We're almost done with this arc, and what an arc it has been so far. So let's continue, spoilers ahead!
Duchess is re-united with Burn and manages to escape Erlik's prison, but they are too late: all the other Spires Packs have been captured by him. Seeing no other option, the two eudaemons turn to a new faction, the Moonwatchers; an organization of cats led by Vigil. Duchess is determined to get their help in order to take down Erlik and save the Packs, but in order to do so she'll have to partake in their customs and rituals, which aren't all as pleasant as they seem at first.
Yet another strong installment in the series! It doesn't quite hit the same highs as the last one did for me, but it's still pretty damn good nonetheless. We are introduced to a lot of new concepts while older ones are also expanded on more. We get a lot of great character interactions and I was happy to see that we also got some POVs from Step with the imprisoned Packs, so we don't feel totally disconnected from them. I loved the last book, but we didn't get a whole lot of time with the Packs there, it was mostly just Burn and Duchess in the Empire. Here, we get a healthy balance of both, though of course we do spend more time with Duchess as she's the main protagonist.
I had a really great time reading this. There's especially a lot of thought and effort put into the Moonwatcher society. It's also fun to get to spend a lot of time with a society in this world that isn't made up of canines. We've had Sylvia and the ferals before, but other than that the series is still very canine-centric. So I'm glad to see more diverse representation of species here, always fun in xenofictions.
One thing I wasn't as into in this book was the relationship between Burn and Duchess. And they were my favorite element of the last book. Don't get me wrong, I love them and I loved seeing them working out their differences and being together officially here. I'm all for the representation and I do love these characters immensely. That said, their interactions just didn't feel as "genuine" here as in the last book because a lot of the time these two are just disagreeing, to the point it got a bit repetitive for the reader. Duchess will usually be wanting to go along with the Moonwatcher's ideas and rites, but Burn's reaction was 90% of the time just disagreement throughout this book which just got a bit old. Not that the interactions were poorly written, I just didn't get the same vibes of romance between these two I got last book. They do have quite a few cute moments here as well, don't get me wrong, but I just wasn't as into their relationship here as I was last book because their interactions felt a bit repetitive. And I get it, couples argue and have differences of opinion, especially in tense situations like this, but it really did overshadow their other more wholesome interactions a lot.
I also thought that Erlik was a bit underutilized here. He was built up as this huge major threat in the previous one, yet in this book we barely even get to see him until the big climax. I know that he's still working behind the scenes and keeping the Packs captive, but I think it could've worked better if he had a bigger presence here. He is such a cool villain, my favorite of the series so far, so to see him go so underused for most of this book was just a bit of a letdown. But who knows, maybe he'll be a major player once again. Him, and we also still have Abaddon/the Spirit of Dark who is still up to no good behind the scenes.
But overall this was still a very good addition to the series. I truly do hope that things get better for our main crew in the last penultimate book of this arc. There's already been so much suffering, hatred and darkness for these characters. I just want them to be granted a break and some wholesomeness for a while.
Rating: 4/5
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