Mission accomplished. We know it will be, because this is fantasy - but knowing that the hero (in this case, heroine) will survive and succeed isn't the whole story. The reader is forced all the way to wonder which of the secondary characters are going to be "red shirts." In this case, no characters which we have followed from previous books in the series are lost. I think Pierce must be very fond of her characters and unwilling to bump them off. Works for me. A couple of the named sparrows did die in book three, but they were pushing ten years of age and that is pushing plausibility even for fantasy - and besides they died peacefully in bed. So they all lived happily ever after.
And, by the way, Kel's stray for this book is a child rather than an animal. So technically there has been a progression in the level of her rescues. The sparrows were not exactly rescued - she fed them and they stayed. In book two we had the dog, Jump. In book three, she definitely rescues the griffin fledgling and calls to mind the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished. Then, finally, in book four, she rescues the abused foundling, Tobe, who proves to be a valuable asset and does survive along with the dog and the sparrows and the griffin, one assumes, he having been returned to his parents.
All in all, good fun.
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