

  • In Book Two we learn that Tyburn is married and she has two kids. Since we've previously been told that the Thames daughters (and presumably sons) are the result of someone dying in the Thames and being reborn, along with being practically immortal as long as their river is intact (the previous—male—Tyburn apparently was suffocated in the Great Stink according to book three) will Tyburn outlive her children and husband? Or are the kids, one of whom can peg Peter as a wizard straight off the bat but doesn't ring any of Peter's bells as being otherwise supernatural, some sort of Half-Human Hybrid spirit? What would happen to any children of her children? Come to that, when did Tyburn die and be reborn, at what stage in her life if she attended subsequently Oxford University and is she physically ageing?
    • Foxglove Summer seems to have reconciled this. A spiritless or "dead" river can be induced to acquire a new spirit by any event that takes place on, in, or above it that releases sufficiently-intense emotional energies. In the post-Stink lower Thames's case, it was a suicide; in the old Roman-era Thames's, it was a human sacrifice to consecrate a new bridge. One of the Rivers having sex with a mortal in the water can also help stimulate a newborn spirit's emergence, which is probably how Mama Thames and her daughters produced their River offspring with their husbands.
    • The Hanging Tree further reveals that Tyburn's daughter lacks any apparent supernatural powers of her own, and her husband is reported to be a normal human. Although she expects to outlive both of them, Tyburn has let herself age in sync with her husband, and she and her sisters — at least, the one whose rivers existed pre-Great Stink — are implied to have been spontaneously generated from the lingering energies of Father Thames' deceased sons, manifesting in a new form and with new personalities under Mama Thames' influence.
    • Note that Tyburn could've just told her son about Peter and shown him his photo at some point, rather than him pegging Grant as a wizard by supernatural means. Peter'd annoyed Tyburn enough in Book One that it'd make sense for her to warn her family and underlings that he might come by to pester her in future.
    • What the series has been hinting at since it started introducing other 'Fae' characters, and that Peter briefly muses on directly at a few points, is that there's different extents to someone can be non-human. This ranges from the Rivers, who are basically gods without a capital 'G', to people like Zach, who is part human but has some kind of inherent magical nature (see Lesley talk about it in Broken Homes), to people like Isis, Oberon and Melissa from book 5 who used to be human or seem human but are also partly something else. It's probable that Tyburn's children inherited some magical traits, like the ability to smell magic (thus explaining the scene in Book Two mentioned above), but not the immortality and mutability that come with being a true Genius Loci.

The Ending of Foxglove Summer.

  • So, why exactly does Beverly say that Peter doesn't have the right to use himself as a bargaining chip, and is that not just going to encourage the Faeries to ride straight back to our world at the next moon and try to claim the kids back? We've seen time and again in this series that making oaths and bargains is Serious Business, that ending is going to cause problems surely?
    • Possibly it's because, as an apprentice, Peter is already bound to Nightingale's service. If the Faerie Queen wants to press her claim upon either him or the girls, she's likely to have to talk to Peter's boss.
    • My reading of what Beverley meant was that Peter was not free to make a deal with the Queen because he 'belongs' to Bev. And one does not mess with the boyfriend of a shotgun-toting goddess of a small river in South London. But on the point about the faeries — the story left it hanging on what the point was of the changeling plot, or what was to prevent them simply coming back?
    • Events of "The Fey And The Furious" reveal that the Queen believes that Peter still rightfully belongs to her. So Bev's claim that Peter didn't have the right to offer himself is really just Beverly's opinion: by faerie custom, it carries no weight, and Bev basically nicked the Queen's rightful property at gunpoint. Presumably the Queen is more interested in getting back at Peter and Bev than in re-claiming the children, as she doesn't consider Peter's trading of himself for them to be void.

How does Molly answer the telephone?

  • In "Broken Homes" it is mentioned that Molly answers the telephone at the Folly, but how!? Molly is mute or refuses to speak, so how can she answer the telephone? Even if she just takes it off the hook when it rings, wouldn't it sound like they have just been cut off to the caller? The Folly's switchboard is a pre-1940s version so it is unlikely to have a hold system.
    • She may use a bell or other audible device to signal to the party on line that somebody's there. Pretty much anyone who has the Folly's number is probably in-the-know that if there's no actual voice when they call, they need to wait for Molly to fetch someone.
    • Peter makes an offhand comment in Foxglove Summer that you can tell when Molly picks up the phone due to the "creepy ominous silence" on the other end. So obviously it picks up enough ambient noise to tell the difference between a dead line and no one speaking. And as above, if you hear that, you just assume it's Molly and either leave a message or tell her what you need.

Take Your Time, Peter

  • In the first book, after Leslie gets possessed by Punch, Peter decides to just go to his parents' flat, have a lie-in, eat some chicken and peanut stew, etc. Probably sensible to get some sleep, but it's weird how he doesn't explicitly address that it's fine because other people are handling the situation better than he could or anything. He just... goes home. Leslie is still running around all possessed and stuff!
    • Peter is still new to the whole supernatural at this point, his mentor has been shot, he's been pretty much fired at that point, has nobody really to turn to for advice, plus he is pretty exhausted at that point. He needs to rest and think and try to work out what to do, he hasn't really got anywhere else to go.
    • He's also pretty much in shock at the time, as he's simultaneously been betrayed by and failed to save his best friend. The only man who could actually talk him through his dilemma is laid up in the critical ward. He can't get into the Folly, and if he goes back to his previous station house, he'll probably get sacked officially. What else is he supposed to do, hang around Dr. Walid's office? Crashing at his parents' flat lets him pull himself together, physically and emotionally.

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