Knowing Assassin's Fate would be released in May I took my time on Fool's Quest. I savored the chapters and made slow and steady progress, yet I still finished a week too early. And so it begins, my review of the penultimate Fitz and Fool story.

Sorrow and loss never die. We can put them away in a chest and lock it tight, but whenever it is opened, even a crack, the aroma of lost sweetness will rise to fill our lungs to heaviness.

Fool's Quest was stunning and a roller coaster of emotions as you went from swelling highs to crushing lows. It felt wrong to be reading about Fitz's joyous return to Buckkeep while Shun and Bee were being taken hostage. The reunion of Fitz and Fool was torn apart with
a chapter from Bee's perspective. Fitz wasn't able to know happiness in this book unless it was balanced with a crushing consequence.

By day, I took my bruises in the practice yard, and by night I practiced throwing knives and materializing poison from my cuff.

There is a definite pacing change from Fool's Assassin to Fool's Quest. Fitz isn't coordinating renovations on Withywoods anymore, he's planning for vengeance and he struggles with the balance of his notoriety at Buckkeep and urgency to leave. It may take a while for Fitz to get ready to leave Buckkeep but it shows growth and maturity that he didn't run off in to the night with just a sword and no plan.

If I let no one depend on me, I could fail no one.

An excellent installment and the approaching finale has me worried and nervous for the outcome.