Now that the Darkling has driven the royal family out of their home and damaged their defences, his over-dramatic advisor with the black wig suggests they rest and reserve manpower for their next steps. But the Darkling himself wants to find Alina because she is still the soul of the Grisha army. Good point.
Dude needs to tone down on the “my Alina” this, “my Alina” that, though. It’s starting to sound a lot like “my precious”, and trust me, that isn’t good.
Baghra and Genya find them Alina and the survivors underground. Nikolai wants to punish Genya at first but then offers her justice after finding out what his father did to her.
Genya doesn’t want to talk to David, but David has something she can’t refuse: Metal.
He compares Genya’s bravery to metal, which is strong and everlasting. That, coming from David, is basically a sonnet. He and Genya make up.
After a talk with Baghra, Alina decides to seek the Darkling through their bond. Her plan is to destroy the connection they have. You know… instead of using it to find out what he’s doing so they can be better prepared. She successfully finds him and puts on a seduction act to strip down his guard. And it is down for a second.
Alina twists his arm and attempts to burn the piece of stag horn on his hand. Needless to say, when it becomes physical, Alina can’t win against a friggin’ army general. He throws her to the ground.
Not to mention that Mal rushes in at the time and is freaked out to see Alina’s light going out of control. He shakes and pulls her back. Alina is furious, she believes that a few more seconds and she could have severed the connection.
I doubt it. Even if Mal wasn’t there to Alina back and prevent the cave ceiling from collapsing, the Darkling would’ve been able to tell. He’s crazy, but not too crazy that he can’t see through a pretty obvious act. The touch on the cheek may have gutted him like a tiny bit, but he is too fixed with his ultimate goal to be swayed.
Alina and Mal fight. Mal has started to feel overwhelmed by all this craziness. Most of all, he feels like he can’t protect Alina from herself.
This quarrel is one of the things in the book that makes everyone roll their eyes at Mal. But I really don’t hate the way Archie Renaux delivers it here.
Baghra gives Alina a pep talk. It sounds a lot like a pep talk for any member of the audience who likes the Darkling, though; because it’s full of stuff like “he violated you, he lied to you”, etc.
Alina decides to be on her way to find the Firebird, Baghra offers to help her.
Alina returns the ring to Nikolai and says goodbye to him. This makes the swaggering prince’s heart sink a little.
Zoya and Tolya find Kaz’s gang to ask for their help finding a legendary sword that may help defeat the Darkling. As always, Kaz is cautious about his response. Come on, Kaz, if you don’t take on this mission, we’ll be stuck watching two separate storylines till the end, and that hasn’t been good at all.
Kaz gives the green light. The group, including Zoya and Tolya, set out for Shu-han to find this sword.
It is an Asian-inspired island with terrible Manchurian costumes. Seriously, just look at these:
Not only are these costumes and hairdos unattractive, they are also impractical. Who strolls down the street with hair like that?
The only thing that is worse than this is probably the dress they put on Ming Na Wen in Mulan (2020)
The gang trace down the woman who may know where the sword is. Nina and Kaz pretend to be a married couple who love to collect things and chat with this woman. Nina is a natural with the job but Kaz does not enjoy it one bit. Oh, lighten up, “waffles”, let Nina have her fun.
Afterwards, Kaz works out that this Shu-han woman actually has the sword. They break into her house but are met with very effective booby traps.
To cap it all, Jesper and Wylan are fighting. Jesper didn’t know Wylan has trouble with reading (dyslexia) and accidentally offends Wylan. When Jesper attempts a pep talk about self-confidence, Wylan bites back with: Don’t lecture me about accepting my flaw when you reject the best thing about yourself.
Jesper is a Grisha — is what Wylan means. He can bend metal. That’s right, if he embraces this skill, the Crows won’t even need keys to break into anyone’s house.