WMG / Rivers of London

There is an Anthropomorphic Personification of London and it is Nightingale

Peter often wonders if London as a whole can have a spirit, and what it would be like, but he misses that Nightingale and himself both know the city inside out and practically feel its rhythms. That is the reason Nightingale is getting younger as The Magic Comes Back. At the end of the series Peter will take over that role. He practically lays claim to the position in his speech to Tyburn in the first book.

• Issue #2 of "Black Mould" gives extra credence to the theory that it is Peter. Literally his worst fear, even worse than his mother and father splitting up, is him having to leave London forever. That is not a natural level of attachment to a city.

Book Six will be a Tyburn centred book

It is provisionally titled "The Hanging Tree", an old name for the Tyburn Gallows, and the other books have all hinted at an upcoming showdown between fan favourite Tyburn and The Folly (as well as with Mama Thames herself. Tyburn also has big plans for kicking over The Masquerade (which, admittedly, is increasingly ropey and thin), so this will be when it all kicks off.

• Alternately, it'll be another one where the Faceless Man turns up, as he seems to be making an appearance every other book.
• Confirmed that Tyburn and the Faceless Man both feature prominently; jossed that she makes her move to kick over the Masquerade, although it's getting still closer to collapsing without her help.

The Faceless Man is as old as Nightingale, and also ages backwards.

Broken Homes established that Nightingale's situation isn't unique, so there's no reason to assume the Big Bad can't be subject to the same effect. Rather than "the magician" from the 1960s training up an apprentice who's causing trouble in the 2010s, they're both the same man — another Casterbrook graduate, and a close colleague of Geoffrey Wheatcroft's — who'd dropped out of circulation when he'd gotten too old to keep up the pace as a criminal, only to resume his former crimes now that he's young again. His chimeras are the product of twisted magical techniques he'd looted from Ettersberg, at which he faked being "killed in action" so he'd be free to steal secrets from the Nazi wizards: terrible, powerful secrets he knew the other British wizards would insist on destroying.

This explains why he refers to someone named "Jeffers" during the rooftop confrontation in Moon Over Soho — it's Wheatcroft's old school nickname, which an apprentice of his probably wouldn't use — and why he recognized Alexander Smith from Larry the Lark's "debut", an event that a man agile enough to be jumping off exploding tower blocks likely wouldn't have been old enough to witness if he aged normally.

• Jossed. There have been two Faceless Men. The current one is a younger successor to the original.

Lea is the oldest River to appear in the series.

Father and Mother Thames evidently only have children of their own sex and ethnicity, yet Lea is a white woman. Unless handing over the role of river-spirit to a new god/goddess causes the tributaries' spirits to change sex, while retaining their previous racial appearance, Lea can't be a leftover from Father Thames's pre-Great Stink incumbency. The most logical conclusion is that a female Thames-spirit of native British ancestry pre-dated Claudius Tiberius Verica, and Lea is her daughter who has vastly outlived her pre-Roman mum.

• While neither strictly jossed or confirmed at this point, if the general idea is right, she has some competition in the form of Miss Tefeidiad, who in Foxglove Summer implies that she is older than Father Thames.
• Glossup Brook, from Amongst Our Weapons, may or may not be in the running for oldest, as her current incarnation only became active 40 years ago. She does, however, possess memories of having previously been manifest when steppe bison still roamed Great Britain.

Molly can speak, she just refrains from doing so.

Peter's seen that her teeth and tongue aren't human-like, so her vocal cords may also be unusual in their structure. Molly's voice may simply sound strange enough that she avoids using it in order to "pass" as more normal, same as she covers her mouth while eating or snickering.

• Some evidence for this does show up in Foxglove Summer. The Faerie Queen, implied to be the same type of fae as Molly can talk, but only does so when in fairyland so the situation remains ambiguous.
• In Body Work, Molly makes "Vroom vroom" sounds while sitting in the Bentley with Toby. There's nothing unusual about her Speech Bubbles that would imply her voice is unusual ... but then, there's nothing unusual about the Bubbles for Toby's barking, either.

The strengthening of magic is connected to Nightingale and the Night Witch's Merlin Sickness

It's stated that magic has been coming back in strength since the late '60s. This is exactly when the Night Witch began to age backwards, and shortly before Nightingale began to do so in the '70s. Coincidence? I think not!

• That Word of God implies that Nightingale and the Night Witch actually began to age backwards on the same day further strengthens this.
  • And the day it happened was the last ever Beatles official concert. Ben is a huge Beatles fan.
  • August Bank Holiday 1966 was the first ever Notting Hill Carnival, and probably the weekend that an unnamed Nigerian nurse had her apotheosis.
    • The former might be relevant, but the latter is Jossed by one of the Moments: Nightingale gets a visit on that very date from his Herefordshire beekeeper colleague, who'd already been hearing rumors about a new Thames goddess.
      • That 'moment' is just dated '1966', and Nightingale muses about getting himself 'a new model' Jaguar. In the UK new model cars are almost always 'released' in September and October. So the Thames getting a new goddess is very likely to be the cause.

The next Story Arc will be about...

• The High Fae, the Faerie Queen, and their home reality's interactions with Earth, thus making Foxglove Summer an Innocuously Important Episode. And it could give some answers about Molly.

Peter's inability to draw is magical

• There's a mention of Taoist tradition of magic which involves writing/drawing.

The original narrator of "Foxes For Christmas" was Oswald Nightingale, who is Thomas Nightingale's cousin, once or twice removed.

• Oswald and (some or all of) the foxes may have been colleagues in the Special Operations Executive. The version of the story Indigo relates to Abigail could have been Oswald riffing on the existing story of Violet Night, which then got passed down largely intact due to Oswald's gift for creating memorable literature for covert operatives; or could be largely improvised just based on a couple of details, similar to his story about teenaged mutated heroic turtles in Renaissance Florence.

Mr. Punch is to blame for the events of False Value.

• Brandon Coopertown, Punch's first sequestration victim, visited Los Angeles for three days before returning home to commit another two homicides. During that time, he could've crossed paths with the already-unhinged Anthony Lane and fomented the man's brewing ASU paranoia via the 'splash' effect Punch has on the frustrated. A few years later, when Peter releases Punch to foil Chorley's schemes, a mental ripple-effect strikes everyone on Earth whom the spirit of riot and rebellion had previously touched upon, causing the mentally-fragile Lane to lose it entirely and go postal on a tech start-up.

The pub Zach offered to take Lesley for a date in Broken Homes was the Goat and Crocodile.

It's described as a fae-friendly establishment that's not so welcoming to wizards or the Thames clan, which is consistent with Lulu's attitudes. Given the Faceless Man's later interest in the place, it's plausible that Lesley asked to go there specifically to case the location. Granted, it's not "up west" from Skygarden as Zach tells it ... but since when has Zach Palmer stated the location of anything accurately, the first time he's asked about it?

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