[590]a woman named Jeanne

Ah well, that's the end of that I guess. Unless Reynardine plans on dropping a bombshell it's probably about time to start a new chapter.

Hopefully with a less fiendishly misleading cover page

Annie, what reason is there NOT to tell her? She may be able to help, you know.

So it seems Jones is not a fan of wild speculation...

It's been hinted Annie feels a personal responsibility to help Jeanne, so just maybe she wants a good grasp of the situation before she would risk someone taking the whole thing off her hands.

On a more practical level, it's likely the Court would be more interested in the underground chamber itself than Jeanne's ghost. If they were to cart everything off, it would mean Kat couldn't be study the robots, and the robots might not be able to visit the portrait, which would make them sad.

Annie has the best facial expressions this chapter.

Well, Jeanne's a ghost, so she's dead. So we can nip the thought that Jones is Jeanne in the bud.

As to Jones' face becoming expressive, I think it's more expressive in panel 2.

I still can't get over the "hidden significance" of the Headmaster's last words in [288]!

That, and what strainofthought posted... maybe Jones did something to herself back in the days of Jeanne that she becomes immortal?

Uh... if I keep expanding on that theme, I might have to scoot over to the Wild Spec thread...

Wow that's odd... while I was composing that last response, I totally thought I was in the Wild Spec thread...

Hey, Wild Speculation is just the story discussion that hasn't happened yet. And may never do.

There is a difference between Jeanne's and Jones' appearance: Jeanne's eyes a green. Jones' are black. That said, Annie and Surma seem to be the only people whose eyes have colour.

That she does, even in chapter 19. Nonetheless, it's a very limited number of characters that have eye colour, so the difference between Jones' and Jeanne's eyes could be put down to the art style.

I think Tom's style is to give a character irides in proportion to how important the character is to the story. There is a bit of an eye them to the comic after all.

Jones certainly has shown herself to be a much more sympathetic and intriguing character this chapter. I'm really wondering what's going to happen on Wednesday - we've really seem to hit the denouement today.

Awesome lighting in this strip, too!

Ben

Of course, in light of Annie's past actions, letting the Court take over the Jeanne situation might not entirely be a bad idea. When Annie's tried handling things herself before rather than going to the teachers about them, the results have often been disastrous:

1. Confronted with Shadow2's problem of being unable to cross the bridge on his own, Annie decides to send a robot across the bridge, thereby angering the Woods. We know now that if she'd approached the grown-ups instead, Anja could have used her blinker stone to signal the inhabitants of Gillitie, who could have taken Shadow2 home without so much trouble.

2. Annie mistakenly believes Reynardine in Sivo's body to be a mistreated monster and tries to rescue him herself; she almost gets possessed and thereby killed as a result. If instead she had told the grown-ups about her encounter with him, they could have told her all about Reynardine's deceptiveness and that he was a criminal under arrest rather than an innocent "dragon" being picked on by a bullying knight.

On the other hand, the Guides want Annie to do it, and she does have experience at handling souls who've been stuck on the Earth after dying and were unable to move on to the afterlife. More experience, probably, than anyone else at the court has.

I think Antimony just doesn't want Jones and the faculty in her and Kat's secret clubhouse. Well, it may not be that secret but that's the impression I get. I know that if I had a warehouse full of robots I wouldn't tell just anybody about it.