12.6k Views 428 Favorites 64 Chapters 0 Chapters/Week 108 Readers 0 Reviews 151.6k Words Aug 10, 2021 Prysmcat Mages in North America seem to have it all – typically from well-off families, and able to manipulate their environment in ways most of the world would never believe. They don’t even have to bother with the mundane details of life like housework, thanks to their sensitives, who also make a useful source for extra magical energy. After all, sensitives have no use for it themselves, and if mages weren’t meant to make use of it, then the sensitives would obviously have some way to prevent that. That a mage can transform a sensitive physically, with few limits beyond overall mass, whereas magic tends not to work directly on any other living thing, is only
... more>> further proof. And on their own they live barely a step above animals. It’s better for them to belong to a mage.
Sensitives in North America live on the edge of society and survival, typically so paranoid they avoid hospitals and anything else that could lead to being tracked. Many of them have little or no education and no legal identity or existence. Mages want sensitives for some reason, but no one ever comes back to explain what that reason is. Waiting every day for the hunters to notice them doesn’t lead to much motivation or hope for the future. And once they’re captured, they’re the property of someone with a terrifying amount of power over them. Anything is better than capture.
Mages are born to be the masters, and sensitives are born victims. Or are they?
Jax’s life is turned upside-down when he’s caught by the hunters and sold to a mage. Andreas is still mourning for his previous sensitive, though, unconsciously creating a difficult standard for Jax to live up to, all the more so while still struggling to come to terms with this new reality as Andreas’ sensitive.
A runaway sensitive isn’t what Van expects at the mental health centre. Is this a hunter trap, set for him and the rest of the Donovan family by the hunters? The hunters would, after all, love to see them cross the line openly and finally do something they can be charged with. Either way, Miranda’s genuinely in trouble, and he can’t just abandon her to it.
Snatching a sensitive out from under the hunters and hiding her is odd behaviour for a mage – but then, Catherine is an odd mage, living in disgrace in the old servants’ quarters of her grandmother’s house, responsible for cooking and housework. Lila owes Catherine her freedom; is there a way to help Catherine achieve her own, and at what price?
Tension is building between traditionally-minded mages and those advocating change; the Donovans and their allies are increasingly active in trying to protect all sensitives. Then hunters find a copy of Van’s book about mages and sensitives… in the hands of a free sensitive. With charges of sedition and immorality against Van, for writing unbiased observations rather than accepted “truth” and for allowing it to reach free sensitives, the outcome of this hearing is going to have consequences far beyond his own fate.
CONTENT WARNINGS: While mundane society has no idea mages and sensitives exist, mage society considers sensitives to have literally no rights. The way individual mages behave varies wildly, from hating/fighting the system to revelling in it. Sensitives are, for obvious reasons, strongly affected by this their entire lives. So while the focus of the story is on the fight to get sensitives recognized as people and overthrow this system, there are some difficult themes. Other than that, there’s a small amount of profanity, no graphic sex or on-screen violence. If the gender and orientation dynamics matter to you, just don’t read anything of mine.
The novel is set in three fictional cities that you can assume are in Ontario, Canada, vaguely in the early 2000s, but since all significant characters are sensitives or mages, that’s only tangentially relevant.
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