We All Fall Down

The Witch Who Came In From The Cold #2.13

by Ian Tregillis, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Fran Wilde

The Cold War gets magical when spies brush shoulders with sorcerers in this genre-defying serial created by Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone.

This is the 13th episode in the second season of The Witch Who Came In From The Cold, a 13-episode serial from Serial Box Publishing. This episode written by Ian Tregillis.

The Flame begins their ritual, sending shockwaves around the world. The success of their apocalyptic plans lies on a knife's edge as enemies converge on Bar Vodnář, threatening to ignite the brewing powder keg. In the climactic finale of Season 2, veils will fall and fires will rise…

Welcome to Prague, 1970: the epicenter in a Cold War of spies and sorcerers. The streets are a deadly chessboard on which the CIA and KGB make their moves, little dreaming that a deeper game is being played between the Consortium of Ice and the Acolytes of Flame, ancient factions of sorcery.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Espionage

49 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Amy Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very satisfying conclusion to the season. Resolved one of the major tensions of the season, while leaving plenty open to explore next season minus a few semi-regular characters. It's become more and more clear through the series that neither Ice nor Flame treats elementals well. Given how powerful Van is, I can't help but wonder if Ice is afraid of their power, just as much as Flame covets it. That's what I hope they explore next season.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and exciting conclusion to season 2. Roll on season 3!!

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series was so enthrallling. I wish it would have continued!

[Larou]

To call this an explosive finale to the season would be a gross understatement. Ian Tregillis is in particularly fine form for this episode and delivers a kaleidoscopic showdown, brief flashes of an ongoing action, small, colourful splinters that fall in place to form a bigger picture, while things are getting blown up left and right until a big explosion ends it all.

This was a very satisfying season finale, even though, just like last time, it left a lot of lose ends dangling about. But that's of course intentional - they want people to return for the third season, after all. And this much is certain: After this episode, things in Prague will never be the same again.

Season two of The Witch Who Came in from the Cold was even more fun the first one, mostly due to, now that exposition is out of the way, a tighter and more focused plotline. If I have one small niggle then it is that the Cold War was pushed quite far into the background this time b< the magical conflict. I cannot really complain about this, seeing how fun the results turned out to be, but I do hope they'll pay a bit more attention to that in the next season. Which I'll totally will be along again for.