Going Dark

Wit the library finally reopening, I managed to get my hands on Benedict Jacka's Fallen, which I think is the 10th book in his Alex Verus Chronicles.

Frankly, given the corner he had his characters backed in to after the last one, seeing Alex finally stop avoiding and start acting was kind of nice. Not that it's going to fix much....

After the prison break, Alex and Anne are subject of inquiry after inquiry. Fairly quickly, Council finds out most of what happened, and proceeds to try to arrest Alex and Anne. They hide in Arachne's lair. Arachne makes a few cryptic statements, then the Council shows up, forcing Anne and Alex to run deeper into the cave, while Arachne does something... at any rate, it looks like this may be her last appearance in the flesh. Trying to escape leads them into Richard's hands, where the mind mage in Richard's camp forces Alex to get Anne to cooperate.

So, by the end of about 2/3 of the way through, Alex has now lost Anne to her shadow personality, who is now possessing a Djinn.

This leads to Alex going after an artifact we haven't seen in a few books, followed by Alex pretty much going full Dark Mage.

It's actually kind of fun watching Alex go dark. I wonder where the series goes next, though, given how many bridges get burned here.