The encounter is terrifying, but not because it leads to an epic confrontation in the hospital. Max, the teacher Minoo fell for, who proved to have been working with the demons, wakes from his coma while the Chosen Ones are at the hospital, once again filled with the demons’ magic. The demons still haven’t been entirely defeated, and the final battle draws closer and closer with each day, and magic has begun to run wild in Engelsfors. The Chosen Ones don’t know about this, and even if they did, they would have their own problems to deal with.

She started out as a quintessential Mean Girl, and while she hasn’t entirely lost her pettiness, her character has gone through quite a bit of growth, coming from both her circumstances (it’s likely very hard to save the world without growing as a person) and from the chapters in her point of view, which show us the pressures laid on her and the fact that she has her own struggles to face.

For another, Ida has proved to be a remarkable character. For one thing, we learn more about the history of the demons and the Chosen Ones, of which not all is quite what it appears.

If the other girls weren’t so well-written, these would be the most fascinating sections of the book. Interspersed through the rest of the book, with the narrative of the surviving Chosen Ones, are little sections of her as a ghost. However, Ida isn’t as gone as the others think. Ida has died this time, helping to save the town, and the remaining Chosen Ones are the only people who know the truth about what happened to her. As with Fire, the protagonists are deeply affected by the events of the previous book, not least because they have lost another of their own. A slightly flimsy explanation has been collectively dreamt up, and life can now return to normal. Read with caution if you have yet to finish Fire ( Eld) and The Key ( Nyckeln).Įngelsfors has been saved from the cult of positivity that attempted to take it over, and while one might think an event of the magnitude of the climax of Fire (including the better part of the town being brainwashed by a metal witch, a mass human sacrifice nearly occurring, and a sudden display of electrical magic) would wake the townspeople up to the reality that they live on what is essentially the Hellmouth, those of us who know fantasy (or are at least familiar enough with Buffy the Vampire Slayer to see Engelsfors for what it truly is as a Swedish Sunnydale) will know that no such thing is likely to happen.Īt the beginning of The Key, the final book in the Engelsfors Trilogy, we learn that a massive reset button has been pushed, and the townspeople know nothing about what happened.

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