Ok, let's be honest, I was really obsessed with this book up until Lila returns to Red London. From that moment on I felt a little disappointed with the story. Let me explain. 
 In the first half of the book, I loved the dialogues and knowing Alucard (a new character) better. But then, when we return to Red London, these hilarious dialogues are replaced with shallow ones between Rhy and Kell. Actually, I really disliked both of them in this book. They just suffered and did not do much about their situations at all. Probably, that is why my favourite moments of the book were the ones that included Alucard and Lila. And that happened mostly at the beginning. 
 As the characters go, I saw a lot of potential in Alucard. I thought he was really entertaining. A little bit like a Jack Sparrow character but less obvious, more graceful, and way more interesting. I thought that the reason why Kell did not like the captain was a bit shallow. I do not say it here why (because of spoilers) but I really hope there is more to it than that and we are going to discover it in the next book. 
 Also, I preferred Lila in the first book. Here, she acted like a self-centred show-off, doing stupid and reckless things just for the thrill of it and not because of a higher stake like rescuing worlds in the first book. 
 Another side character I liked was Hastra. I hope we'll going to know more about him. 
 In general, I felt like the whole plot of this second instalment was to show the Red London world more, which I found interesting. We learned about its empires, its politics, its people and also its magic and how it works. This last one, mostly came from Alucard and Tieren. Although, I would have liked to hear Tieren (the Aven Essen) more about magic and life in general. I did not get enough of his wisdom. I love characters like Gandalf and Dumbledore whose wisdom can be transferred from a fantasy context to our real world. I thought Tieren would be or could be something similar. Well, maybe we'll get to it in the third book. I certainly hope so. 
 The main point of the story is a magical tournament. My thoughts about it are that it was nice but predicable and forgettable. 
 All in all, it is a well written (as always), nice second book in this trilogy. I am looking forward to reading the next one with the hopes that I will know more about those interesting side characters like Alucart, Tieren, Holland and Hastra.