I didn't like this as much as the first book, but that might just be because I fell into a little bit of a reading slump during finals and it took me far too long to read. I'm still getting confused by sudden transitions within scenes where it seems like characters sometimes randomly appear/disappear and it's unclear how they got there/why they left. I'm loving Mare's corruption arc, but I hate how this book ended even things have clearly been building up to that moment. I won't be able to tell for sure until I read the next book, but the vibes of this one feel a little bit like this should've been the middle book of a trilogy but got fleshed out with filler instead to make things 4 books. We'll have to see after King's Cage. Mostly I can say that this sequel is a bit of a step down from Red Queen and the Realm Breaker series is far superior.