Sword and Pen: The Great Library - Book 5 picks up as the deadly battle in the Alexandrian arena is ending. Death and betrayal surround the core team, with Jess reeling from a particularly cruel loss. However, the old Archivist is on the move and must be stopped, so there's no time to mourn their losses. To make matters worse, the world is watching Alexandria as it goes through these changes of arms, and navies from quite a few countries are sitting just outside of the harbor offering their "assistance."
Scholar Murasaki has been chosen as the new Archivist, with Khalila having been elevated to the role of her assistant. Thomas is tasked with discovering what safety measures the great inventor Heron set up eons ago to protect the Alexandrian harbor, while Scholar Wolfe, Jess, and Dario move on the Archivist's old office in search of the secret documents that outline Heron's provisions. Naturally, these are booby-trapped with deadly protections and one of the group will suffer lasting repercussions from a particularly nasty poison.
Jess once again teams up with Anit Ibrahim, who is now in charge of her late father's smuggling empire, and together they work with now Lord Commander Nic Santi and Glain, now a Lieutenant, to locate and roust out the Archivist, but the old man still has many spies on his side and many tricks up his sleeve. He won't go down without a fight, and if he is destined to lose, he'd rather watch The Great Library burn rather than lose his foothold. A man with nothing to lose is quite dangerous indeed.
Meanwhile, Morgan's power as an Obscurist has been growing and with it, a looming dark power is struggling within her. It doesn't help that Eskander, Wolfe's father and the new Obscurist Magnus, has gifted Morgan with a ring that once belonged to the most powerful female Obscurist in history, and while it is sure to help them as they battle the former Archivist, Morgan may be fighting an even greater internal battle with her own dark powers.
When this series started, Jess, Khalila, Dario, Thomas, Glain, and Morgan were simply students hoping to one day become full Scholars, but now this tight-knit group, along with fatherly figures Wolfe and Santi, are in the fight of their lives to preserve the wealth of knowledge that is The Great Library of Alexandria. How everything shakes out in the end and where everyone ends up is something you'll have to discover on your own, but I did love how things wrapped up and I felt the end was fitting. If you haven't yet read this series, do yourself a favor and check it out. Highly, highly recommended.
