I can't wait to get back to London. I can't say how much fun it was visiting, inside the heads of Lila and Kell and Rhy. Each character's ambitions and fears paint the world just as vividly as Schwab's masterful language. 
 The worldbuilding is a shimmering tapestry of castles waiting to be crashed and footsteps waiting to be followed. And yet, the character developement never quite gets the chance to pay off. You watch all the characters swinging through the worlds, and you wait for their ropes to tangle together. But when they finally talk face to face, they are soon torn apart. 
 Similarly, the relationships between the four main characters began with almost no honesty or open communication. However, their guards eventually fell. I treasured those final conversations between characters, where their defenses were finally dragged away, out of exhuastion or grief or more. 
 And yet, those few gems only left me needing more. Well, so did the rest of the book, to be honest. I understand that these characters are in a larger arc, but this piece is a tiny bit flat by itself. Nonetheless, is the story still overhwleming worth it? Absolutely.