It’s five years after the first book in this series. Nahri is continuing her work as a healer, and dreams of reopening her family’s hospital in Daevabad. Ali has been exiled to his mother’s homeland, and has found a use for the marid’s power he picked up, finding water in the desert. But events (engineered by others) bring him back to Daevabad.
There’s clearly a revolution coming, and the actions of various parties in various factions is absolutely all over the map of denial or overreaction. It really struck me with what’s going on in real life right (note to future self: it’s the end of March in the great Covid lockdown) how much that’s consistent with human behavior, and seems very logical to carry over to fantasy worlds as well.
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