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Stormsong is a sequel that does something very few sequels do: it deals with the afterwards. What happens after you've defeated the Big Bad and uncovered his nefarious plots? Chances are the structures that allowed the Big Bad to rise and thrive are still standing, and that's a serious problem.

As Witchmark was one of the most nuanced takes on the outlawed magic trope and very plausibly portrayed the rich profiting from it, Stormsong is one of the most nuanced versions of the "rebellion against the establishment" plotline, and with a very interesting perspective - Dame Grace Hensley was completely part of it until a few days before, and in some ways still is. This book knows how to talk about privilege and oppression, about how this kind of discussion has to be full of grey areas and still requires steps, solutions, because injustice can't be allowed to continue. Sometimes, those solutions will have high costs.
(Forgive me the aside, but this is the very reason no trope is tired until marginalized people have had as many chances to write it.)

In this book, what truly happened with Laneer comes into focus, and there's also discussion of justice in the context of colonial wars. Everything in here is complicated, and this book handles all of it with... grace. (Sorry.) There are also advocates for witches' rights, and the Amaranthines sometimes have goals of their own, and everything is twisted enough that I couldn't even predict the solution to the murder mystery (yes, of course there's murder too!) this time.

I still didn't like this book as much as Witchmark. It might be due to my mental state, but my frustration at the ending had a lot to do with it. I hate cliffhangers, they make me want to not continue with the story, and while I get why a certain character didn't get what they deserved, I'm still really annoyed and that's never the emotion I want a book to leave me with.

The romance in this book also took more of a backseat than it did in the first. Again, I understand why this was necessary, but I still wish I would have gotten more than that, especially when I had to sit through so many scenes with Severin (why do f/f books specifically have to spend so much time on men who want to end up with the main character but obviously won't?).
It's also one of those romances in which you're told that the characters were already drawn to each other since before the beginning of the story, but you aren't shown that, not even in a flashback, so you're already starting halfway through. There is a lot to love about Avia and Grace's relationship, about how they came from somewhat similar situations and are going through similar pathways in different times, and there was even an occurrence of the "there's only one bed!" trope. I liked them, of course I did, but I still wanted more from this book.