You see what I meant on the last page, maybe. Bandit’s gone from having her entire existence dismissed by Kepfer to blithely giving him orders, and that progression was mostly off-panel. This scene represented one last disagreement between me and Flo about how much headwind Bandit would face as an outcast trying to make her way back in. But let’s give the sequence the benefit of the doubt: gnome society is very usefulness-based, and the use of Bandit’s team is obvious in a meeting that takes place to discuss the plans they stole. Jury may still be out on the odd cogs’ place in normal gnomish society, but these times are not normal, and Bandit has more adventuring experience than the rest of the room put together.

Normally I wince a bit when characters obfuscate what they’re going to do, just so it can be a surprise to the reader when it happens. But in this case, the other gnomes  really are better off not knowing what Bandit’s up to. Any or all of them might be captured and interrogated later, especially Reynolds. Can’t reveal what they don’t know.

FB: “T’begin with, I’m NOT EVEN GONNA CLOSE THESE DOORS B’HIND ME!”