Book Review: House of Sky and Breath

Title: House of Sky and Breath
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Romantasy, Magic

What It’s About: Sofie Renast cuts through the gates of the Kavalla labor camp, and runs across the gully with the 12 children that includes her brother, whom she had gone to get with Ophion’s help. She had told them that she has some information that she would only give Ophion—the name of the rebel group—once she got her brother. They race across the gully to the waiting van where Agent Silverbow is waiting for them. They get the kids in the van, and they ride towards the closest port, and get the children onboard. Unfortunately, they are followed by the dread wolves who protect the labor camp, and Sofie tells them all to run to the boat; she will follow. Silverbow had told her that the Hind is making her way towards the camp, and Sofie has no doubts that the Hind knows that she has a lot of information that could be hurtful to the Asteri and the Vanir. She runs into a courtyard, breaks the fountain, which spills water out and when the dread wolves making up the personal guard of the Hind show up, Sofie unleashes her magic—she is a thunderbird, one of the last few in existence, though her brother has more power than her. Her grandmother had married a human and stayed hidden, while the rest of the Thunderbirds were hunted out of existence. Sofie even did a shady back-door Drop; her payment, being her first light. Sofie runs out after the ship, but then she notices that there are submersibles coming after the ship. Pippa, the one of the leaders from Ophion that had accepted this mission, is waiting on her boat, when she sees the submersibles coming after the other boat. Then she and her men watch as one by one the submersibles powers peter out—courtesy of Sofie’s brother. Their powers allows them to shut down electricity and even first lights, cut power to things. Sofie watches as the boats get away, and is captured by the Hind, who tells her that she will let her see her brother one last time if she tells her who she shared the information with. Sofie tells her twice that she hasn’t shared it with anyone, and the Hind has her sunk into the ocean so that she won’t tell anyone about it.

Bryce is with her mom and dad at the ballet to watch Juniper’s performance. Ember talks to Bryce asking her questions about her job—Bryce currently works in the Fae Archives, and argues that she doesn’t see her biological father anywhere and that she can’t ask Jesiba for another job before it into begging territory—and then about Hunt and their relationship. Bryce had told Hunt in the past that they will be friends and take things slow, until the Winter Solstice, to get to know each other before they jump into a relationship. So they’ve been torturing each other with words and looks these last three months. The three of them go up to their seats, and Hunt joins them just before the performance starts, making sure to cover up Bryce’s star between her breasts when it starts to shine. Fury is in the crowd, and when someone makes a joke about Bryce’s light, she shuts them up. After the performance, Hunt and Bryce change and go to meet their friends at Ruhn’s house—there is a party. Fury, Juniper and Bryce talk about relationship matters, and when Bryce will finally have sex with Hunt, with the two making fun of Bryce. Bryce separately talks to Hunt about how she doesn’t feel like she should be having too much fun, and Hunt explains that he’s not bothered by it; that sometimes after so much loss, the best thing you can do is to have fun to remember to live. Hunt thinks about the fact that they’ve been told to lie low by Rigelus, and internally notes that he wants this normalcy because that would be what Rigelus has asked for. At some point, he gets a message from Isaiah in which the Commander of the 33rd reveals that they have been given new Archangels—Celestina is the new governor of the Crescent City, and she is nice, but she had been in charge of a very small territory, which gives the impression that she might be there as a puppet of the Asteri.

Ruhn is having some sexy time with a faun, when he is interrupted by Tristian Flynn, who tells him that Declan Emmett’s new technology has detected someone circling the house. He tells Ruhn to bring his sword and come down. Ruhn stumbles down through the stairs, and sees a black portal—Hunt has a gun ready, and Bryce is shiny, as they both step up alongside Ruhn and Flynn to the portal. At first they think that they will have more demons on hand, but suddenly a fae male steps through and Ruhn recognizes that the portal is made of very familiar shadows, realizing that his night just took a turn for the worse. Ruhn asks Cormac—his cousin of the Avallen fae—to explain why he was there, to which Cormac tells him that he was invited, and then drops the bomb that he is now bethrothed to Bryce as their father had made a marriage agreement with his father. Bryce laughs it off and tells him to get the hell out, and after that, the party is over with Fury threatening anyone and everyone that if any of this leaks, she will personally come after them. Bryce and Hunt head back to their apartment, only to find Ithan Holstrom leaking blood in their house. Bryce searches for the first aid kid, and gets her parents to change their trip out of the city to the following morning. They take of Ithan and find out that he had been kicked out of the Den by Sabine and out of his wolf pack for defending Bryce and her actions in protecting the city, while Sabine had trashed her. That night, Bryce has Ithan sleep in her bedroom, in case Hunt does anything against him for how Ithan had treated him.

Tharion has been asked by the River Queen to go fetch Sofie Renast from the bottom of the sea, where she was dropped by the Hind, and finds the chains and the lead blocks, but does not find Sofie, which gives him hope that she might be alive. He also finds clues that Emile Renast, Sofie’s brother, might be here based on information provided by Danika Fendyr to Sofie over two years ago about a safe space in the Crescent City. He does check the marshes, and finds that Ophion is chasing someone into the marshes, which may or may not be Emile. As a result, he goes to talk to Hunt and Bryce about this, and at Bryce’s insistence, he leaves the information with them because Bryce wants to look into it more.

Bryce goes to work, and Cormac visits her there to “check in” on her, while Ruhn argues with the Autumn King about this marriage agreement. The Autumn King waves it off and tells Ruhn that she is not sleeping with Hunt, as his spies do not detect his scent on her, so it’s all fine, before telling Ruhn to shut up and just deal with it. Ember, Bryce’s mom, calls her about this marriage agreement, and Bryce shuts it all down, telling her mother—in front of Hunt and Ithan—that she has gone through a lot of shit, which she has not shared with her mother, and that she needs to trust that she’s got it handled. Bryce even meets with Fury and asks her about the information on Danika and whether she truly was a bloodhound, being able to figure out who sired whom and how people were related, to which Fury said it was true, and that she had something on Danika just as secretive as well.

Hunt has to deal with Braxion and Pollux—two of Sandriel’s triarii who were horrible bastards. He gives Braxion a tour of the place, and is confused by the guy’s approach and demeanor to things. The next morning he’s called into Celestina’s office along with Isaiah and Natalie, all because the two newbies had gotten into a brawl outside of a bar, where Pollux claims that a woman had wanted to have sex with him, even when she’d clearly stated no, because that is what all women do, and Braxion had fought with him to let her go. As a result of this, the Asteri are displeased, and they have told Celestina that she is to be married to Ephiram soon, so that they will produce a child. Celestina asks to talk to Hunt afterwards and reveals to him that she had been friends with Shahar and had tried to buy him from Sandriel multiple times, but each time the Asteri had shot her down. She is deeply sorry and tells him that she will be happy to help him in anyway. She also adds that Bryce will have to attend the wedding celebration with Cormac, and asks if he is fine with this.

Tharion returns to the apartment at 12 as discussed, and Bryce returns with Ruhn in tow, for this, only to find a cat in the place. When Ithan hears it speak, he jumps out, and Bryce is not happy with the cat. Hunt arrives just in time to hear that the cat is there, who turns out to be no one other than Aidas, the Prince of Chaos. He tells Bryce that she needs to learn how to use her powers, and reveals that this fight that Ophion is fighting is actually a war that has been fought for over 1500 years. He reveals to Ruhn and Bryce that the first Starborn Fae was the Princess Theia, whose daughter Helene was married off to Prince Pelias, and that he had stolen the Starsword from Theia after killing her. They say that they don’t know any information about how to reach Ophion to provide help, but he tells them that it’s not true, and points to someone behind them, calling the person Agent Silverbow. They turn around and find Cormac, while the cat disappears. Cormac explains how he became an agent of Ophion, and that he has been trying to look for a way to get close to Bryce because of her connection to Danika, which is the only reason that he’s accepted the betrothal so that they can talk, but he is in love with Sofie. Bryce agrees to help him to find Emile, as long as he then ends their betrothal, and Cormac agrees with that. He also asks Ruhn to find him at this bar to talk about the offer that he has for Ruhn, and he mentions that he would reveal Ruhn’s ability to mind-speak to his father.

Ruhn goes home and speaks with Declan and Tristian about it, and then he meets with Cormac in the bar, where Cormac reveals that he wouldn’t have said a word to his father about Ruhn’s ability. He explains what he needs from Ruhn, and hands him this clear crystal, a communication crystal that Ruhn can use to connect with Agent Daybright. Ruhn later does this, and the woman on the other end calls him Agent Night. She doesn’t give much information to him, but they do make contact, and she says that she likes this method of communication more. He relays this to Cormac, who in turn tells him that he will just have to wait until she communicates to him, or he has something to communicate to her through Ruhn. He also promises Ruhn that whenever he wants, he will get him out.

Bryce in the interim heads back out with Hunt, and they almost have sex in the alleyway, where she admits that she doesn’t want to wait until Winter Solstice. He reminds her that she will have to keep the ruse up about her betrothal to Cormac, so they do nothing. She returns back home because she realized she forgot her ID and finds Ithan doing exercises with Danika’s sword. He causes the coffee table to break and they find paperwork that Danika had left on her research into the Asteri. When Bryce leaves, she tells him that the sword looks good on him. That night, she returns to her place and she gives Hunt a blow job, which causes Ithan to yell across the house in annoyance that they should do it louder, because he didn’t hear it the first time.

That night, Hunt dreams of one of the Princes of Hel, Apollion who tells him that he hasn’t used the depth of his power. It makes him worry, because he worries about Bryce. Eventually, Bryce and Hunt agree to calling each other mates—for the Fae it means something different than for the Angels. Bryce and Ruhn get attacked by a Reaper, barely escaping the attack thanks to Cormac, and Bryce uses the Starsword, killing a Reaper. Ruhn in the meantime gets contacted by Agent Day who tells him to wake up. When they get out, Bryce calls Jesiba to ask for the coins needed to get to the Bone Quarter, Jesiba tells her that Danika had been looking around in the library. This causes Bryce to ask Declan to go through video footage of the Reaper attack and of Danika in the library, and they enlist the help of Ithan. At one point, Bryce, Hunt, Juniper and Fury go to the Meat Market to try to find Emile in case he is there, and Hunt finds out that Juniper does not like coming to the Meat Market because her brother was one of the fighters in the pits for the Viper Queen, and the family did everything they could but weren’t able to get him out; his body was dropped off in front of their house when he died.

In search of Emile and answers regarding the Reapers, Hunt and Bryce go to the Bone Quarter, where they are stopped by the Under-King, who reveals to them that souls of the dead do indeed come to the Quarter, but after a while they are turned into food for the Reapers, and into something called Secondlight—where they are pushed through to the Gate in the Bone Quarter, and the remaining magic their souls have turns into energy that feeds the light. A fight breaks out because the Under-King sets his hound on them, which actually turns into three hounds. Bryce gets to the Gate, where she is being herded, and Hunt manages to make it back to her in time after fighting off two hounds. He shoots lighting, and Bryce jumps in front of it, utilizing the Starsword to channel the lighting in. Hunt then realizes that he can try to siphon off the energy from the gates and see what that does, which they do and Bryce uses the Starsword to channel it and kill some of the Reapers. They are saved by Tharion, who had seen the lighting during his conversation with the River Queen updating her about the whereabouts of Emile Renast.

In the meantime, Ruhn, Ithan and Cormac go to meet up with the Ophion agent in the city, as Ruhn had received some intel from Agent Day about the shipment and the prototype machines. Cormac manages to get the information to the agent, but then the three are cornered by Mordoc, who is Danika’s father, and also a bloodhound. Cormac is only able to get them out one at a time, and Mordoc smells Ruhn, telling him that he won’t forget the smell, before Ruhn slips away from him. Throughout all of this time Tharion has been working with Ithan as well, asking him to smell the bodies that Ophion seems to be leaving behind—after Emile had already talked to those people, it seems. He also continues keeping the River Queen informed of everything, but is punished with cleaning up the river banks because he had invited the River Queen’s daughter on a date above the water. They are no further to finding any information on Emile than they have been the whole time.

Hunt is called into the Comitium because of Ephraim, and meets the Hind, and the Harpy in the meeting with Ephraim. He promises Celestina that he won’t leave her when she needs him. Bryce is at home with Ruhn, Ithan, Tharion and Ruhn’s friends, when Sabine blasts into the apartment and throws her across the room, threatening her for taking Ithan in. Bryce texts Hunt, and Hunt comes to her with Baxian in tow because he had seen that Hunt was dealing with something personal, and so gave Isaiah the slip. Celestina had been very disappointed with Hunt. As a result, when he is called into her office a day later, she tells him that as punishment he is required to move into the Comitium for two weeks. Hunt knows that he could just quit—he is a free citizen now, but he wouldn’t know what to do with him, so he agrees to it, though he would always choose his mate over his job, no matter what. Hunt ends up showing Baxian how to play video games in the Comitium, after one lunch when Baxian joins Hunt and Isaiah to eat.

Bryce, Ithan and Tharion go to visit a mystic, which Bryce thinks is a bad idea, but Ithan wants to go because he wants to know what happened to his brother. They visit the Astronomer, who has three tanks of liquid with a male figure, female figure, and part male-part female figure. The Astronomer pushes buttons and the mystics go out to search; one of them goes down into one of the circles of Hel, where the prince tells them very little and then decides to eat the mystics. Ithan rushes over and pulls out the male and then the female out of their tanks because they looked like they were going to drown. The Astronomer is pissed, and sends them off, but as they are leaving, they come across Mordoc, who wonders just what they were doing and why they were getting into trouble that early in the morning. The three walk away and ignore Mordoc. Ithan later goes back to check in on everything, and learns that the female was a wolf, sold by her family when her powers manifested at age four. He’s more upset to learn that she is an alpha female, and offers to help her if she needs it—she refuses to leave at the moment. So he takes the fire sprites that the Astronomer had kept enslaved in his rings, and tells her that if he is interested in getting them back, he should visit the Prime—what he doesn’t say is that the Astronomer will now have to explain to the Prime (who is responsible for all wolves) why he has a wolf in his possession.

The team finds out that Declan combed the footage of Danika in the antiquities, where they find that she had looked up some information on a title regarding the wolves. Bryce calls Jesiba, who then sends her the book via messenger, and they find out that she was looking at the family line—back beyond the grandfather of the Prime. Bryce goes to find out more from the Prime, and he tells her that while their names were removed from books, there is oral history that teaches about what they did—that they had been wilder in the past, but because they had given themselves over to the inhibition of their wolves during the wars, they became less of themselves and more tame. Danika would have been the one who would have returned them to their former glory.

The group finds out that the prototype suit was delivered about two hours out of the Crescent City, so Bryce goes to speak to Celestina, who tells her to get Hunt out of the Comitium because he’s been an utter misery and has been bringing down morale; she can take him home the next morning, for good.

Cormac portals Hunt, Bryce, Tharion and Ruhn to the Ydra base, where they meet with the Ophion rebels, including Pippa and her Lightfall Squadron. Hunt takes a look at the prototype suits, and realizes that they are using gorsion stone, but re-engineered in a way to draw on the firstlight in the ground so that they will never be without power and can continue to kill people and Vanir alike. The group decides to destroy the suits, and the nearby arms, before escaping in a boat. They manage to escape while being followed by Ophion, but Hunt recognizes the Helhound—Baxian—and soon enough, the Hind, and the Harpy join in the chase, destroying the ships from Ophion. The Hind corners them in a cove, and Hunt becomes hyperfixated on doing anything and everything that he can to protect Bryce, even at the cost of killing Ruhn, Tharion and Cormac. The Hind talks to them, dropping a white cube, and then suddenly they find a ship that comes up and saves them, while the Hind heads back to the boat with the Harpy and the others. They all get onboard the submarine, which goes back under shortly after, and while the Omega submarines of the Asteri follow them, they find a cove to hide in—basically the ship becomes a camouflage. Cormac is taken for surgery to get the gorsion bullet out of him, and Hunt is so focused in a primal rage, that Ruhn tells Bryce mentally that they are true mates—in every sense of the word. The two of them end up having sex in the quiet forest inside the ship, and during it, they are teleported out to one of the hatches which is confusing to them both. Bryce explains to Cormac when he wakes up from surgery and no one can figure out what the deal is and how that happened. One of the officers comes in and tells him that he was calling for Sofie Renast, but they unfortunately arrived too late to save her. Cormac stays with her body to say his goodbyes after they all come to see him and talk with him. In the meantime, Declan and Flynn destroy the rings with the fire sprites, and while three of them are fire sprites, the fourth one is a dragon—Ariadne.

They are returned to the Crescent City, and when they are hanging out at Bryce’s home, Baxian barges in and claims that he is part of the rebellion. Bryce plays it off as if they were there to stop the Ophion rebels, and Baxian tells them to find him when they finally get serious, before running off. Hunt has realized by now that Bryce knows something about Emile Renast, and she finally comes clean, taking him to the Viper Queen, where Emile is. They talk and Hunt tells Emile that it’s okay to be different, but that they may try to utilize him, and Bryce reveals that she guessed that Emile did not have any magic. Emile confirms that it was Sofie that took down the four Omegas chasing them, and he knew right away that he had to run from Pippa when she started questioning him. Hunt is in shock, and Bryce reveals that he has always been Vanir so he wouldn’t know this, but in order for Vanir to be even remotely interested in rescuing a human, they have to think that he’s important enough; that he’s Vanir. So Sofie made it seem like Emile had more power than her so that Ophion could find him. She takes Emile out of the Viper Queen’s hands, as part of an agreement that she now owes the Viper Queen a favor, and walks him to a car where Fury is awaiting. She tells Emile that he’s going to be safe, but that he will have to give up his identity—a new one is being made for him, and then she welcomes him into her family. Hunt has realized by this point that Bryce was the only one out of all of them thinking of him as the boy, as a person, while everyone else has been thinking of him as a powerful weapon.

Hunt visits the Comitium, and the Hind pretends that she has no idea what he’s talking about in terms of the visit the previous day. She only tells him that he should see what the Harpy has done in front of the Gates, so he goes and sees that the Harpy had gotten her hands on Ophion rebels from the Lightfall squadron and basically displayed them with skin and lungs pulled out to look like wings. He realizes that while Celestina might be nice, she also allowed this to happen. Hunt asks to meet with Tharion, who had finished giving his queen an update, and the River Queen is pissed that her sister has a city in a floating boat, that she was not aware of. Tharion meets with Hunt and they go to the Marshes, where Hunt tells him in no uncertain terms that Emile is safe and that he needs to stop searching for him because the boy does not have a lick of power, and besides he won’t tell him where he is. Tharion realizes it’s a lost cause, and only worries about how he will try to tell this information to his queen, before he decides to milk the situation for as long as possible without telling her so that he can be in the Above.

Bryce is at work when her father corners her and tells her that since she has used her royal title, she is now the princess of the fae, and has officially changed all of legal documents to reflect her royal name. He tells her that she is to continue to marry Cormac for as long as he says despite being mated to Hunt Athalar. Bryce doesn’t like it and decides to talk to Hypaxia about it. While they are walking together, with Ithan following behind them as Hypaxia’s bodyguard, they get attacked by Deathstalkers. Bryce asks Hypaxia to charge her up with energy, and she teleports around, grabbing Ithan’s gun, then kills one of the Deathstalkers, before the ladies corral the other one and Hypaxia kills it with a knife. The 33rd arrives, and Hunt is protective of her. They talk in Ruhn’s apartment, and Hunt finds out about Bryce being the princess officially by accident thanks to Ruhn, who mentions it to Hunt, and eventually, they create a plan. Ruhn meets with Agent Day and finds out that she will be coming to the Ball that he will be attending, so they make a plan to meet at the fountain.

The day of the Ball—which is when Celestina’s and Ephraim’s mating ceremony happens—Bryce pulls Hunt ahead of the line of well-wishers. She had entered with Cormac, who was walking towards her father, when she pushed him away towards the Archangels, and then introduces Hunt as her mate, making it official that they are together, and breaking the engagement off with Cormac in a public manner, enough that her father either has to agree with them or look like a fool. Cormac takes off shortly thereafter, and Ruhn tries to meet with Day only to find out that the Harpy is waiting for him at the fountain. He runs away before the Hind comes and joins her. Hunt and Bryce want to have sex and find themselves in a coat closet with Celestina and Hypaxia, who are lovers. They all agree not to say anything at all.

As the ball takes place on the Autumnal Equinox, Hypaxia and Ithan go into a field to try to connect with Connor. They unfortunately find the Under-King, who wards the field and tells them that for now Connor and the pack of Devils are okay, but that they have a task to do. Then he gives them instructions, and they disappear. As Bryce sleeps, she meets with Apollion, the Star-Eater and Prince of the Pits, who tells her that Theia was Aidas’s lover, and asks her about her powers. He doesn’t like that she hasn’t discovered the extent of her power and tells her to come find him when she’s ready to learn the truth.

The group trains at the Aux training facility with Cormac’s methods for Bryce. Ithan and Hypaxia join them and they deliver the message from the Under-King, that Bryce, Hunt, Ruhn, and Hypaxia have to meet at the Urd Temple in an hour. They all go, and soon enough find out that Pippa Spetsos and her Lightfall squadron had made a deal with the Under-King so that they could ambush the group for what they had done in Ydra. Bryce teleports and calls for help, before getting Ruhn out. Unfortunately, she gets back to Hunt feeling spent, and there is a fight between the Lightfall squadron and the Hind, The Harpy, and Mordoc. Somehow, they manage to evade capture, and find Baxian who had found a secret entrance into the Temple that is invisible. While they are walking through the halls, Bryce has had enough of the secrets and trains her guns on Baxian.

He reveals that he has been Danika’s mate—they had met at an event that the Prime had sent Danika to, and she had approached him about his family line. Over time, it became apparent that she was looking into the Asteri and the different lines, which Baxian had helped her with. He was the one that told Danika about the number above the door, which is the same number that Sofie had cut into her shoulder while dying. He reveals that he’s changed because of Danika and he noticed how Sandriel had gone into that room, coming out very much white faced. But getting into the archives will be difficult to find out what the Asteri know. They do try, asking Declan, but all he is able to do is find Sofie in the cameras, because the security system is not as great. They see her enter two months before her entry into Kavalla, and come out also looking white faced. Bryce decides that they have to go and find out the secret Sofie has found for themselves.

Ithan in the interim goes to visit the Prime with Hypaxia, and Sabine answers for the Prime at first about the wolf in the tank at the Astronomer’s. But once Sabine leaves, the Prime comes out to Ithan, and tells him that if the wolf smells a particular way, she is the lost Fendyr heir. Ithan realizes that she may be the one in contention against Sabine. He decides that he needs to guard her and watch her if Sabine knows anything about this wolf potentially being the challenger to her throne. Tharion decides to break things off with the River Queen’s daughter, and then when she goes down in to the river, bubbling out of anger, he runs straight to the Viper Queen and defects to her. He can feel the chains of the Viper Queen around him after all has been said and done.

Ruhn contacts Day, and they have sex on the bridge, but she doesn’t reveal herself to him, though she has known by now that his name is Ruhn. He tells her what they will be doing, and she tells him to not even think about it, but before she can warn him further, she is woken up by her partner in bed and seems fearful. This gives Ruhn the idea that she is being held in the dungeons under the crystal palace. And he communicates this with his group. They come up with a plan—Cormac has found out that Pippa is trying to get into a facility/ Lab where they make the mech suits, to get her hands on them and the scientists. But it’s not supposed to happen for a while, so they decide to speed up the timeline to the next day. Hunt goes back to the Comitium, picks up his bag and takes all of the weapons along with his Umbra Mortis helmet.

Bryce, Ruhn, and Hunt wait outside of the Palace, for Cormac, who had gone with Tharion in car to the lab. Cormac gets them in to the palace, with the information that Fury had given them, and then Bryce uses her charged teleportation to get into the room that Sofie was in, and then she checks out a different room in the library archives. She finds out that the Asteris have traveled different worlds, decimating them and sometimes killing them, or even having to be kicked out of them by their inhabitants when they realized what the Asteri were up to. It turns out that they feed off of firstlight—with huge quartz stones that feed that energy directly into the thrones that the Asteri sit on. Rigelus speaks to her and tells her the truth—that all of the shifters are fae from a different race and planet than her, but that is how it was in the beginning; the Asteri had just bred them to look less fae. He tells her that they want to use her to open up the gates back to this one particular planet so that they can get more of these beings over—Theia had shut the Northern and Southern Rifts all those centuries ago, and they weren’t able to get any more of them over. He makes it sound like the Asteri feeding off of the beings is not as bad, comparing it to eating food. She heads back to Hunt, but by then it’s too late—he is in Gorsian shackles. Ruhn had taken off to find day, only to also find himself in Gorsian shackles, captured by Mordoc. They bring the three together, and the Harpy starts postulating that she will do things to them, but then the Hind comes in and kills her, freeing the three up. She tells them that she was the one that has the calling beacons for the ships in the ocean and that is how they were saved; that unfortunately, they had arrived too late for Sofie even though she had thrown the calling beacon. Ruhn is confused as to what to do and how to feel. Unfortunately, Pollux is not too far behind her, so the Hind tells them that they will have to make this look believable, and Bryce attacks them. The Hind slips her a key and whispers something into her ear, before Pollux drags them back and gets them back into the shackles.

They get taken in front of the Asteri—who is Rigelus only as the other Asteri are dealing with the mess Cormac had made at the Lab. Cormac had gotten into a shootout with Pippa, sending Tharion away, and then he blew himself up, using his own fire magic, and then blew everything and everyone up that was in the lab, destroying all of it. Rigelus tells them about it; that it’s unfortunate—they had known about Cormac being an Ophion rebel for a while, and had hoped that he would lead them to other Vanir with the same sympathies. Baxian and Mordoc join them to watch, with Baxian being still. Rigelus does explain more about how he set them up—including becoming Aidas, and providing them information; because he couldn’t just arrest them without cause to get Bryce to open up the portals. So he had to find cause, and now he has it. Bryce tells him that she will do it, but only if he lets Ruhn and Hunt go. She then uses her Starborn power light, blinding Rigelus, and having freed Hunt while hugging her good bye and telling her that he will find her, he is able to use his lighting to slow down Rigelus. Ruhn gives her his Starsword, and both men tell her to run. Hunt charges her up with magic, and Bryce opens up the portal, but Rigelus is too close behind her, so she uses her magic to teleport around, before making it through the Portal, which closes behind her, infuriating Rigelus. Rigelus has Pollux hold Hunt’s face when Rigelus puts the Black Crown back onto Hunt, cutting Hunt off from his magic powers. He goes dark.

Bryce falls, and she finds herself on grass, looking at a beautiful city—that looks like something Panera could be. A man with wings finds her, but they are unable to talk to each other. Instead he asks her to put a blindfold, takes her sword from her, and then flies her someplace. When she sees again, she is in a house that looks like her father’s study, or Jesiba’s style in the gallery. People come in, and it becomes clear that they are all speaking in a different language than Bryce is. The man who had picked her up, pulls out a knife that matches Bryce’s sword, like two pieces of a whole. So Bryce tries using old fae, a language that she learned outside of her own one, and one of the women replies back. She watches as a man that looks so much like Ruhn comes in, followed by woman with tattoos—clearly they have an air of authority. The woman who speaks Old Fae talks to them, and then the tattooed lady replies back to them, so the woman asks Bryce her name. Bryce responds in Old Fae with her name, only for the Ruhn-look-alike to respond and tell her that his name is Rhysand.

Ithan is watching the Astronomer’s place, when he hears Amelie howling in the streets. He gets a call from Flynn telling him to come home to see what has happened, because he cannot even explain what they watched on the comms for the Palace—Bryce looked fine before she disappeared. He decides to go in and get the Alpha wolf out of the tank, telling her to please wake up, which she does.

My Thoughts: Holy moly! What an adventure! I am so heartbroken though because I don’t know what it means for Hunt and Bryce—will Hunt remember Bryce? Will he get his full power back? Or is he now going to be working at an even smaller capacity of power than he was during his first binding? My goodness, I’m so worried for both of them, and I want to know that they’ll be okay.

At the same time, I am happy that Bryce has found herself in Rhysand’s company—those are good people from ACOTAR, and I’m curious about what she will learn while she is there. Hopefully they can lead her to the right group of people and the right spaces so that she can come back to Hunt and save her friends. I’m not really a fan of Ruhn and Lidia, but that is also an interesting side story, me thinks, though I’m less invested in the two of them than I am in Hunt and Bryce.

I guess I have to go read the third one now to find out what exactly is going on with them.