Review of Night of the Soul Stealer by Joseph Delaney (Book Three in The Last Apprentice Series)

There are terrifying creeping and crawling feral things--female things--imprisoned in the basement, and once again, Tom Ward is up against them alone. This time he's engaged in desperate battles of wits against creatures of the dark without his master, the Spook, for a couple of reasons. First, the Spook's weakness is his love for a woman in pointy shoes (hence his warning Tom away from the likable Alice, an adolescent witch in pointy shoes) and this weakness ends up in the Spook's imprisonment in the cell he's devised for others, muzzy witted after being dosed with his own potion, which he's been administering to the love of his life to keep her from draining his neighbors' lifeblood. Second, Tom foolishly keeps secret from both his master and Alice the information that a rogue apprentice, now dabbling in the dark arts, is bending Tom to his will by exercising power over Tom's recently deceased father--who wants only to rest but whose soul is forced to suffer by the infamous Morgan. Morgan wants Tom to become his apprentice, and he wants Tom to steal a spell-book from the Spook so that he can summon a terrifying pagan god, Golgoth, and plunge the land into perpetual winter and misery. Tom's reluctance to speak openly to the Spook comes from two sources--first, he knows the Spook keeps secrets from him, and, second, the Spook is ill, then imprisoned by his love, the lamia witch Meg, so his counsel is unavailable during the time when Tom must make crucial decisions. Tom's emotions are heightened by his father's death and his mother's disappearance from his life; he feels guilty that he did not make it home in time to say good-bye to his father--the letter informing him that his father was dying having been conveniently misdirected through Morgan's interference. And Morgan has managed to inform himself rather well as to Tom's circumstances so that he can manipulate Tom, especially during the Spook's imprisonment. So Tom finds himself underground and in danger twice, trapped by Meg and her scary sister, Marcia, and then later bound underground in a barrow with Morgan, awaiting his sacrifice to Golgoth.

Tom is separated from Alice, whose quick wits and practicality helped him battle monsters in Book Two of the series, for most of the winter when these events build to a dire climax. Tom is increasingly on his own, using the knowledge he's acquired to help his master trap a boggart, to rescue his master from the lamias, and to save himself from Golgoth and Morgan. We know that he is the Spook's "last apprentice," and we see his sources of support for his battle against evil failing him--his mother will return home to her own country, now that his father has died, and the Spook is aging. The Spook's routines and teachings have shaped Tom's practice of his craft, but he recognizes he is free to disregard at least some of what the Spook says. And even the Spook can be brought around to appreciate Alice's efforts on his and Tom's behalf. So the way is paved for some of the dangerously powers of an adolescent witch to weave their way more firmly into Tom's life. Will he fall in love? Will his love for Alice let him keep his wits about him when he must save ordinary people from the monsters that prey upon them? Will he renounce love to live priestlike, so that his power will not be sapped?

We'll all have to wait for the sequel to find out.