this book was filled to the brim with adventures and thrilling quests and i really love it. the only downside was the anticlimactic ending and the unclear plot. yes, the quest was fun, but i couldn't help but felt like it was pointless and without any clear goal. i understand that this story was part of a whole but it felt blurry. and some of the events, details, and conflicts were so similar with the previous series, making it felt rather unoriginal. but it was fun and definitely better than the previous series.
Recap:
Del was practicing her new power with roarke on the shore of lake labarge. her task was to make the ship-wreck that happened in 1902 happened again. she managed to recall it but not banishing it, then four demons came. they easily offed them but one of them, an ice demon said to Del that they were attracted to her. Then Del killed it by pulling its soul but somehow, she also stole its power so now she got ice magic. then they returned back to ancient magic.
Del and roarke met with cass and nix on P&P about what happened. again, del attracted three demons, roarke and claire swiftly dismissed then but an enforcer from the order of magica with sensor power came to give Claire a job. he said that he sensed the ubilaz demon died but not its power and told claire to find it. now del really needed to control her power if she didn't want to be found out by the enforcer. roarke suggested them to go to Cambridge (it secretly had a department to learn a hard magic) but it was very secretive so they needed to sneaked in and cass and nix couldn't come.
they arrived in a pub next to cambridge, straight into a bar fight, but roarke easily stopped it with his commanding voice (HA). but there was a demon there and it trailed them. it said del was a power thief and attacked her, but roarke snapped its neck. then, they sneaked inside the college and del used her dragon sense to find the dude named Horatio who was a mind mage that could control people's self-control.
following Del's dragon sense, they rode on a boat to cross a river when they were chased by 8 demons and the securities came too. they were captured and jailed (this series loved to jail their characters and gave easy escapes). del couldn't use her phantom power neither roarke could turned into demon. del said she wished pondflower the hellhound was here and voila, she came. the dog lend del her power and she could transformed into phantom, and the dog transformed too! so pondflower was a conduit.
they easily escaped and found horatio. he said that she was cursed so she couldn't control her magic (except the lower level one and her natural magic). but he said that he expects her visit and there was a seer who wanted to meet her. they met with the seer named Cassandra and she gave del a map in unknown language that would lead to some answers and said that she was born with a talent to read it. then she got a call from their jailer and they immediately ran away.
they popped out in Roarke's house because it was demon-repellent. they kissed but roarke immediately pulled away. del tried to read the map but she fainted. next morning, demons already gathered, dozens of them. roarke forbid her from helping in case she stole another power. but he was attacked by so many demons and she just had to help so she threw ice spikes to the demons and it worked.
then they went to ancient magic to meet her sisters, but the enforcer from the Order came and accused her for the surge of demonic power, proven more by the lucky charm she left in cambridge when she was captured. roarke knocked him out and they decided to erase his memory by taking him to the blood mages. they easily erased his memory but only for half of the day (or he'd be unable to function) and Del asked for their help to retrieve her memory that allow her to read the map.
they took lots of her blood and she was bleeding out while trying to focus on reading the scroll and she fainted. she woke up on her own house with roarke by her side. they fought because del felt he was distancing himself from her while he thought she had a lot of secrets she was unwilling to share. then he kissed her. intense. then she met with her sisters, talked about their situation (they said del should just told roarke what they were), told them that her parents didn't want her and was cruel towards her, and turned out she could read the map now and it was something in welsh. she told them to stay while she and roarke went.
she returned to her room, told roarked she promised to tell him her secret and set out to Cwm Y Ddraig (going to call it cyd because no way i'm memorizing that) in search for answer. they were searching for something called Eastern Railway in a very small supernatural town. a lady said that it was somewhere near/on the mountain near the lake oh-so-deep so they went there. there was no boat and it was impossible to fly over so del conjured a boat from the past. on the way over, they were attacked by water monster and del was dragged underwater. she fought it and speared it with an ice spear, then using her magic, she somehow dragged herself, and the boat, out of the water (?!!!). Roarke was fighting 3 of the monster but he offed them easily but they lost the paddles.
suddenly, the lady of the lame called Morgen came. she thanked them for getting rid of the water monsters so she dried them up (i think she dried the map too...) and sent them to the shore with a warning of the evil mining goblin (called Coblynau) who had a touch that kill and multiply if killed. and they had to stay on the mining track but of course they didn't, because the goblins distracted them. they caused an avalanche and they were trap in a blasting house (a house to hide when they blasted the mine). the rocks blocked their escape route so roarke blasted through the roof with his demon form but it harmed him so badly. but they pushed running until they arrived to a cave, del blocked the entrance with the ice and they explored the cave.
they arrived to a lake and in the middle of it, del saw an orbs. she took off her clothes and took it, put them on a pedestal around there (there was 4 pedestals but only 3 orbs). the orbs shattered and turned into phantom dragons. they said the last one was Draka but they didn't know where she was. they said that the Shadows was the one who cursed her and one they she would face them but her curse already weakening. they gave her a hilt to a sword that could focus her power but she needed to find the blade herself and it'd turn into an OP phantom blade that would always return to her. they also told her that she was kind of immortal (roarke too) they could cross the boundary from the Underworld.
before del asked about her parents, the coblynau came. they were supposed to be the phantom dragon's protector but because del killed one of them, they were after her blood. the phantom dragon took them out and placed them in one of the cart and Del turned brought the past back to live to activate it and the dragon nudged them. it was a crazy roller coaster ride straight out from history. sounded epic. when they arrived to the shore of the lake, they asked for morgen/morwena's help to transport them to the other side in exchange for a debt.
roarke asked one of his demon stuff to arrange a place to stay the night and when they had settled in, he finally told del his secret. turned out, his brother was abusing blood magic and killed half a dozen people for a ritual, and he didn't turn him in because he was too blinded by his love. then they rested so they could find the blade the next day with del's sisters and aidan.
using her dragon sense to find the blade, it told her to go to the Underworld through the portal near Roarke's house. her sisters and aidan wanted to come but they wouldn't be able to come in or out without roarke's assistance but they came anyway so they teleported to roarke's house then to the underworld.
they journeyed through roarke's underworld, then to icy underworld, jungle-like underworld, attacked by many demons, then to a tower from del's childhood but the demons followed them. del was thorn between finding the sword and her family or helping her friends but she was attacked by the shadow that cursed her but pondflower was there and suddenly, the blade too! and the shadow ran away when her sword touched it. she returned to help her friend to kill all the demons and she was able to control her power now and it's over (fckin anticlimactic and too convenient. there were so many different kind of demons but no one got another poisoning or dire injuries, or none of the higher level demon came, the heck?)
they rested and claire gave her boss some dagger and said that the ubilaz's power was destroyed. also, the boss didn't recognize her so del was off the hook again. she told her friends what happened in the tower. if she went down the stairs, she might find draka or her family but it was definitely a trap and she would face the shadow again soon.