A great finale to a great series!

This book takes place 8 years after our MCs escaped from the city of Tevanne, and is focused on the war between the MCs and their new “country” (Giva) against the entity that calls itself Tevanne.

I thought that the way they run Giva was super intriguing! The concept of twinning (aka putting scrived plates in multiple people so they can share feelings, thoughts, visions, etc.) is extremely interesting, and seeing a whole society where everyone is twinned was suuuper cool! I also like that twinning, while being a big advantage for Giva (they can easily communicate from far away, which helps in the fight against Tevanne), is also a huge weakness (because if a Givan gets captured, they can unwillingly share a lot of information that should be secret). As a solution to this problem, Givans have “purge sticks” that can irreversibly remove all scrivings from a person, isolating them from those connections forever. This made the story have higher stakes. Additionally, I also enjoyed the concept of “cadences” – many twinned people with similar temperament who had grown so close together that they aligned into a singular identity. Overall, “twinning” was one of the most interesting aspects of this book.

Tevanne as a villain was quite strange, especially since it is an entity, and not really a person. It wants to *turn off the world/reality* as a way to basically purge everyone and restart all over, and it intends to do this by accessing a chamber at the center of the world. Tevanne has Crasedes imprisoned because he has already *called and opened the door into the backstages of reality and passed through it once*, so Tevanne wants to know how he did that. It’s all a bit confusing and not very literal, which makes the MCs' goals in this book a little more unclear and less tangible than in the previous ones.

However, even though things were a little more confusing, it was still clear that the main goal was stopping Tevanne, and, while this book is about a war, the author still managed to include smaller “heists” in this story. Having these smaller “heists” actually made this story easier to understand – we understand that right now they’re trying to save this one country and help their people escape before Tevanne arrives; and now their mission is to break Crasedes free from Tevanne’s territory; etc. I liked these small heists; they kept the story interesting, the pace faster, and they were well integrated into the story, since they all ended up connecting with the main goal (stopping Tevanne).

I enjoyed learning about Clef’s past in this book.

Learning about his old home city, his dead daughter, his wife, and his relationship with his son Crasedes was all very touching.

The ending was quite emotional

– the reveal that Tevanne/Valeria was Clef’s wife and learning what happened to her was very interesting, and I appreciate that Clef tried to make amends. I liked the part where he said “There are people in this world who learned the lessons I never did, the lessons that our son has learned all too late – that you are right. There is no magic fix. That a better world can only be brought by what we give to one another, and nothing more” – that is basically the moral of this story, isn’t it? Clef disappearing with his family at the end was quite sad, but a nice ending for his story, overall.

Sancia sacrificing herself to close the door was very sad! Gregor coming back was nice, though we didn’t see much of him.

What really made me emotional, however, was Berenice’s ending. OH BOYYYYYY that was tragic! 😰😰😰 Berenice had to sever her connection to everyone else, which meant that she could no longer be a part of society. After the war, everyone started using scrived plates to communicate, so Berenice was pretty much isolated from everyone, except from Gregor, who stayed with her in her little house, alone. Except one day Gregor left, too, which like…. I get it, but also, it made me sad, because now Ber was ALONE ALONE!

Seeing society advance without Berenice was honestly quite scary – people stopped speaking out loud or writing things; they now only used telepathic communication. And, one day, they come to Berenice, remind her that she is basically their “mother” (since she helped develop the scrived plates they all use), and then pop into a door and disappear FOREVER???? Knowing damn well Ber can’t go with them????? Leaving her in an empty world, all alone???? BRO WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK????????? 😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨😨 I’m sorry but Berenice’s ending was HORRIFYING!!!!!!! I would rather kms than go through all that shit, dear lord!!!

The ending itself is quite hopeful, since it seems she manages to reunite with Sancia, but idk man….. that doesn’t erase all the years (decades???) of complete isolation Berenice went through! Also, because I never cared much about the romance, the ending wasn’t as impactful as it could’ve been, but I still enjoyed it.

Overall, I think this is a really good series, that is definitely very underrated! I’d love to see this trilogy get more attention; I genuinely think it deserved it!