revealed at last! What will not happen in the third blood guard novel

I confess: When a favorite series of books or movies are between installments, I troll the internet looking for clues about what will happen next. A Star Wars fan? Then like me, you were practically moved to tears by the brief glimpse of Han Solo and Chewbacca at the end of the Force Awakens trailer. Or perhaps you also dig Jeff Kinney’s consistently hilarious Wimpy Kid series. Then you’ve known for ages that book 10 is called Old School, and that in it, Greg Heffley has to go without his beloved modern conveniences (such as iPhones, or computers, or—gasp!—blogs on author websites such as this one). Or, as I’m sure you fans of Divergent already know, the fifth and final entry, Detergent, will wash away all the complaints readers had with Allegiant, the trilogy finale. (Okay, I made up that last one.) At any rate, for you clue seekers, several things I can promise will not happen in the third Blood Guard novel:

—There will not be a love story. I know, I know: you dream of Sammy at last expressing his secret crush for Greta, of Jack revealing himself to be smitten with Ronan’s mother, of Agatha declaring that she carries an undying flame for the four Dobermans of the Apocalypse. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to happen. You want love stories? Check the teen section of the bookstore.

—Ronan will not learn to fly. Jack wasn’t lying to him in the first book: the Blood Guard don’t know how to fly. Sadly for Ronan, if he leaps off of a high place—a tall building, say, or one of the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge—he won’t fly. Instead, he will drop like a stone.

—The Four Dobermans of the Apocalypse will not talk. Come on: They’re dogs.

—The Bend Sinister will not perform a song-and-dance number. Rumors that they’ll sing “I’m clinically insane!” to the music of “Singin’ in the Rain” are not true. Not only do they not consider themselves crazy, but they are also completely incapable of carrying a tune. (As you would know if you’d been there for the Blood Guard karaoke night.)

—Greta will not get a tattoo. For one thing, her parents won’t allow it, saying she’s too young. And for another, she’s not really sure what she’d have tattooed. A quotation from a favorite book or writer? A math problem? The image of one of her straight-A report cards?

—It will not all turn out to have “only been a dream!” Have you ever come across that sort of ending to a story you love? You get through all of a novel/trilogy/television show only to discover that the writer(s) didn’t know a way out of the predicaments they’d plotted, so they had the main character wake up and say something to the effect of, “Whew! I’m so glad that wasn’t real, Lassie!” (If you wasted any time watching Lost, you know that there are even worse ways to make a story ultimately pointless.)

—It will not leave any threads unknotted. That is to say, it will tie up all the story threads from books one and two—including some that you think I forgot about, or which you didn’t even notice because they flew past so quickly.

For instance: why did Ms. Hand have all those weapons with her? Before she went after Ronan, did she have another mission? Did it have anything to do with all of the other Bend Sinister agents swarming around the New York area?

I guess you’ll just have to read book three to find out.