The Girl from the Miracles District is an urban fantasy series by Aneta Jadowska, and another spin-off of her earlier work, Dora Wilk Series. So far, it's composed of two novels — The Girl from the Miracles District and The Midwife of Gods.
Ever since the human World War Two poisoned the Ley Lines of the alternative world of magicals, the alt-city of Wars, once a thriving metropolis, has been a twisted and bizzare place. Entire districts are abandoned because of magic cursing through them; cracks leading to the human world are appearing in strangest of places; storms bring surges of dark energies that can turn you into a mindless monster in your sleep if you don't protect yourself; there's an entire zone permanently stuck in 1936 because of a miscast spell; and then, across the river, past the cursed bridge, there's Sawa, Wars' sister city, which makes its sibling look like a holiday resort.
It is in Wars that Nikita lives. An assassin with secrets aplenty, nicknamed "the Mantis" by her coworkers, she's employed by the Order of Shadows, a group of Private Military Contractors run by a woman called Irena, secretly Nikita's mother. Lately, Nikita hasn't been having a good time. For starters, Wars is going through a season of heavy storms, and monsters are roaming the streets. As if that wasn't problematic enough, in yet another attempt by Irena to keep an eye on her, Nikita is assigned a partner, a man called Robin, whose official backstory couldn't be more obviously false and who doesn't even remember what his real backstory is. As Nikita's trying to figure out a way to get rid of him, another news comes — her friend, a burlesque singer from the time-stuck Miracles District, has gone missing, likely taken out of the town-within-town. The peculiar nature of the place's magic means that if Zelda doesn't return into its borders within a few days, she will go into coma and die - and no-one has any idea where she went.
And just to add insult to the injury, someone mails a peculiar gift to Nikita's supposed safe hiding spot — thirty roses, each accompanied by a dead preying mantis pinned to its stalk.
The Girl from the Miracles District provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Both of Nikita's parents, though in different ways.
- Ernest was absolutely mad, and she and her mother had spent years running away from him. When he caught up to Nikita, he kidnapped her, tortured, and cut off two of her fingers to send them to Irena as a boast.
- Not that Irena was much better. She kept on firing people who gave Nikita any chance at a happier childhood, trained the girl brutally to be a living weapon and kept on punishing her daughter for not living up to her standards. After a magic test indicated that Nikita has no awesome powers, Irena essentially ignored her, even when Ernest kidnapped her.
- After the End: Wars has that feel. Seventy years before, a catastrophe came through the ley lines. They respond to emotions in both worlds, so when Warszawa — Wars' and Sawa's human equivalent — became embroiled in the horrors of World War Two, the ley lines became poisoned with hatred and evil, causing present problems. Nikita compares it to an ecological disaster.
- The Ageless: All the Pillars have been unchanged since the Forties.
- The Alleged Car: The Chevy in Aleks' garage. Aleks is adamant that he'll fix it, but so far, he's never managed to make its engine run for more than fifteen minutes.
- All Just a Dream: Zig-zagged with Nikita's visit to Asgard. It eventually turns out that Nikita was asleep for her entire visit in Asgard, but Astral Projection and Talking in Your Dreams were involved, so she really met and talked with everyone she met and talked with.
- All Trolls Are Different: The Norwegian trolls vary in size and humanity, but each and every one of them share a love for human meat.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Black-haired Nikita projects this image to the world, being largely emotionless and distancing herself from her coworkers.
- Amnesia Missed a Spot: Robin's mind wipe has left him with a few memories, which are actually fake, and a recurring dream, which is not.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Robin's deer head amulet is a powerful magic canister synchronized with his aura. It goes through any magic protection like knife through butter, and can put up an excellent Deflector Shield of its own, as well as guard Robin from magic designed to mess with his head.
- And the Adventure Continues: The novel ends with Robin and Nikita deciding to head to the village Ture clued them in about, with Nikita hoping to find out why they were separated, and Robin attempting to figure out the truth about his past.
- Animal Motifs:
- Preying mantis. The cover, as well as chapter headers of the first book, have a preying mantis stained glass mosaic, Nikita's nickname is Mantis, she's sent mantids to threaten her, and so on.
- Deer for Robin. His amulet is shaped like a deer's head, and a deer is a recurring fixture of his dreams.
- Arc Symbol: Head of a deer.
- Artificial Human: The automatons cultivated by Irena. They're made from her blood by a mixture of magic and technology, serve as regular Shadows, and undergo brain conditioning that sometimes impacts their performance. Nikita initially suspects Robin to be an automaton.
- Asian Airhead: Nikita disguises herself as an airhead on her job, as this is her target's fetish.
- Attempted Rape: Back when Nikita joined the Order, another Shadow wanted to assure her position beneath him in the pecking order and tried to rape her under the shower. She had a gun with her, though, and blew his head clear off, which is how she got the nickname "Mantis"note .
- Badass Biker: The Bears are an entire gang — or chapter, as they call themselves — of those. Nikita and Robin also qualify.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted; there are several times when Nikita is badly beated, bloody and cut, and has to spend a long time cleaning herself up and recuperating.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Iben's backstory — he had an immortal huldra wife, and as he was aging, he got an offer from Frigg to make one of his wishes come true. He wished to be immortal, not knowing that huldra can only bond themselves to mortals. As a result, he and his wife became Star-Crossed Lovers.
- Bee Afraid: Iben keeps an entire plantation of divine bees, the venom of which can affect even berserks.
- Being Watched: As soon as she sees a pair of ravens circling above their ferry, Nikita realizes that she and Robin are being watched. Though granted, given that there's exactly two of them, their species and Nikita's connection the Norse pantheon, it's not a very far-fetched guess.
- Beneath the Mask:
- Beneath her public persona of an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, Nikita is a very scared — and scarred — woman.
- A magical variety of this happens with Jakub's photographs — if made on an old-timey camera with a film, they show the true nature of the place or person presented and influences others have on them, although often cryptically.
- Bequeathed Power: What tiny amounts of healing magic Nikita has come from her grandmother, who bequeathed it on Nikita in her childhood.
- The Beastmaster: Bestiar can command and communicate with rats.
- The Berserker: Nikita is one, after her father. When her body heat is too high and she has too much adrenaline, she hulks out and gains extra teeth and insatiable Blood Lust.
- Big Bad: Nikita's twin brother is behind Zelda's kidnapping, the mantids at Nikita's door, and more.
- Blank Slate: Robin was made into one several times, but each and every time, the emptiness has led to his demise.
- Burlesque: Many in the Miracles District, with The Music Box being the most famous and prominent one, and the one Nikita has ties to.
- Blood Lust:
- When Nikita goes berserk, her instincts keep on screaming at her to kill and drink her enemies' blood.
- The wolfmen and wąpierze are obsessed with killing and drinking blood of un-turned people.
- Blood-Splattered Warrior: Nikita is often completely covered in blood of her enemies, especially after turning berserk.
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Aleks sends his friends the Bears to guard Nikita, even though she's a professional assassin. While they do help, she ends up saving them more often than they save her.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Robin, as it turns out. He manages to get smashing drunk on a plane trip from Oslo to Gdańsk (which is less than an hour, and he's drunk for most of it).
- Central Theme: Family and identity are two main focuses of the story, with Nikita plot being more on the family side, while Robin's is more of a Quest for Identity.
- Chekhov's Skill: Nikita mentions several times that she has fondness for Chinese takeaways. Turns out, the ability to manipulate chopsticks is pretty useful when you have to use divine knitting needles to untangle the strings of fate. Who would've thought?
- Church Militant: The Order of Shadows used to be one, hunting down magicals on behalf of the Church to hide the existence of other gods and pagan monsters from muggle masses. After some decades, though, it amassed enough money and power to be able to split, and has since become Private Military Contractors, with magicals making up a bulk of the force.
- Claimed by the Supernatural: If you spend more than a few days in the Miracles District, you won't be able to leave for more than a few hours without growing weak, suffering anaphylaxis, and eventually falling into coma and dying.
- Cleanup Crew: The trolls fulfill this role in the magical Norway, as for them the aftermath of a battle is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet.
- Commonplace Rare: Oranges are considered luxury in the Miracles District, as they can only be bought in human world's shops. At one point, Nikita manages to buy highly sensitive information with a small crate of oranges.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Nikita is in many ways an anti-Dora. While they're both badass fighter ladies, Dora is an officer of justice, while Nikita is a professional killer. Dora is a Fiery Redhead, while Nikita is an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl. Dora is full of love for all living beings, while Nikita is wary of any sort of close relationship and doesn't trust anyone. Dora often runs on Indy Ploy, Nikita prefers to plan ahead. Dora had kind parental figures in her life, while Nikita's parents were abusive. Also, Dora's siblings don't care much for her, while Nikita has a doting brother in Kosma.
- Cool Big Bro: Kosma, Nikita's half-brother. He's older than her by centuries, and when he realized they're related, he falsified her magic scan results so that Irena wouldn't find out she's a berserk — and that's before the two of them even met. He provides Nikita with a ton of care and emotional support she's been missing for most of her life.
- Cool Bike: Nikita's motorcycle, Pretty, which was modified and improved by her friend so much, there's basically no trace of the original machine. It's also faster and more durable than the original one, and with a few helpful tricks.
- Creepy Child: Zelda's daughter, Alicja. She got through the Miracles District "nativization" during her mother's pregnancy, and as a result has strange visions and portents, often related to her mother. She's also rather quiet and distant, and the way she speaks sends chills down people's spines.
- Creepy Crows: Throughout Midwife of Gods, Nikita and Robin are followed and watched by Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn, highlighting the Being Watched factor. Near the end of the book, Morrigan's crows join in on the fun.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: To warn others in the Order against going after her, Nikita crucifies Turner on the wall of his study with a dozen nails fired from a nail gun.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The Bears prove their usefulness by taking down an entire van of mercenaries in a time it takes Nikita to eat a hot dog. The villains wise up to them, though, by the time they meet again.
- When Iben's house is attacked, his wife and sons join in on the fun, and they mop the ground with the mercenaries so thoroughly, Nikita notes that it's more of a family bonding activity than a fight.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Nikita has it in spades. Always moving from town to town, her father a mad berserk who wants her dead, her mother raising her to be her perfect weapon, Ernest kidnapping and torturing her...
- Darker and Edgier: Than its precedessor, Dora Wilk Series. While in Thorn, politics were a big issue and people were out to get Dora, at least the city itself wasn't trying to kill her or mutate her, not to mention that Nikita's childhood was immensly worse and she's far deeper in the darker shades of grey, morality-wise.
- Dark Secret:
- Nikita hides the fact that she's a berserk, because if her mother knew, she'd turn her into a soldier to hulk out at her beck and call.
- Irena herself considers Nikita's connection to her this way, and hides it from the rest of the Order.
- Delayed Reaction: In Nikita's past, after she was rescued from her father, her berserk powers only kicked in a night after, long past the time when they'd be useful.
- Demonic Possession: Apparently, sometimes the berserk spirits possess their bearers, overwhelming the human soul. Kosma and Nikita speculate that this has happened to Ernest.
- Denied Food as Punishment: Irena used to force Nikita to learn her skills by withholding food from her until the girl managed to perform the given task perfectly. It was also part of her attempts to make her manifest her berserk.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: The mercenaries in the second book use bullets with cores made of a magic material that nullifies Nikita's Healing Factor.
- Dirty Mind-Reading: Freya enjoys making people attracted to her and then read all about from their minds.
- Doing Research: Kosma's answer to all of life's problems is to hit the books.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Nikita gets angry when people try to call her by her birth name.
- Dragon Lady: Madame Butterfly, the dangerous and very stereotypical owner of the Miracles District's Asian-themed establishment. She's powerful enough that Nikita agrees to go to Sawa for her without getting paid.
- The Dreaded: Ernest the Mad, especially for Nikita and Kosma. As a legendary berserk, he's feared across the world, but to them, he's an abusive parent who hunts down all his offspring to kill them.
- Driven to Suicide: In the past, Robin has killed himself several times, because of being a Blank Slate.
- Driving Question: "Who is Nikita, really?" and "Who is Robin?" are the two question the series focuses on.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Karma, Nikita's associate, is a petite teenage girl who likes dressing in this style.
- Elite Mooks: The calligraphomancer Nikita faces in the second book is leagues above all the other mercenaries.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Sawa. The city, thanks to its connection to Ley Line magic, got hit with negative energy a lot harder, and everything there mutated into evil, twisted, aggressive version of itself.
- Fake Memories: Robin has been implanted with memories of Nikita's childhood to make him more stable.
- Fingore: Nikita lost both of her little fingers to Ernset when the latter kidnapped her.
- Fiery Redhead: The Big Bad of the first book is rather emotional and has aggressively red hair.
- First-Name Basis: The change in relationship between Nikita and her berserk is marked by her giving it a name, Mr B.
- Fisher Kingdom: The Miracles District. It can turn people immortal and make them unable to leave it.
- Fisher King: The Miracles District has several in the Pillars, which are the people the magic considers fundamental to the continuous functioning of the spell. They're thus made immortal, and was any of them to die, the spell would be weakened.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When exploring Sawa, Nikita and Robin suddenly see a rat spring out and peep in warning, which is the only clue they get right before they're attacked.
- Forced Sleep: The calligraphomancer in the second book is quite fond of using an incantation that puts everyone it encompasses to sleep. She usually doesn't set up a wake-up time.
- Friendly Sniper: Robin, the nicest Nice Guy in Wars, and a deadly sniper with a crossbow.
- Friend to All Living Things: Animals love Robin and can become really euphoric when in his company. It gives him some trouble when boarding a ferry, because the Border Guard's dogs start to act like they're on drugs when they approach him.
- Frozen in Time: A weird in-universe version with the Miracles District. The spell wished for things to return to normal in dark magic-ravaged Wars, and so the magic interpreted this as pushing everything back in time to 1936. Barely any technology beyond that time can work within the District — cars don't work, and it took a lot of magical gymnastics to install a modern fridge — and the entire decoration and culture, as well as some people, have to stay the same for the spell to work.
- The Gadfly: Freya loves to visit newcomers to Asgard and flirt with them, then reveal that she can read their minds.
- Gadgeteer Genius:
- Aleks, a mechanic with whom Nikita lives from time to time, who spends his free time fixing up and improving cars, often in way the producers have never thought of.
- Kosma's magic is connected to technology and he can make some nifty stuff, such as the implant that controls Nikita's adrenaline levels.
- Gang of Hats: The Bears are a biker gang where every member has a bear-themed nicknamed, such as Yogi, Ursa or Panda.
- Genius Loci: The Miracles District is implied to have some degree of sentience, deciding what to do and what to pass on through the Pillars to keep itself existing.
- Geometric Magic: Magic circles, which almost every house in Wars has, as they keep out the "hiccups", mutative magic surges. Nikita also has one that helps her stop herself from hulking out.
- Good Is Not Nice: Nikita is an Anti-Hero through and through, and while she saves lives and so on, she's also a working assassin and isn't above crucifying a guy who tried to kill her.
- Gratuitous English: Madame Butterfly is called like this in the book, even though in Polish, "butterfly" is "motyl".
- Happy Flashback: Nikita has several flashbacks to happier times of her youth, before Ernest kidnapped her.
- Healing Factor: Robin heals unusually quickly, to surprise of both him and Nikita.
- Healing Potion: Nikita has a whole bunch of those, and gets a chance to use them several times.
- Hikikomori:
- Karma never leaves her fortress of a house, preferring to spy on everyone through her computers, and isn't very fond of intearacting with other people.
- Kosma never leaves his library, as he's afraid that going beyond the controlled environment of the Archive will cause him too much stress and turn him into a berserk. Thanks to his interactions with Nikita, he's starting to overcome it.
- Hitman with a Heart: Nikita gradually becomes one, carefully reviewing what jobs she takes and not endangering people unless she absolutely has to.
- Horned Humanoid: The Midwife of Gods' true form has an impressive pair of curved horns. He also claims that Robin is a fellow "deerman", though Nikita is yet to see the proof of it.
- Hostile Weather: The storms that plague Wars rile up all the negative magic in the ley lines, leading to "hiccups", or sudden surges of energy that can transform you into a monster. In other words, if there's a storm coming, get inside and secure all doors and windows immediately.
- Hulking Out: When Nikita lets herself go berserk, she grows a good third of a metre, bulks up, gains far more teeth than a human should have, and turns into an insatiable killing machine.
- Humanshifting: As Nikita's berserk powers transform her body, she's learned to harness it to change herself a little, such as emphasizing her Asian features to blend in with the crowd at an Asian burlesque.
- Hungry Jungle: Sawa. It's completely overgrown with vegetation, there's evil magic about, and everything wants to kill you.
- If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Inverted as "if it's good for you, it must taste bad" — the woman who makes Nikita's Healing Potions deliberately makes them as awful as possible to discourage Nikita from putting herself in harm's way.
- I Have Many Names: Nikita has dozens of false names — even "Nikita" isn't her true one — by which she goes in her different hideouts.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Nikita often daydreams about leaving the job as a serial killer and moving in with Kosma, to live normally and without fear of her father.
- Implied Death Threat: The box full of dead mantids delivered to Nikita's doorstep in what's supposed to be a secret hideout.
- Implied Love Interest: Zelda for Nikita. Nikita cares about her a lot, and Zelda seems to reciprocate the feeling, but neither is keen on making any move towards a Relationship Upgrade for fear of becoming Star-Crossed Lovers, so they're stuck in a weird space in-between.
- Impostor-Exposing Test: After Nikita gets back to Norway, the first thing Kosma does upon seeing her is to throw on her neck a chain that would bind her if her berserk spirit had taken over her body.
- Innate Night Vision: Nikita has a better-than-average night vision thanks to being a berserk. When she hulks out, she can see as clear as if it was day.
- Interspecies Romance:
- Lars and Anna. The former is a werewolf, while the latter is a baseline human.
- Iben and his unnamed huldra wife. The former used to be human and is now something else.
- Implied with Ture and Saga, a half-berserk and an Asgardian.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting:
- Nikita has very little control over her hulking out, and has to use a spinal implant to keep her adrenaline levels in check least she transforms into a rampaging monster in the middle of the street.
- The magic hiccups cause this, turning normal people into broken versions of werewolves and vampires, obsessed with blood.
- The berserk breakthrough is triggered by severe trauma or stress, and the person affected has no control over it — in fact, many berserks weren't even aware of what they were before they had a breakthrough.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Nikita calls her berserk spirit "it" when she's still at war with it, and "he" (Mr B.) when the two work out a working relationship of sorts.
- I Work Alone: Nikita's policy for the last three years has been to turn away or otherwise get rid of all parters assigned to her, as she much prefers to work alone. Robin is yet another attempt by her mother to accept a patner.
- Just Woke Up That Way: People often turn into wolfmen and wąpierze in their sleep.
- Kansas City Shuffle: The entire campaign of threats against Nikita, the kidnapping of Zelda and vague intentions of harm to Aleks or Karma were all to lead Nikita way from Ture's true target — Irena.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Robin's memories of his time before his arrival in Wars were wiped nigh-clean.
- Ley Line: There's a ton of them in Wars, and sometimes they surge with dark magic.
- Long Haired Prettyboy: The Big Bad is described as a male model with long hair.
- Long-Lost Relative: Nikita and Ture turn out to be twins.
- Made a Slave: Zelda, as well as many other women working in the Miracles District, has been kidnapped from another town and kept in the District until it claimed her, making her unable to leave.
- Magical Accessory: Robin's deer head pedant, which works as a Protective Charm and lets him bypass magical defences.
- Magic Versus Science: While the rest of the world runs on Magitek, the magic of Miracles District renders unusable anything that doesn't fit in with the period, which means phones, cars and computers, but also modern medicine.
- Make an Example of Them: Nikita serves Turner a Cruel and Unusual Death as a warning to other members of the Order.
- Memento MacGuffin: Whatever Robin's pedant really is, he had it before joining the Order, and is likely the only connection to his past life.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: When Nikita turns berserk, she gains extra teeth. Many, many extra teeth.
- Mercy Kill: The only way to deal with someone mutated by a magic hiccup, as there's no way to turn them back.
- The Mole: It turns out that Remi, one of the Bears is the spy on the team, as he resents Nikita for his father dying while rescuing her years ago.
- Mooks: The constant stream of mercenaries being sent after Nikita in the second book is an annoyance, but nothing the heroes can't deal with fairly easily.
- Motive Rant: Remi launches into a rant against Nikita to explain why he betray her when he's captured, angry that his father died rescuing her, yet his entire family treats Nikita like a hero.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Nikita reflects on this after killing Ture on her mother's orders, realizing that Irena has been manipulating her from the start to train her into her perfect puppet. It's what ultimately leads her to freeing herself from Irena's influence.
- Mysterious Mist: It covers the bridge in Sawa, and might have something to do with its visions and horrors.
- Mysterious Note: Ture leaves Nikita one, promising that the truth hides in a remote Norwegian village.
- Named Weapons: Nikita names her guns. Her favourite is called Inquisition.
- Nice Guy: Robin. Happy to trust others, never betrays others' secrets, always there to support Nikita even when she doesn't want to have anything to do with him, chilvarious, and a good shoulder to cry on.
- Noodle Incident: Between The Girl and The Midwife, Nikita has visited Sawa to pick up some trinkets as a favour for Lady Butterfly, and consequently had a run-in with Japanese demons. That's all she tells anyone of the matter.
- Norse Mythology: Figures prominently into the plot.
- Not Me This Time: Irena is extremely surprised when Nikita accuses her of poisoning her daughter. Turns out, she wasn't trying to get her daughter killed just yet.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: In The Midwife of Gods, Nikita, Robin and the rest of their company slay a town's worth of well-equipped mercenaries, yet the villain keeps sending more. Nikita lampshades this, wondering how much money the guy can possibly have. It's explained somewhat by the end of the novel when she learns that the man used to work in Africa and has made a substantial sum of money on the side from the local conflicts.
- Only Known by Their Nickname:
- The Bears never reveal their actual names and are only referred to by their chapter nicknames.
- Mr B., as he doesn't have an actual name.
- Our Vampires Are Different: In contrast to the classy vampires of the rest of the world, the wąpierze are little more than inhumane beasts that vaguely resemble vampires and want to drink blood, often messily so.
- Orphan's Plot Trinket: Robin believes that his pedant is this, as this was the only thing he had with him when he was dropped at the doors of an Order outpost in Italy. It's false — whatever happened with him, he didn't grow up in the Order.
- Pass the Popcorn: While they don't have popcorn, Nikita and Robin have a snack break as they watch the Bears deal with seven or so mercenaries that'd been following them.
- Physical God: The Norse gods are physical enough that Nikita can threaten to poke out Odin's remaining eye with scissors and he takes it seriously.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Nikita and Robin become this over the course of the story. Their shared predicaments bring them closer together, but rather than a couple (which wouldn't happen anyway, given Nikita swings the other way), they become friends.
- Playful Hacker: Karma. She can hack anywhere, but when taking her revenge, she prefers to annoy and tease rather than seriously damage.
- Pregnant Badass: When her home is attacked, Anna (close to giving birth at the time) breaks out a shotgun and kills some of the attackers herself.
- Private Military Contractors: The Order of Shadows is a group of professional killers for hire, often working as mercenaries rather than assassins.
- Protective Charm: Robin's deer amulet is one, shielding him from many magic attacks, and taking the brunt of bridge's magic.
- Posthumous Character: Nikita's previous partner, Johann, gets a lot of development in the second book despite being dead for several years now, thanks to her visiting his brother.
- Power Glows: The runes in Nikita's berserk-controlling room glow when they're engaged.
- Power Nullifier: A willing example. Nikita wears a spinal chip that helps control her adrenaline levels, essentially nullifying her berserkerism — to some extent.
- Quest for Identity:
- Underplayed with Nikita, who spends the second book trying to find out who she was before her mother took her away and locked off her magic and her memories.
- Played straight with Robin, who has no recollection of his past. The Sequel Hook in the second book implies that the serch of his identity will be the focus of book three.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: After Kosma scans Nikita's magic signature, he's horrified to discover that almost all of it is just a black blot of the berserk.
- The Reveal: Several.
- Nikita has a half-brother who grew up with Ernest.
- Ture is not after Nikita, but her mother.
- Robin is over two hundred years old, and his memories are Nikita's implanted into him.
- Robin has committed suicide five times already.
- Last but not least, Nikita's real name is Erynia.
- This Is Reality:
- While it may sound very vintage and romantic to be perpetually stuck in 1936, the story wastes no time reminding us that one of the things that weren't present in those times were modern medicine, and so many citizens of the Miracles District die from diseases that could've been easily cured, had the people been able to go to a hospital.
- In the second book, Nikita breaks her hand, and despite her insistence that she can go on, Robin points out that you can't drive a motorcycle with only one working hand, so their trip is delayed until they can rent a car.
- The story deconstructs the Badass Biker trope, pointing out that while being a part of a biker gang is cool when you're twenty, it's less so when you're nearing forty and start to settle down with a family.
- Really 700 Years Old: Robin is actually over two centuries old. He looks like he's Nikita's age.
- Recurring Dreams: Robin has a recurring dream about a woman crying out to him, a deer, a forest, and Nikita being said to help fix him.
- Red Baron: Her co-workers call Nikita the Mantis.
- Resurrective Immortality: Robin is implied to have this, as in the past he has commited suicide five times and came back to life each and every time.
- Road Trip Plot: The main plot of the second book is Nikita's and Robin's road trip through Norway.
- Secret Test of Character: Discussed when Iben takes Nikita fishing. He watches her very carefully, and she wonders if this is a secret test of character and whether she passed.
- Secret Underground Passage: There's one between Order headquarters and Irena's house, as well as one between the Music Box hall and Terra del Fuego bordello, for clients who want to have a bit more fun.
- Seers:
- The Pillars of the Miracles District are responsible for keeping it functional, and so are sometimes sent visions of things that may threaten its stability.
- Alicja can see glimpses of where her mother is being kept.
- Separated at Birth: Nikita and Ture. Irena took her, while Ernest kept him.
- Series Continuity Error: Nikita first appeared in book 2 of Dora Wilk Series, and what's likely Early-Installment Weirdness caused a few clashes between then and now.
- In Gods Must Be Crazy, her mother was called Lilianna — which, admittedly, could be explained by Irena having several names.
- Also in that book, it was said that Nikita and Kosma were twins of the same age, and that "Lilianna" has taken them both with her when running away from Ernest. Nikita was the more adult of the two and Cool Big Sis to Kosma. Here, Kosma is Nikita's half-brother older by a few hundred years, and the two didn't meet until Nikita was undergoing her magic training as a young adult. Their sibling dynamic has also been inverted.
- Ernest has gained the middle "e" between The Gods Must Be Crazy and this book.
- Sequel Hook:
- The Mysterious Note Nikita receivs at the end of the first book.
- At the end of the second book, Nikita tells Robin that she knows a guy who can lead them to the Archive holding the secret of his identity.
- Shattering the Illusion: The Sight rune can dispel illusions, though only for the person wearing it.
- She Is the King: Inverted; the Midwife of Gods is male, and it's noted several times how unusual this is.
- Shout-Out:
- Nikita explicitly states that she picked her name from watching La Femme Nikita as a kid.
- Zelda, a lovely woman in need of saving. Hmmm...
- Robin is an excellent shot with an arrow, and Nikita even notes that his surname should be Hood. In the second book, she has the ringtone set to play Robin Hood theme whenever he calls.
- For that matter, her phone plays the Jaws theme when her mother's calling.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Nikita mentions that the dancers at the Music Box burlesque have taken liking to Robin because he always acts like a gentleman towards them.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Kosma is a walking encyclopedia and a tech genius, and wears glasses.
- Star-Crossed Lovers:
- Zelda and Nikita are unwilling to make a Relationship Upgrade because they're afraid this would happen — Nikita can't live in the Miracles District without getting trapped there, while Zelda and her daughter can't leave it or they'll die.
- Iben and his wife. The latter's a huldra, who by the divine law can only bind herself to a human. He, in turn, is an immortal, so the two can only spend together one, maybe two days before she has to leave him for months.
- Stealth Pun: In Polish, "a bear favour" is an idiom meaning an attempt at help that makes everything worse. While they do help Nikita a little bit at the start, the Bears soon become more of a trouble than assistance, and she has to rescue them twice.
- The Straight and Arrow Path: Robin uses crossbow, as it's quieter and has greater punching power against some gun-proof monsters.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: The bridge between Wars and Sawa draws from fears of those who cross them and manifests them in their heads, trying to get them to jump off into the river.
- Super-Strength: Nikita is superhumanly strong when in berserk form.
- Swarm of Rats: Bestiar, who can talk to rats and command them, is always surrounded by this.
- Take It to the Bridge: To get to Sawa and kickstart the third act of the story, Nikita and Robin have to cross a bridge that's a Supernatural Fear Inducer. It's also where the readers see how terrified Nikita is of Ernest, and learn a bit more about Robin.
- Talking in Your Dreams:
- Nikita has conversations with Ture after he dies this way.
- Eventually, it turns out that Nikita's entire trip to Asgard was this trope taken up to eleven.
- Teen Genius: Karma is a brilliant teenage hacker who wields numbers magic.
- Telepathy: Both Frigg and Freya casually read minds.
- To Serve Man: The Norwegian trolls eat human flesh, making them invaluable whenever Nikita has to deal with yet another gang of mercenaries.
- Tracking Chip: Irena implants a magical one and an electronic one into Robin to keep track on him and Nikita. They get rid of it fairly quickly.
- Transformation Horror: Nikita's transformation is quite gruesome, to say the least, and described in vivid detail.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Berserkerism is completely unnoticeable without an in-depth magic scan until someone is pushed to their limits, either by pain or adrenaline, whereupon it manifests and becomes an ever-present problem.
- Trying Not to Cry: Nikita, when confronted with Robin's kindess, tries hard not to burst into tears, and fails utterly.
- Unwilling Suspension: At one point, Nikita is kidnapped and hanged by her wrists so that her feet barely touch the ground. Proves to be less than effective when she goes berserk and gains extra thirty centimetres of height, letting her stand quite comfortably.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Nikita's Happy Flashbacks indicate she used to be a much more cheerful and happy person before her father kidnapped her.
- The Villain Knows Where You Live: Just as Nikita feels safe at her hidden back-up apartment, the Big Bad drops a box of dead mantids on her doorstep.
- Villainous Breakdown: Turner has a total breakdown when he realizes that Nikita knows his identity and has come to deal with him. He immediately panics and starts begging her to spare him.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Karma and Ilya, her caretaker. They constantly fight and make up, and no matter what they say to each other, they know they'd never leave one another.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Robin gets insanely seasick on the ferry to Norway. He manages to make it into the bathroom before actually vomiting, but Nikita gets to hear the sounds.
- Waif Prophet: Alicja, a little girl, can see glimpses of the place the kidnapper is keeping her mother in.
- Weather Dissonance: In the second book Nikita keeps noting that autumn seems very late and it's still summer weather despite it being October already. Even trees and migrating birds are affected. It's implied that it's connected to some troubles in the Norse Pantheon, but it's never explicitely confirmed.
- Wham Line: When Robin's barely conscious and Nikita is close by, it turns out Amnesia Missed a Spot, revealing a substantial problem with his supposed backstory:Robin: I haven't felt that smell in two hundred years...
- Wolf Man: The wolfmen are people whom the hiccups turned into parodies of werewolves, stuck mid-transformation and hungry for flesh of humans.
- You Dirty Rat!: Nikita hates rats, so she's understandably uncomfortable when she goes to visit Bestiar, the King of them.
