Chapter 10
TL;DR: Jeff and Roy reach Camelot's stone gatehouse at dawn to warn the corridor; Roy refuses to accept Jeff's "they shouldn't target fortified settlements" optimism and checks scorch marks himself; a distant roar and a dragon-shadow over the treeline snap everyone into motion, and Roy forces Jeff to log every change he made before they sprint back onto the corridor.
Spoilers through Chapter 10.
Chapter in one sentence
The chapter where Roy stops being Jeff's partner and becomes Jeff's auditor.
What happens
Jeff arrives at Camelot's outer gates clutching his overstuffed macro library and insisting the dragons "shouldn't target fortified settlements." Roy, operating on "don't trust, never verify," refuses to accept Jeff's assurances and visibly checks for scorch marks, panicked villagers, and livestock sign to gauge where the herdlike dragons might next drift. The gate guards bristle at the word "dragon," cross-spears lowered beneath a rattling portcullis, while Jeff tries to smooth-talk them with confident jargon and promises of "predictable behavioral loops."
A low, distant roar and a dark moving smear of shadow over the treeline snap everyone into motion. Roy sets quick perimeter edits — auditory lures and altitude caps — while ordering the gates shut and the hay-carts cleared. The pair stage a controlled near-miss, letting the dragons wheel past the walls rather than over them, leaving scorched heather beyond the moat and a rain of ash on Camelot's banners. With the corridor briefly stabilized, Roy forces Jeff to log every change he made and agree to stop denying the scope of the problem before they sprint back down the hedgerowed road for the next sighting.
Key moments
- Roy kneeling roadside to smell char and pointing out a heat pattern Jeff's behavior script failed to anticipate. The first time in the book that Jeff's macros are visibly out-classed by direct observation.
- Jeff's "predictable behavioral loops" pitched to the gate guards. A small comic moment that lands as harder than it looks — Jeff is still selling the dragons as a managed project after the project has been visibly out of management for chapters.
- Roy ordering the gates shut. The first time anyone in the book operates Camelot like a real settlement rather than a story-set.
Character shifts
Roy stops being a polite junior on the team and becomes the auditor the book has been quietly setting him up to be. Jeff stays in denial — politely, sincerely, exhaustingly — and the book lets the gap between his framing and Roy's reading run all the way to the end of the chapter. The Camelot guards become real characters for a chapter, which has not been true of Camelot in the series before.
Why it matters
The chapter does the structural work of demonstrating what supervision looks like before the council debate over Jeff in chapter twenty-four. Roy's "don't trust, never verify" is not a slogan; it's how he runs a fieldwork chapter. By the time the council meets to discuss banishing Jeff, the reader has already watched Roy do the actual labor of working alongside Jeff, and that work is visibly grading Jeff against the same standard book one used to grade Jimmy.
Themes to notice
- Direct observation versus theoretical assurance — Roy kneels in the char, Jeff explains the macro.
- Camelot as a real settlement with guards who can be panicked, hay-carts that can block roads, banners that can be ashed. The series has previously used Camelot as a stage; book four uses it as a place.
- The slow grading of Jeff against the Jimmy precedent, conducted in fieldwork rather than at a council table.
Book club questions
- Roy's "don't trust, never verify" lands as funny. It is also the book's most useful operational maxim. Pick another moment in the chapter where Roy's policy produces a better outcome than Jeff's, and argue why.
- Jeff is sincere. Jeff is also wrong about almost everything in this chapter. The book finds a way to make both facts simultaneously true. How?
- The Camelot guards are bystanders here. The book gives them a couple of named-but-unnamed lines. Would the chapter be stronger with a named guard, or is the anonymity the right register?
Visual memory hook
Cold-grey overcast, blue-white breath in the chill air, dull iron and wet stone. Red-and-gold pennants singed at the fringes. Iron portcullis chains greasy with damp. A dragon-wing shadow sliding across pale masonry. Jeff's overstuffed satchel against his chest; Roy's halt-traffic hand raised.
What's next
Back in Leadchurch, Tyler is going to meet a dragon, name her Kelly, and refuse to destroy her.