is still mourning Susan Delgado, has no interest in the issue. Meanwhile, Gabrielle meets with Justus and Kingson, Farson's nephew, who works as a musician. They give her a dagger coated with a deadly poison with which she is to kill Steven, and instruct her to procure the key to the safe in which Steven placed the Grapefruit. In Gilead, Abel Vannay the Wise, the gunslingers' philosophy teacher, crafts riddles for a competition at the upcoming banquet. Cort looks forward to the challenge, but both are interrupted by Kingson, who seeks to participate in the competition himself. Kingson later switches out Vannay's bag of riddles for his own, but his treachery is secretly witnessed by Cort. At the banquet, Steven presents the three new gunslingers, and presents to his son the guns of Eld, which previously served Steven himself. Roland and Aileen share a dance, and later, a personal conversation outside, but when she kisses him, Roland pulls away, still mourning Susan. Kingson squares off against Cort in a competition of riddles, and appears to win the competition, but Cort accuses him of substituting Vannay's scrolls with ones that Kingson himself copied from older texts with poorly thought out, incorrect answers. Cort stabs him to death, and finds a signet ring on him, marking him as one of Farson's spies. Roland finds the Grapefruit missing from his father's vault, and then finds it in his mother's chambers. Gazing into it, he sees a reflection of Rhea of the Coos, approaching him from behind with a garrot. He turns and shoots the woman in the chest, but it turns out to be his mother, Gabrielle, holding a belt with Roland's name stitched into it that she was planning to leave him as a gift. Her last words before she expires are "Roland, I...I love thee.." Promotion As with the previous two miniseries, writer Peter David appeared at a midnight signing at Midtown Comics in Times Square, Manhattan to promote the book. Artist Mike Perkins was also present to promote The Stand: Captain Trips, Marvel's comic book adaptation of Stephen King's novel, The Stand. Midtown, along with 80 other U.S. stores participating in the midnight launch, were given an exclusive Midnight Opening Variant of the first issue, which features a gatefold cover. Reception The trade paperback collection of the series made the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List in May