Chapter 1: Part 9 - Family Reunion
If Erin had pictured the home of the Valpari matriarch, it would have looked exactly like Blackthorn Manor. The grey stone walls, the soaring turrets, the crenellations and grand front doors. Apart from its tall windows, looking back at them like blank eyes, it was surprisingly defensible. It even had a moat, if only at the front.
Chapter 1: Part 7 - Babysitting
Out of all the new recruits to her guild, Erin hadn’t expected Auri Valpari to be the most difficult. Both she and Oska were odd and not always in step with the world around them, at least at first glance. Once you got to know them better, you discovered that Oska was far sharper than he first appeared and had something of an acerbic tongue. Auri, if anything, was even more dreamy and distracted. She had a tendency to finish Oska’s sentences, but a lot of the other things she said made no sense at all.
Chapter 1: Part 1 - Just Deserts
Leading a guild was full of surprises. It had never crossed Erin’s mind that something as simple as joining a game – even one as large as Yinn’s Carnival – would lead her to the cells of the Order of Whispers. What she’d assumed would be nothing more than harmless, well-paying fun had rapidly spiralled out of control, though. In the end, working for Yinn had felt like one more unfortunate decision in an ever-expanding list of them.