This book has been the hardest for me to read, even from the beginning. And that’s saying something for this series where I feel emotionally wrung out after most of them (you can read about the first book, second, third, and fourth that I read previously).
The fifth installation begins with Nita and Kit trying to fix some pollution in the water. Nita is frustrated with Kit and they end up getting into a fight. Kit then becomes preoccupied with his dog, Ponch, finding some area where he can practically invent new universes. Nita meanwhile has to deal with her mom getting a brain cancer diagnosis. To try and combat it she starts to learn about universe kernels, a sort of core that contain all of the laws of the universe. Once found, you can start to manipulate them, and her plan is to find her mother’s and create a world inhospitable for the cancer.
Along the way Nita meets other wizards also learning about kernels, including Prayala, a sort of otter-like alien with many more legs. The Lone Power (inventor of death) ends up inhibiting Prayala and offering Nita a deal: lose her wizardry and he will save her mother. Nita runs out of time and heads into her mother during surgery with Prayala. She tries to leave Kit to spare him, but Ponch takes him through one of his universes and to Nita anyways. Nita faces off against the Lone Power, who kills Prayala his host, and is about to give up when Kit appears with Ponch. Nita mom also manifests in her own body and tells the Lone Power to scram. She realizes his plan though, to act beaten and then force Nita’s mom to constantly be worrying about her health. To effectively stop living and start only avoiding death. So while they get rid of a lot of the cancer, not all of it. Nita gets ready to spend some time with her mom before she inevitably deteriorates.
The biggest thing about this book is that it is such a good book about grief, and coming to terms with death. What would you give up for your loved ones? What is a life worth? And how can you decide when this is in no way a rational choice? Nita makes up her mind to give up her wizardry for her mother, and it’s only with Kit’s help that she can move on from that. The book doesn’t actually get to the point where Nita’s mom dies, but way before then Nita realizes what the alternative is and what she has to do. The book ends with Nita dreaming about her and her mom in Timeheart together, talking about what happens after her mom dies. I can’t imagine what this is like to read if you have actually lost a parent, but I know it rings so authentically for me and I complain a LOT about books and how they tackle grief. This doesn’t shy away from grief and its messiness and that is such a strength of the work.
The side plot with Kit and Ponch is also really cute. It doesn’t say much about like emotions and things, but it’s really neat to get more of a look into Ponch’s mind and his relationship with Kit. Right before the end Kit gets taken to a world that is exactly like his home but perfect. For a minute he thinks about staying there and getting everything right and maybe even convincing himself that this is the place he’s from. But that doesn’t change that it wouldn’t be real and it wouldn’t be his universe. I have some mixed feelings about this, as I don’t think we can prove that the world we are living in is “the real one,” but he says something interesting about wizardry. Which is that it’s for engaging more with the real world and not for hiding it. Which is a neat idea, the things you do should get you closer to the reality of the world. Again, may not be totally sound, but a cool idea that melds with the rest of the book.
Final thing I want to comment on is minor but resonates with me. Nita’s mother used to be a ballet dancer, heavily implied that she was a principal or something as she has a poster of herself dressed as a swan princess. With the context of her illness it talks about how her body used to be under total control and now isn’t, or about how she knows about pain through dance. And that you shouldn’t mess with swans, they are fierce. All of that isn’t super expanded on, but I sure wish people didn’t think of dancers as weak and feminine and more so as a strong, fierce, swan. It’s another detail that brings this story to life.
I’m chugging through these pretty quickly, but I’m eager to
get to some beloved characters and see how the world expands from here! From
what I remember, all of the books are pretty emotionally challenging, but I
think this one is probably the most brutal in the series. So at least there’s
that to look forward to.
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