After the first two volumes, it's safe to say that the cautious reader will be aware that this volume is no less likely to yank the ground out from under them than the second was, but, cruelly, upsettingly, Muir does the worst thing possible: create her most utterly lovable character yet, and make sure it is understood that she is doomed to either die or change utterly as a result of the complex workings of necromancy, God's court politics and a galactic civil war. Life and death, gender and identity, are all grist to the mill in the rearrangement of the skeleton of the series into a newer, more tragic, but also incredibly exciting and suspenseful and often hilariously funny configuration. It does not end with the same crescendo of violence and chaos as the first two did, probably because it's one half of a longer volume, but it definitely leaves you with a whole new strange and awful puzzle and wanting more. All-time great audiobook reader, too.