When the story begins, Cassie is training with Pritkin, trying to learn how to better protect herself from her growing pool of enemies. But her number one priority is finding the Codex of Merlin, which may have a counterspell to the geis affecting her and Mircea. 
 The most interesting thing in this book, for me, was the development of the relationship between Cassie and Pritkin. They grow closer; they move apart; she trusts him; she loses that trust; and it all comes full circle again. I think this is the guy that is becoming my front-runner for Cassie's HEA. But I have to say that his backstory is completely over the top. I can't decide which is worse: what he is supposed to be or who he is supposed to be. Both seem utterly out of left-field. 
 The only thing worse is the issue of paradoxes brought on my Cassie's constant trips to the past. For instance, WHY does the Mircea of "two weeks ago" not recognize Cassie from the present day from her visits to him back in the 1700s? And beyond that, keeping straight the events surrounding the time period of book one, was just too confusing. And I only read that book two days ago. I can only imagine what a din of confusion it would create for someone who read it months or years before. 
 And nothing was as over-the-top as Cassie's last idea on how to break the geas. I swear, if that threesome would have happened, I might have had to give up on the series. 
 But... Even with all this, I liked it in a guilty pleasure sort of way.