read this as part of a buddy read with lilkpuff. it was an easy read and decently enjoyable, but managed to piss me offff a lot. ultimately it felt like 100 pages of teenage indecision and drama could have been better spent on world building and letting the reader get a better grasp on the kingdom, the fading, the way the magic works. i was also under the impression based off the book description that it would be more of a murder mystery than it turned out to be. if it weren't for that damned

stone bar cage

, i may have given this 4/5.