This note contains spoilers for the book.

Second in this series. Clearly the series was intended to continue, but Joel hadn't written anything further on it at the time of his death.

Big things are clearly afoot. There are the new live swords, and darklings springing up where they really shouldn't be, and old fairies becoming active again in Ireland.

Sir Nigel, with his servant Fotheringay, goes out with others to work on various of these problems, and they have quite an adventure with a piper among other things. Smart thinking, and playing a step ahead (the title suggests chess, a game which requires planning many steps ahead to have any success at all).

And we end with Avalon rising again. Since Arthur the Tyrant is the bad guy, this is a big deal and not a good one. Cully takes charge as usual, goes to Her for help, and gets the people he has bonded to the swords he has (he takes the Khan himself, of course), and is clearly ready for the next stage of the fight. Unfortunately we'll never know what that was going to be.