Description

The king is dead, the country is on the brink of a class war, and the one responsible wants nothing to do with it.

Longstanding vituperative relations between the magically talented and untalented come to a head when magicians stage a pseudo-coup. Vespertine, a reclusive magician distinguished for her development of alchemy, heads the new oligarchical regime going by the name of The Concilium. She plans to reconcile the broiling enmity for both magicians and non-magicians with the prospect of equal opportunity—by any means necessary.

Following the murder of his twin brother the king, Not James must navigate a governmental reckoning that superficially seeks to expiate historic wrongs while secretly carrying out a sordid ploy to unify nations through interminable force. His plan is simple: run away. In his absence, relations between friends and enemies shift around the rise of new governance, and the unlikely truce between a thief, a teen magician, a former official, and a half-giant may serve to clinch peace from the jaws of a disastrous rebellion and reign of coercion.