First, let me assure you that I loved this book. Then, I have to admit I've felt very disappointed when the duel was cancelled. I wanted to see it and I still want something to be said. I hope next book has the duel or at least a reference to Reggie. I am sure Reggie is still alive and still an ass.

In reference to something said a few posts ago, I wonder if the Spirearch is going to have some "award" for the group. I think they deserve at least a compensation.

i get the feeling hes going to keep it on the DL, grimm will get something as it would be to hard to hide predators role in the battle but i get the feeling hes going to want to have his new team of agents be less famouse so they can do there work better

there is also the issue of each one having a different "eccentricity" if you will.  If each one of them has to have different compulsions catered to in order to function that might not fit to well in a military setting where standardization and regulation are the norm. 

So it was mentioned several times that if a beast from the surface tastes of smells  specifically human blood they go into a frenzy and try to kill as many people as they can. This got me wondering how on earth could behavior like that be a naturally occurring thing. My own personal theory is that the surface beasts where made to kill humanity and someone or something, the "builder" mentioned more then a few times, made the spires to shield humanity from these creatures.

the knife could simply drain the mantle into itself, seal the power away thus destroying it for all practical purposes

While i do think the knife is the spear i don't think invulnerability is its power. Simply from a storytelling perspective giving your hero invincibility removes way to much tension, plus there's the fact that nic already has an artifact that shields him from almost all harm with the noose.

I think the blades power is actually the counter to inviolability, it can kill virtually anything. It could be argued that the spear perceiving him is what killed christ, and if the spear was able to keep the son of god dead for 3 days im willing to beat it can keep anything short of that down a lot longer. given this power it would be no wonder nic would want to get his hands on it, and i think i know who he planed to use it on.

if jim follows the pattern of every 5 books for nic showing up we will see him again right before the end trilogy and im betting the event to kick off that is nic stealing the knife and using it to kill one of the beings who has stood in his way time after time uriel.