Onto book two we go. Spoilers ahead!
Now having joined up with Arcanum, Raven discovers her heritage as she comes to realize she truly is Duke re-incarnated, renaming herself Duchess. She learns more and more about Arcanum, its leader Alex, her powers and her past self along the way. This includes some horrifying plans Alex is making for his enemies. In the background, new mysterious beings known as flesh-stealers are also rearing their heads.
Overall yet another really solid installment into the series. I like how we really dive into Raven/Duchess' mental conflict as she comes to realize who she is. Part of her doesn't want to believe the horrible stories about her past self, but there's other parts she knows to be true due to her visions. It also doesn't help that Alex is pretty much grooming her to become a Duke -lone from the first moment she arrives in Arcanum.
The introduction of the flesh-stealers is something new and also terrifying. I can't wait to see what is being done with the concept in future books! We are also introduced to several other elements here, such as Ducchess' powers (lightning), drug use (both the white berries, which were used pretty much exclusively medicinally before, and a type of snake venom) and the disease Alex's goons are cooking up to use for biological warfare.
We also get another brief glimpse at Prophet/Flare, and I'm glad to see that she does seem to be doing slightly better than before in arc one. She's still not her old self and after all the trauma she had to endure I doubt she ever will be again, but it's nice to see her at least be doing somewhat better, even using her old name at one point.
It all comes together in a really intense climax where Duchess once more comes to face with her father Step, who is now very dead-set on killing her. And she's also kinda dead-set on killing him as well at this point. So it results in a very intense battle which may or may not have left Step dead. I personally don't think he's dead yet as characters presumed dead in Dogs of the Spires tend to find a way to come back in one way or another sometimes (e.g. Delta in the last arc, or even in re-incarnated forms such as Duchess), but who knows. And then this epic climax is topped off with a very mysterious epilogue with what I presume to be two actual flesh-stealers talking. Eerie, but cool.
Honestly the only gripe I had for this book is that Duchess' corruption arc was going a bit too fast. Just a bit. In arc one, Step also went through a corruption arc, but keep in mind that he had six books (more if you count the first two in Rebirth) to show how he went down the dark path. Duchess meanwhile went to the dark side really fast in this book. Maybe she's just a bit more gullible (I mean, she is young, and after how Step treated her I don't blame her for believing Arcanum to be good).
But after how Alex acted really suspiciously around her and she keeps dismissing it as "must be my memory loss" that just made her feel a bit too gullible. By the end of the book she does seem to realize that Alex is bad news as well, so I'm glad that she picked up on this eventually, but overall I thought that her transformation from the dog we saw in the last book to the dog we see here went by a little too fast. If it were in book three, maybe it'd have worked a little better. I don't need another six-eight book corruption arc like with Step, it can be done faster and very well, but two books feels a little too fast. Ah, well, I think at least part of it also has to do with Duchess being a re-incarnation of Duke and maybe some side effects of the drugs she consumed throughout the book.
Overall a great installment and I look forward to book three in this arc!
Rating: 5/5
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