// Rightstuf

Part 1 Summary: Reunited after too many hardships, Kieli, Harvey, and the Corporal arrive in Westerbury in hopes of locating Beatrix. Instead, they find themselves settling in with an old friend, Shiman, and his traveling performance troupe. Despite the relative ease of their new arrangement, Kieli senses that Harvey remains strangely distant, and secrets he’s been keeping threaten to tear them apart — perhaps permanently. Is Kieli prepared not only to learn the bitter truths that Harvey has been concealing but also to discover a past that the Undying himself may not recall?

// Rightstuf

Part 2 Summary:  
A lonely girl.
An Undying soldier.
An uncommon romance. 

Her spirit cast adrift, Kieli finds herself trapped in the world of Harvey's past and witnessing the worst day of a young Ephraim's life. Can she-with a little help from Harvey in the land of the living-find her way back to her body? But perhaps more importantly, is there anything she can do for the spirits who have taken her under their wing?


I'm reviewing these together for two reasons--first they really are just two parts of the same novel.  Volume 6 picks up almost to the minute after Volume 5 ends, with a couple of events overlapping as we see it from a different viewpoints.  And second, I read these back to back on purpose.  You can't not do so because volume 5 ends in such a way its bothersome to have to wait for a while to read what happens next.  Also these books are comparatively shorter next to the typical 'young adult' novel of today--only about 210 pages each, so even reading them together its still only the length of a typical YA.

For the first time in the series the odd relationship Kieli and Harvey have is remarked upon by outside sources.  Several times in fact as Shiman's troupe is curious, the Corporal is curious and Joachim (yeah he's back don't look so surprised, he's technically the antagonist of the series moreso than almost anyone else) is outright rude about the nature of their relationship.  Harvey also questions the nature of their relationship as he starts to notice that Kieli i no longer a kid, but growing into a young woman.  She must be about 16 now or so (since someone makes a remark about her still being 'too young' for Harvey to go after and he should wait until she's 17 or 18).

Kabei has been slowly ratcheting up the disturbing factor of the series in such subtle ways that its sometimes hard to notice at first that what I'm reading is someone's skin bubbling off their bones and falling to the ground with a wet splat.  Its not sudden jarring moments of this, but she sneaks them into moments of quiet which only makes them more disturbing.

The Church is apparently experimenting with making more Undying, but are using an unstable source of power.  Those lucky bastards who's corpses are used for the experiments don't get to be young and cute like Harvey; because their 'cores' are malfunctioning they can't regenerate their skin properly.  The aforementioned bubbling of skin occurs as cells are created, but die just as quickly in rapid succession all over the subject's body.  They essentially become zombies as their brain functions deteriorate quickly and they regress to an instinctive state.

We get several experiences with these fellows--first as we find out how Harvey originally got captured by the Church soldiers and Julius protected him in Book 4 and later we meet one who is still able to retain some measure of his old memories.  We also learn that's what those creepy monsters in the waterways of North Hairo were as well.

Kieli meets someone of age with her who also can see spirits, but he's such an annoying character she barely wants much to do with him and he proves to be a useless man as well.  Later, when Kieli is hurt (at the end of book 5) why we met the good for nothing is explained, but there's a lot of heartbreak involved as we see Harvey's pre-Undying days.

Kabei really amps up the story in these two books--especially the relationship between Harvey and Kieli.  Whereas it had been hinted at before, it becomes very obvious in these books just how dependent the two are on each other. I'm not sure its a dangerous dependence, they both bring something that pushes the other to be something better.  Because of Kieli Harvey gives a damn about someone other than himself.  Because of Harvey Kieli has taken the initiative to not only learn more about herself, but also to see the world.

There is, I believe, three more novels left in the series.  That puts us at September 2013 as the release of the final book.  I do hope they also publish the artbook/'epilogue' short story book as well, but regardless the race to the truth is at hand and the question becomes--who will survive the revelations?