“The boy and girl walked forward and took their first rolling steps in the new world. Please, the girl prayed silently to any Saints who might be listening, let us be safe here. Let us be home.”

The Prologue clarifies that one of Alina’s greatest desires is security. She longs for a place where she can safely settle down in a “home” with Mal. She wishes she didn’t have a target on her back. The novel details her discovery that this is impossible, given the current crisis with the Darkling.

“‘This is the gift you gave me,’ said the Darkling. ‘The gift I earned on the Fold.’ His face was alive with power and a terrible kind of joy. But I could see strain there, too. Whatever he was doing, it was costing him.”

The gift the Darkling alludes to is the birth of the nichevo’ya, the vicious shadow creatures he controls. Here, through his manic joy about his new weapon, Alina observes what will be the first chink in the Darkling’s power: Creating the creatures holds some sort of cost for him physically.

“You two make it so easy. I prick him, you bleed.”

The Darkling notes how entwined Alina and Mal are emotionally and figuratively, and he threatens to use their link to manipulate them to do his bidding.