This story just went from zero to a hundred! Several things were revealed that I had already speculated on, and more than I didn't even realize! This story really makes everything feel like slightly random one-off events only to reveal later that there are bigger connections than you even realized! The ending of the volume is a cliffhanger, and it honestly startled me how brutal it was. This volume has cranked the political intrigue to the max. It also got far darker than I expected it to be.