Badass Bureaucrat: Technically all the Generals, due to being as much administrators as warriors, but Ozeki seems to be the only one who enjoys it.

All the past Yojimbos listed in the Histories of Eternal Shadow are given titles of some kind after their deaths. Tern, Harding, and Mullin take over from Arobynn. Aelin “interrogates” Lysandra. The Master of the Bank reads Arobynn’s will. He has left everything to Aelin. The will has obviously been switched. The other guys want to buy the Guild and the house from her. Aelin decapitates Arobynn’s body. Like a boss.Lysandra thanks Aelin for rescuing her. She’s surprised they did so. She gets another surprise when Aelin presents her with paperwork from her boss saying she and Evangeline are free from all debts. MacGuffin: The 97th Queen, the current one's mother, went missing while searching for one: The Shadow Casting Blade, said to have been gifted to the Shadowkhan long ago by the sun goddess Amaterasu, before being lost. The Valg kill everyone in the Shadow Market. A commander summons a Wyrdhound, which the King then talks through. Weird.

Nonki admits to having lost most of his empathy over the years, but even he's disturbed by how the captive Jade is treated by Rokutaro and Yasashi. Immortality Seeker: Himitsu wants to achieve immortality so that he can live long enough to gain all the magical knowledge in the world. India and Central Asia seem to be under the protection of the Chosen One, who is keeping Shendu's empire from expanding westward. Aelin and Lysandra do some investigating. It turns out that the opium dealer from the Shadow Market was selling hellfire, which Aelin wants so she can destroy the tower.

A message from Ren arrives, which states that the King is building an army at Morath consisting of witches and wyvern.

Legacy Immortality: It appears that the Shadowkhan have kept the fact that the Queens are merely long-lived a secret, and as far as the humans know, the current Queen is the original. They run through the gardens toward the wall. Dorian approaches. The demon inside him tries to kill Aelin, but she has protective Wyrdmarks on her skin. She asks Dorian to give her one sign he’s in there, but he doesn’t. She goes to kill him with her sword, but Nesryn shoots an arrow at the sword to deflect the swing. She has been spying on Aelin on a tip from Arobynn. Aelin and Aedion flee. And for the watcher, sheltered for centuries from such hunger and such rage, such agony and such fear, there is the memory of that sabring fall from the sky, and the vicarious joy of the guiltless hunter who kills only through his familiar, and wills him to be fed.”A Storm Is Coming: Sanshobo warns Kuro of this as the Second Battle of Awaji's naval component is about to begin. Kuro starts to wind up for a speech about how ready they are for the fight... only for Sanshobo to state that he was being literal, pointing out that the humans have conjured an actual storm.