Part 2:
Adding Lord Cassius and Alvar completely ruined it for me. I supposed plot involvement is a passable excuse (otherwise the plot would dry up very quickly), but involving both of them was really distracting and unnecessary…most of the time, it made Keefe seem just more idiotic and reliant on others than anything else.
A possible to adjust this could have been having Eleanor be Keefe’s friend while he was in the human world, and then doing a grand reveal at the end. (She also could have dyed her hair a different color as bright red is not ideal for being stealthy…)
The ending chapter, “Everything,” felt forced and too similar to Sophie’s perspective (Chapter 42). I would have enjoyed more depictions of Keefe’s internal thoughts rather than the same third-person narration. Maybe I’m imagining it, but Keefe might just not be in touch with his own emotions throughout the story.
Predictions:
Alvar’s already had too much of the plot now…it will be nice to finally get rid of him.
Eleanor will most certainly return and have some more involvement. She has limited potential due to being human (or a wildcard?), but a possible theory could be that she has untriggered abilities that can kick in somewhere. It would be really, really cool if she was actually Elysian’s long-lost granddaughter, but that might be a stretch.
We obviously can’t be certain what abilities stellarlune can bring, which is why I struggled a lot writing Elysian. But a lot of it will likely involve Keefe’s ability to invoke abilities and Elysian’s ability to suppress them.
Elysian doesn’t seem like she will be allied with Lady Gisela and likely will be an obstacle.
Reflection on KOTLC as a whole:
It’s disturbing how much intelligence Alvar has. And it’s not even Lady Gisela, who is on a completely different level. We should really consider the power dynamics here.