This book is what the Nightrunner series is about! Burgling nobles' houses, royal intrigues, new mysterious magic to deal with. Usually I don't care much for battlefield scenes and was really tempted to skip 'em in previous books. That was changed this time around. Fights were engaging, not over complicated, and I perhaps it's just my impression but they seemed shorter than in previous books, which I appreciate 'cause I was dying to get back to Alec and Seregil's adventures. The one thing I wasn't too keen of was the amount of new characters to deal with. It's something that's got to do with my difficulty to memorize who's who and which side they were rooting for in the story. Other than that, I think it's one of the best installments of the series.