The Fragile Threads of Power

Tesali “Tes” Ranek is one of the novel’s protagonists and a resident of Red London. She is a gifted magic worker with the rare ability to not only see magical threads but to manipulate them. She has brown eyes and “curls [that are] wild, unruly, a thicket of ever-escaping weeds” (417). Tes is 15 when the novel takes place and ran away from home at the age of 12. She is the youngest of her parents’ four daughters and grew up knowing that her father only valued them for what they could bring him: beauty, wealth, or prestige. He asks the young Tes, “[W]hat are you worth?” (410). She is lonely and does not have many people she can trust. Due to her isolation, she created a tiny owl skeleton named Vares that is animated with magic. She tells him her secrets and finds comfort in him since she cannot trust most people.

Because of the rarity of her gift, many characters in the novel seek to control Tes and use her as a pawn. Her struggle throughout the novel is to find others who will respect her as a person rather than see her as a tool. She says of her gift, “[I]t doesn’t make me a thing instead of a person” (640). As a child, she is forced to flee her home when her father and eldest sister discover her gift. She makes a living pretending to be an apprentice but is constantly in fear of being discovered or underestimated because of her youth and gender. At the end of the novel, she finds a place as Maris’s apprentice on the Ferase Stras. The older woman promises Tes that her talents will be nurtured there and that she does not need to fear being used or held against her will. This completes Tes’s coming-of-age arc in the novel.

Kell Maresh is one of the novel’s protagonists and Rhy’s adopted brother. He was born a powerful Antari magician and bears the dark eye that marks the gift. His other eye is blue. He is Lila Bard’s lover and partner, and the two of them have made a life sailing on the Grey Barron and working as informants for the crown. Due to the events of the last trilogy, Kell lost his ability to access magic without incredible pain. He is used to being a powerful magician and struggles to come to terms with this loss and understand his identity without magic: “Once upon a time, Kell Maresh had been the best magician in the world. Now, he [can] not even best a children’s game” (92). Lila encourages Kell to still see himself as capable and works with him to learn to fight without magic. At the climax of the novel, Kell regains his Antari powers due to Tes and Rhy.

Kell is protective of Lila and loves her deeply. He understands that she is an independent person and does not try to get her to change for him. Instead, he embraces the difficult parts of her personality: “He love[s] her. It scare[s] him, but frankly, so [does] Lila. She always had” (88). Lila, in turn, is one of the few people who understands Kell for who he really is, not as a prince or Antari but as a man. The narrator notes, “Kell [has] always been a pane of glass tilted toward [Lila] just so, so that where others [see] only colors and streaks, she [sees] the truth of it. Of him” (119). The other relationship that acts as an anchor for Kell is his relationship with his brother, Rhy. Though he sometimes worries his adopted parents only valued him as an Antari, he knows that Rhy truly loves him, and he loves his brother in turn.

Lila Bard is an Antari and the captain of the ship Grey Barron, as well as Kell’s partner and lover. She has pale skin and shoulder-length black hair. She has one brown eye; her other eye is missing, “carved out by a two-bit doctor back in London, England […] when she was just a child. As if it had been a poisoned thing, a spreading rot, and not a sign of strength, a marker of extraordinary power, once-in-a-generation magic” (65). She wears a false eye, sometimes brown and sometimes black, to disguise herself. Lila is an excellent fighter with and without magic and is a prickly and sarcastic person. She is fiercely loyal to her friends and very dangerous to her enemies.

Kell thinks of her not as “a soft bed on a summer morning” but “a blade in the dark, dazzling, and dangerous, and sharp” (88). They have a loving relationship, but Lila is not given to using romantic words or expressing her affection verbally. Kell knows her well and seeks to ease the trauma she still feels from her deprived upbringing. At one point, he reminds her, “Not everything is a trap” (80). The narrator notes, “The words [make] something tug behind her ribs. At being watched, but more so, at being seen” (80). After a lifetime of being neglected and used, Lila most treasures her found family and her freedom aboard her ship, where she answers to only herself.

Rhy Maresh is the king of Arnes. He is married to Nadiya, but Alucard is his consort and the three of them are raising their daughter, Ren. Rhy inherited the throne from his parents after their untimely deaths. He is a fair and generous monarch, but he worries that he is not living up to the legacy of his parents. Sometimes he envies his adopted brother, Kell, because he is not tethered to the throne: “[Kell is s]hedding his old life and savoring his newfound freedom, as Rhy [sinks] beneath the weight of his father’s crown” (158). Rhy is self-sacrificing and willing to risk his life for those he loves. His tendency to see himself as equal to everyone means that he is often at odds with Alucard and Nadiya, who worry about Rhy’s safety.

Alucard “Luca” Emery is one of the novel’s protagonists. He is the king’s consort and the son of a noble family. In the earlier Shades of Magic trilogy, he was a privateer and an adventurer. In this novel, he is settled down with his family and no longer concerned with seeking adventure. Despite his more sedate life, he is still “used to turning heads” and has “dashing looks—the sun-kissed hair, the storm-blue eyes, the warm brown skin” (30). He also bears silver scars from the effects of fighting Osaron’s plague. Alucard struggles to protect his family, especially from the Hand. He also grapples with the effects of his abusive upbringing. He and his brother Berras are foils for one another and represent how children with the same family of origin can take radically different paths. Though both Alucard and Berras were abused and pitted against one another, Alucard chose to become a man capable of love and forgiveness, while Berras clings to his hatred.

Nadiya Loreni is Rhy’s wife, the queen of Arnes, and Ren’s mother. She is strikingly beautiful but also calculating: “Despite her curves, there [is] little softness in the queen, not in her keen hazel eyes or the glossy black hair that she [wears] chopped short and tucked behind her ears, as if it were a nuisance” (183). She forms a family with Rhy, Ren, and Alucard, though she is not sexually or romantically interested in either of the men. Nadiya is from a noble family known for their inventions. Her work is both her great passion and her weakness. Alucard thinks that Nadiya is “a brilliant inventor, but she [has] a kind of tunnel vision when it [comes] to her work. She never seem[s] to see the danger in it, only the potential. In her mind, power [is] a neutral force” (376-77). This tunnel vision puts her at odds with Lila, who doesn’t trust Nadiya or her inventions and worries that she may invent something that will be used against them. Several characters comment on her sharp, analytical mind and her tendency to prioritize her family’s well-being above the lives of others.