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One question. How come the Spirit of Water can live outside a host? Too bad we won't know the answer to that, since this series is abandoned. I'm thinking the next book might have focus on a new character based on Spirit of Earth.

We've gone through nine chapters before getting a callback to the prologue. I was holding my breath with anticipation as we near the end of the chapter. But looks like nothing is amiss other than Sam "feeling the wards" as he rode through it.

My guess is the "Lady with the affinity for the Spirit of Earth" is Adam's mother. And this hidden/secluded mage academy believes in spirits and maybe even worship them, which looks to be in dangerous opposition to the coalition of seven cities (according to backstory of the amulet in 1st book). Although Aenhol appears to bridge the two. I like how the world-building is expanding in this book.

My guess is it's Marcus that will die from the clues so far. We know Marcus's attitude and behavior changed after his visit to the seer, and looks like Adam gets to determine Marcus fate from the seer's last statement, and thus the intense hatred emanating from Marcus. Although it looks like Marcus accepted and resigned to his fate from how he behaved at Adam/Jacob birthday dinner.

The admonishment from Aenhol is to never speak of the future to others, but not discussing who or what the seer is. So if it's really the tavern owner, I think rumors would be prevalent about this.

I'm surprised that Geert does not know Jamie and Garvin, unless he is a newly acquired apprentice for Crillis and hasn't met Jamie and Garvin. Lyrix is a small town with a few mages and their apprentices, so I'm sure they would be all familiar with each other as allies and rivals. And the narrator noted that Crillis conversed with Jamie as a peer not an apprentice, and treated Jamie with respect unlike his own apprentice.

Interesting that the Prince himself is maintaining a lie too, so he's not squeaky clean himself. Would it come back to bite him? And the subtle positive vibe enchantment that Kundun weaved does support his master mage status. Jamie could not detect it with his newly acquired knowledge and power. Nor did Urvan discovered it and tried to neutralize or weaken it, so he could have tried to sow discord among the retainers and Prince and then worm his way into the Prince's affection.

Everything has come easy for Jamie and Garvin up to this point. In less than a day, Jamie acquired magical knowledge that made him go from 0.5 (can't complete successfully the few spells he knows) to 10 (let's say in the order of Thorvill and Urvan) in the mage power scale. I expect an immense price or sacrifice to be paid for this. And the consequence of the 1st lie of impersonating his master hasn't come to fruition yet. I'm also suspicious of the Flitch character, and his timing of appearing out of the blue in the nether realm when supposedly no other traveler could be chanced upon, and then he imparted Jamie and Garvin tremendous knowledge and power, just before meeting their most dangerous foe. In most stories, the Flitch character is to symbolize you know who, and he expect the most important part of one's being as the trade.

At the end of the series, the gang agreed not to make changes to better the world. But as somebody pointed out, the mad scientist and Alexei S. are still there. The collapse of USSR will proceed and the time travel technology will be reinvented when the preceding two characters join forces. And Alexei will go back in time and repeat the events of the 1st time travel timeline. Thus if the gang want to stop any more time travelers, then the assasination of the mad scientist has to be repeated. I agree with a couple of commenters that this book series would make for an awesome TV series. And with the use of improving AI aging and de-aging technology, the TV production could hire a set of 20-something actors and have them play an 8 year old Davey to 80 year old Brian and Sean.