This was brilliant. Jude is such a great protagonist and I couldn't get the measure of her. She's delightfully conflicted and did things that made me roll my eyes, and cheer her on and mutter profanities under my breath.

Cardan is going to be fun to read more of as well. It was quite clear that Jude had a very skewed vision of him in her mind and his feelings about her seemed clear to me, but I am going to enjoy reading about their relationship, especially given the ending of this one.

I am hoping the world building develops a bit more - there are hints and glimpses into a complex world here but it's only developed in part here where it directly relates to the story - I'd like to see that fleshed out a bit more.

I found the pacing a bit slow at the start, it felt very YA to me as well (which is fine, that's what it is!) but the school scheming gave way to proper court politics which I preferred. Jude's journey to spy extraordinaré was a *bit* quick but there's no special snowflake trope here to put me off (thank god!)