By Kayla Matt

Yes, I know this is probably the third time I’ve put her in the hot seat.  First time was good and second time went relatively unnoticed.  Still, she returns in Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key to reveal that she’s more useful than before.  I won’t go into the details, but Ms. Grasdon gets an action scene to show that she hasn’t been sitting on her butt in high society since she last appeared in Prodigy of Rainbow Tower.  Yeah, it’s been a while and she’s changed.

For those that need a refresher, Kira is Luke Callindor’s fiancee and she comes from a culture where dating multiple partners is promoted.  So it has resulted in him having another relationship with Sari and this is the first time Luke and Kira get to talk about the whole thing.  This conversation has been a long time coming and I couldn’t fit it into Book 3 or 4 since having Kira show up would have made no sense in terms of story.  It also let things go further along where it isn’t as simple a talk as you’d expect, but you’ll have to read the story to find out.

Now Kira is the heiress of a powerful merchant house, but she was also a student at Hamilton Military Academy.  So she can fight and she’s proven to be more cunning than originally thought.  Her weapon is a chain and sickle called a kusari-gama and it comes in handy when fighting the large scorpions found in the desert around Bor’daruk.  We’ll get more into that area in Book 7 . . . mwahaha!

So step up, act respectful, and ask how Kira’s been doing while Luke has been away.