“If Gideon had a philosophy, it was this: No sense despairing. There was no telling what was real and what was not for Gideon Drake. His perception of dreamt wasteland might be a completely different scene to the dreamer. The burnings were a find reminder of something Gideon had learned long ago: there is doom to be found everywhere if doom is what you seek.”

Although Gideon isn’t one of the main characters, or an initiate, he plays an important role in the novel’s action. Blake emphasizes this by opening the novel from Gideon’s point of view. Here, the narrative provides insight into Gideon’s motivations and the perspective that he, as an outsider even in dreams, maintains.

“They were all slightly different without Libby Rhodes. Without them realizing it, she had established herself as the “but” in their collective conscience, their measure of morality. But what if this happens, but what if something goes wrong, but what if someone is hurt. The effects of her displacement from their anatomy as a group seemed imperceptibly compounding, like an infection that went undiagnosed.”

Reina recognizes that although the six initiates were only together for a year and in that time hadn’t developed strong connections, they’d formed some kind of group. Within that group, Libby played an important role: Her nervous approach to everything forced them to stop and consider consequences, putting her in the position of being the group’s conscience. The irony of this is that Libby’s transformation throughout the novel places her, in the end, in direct opposition to that role, suspending her own conscience in order to fully assume her power.

“Parisa knew something had existed between Tristan and Libby long before she interfered with them. They had shared something that couldn’t be undone—something that had followed them around, joining them even in their absences from each other. History did that to people. Proximity. Love in some cases, hatred in others. The specific kind of intimacy that meant that every enemy was once a friend.”

Although this is a novel about magic, it also concerns itself deeply with the characters’ relationships. In part, this is because several of the characters, most notably Parisa and Callum, influence and manipulate others. Parisa’s interest in psychology stems from her telepathic ability, and she continually shows insight into these relationships.