I’ve been turning over possibilities for how '
ninth house' book three could settle Alex Stern’s fate, and honestly my brain keeps swinging between tragic, redemptive, and mythic. In one version she pays the highest price: a sacrificial move that severs her link to
the darker strands of necromancy so
The Secret societies can’t use her as a weapon. That would hit hard emotionally — she’d save others, but lose part of what made her uniquely herself, which echoes the series’ themes about what power costs.
Another path I see is transformation rather than death. Maybe Alex becomes something that lives between worlds: no longer quite human in the old way, but free of past wounds and able to finally name her trauma instead of running from it. That could give a bittersweet closure where friendships remain intact, and
the book ends on a strange, liminal hope. There’s also a grittier political ending where she outmaneuvers the societies, stays alive, but chooses exile, trading public victory for private peace.
Whichever route happens, I want her ending to feel earned — messy, morally complicated, and full of the relationships she’s fought to protect. I’d be satisfied if Bardugo leans into the moral ambiguity and leaves me both wrecked and oddly comforted.