The third and final book in the Scholomance series opens with El back on earth, incapacitated by grief over the loss in the graduation hall. It takes her a long time to pull herself back together, and she might never have done it except some of her old school allies call for her aid: more and more enclaves are being attacked by a mysterious enemy and maw-mouths are clawing at the gates of other. I struggled with the pacing of this book; there were several times I found myself thinking certain plot element had been revealed in the wrong order, and would have had a bigger emotional impact if arranged differently. This book also introduced a ton of new characters, as well as tons of new settings; this is a big ask from the last book in a series that has already introduced a pretty wide cast in the previous volumes. Also, the very clearly established rules of the magic system, which I loved in books 1 and 2, felt like they were getting broken over and over! I'm glad I read this book because I wanted to know how the series ended, but unfortunately I just didn't love it as much as I wanted to, and that makes me much less likely to rec this series to other readers in the future.