2020 fantasy, middle volume of its trilogy. Being one of the few
hugely powerful sorcerers means everyone wants to lure you onto their
side.
So the opposition in this book mostly takes the form not of "I
don't like you, I will attack you" but rather "I think you're great,
and here's an interesting puzzle for you". And while Kira is working
on this puzzle, she's not working on that one; and here's a convenient
answer to this one which would keep life easy for the powers that be…
There is less basic worldbuilding this time, and more about the people in
Kira's world-travelling House. For me that made it less enjoyable to
read, but it certainly still had its moments, and on reflection I'm
appreciating the depth of the setting more than I did while reading.
Things happen, but less than did in the first book, since this is
after all a middle volume; the advice people give, and their reactions
to events, seem rather more important than the occasional bit of
world-shaking magic.
Like the first, this is a short book (54,000 words all-up) with a
cliffhanger ending; I think the idea is to lure the reader into paying
three books' worth of cover price for what is really one medium-sized
novel. In spite of that I enjoyed this and will probably read the third.