A Darker Shade of Magic

Another aeroplane book in the form of V.E. Schwab's enjoyable A Darker Shade of Magic. Set various parallel versions of London, each informally associated with a colour which demotes something about their underlying nature, it follows Kell, a powerful magician and Red London's only traveller between the worlds, and Lila Bard, a young thief from Grey London, as they get caught up in a world-spanning plot involving a fragment of magic from the lost city of Black London — a place that fell to chaos and destruction when the forces of magic ran amok, forcing the other Londons to seal it off forever.

Kell, as Red London's only Antari, has a unique position as the city's messenger and envoy to the other worlds. Despite his cosseted position — he has been adopted into the Royal family — Kell suffers from feelings of alienation and ennui that have driven him into petty acts of rebellion, such as smuggling items from one world to another in direct contravention of the law. Delivering a letter to the twin rulers of White London, a savage city where only brute strength is respected, Kell unwisely agrees to carry a message back to his home city. But when he arrives, he finds someone waiting for him. Clearly someone has used Holland, White London's Antari, to send a between ahead.

The first part of the book does a solid job of establishing both Kell and the four different versions of London. The story begins with Kell delivering a letter to George III in Grey London, a city most like our own where magic is almost completely unknown and only a very select few know of the existence of the other cities. During the mission we learn something about Kell's nature — his mismatched eyes, his small acts of kindness toward mad King George, his petty rebellions, and the knife that provides the only link to his unknown origins. His brief return home gives us a glimpse of his life as a member of the Red royal family and his double life there — speaking English with the aristocracy with occasional periods in the city, speaking Arnesian with the commoners and spending time at the Setting Sun, a tavern that acts as a nexus between the worlds and seems to draw people with magical power.

White London is a stark contrast to the other parallel cities: possessed of magic, but drained of colour through its proximity to the lost city of Black London, it is a cold, savage place where the strong prey on the weak and where the only requirement of rulership is the necessary magical power to hold the throne. The twin rulers, Athos and Astrid Dane, are brutal and cruel with a taste for spells which dominate their victims, turning them into a unwilling but obedient puppets. Despite his considerable weariness of their magical strength — Kell is all to aware that Holland is completely under their sway — Kell isn't as cautious as he ought to be and it's clear from fairly early on that the Danes have a wily intelligence to go with their brute strength.

Lila Bard, meanwhile, is an orphaned child of Grey London. All alone in the world and living on a decaying hulk on the river, she has taken to pickpocketing and general thievery to keep herself going while she tries to work out how to realise her dream of becoming a daring sea captain. After moving her base of operations to the Stone's Throw, an echo of Red London's Setting Sun, Lila bumps into Kell shortly after his escape from the ambush in his home city and, during the bump, relieves him the very item everyone seems to want. Inadvertently drawn in to the adventure, Lila sees it as a way to break out of her current situation and bullies and cajoles Kell into taking her with him as he walks the parallel cities evading his attackers and trying to rid himself of the thing that has been foisted upon him.

Lila is a well drawn and likeable character whose world has enough similarities to those of Dickens and late Regency or early Victorian London to seem familiar. Unlike Kell who, for all his exposure to White London, doesn't really know what it is like to have to struggle to live, Lila knows exactly what it is like to have to fight for survival and to make the most of every opportunity. But for all that, she is also a girl who wants to stand on her own two feet without being beholden to anyone largely because she has been hurt by the world in a way that makes her reluctant to trust anyone or anything least it turn on her. Schwab drops plenty of hints that Lila is more than she first seems, but her hidden potential is left undeveloped, leading me to hope that this means that there are going to be more stories set in the same universe.