I think I liked this one less than the first. There was a bit less adventure and more politics, but also the politics were kind of boring for the most part.
Definitely, the storyline I was most invested in was Ulrik's, with Gerhard's a not so close second place. But my interest in Tilly's story dipped hard, to the point where I barely cared when

Reventrant died

. Ursula's development was reasonable but uninteresting, and I basically stopped caring about her at the end. Hopefully getting slapped in the face with reality will have good consequences for the next book.
Speaking of next book, one thing the last chapter ("Triumvirate") definitely did was making me curious. Thank Fortune I already bought Deception.
I unfortunately have to take a few points out for the somewhat abundant orthographical and lexical mistakes. From the top of my head I can remember about five.