Not quite as good as the first one, this is still an entertaining read. It's split into several different narratives - Sophia's off on her own following up the trail of her vanished parents in Spain. Theo's doing badly at political intrigue back in Boston, and the diary of Minna Tims recounts her attempted rescue of a friend. Following three different strands does make this a tiny bit unfocused, but all the strands were interesting, and I always thought the strand I was reading at the time was the most interesting of the three, so that was clever.

I think, though, that what The Glass Sentence had that this doesn't is a compelling villain. The Lachrima was weird and creepy as shit, a sad and hideous almost-monster. In this volume, the role of big bad is taken over by a crooked politician called Broadgirdle, and while he's a nasty sort he's a very ordinary sort of nasty. There's really nothing compelling about him, and over in Europe the plague that Sophia's dealing with lacks the visceral sense of horror that the Lachrima had in spades.