(In which Janus discovers Maledicte's disappearance.)

From the moment their carriage drew up to Lastrest, the jingle of the horses' harnesses lost under the crunch of hard-rimmed wheels in the oyster-shell drive, Janus Ixion, Earl of Last, anticipated disaster. He sensed it in the air, like a wisp of smoke signaling an unseen fire. Read more

(A scene that ended up on the editing room floor when cutting the novel length down to size.)

Rue nodded once more, drew Janus closer to the desk with the lowering of his voice. "Shut the door, Downey. With yourself on the outside, please."
Janus watched Rue bring a ring out of his pocket, a man's ring, sized large enough to hold the pale moonstone across it. "What do you think of this?" he asked, passing it to Janus. Read more

There was, the young assassin thought, such a thing as being too well informed. Ivor had given her a map of the hidden passages which she had received gratefully, but he had gifted her also with far more palace legend than she wished to know, old deaths and disappearances; at this moment, she feared her fate would be to add to their number. Read more

Pretender

Janus leaned back against the cold stone jamb, numb with shock, listening to the echoes of Psyke's accusation ring off the looming idols and slowly disperse. When Captain Rue failed to act on Psyke's cry, Janus let out a breath, and let his attention filter outward.

The dusty chapel was overfull of people and voices: the hushed back and forth between the king's guards; Psyke's broken weeping, and beneath it all, a tremor--the lingering shiver of the summoning bell, and Aris's last, dying breath. Read more

The world the Kingdom of Antyre inhabits is based on our own Regency period, complete with bloody court intrigues and a decadent nobility that willfully blinds itself to any indications of decline. The once-great kingdom now serves as, for all practical intents and purposes, a vassal state to another, more powerful nation, and even the gods--disgusted by human behavior--have abandoned Antyre to its fate. Read more

At the spider-heart of Murne's radiating streets, the King's palace overlooked the city, its three wings jutting out and away from each other in uncomfortable points. The palace had been built in stages, generations apart. Dark granite blocks comprised the oldest part, a warrior's palace with arrow slits instead of windows: the palace of Thomas Redoubt, the Cold King, who had claimed Antyre for its own country, wresting independence from Itarus with the aid of Haith, secretive god of Death and Victory. Read more

In the southernmost tip of the island kingdom of Antyre, a carriage set a rapid pace through the city streets of Murne. The horse-and-four racketed down the broken cobblestone street, shuddering and jolting on the uneven surface. Mid-morning sunlight lanced off the blue-lacquered carriage, lighting it like a jewel in a tarnished crown. On either side, narrow houses listed and shed fragments of their facades, littering the streets below with rubble. Once this had been a prosperous merchant neighborhood, the most common thoroughfare between the palace and the sea--before a girl's prayer had been heard by black-winged Ani, that treacherous god of love and vengeance. Read more

From Publishers Weekly-- "... a darkly original world of doubted gods and declining civilization. Robins is a fantasist with a future." Read more