It occurs to me that maybe you have been extremely sneaky, Ms Kelpie/Howard, and may have switched these two characters outside of the reader's eye view. It's a hunch, but with the way that Sinderian keeps managing to dig her way out of holes, I just wonder whether there is more to Sinderian than meets the eye. I'm not asking you for an outright answer, Kelpie, or a plot spoiler, but more to prompt other readers into seeing whether we can out-guess you a little.
