Quick addition before I upload this, but I looked at my volume 15 review and we were still in lockdown back when I put that out. It’s been so much longer than I thought it was. Time is so weird these days.
I know it’s been a little while since I’ve gone through one of these volumes, but here we are again. We’ll be doing the review of volumes 16, 17 and 18 in somewhat quick succession. I believe volume 18 is slated to come out within a month of this post going up, so the plan is to have my recap of 17 done by that time so we can dive straight into it. The anime is quickly catching up, after all, and I worry it’ll overtake what I’ve read so far. Since we’re reviewing three volumes so quickly in succession, I’m also going to keep things relatively short for both volume 16 and 17. With that out of the way, this will contain spoilers up to volume 16, so beware of that if you’re not caught up.
The volume cover has Philomela in a coffin filled with rose petals while Chise is angrily looking at the reader. Perhaps there’s something in our direction that’s responsible for Philomela’s fate. I wonder if the crows around her are a representation of her family’s dark dealings or if they’re something else. On the back we have Alcyone looking ahead with sadness to her demeanor. We’ll get to her later on this volume. As always, these covers look great and feel very gothic fantasy.
We get a little bit of insight into Philomela and Veronica’s past together. The Rickenbacker are a very rich family that often poison each other. You know, noble houses, succession and all that. Philomela was a food tester to make sure that Veronica didn’t get poisoned. Veronica definitely recognizes how messed up her family is, but I feel like she lays more blame on herself than is fair. She was still a child and tried to be nice to the people forced to be her servants. Most people at her current age – I’m not sure, but she can’t be more than a teenager – wouldn’t already have such nuanced feelings about their past, so she’s not a bad person from my understanding. We end the chapter in the planetarium where they all sit and enjoy the scenery. Someone was impersonating Jasmine, but it all ended up okay in the end. I said I’d keep it short, but we’re only one chapter into the volume so I’ll have to speed up again. I’m bad at this whole ‘keeping things concise.’
Marielle informs the college that the thief is still inside the premises and with a lack of success due to Chise’s interference they decide on a different attack. Instead of slowly siphoning out magic, they go for a big attack trying to take as much magic from her as possible. Luckily a little help from Cartaphilus and Elias saves the day. All the other students wake up and everyone is immediately at high alert.
While Philomela is struggling to endure the enormous pressure she is under, several people are worried for her. Rian as her childhood friend really wants to help but he’s denied entrance to the women’s dormitory. Alcyone and Elias talk about what it means to be a parent. It’s very interesting because neither of them are human, but this story is all about what makes us human. Elias is clearly a strange boney creature and Alcyone was created to be a servant, but both have a certain amount of humanity in them. Meanwhile the kids do some practical training and most of them are pretty unimpressive. They are still kids after all.
We then finally get to the meat of this volume. Philomela reaches her breaking point and intermingled with another gift from Chise she goes berserk. With the book in her possession she attacks Alcyone, Veronica and finally Rian who has come to search for her. She’s turned into some sort of tangled creature and is trying to escape the college with the book. Giving it to her grandmother means she gets her parents back and there’s nothing she wants more. We end the volume with several students down and Philomela charging into the main party where all the teachers are as well. She asks the vice chancellor if she can be let out of the college and the volume ends there. Chise also gets visited by a spirit she saw at Yule before, saying she’s coming to collect something. That’s not ominous at all. Join me two weeks from now when I cover volume 17 while we wait for volume 18 to be published and delivered but until then, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 