By Kou Yatsuhashi and Mito Nagashiro. Released in Japan as “Ojou Denka wa Ookari no You desu” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Tokyopop. Translated by Katie Kimura.

After three volumes of sort of faffing around, even though we have had several cool sorcery battles, this volume pulls out all the stops. Black clouds, Drossel’s past, the mystery of Alec, Leticiel’s own past.. by the end of this book it’s clear we are setting up for a new stage of the series. A stage that may not involve school anymore, as by the end of this book Leticiel is not really a noble anymore. Still, she has options, which is more than I can say for the rest of her family. There’s also a lot of discussion of “yes, nobles have more privilege, but in return they have more responsibilities” that we see in a lot of books that want to say “yes, evil nobles are everywhere, but our heroes are the GOOD nobles”, thus allowing everyone to live in mansions but still be lovable. It wold be nice if that were the case in real life, but alas, this is why fiction exists.

The first third of the book is basically research, as Leticiel and Zeke try to look into the past to find answers. Leticiel does find a bit more about alchemy, and how it differs from magic, and also even more hints that the reason she can’t find anything is that it’s been very covered up. Unfortunately, at that point, word gets out of a rebellion back in her domain… which turns out to be because her older brother is being an evil piece of shit. Pausing only to verify that this rebellion has not killed off her loyal maid, who went home to attend to her ailing mother, Leticiel then ends up joining the rebel forces, much to the surprise of the rebels, who are not used to good nobles. Unfortunately, also joining the party are her older sister and her massive, suicidal guilt complex, and her younger twin sister, who has kind of snapped.

I was very amused at the resolution of the raging sibling hatred that Christa has had for Leticiel since the start of the book. After being allowed to stab her sister in the gut, once, as a treat, she seems to magically realize that it’s just a normal “I’m jealous of my twin because she’s better at everything” sort of hate, and she just accepts that. It’s certainly more easily wrapped up than every other plotline. Leticiel now has Drossel’s memories again, and we now have a basic idea of what happened in the past, but that doesn’t make things any easier, especially with the revelation of who Alec is (and the hint, especially to the reader, that Alec is not as dead as everyone seems to think). The royal family has its own agenda, of course. There’s mysterious monks, going around healing people but in a creepy sort of way. Oh yes, and Leticiel is rather startled to find she’s worshiped as a Saint… or rather, someone is using her past self to create a Saint. This was a terrific volume but doesn’t wrap up much of anything except her family’s noble title, which is toast.

The series is complete at nine books in Japan, which is ominous given the questionable fortune of the company putting it out in English. Still, if a 5th book comes onto the horizon, I’ll be reading it like a shot.