Back in Engelsfors, the remaining Circle witches are still busy trying to stop the apocalypse. Can they trust the strange forces trying to protect them? What about the Council, can they be trusted after all when they offer help? It is engaging enough for me to keep reading so as to finish it in two sittings and is still as character-driven as the first two instalments.

This is a worthy conclusion to the trilogy with some gripes. We see the remaining witches in the circle grow up and into their powers, make tough decisions, struggle. Over the trilogy, I've grown very fond of them and I thought this was a good outcome for all of them.

The new characters never really grew on me, there were far too many of them, consequently I wasn't terribly upset or scared for them when they were in danger, which made some scenes have less impact than they normally would have.

The book's timeline, though perfectly linear for most parts, is a bit erratic and given to sudden jumps that didn't always feel necessary to me.

Spoiler

They made sense in the Ida chapters, which I felt was an excellent way of summarising events quickly and efficiently without losing anything. Especially that leap the characters took at the end - I see the point, they get to see what happens to the other witches fast, but other than that, I don't really see the merit of having them vanish for so long. Also, I didn't think anybody really talks about what would happen to their school finals now that they're back - I can see the merit of having one initiation rite replaced with another in this way, but I still would have liked a resolution of what happens to their school lives. I also felt it was unnecessarily cruel to put their parents through that again.

And another thing is how ineffective all usual authority figures are in this world. I did found that a little scary, given the premise of the book's ending. They certainly are really nobody to depend upon, are they? Those we see, that is - the parents often have their own troubles and are absent, the teachers are usually incompetent or demon-possessed and don't address bullying at all, the police force of Engelsfors, represented by Nicke, isn't effective,

Spoiler

as we see when Linnéa is almost killed, and neither is the justice system, if it takes teenage magic to convict those who did it.

not to mention the Council - I can hardly believe that any organisation who uses methods that cruel and who is largely absent from their member's lives normally would stick around that long. Their body count is rely too high.

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That said, even though the adults wouldn't have magic, the thought that many of the teenage inhabitants would end up having magic is hardly better and would lead to a very grim future that the heroines don't deserve after saving the world.

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All in all this series still kept me up at night reading, which is very rare for me, and eager to see how the characters story ends.