Augusta was always especially guilty of the sin of pride, even before the Fall. She had reason; she commanded legions. But that was once upon a time, before she dared to edge her toes onto the perch of a far greater demon and earned herself a pair of broken wings and a new position at the bottom of the pecking order. She swallowed her pride and made a deal to save herself, but her stomach never quite settled afterwards. Every time Clarence Barron calls upon her power to increase his own, the metaphorical bile rises just a little higher in her throat.
Chooli “Lee” Solares
Lee is a MEDICINE WOMAN WITCH with PHYSICAL HEALING/HARM powers.
Chooli has been called a lot of things during her life. The least insulting of them is obstinate. From the moment she could walk, she either went her own way or refused to go another step. Fortunately, her talent for good medicine–health regained, curses lifted, balance restored–outweighed the frustration she otherwise caused her family and the rest of their band. They nurtured dreams of a powerful future for her as wife and mother and eventual elder, but Chooli always had a strong sense of bad things coming. She saw a darkness like a thunderhead on the horizon, and damned if she was going to stand still waiting for it. When her family refused to listen, she saddled up with a man who did: Jesus Santiago Solares, traveling east from California and looking to spend his mined gold on land and cattle. He wasn’t looking for a wife, but he did believe in the kind of magic that would bring the right woman walking out of the desert and into his arms. She was only seventeen when Jesus bought the land that would soon become the Double Six. Years later, when the Long Walk took her band, she was hundreds of miles away and safe in the arms of the family that she and Jesus had built together.
That family, and the ranch that sustains it, has grown into the love of her life. No matter the shortcomings of her children–and their children–she will defend them ferociously. Losing Jesus and gaining full ownership of the Double Six has only sharpened her resolve.
Ofelia Aguilar
Ofelia is a PURITAN WITCH with ILLUSION powers.
Ofelia would never admit that she struggles to pay attention, especially when she’s meant to be working the forge. She’d rather her family chide her for being self-centered and lazy than confess to her frequent absent-mindedness. Time just seems to slip through her fingers, minute by minute and hour by hour, until suddenly she looks up and the sun is setting…or the fire has burned out, or the horse she was meant to be shoeing has grown bored and wandered away. Her saving grace is her magic, which has always come easily, no matter how her mind might wander or her focus might waver. Her natural talent pleases her mother, and the strength of their bond creates a helpful buffer between Ofelia and the exasperation of the rest of her family.
Maya Rao
Maya is a WRAITH SPIRIT.
Maya was born a Rajput princess in the northern part of what we now call India in 1552, and was the third wife of Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. Renowned for both her beauty and intelligence, she proved exceptionally adept at the use of “soft power” in influencing politics. During her time as Akbar’s wife, she failed to produce any children, and there was a prevailing rumor that she took precautions against pregnancy because she enjoyed her power within the court so much. She consistently butted heads with her husband’s regent-turned-advisor, and it is unclear if the tumble down a long flight of stairs that broke her neck in 1582 was an accident. At any rate, she now prefers to remain on the ground floor.
Jo Dove
FC: Indya Moore
Jo Dove was born into the wrong shape. She’s known that as long as she’s known anything, and almost as soon as she understood that fundamental fact, she learned how to hide it. Boys weren’t interested in fabrics. Boys didn’t pay attention to fashion. Most of all, boys didn’t cry when they got their hair cut short or got their face shoved into the mud or got a whipping by their papa for all those sins combined. Boys kept their chin up and said Yes’m and Nossir and did their chores and ate their scraps and were grateful, dammit, for every word that didn’t come with a slap. Smart boys kept their mouths shut and their eyes open, until they could steal enough money to disappear.
If boys-who-were-girls couldn’t steal enough, sometimes they found a way to make a deal, and they disappeared anyway. Jo’s deal put her in debt to a demon, but it also opened a door out of Mississippi and straight into a new life. Never might fall short of paradise, but it’s miles better than where she came from, and it brought her to the first taste of home she’s ever known in the arms of the Silk Rose and Madame Dellaphina Jones. She still has a debt to pay. Someday, the devil’s going to collect. But until then, she’ll make the best of this life with her voice and her body and all the charm the good Lord gave her.
Nettie Hogan, aka Lily
Nettie Hogan — Known as Lily at the Pearl, the upscale gambling hall and brothel in Never — seems to glide effortlessly through the high-society world of gilded poker tables and expensive perfume. She’s a strikingly beautiful young woman with dark eyes that seem to hold the secrets of the whole town. Beneath her polished exterior, however, lies a heart that yearns for something more than the fleeting touches and whispered promises of men who don’t know her real name.
Though she’s carved out a place for herself in the Pearl’s glittering world, Nettie is no mere object of desire. She’s an artist at her core, with a mind full of stories, poems, and dreams of a love far more real than any she’s experienced. Her passions are hidden behind the mask of Lily, but she carries them with her always: The deep ache for romance, for a connection that isn’t bought or bargained for.
Ada Blaesy, aka Kitty
Ada is a NAGUAL WITCH.
Ada Blaesy, known as Kitty at the Pearl, is a vision of beauty in the heart of Never’s wealthiest and most exclusive gambling hall. With a face and figure that seem to belong to the painted canvases of the world’s finest artists, Ada captivates every man who crosses her path. But what they don’t know is that behind the delicate features and soft-spoken charm lies a sharp mind, a practical heart, and a will of steel.
A cunning strategist in a world where appearances are everything, Ada plays her part with precision. Kitty is exactly who she needs to be to thrive in the Pearl’s high-stakes, high-society game. Her magic is as fluid and adaptable as the persona she wears. Her particular gift lies in shape-changing, a skill she has honed over the years to perfection. With a thought, she can become someone else entirely: Someone more suited to the whims of a client, someone who can slip through the cracks when danger looms, or someone who can disappear into the shadows when she wishes.
Though she wears the mask of a sultry courtesan, Ada knows the rules of Never’s dark underbelly all too well. She has learned to manipulate those around her without them ever realizing it, shifting her form and her intentions as easily as the moon shifts the tide. In a town where things are never quite what they seem, Ada keeps her secrets close. After all, it’s better to be a mystery than a pawn, and Kitty might be the perfect mask, but Ada Blaesy is the one who holds all the cards.
Imelda Salazar
Imelda is a MEDICINE WOMAN WITCH with PHYSICAL HEALING/HARM powers.
Imelda “Madrita” Salazar would deny that she moved to Never to flee her own heart, but her total reluctance to discuss her prior life might suggest otherwise. Unable to prevent her physician husband’s death at the hands of a group of bandits, she accepted her sister Gloria’s invitation to join her and her family in Never, and now stubbornly applies all of her time and energy into healing others. She charges little when she charges at all, and refuses to lose patients to even the most dire of wounds or maladies. She hopes that in some way, she can thus make up for the most important life she could not save.
Aracely Solares
Aracely is a NAGUAL WITCH.
Aracely thinks she might be cursed. Animals have shied away from her for as long as she can remember; milk sours if she looks at it sideways for more than a second or two; fires won’t light in the stove or the hearth unless she leaves the room. Her mother, sunshine incarnate, says it’s just the magic in her blood working itself out. Her grandmother says she needs a good dose of balance. Aracely just wants the people in town to quit crossing to the opposite side of the street when they see her coming. If they knew about the visions of disaster that she’s started seeing in her dreams, they would like her even less.
Effie Rickett, aka Daisy
Effie is a REVENANT SPIRIT.
Death put a serious damper on Effie’s grand plans. She had everything going for her–youth, beauty, talent, and the cleverness to unite all three–when she turned eighteen and her father promised her to Cornelius Gander Rickett, factory owner and railroad heir. Rickett was well-bred, appropriately connected, and twenty years Effie’s senior. Worse yet, he was absolutely disinterested in allowing his fiancee to follow her passions for art and music. Effie had dreamed of performing on the stages of the world. Instead, she found herself standing before an audience of New York’s upper crust, speaking vows over her own strongest protests, and boarding a train for a honeymoon trip across the country.
Rail travel could be dangerous, of course. Desolate country. Potential derailments. Slippery tracks. The shock of a new bride disappearing barely a week after her wedding was dreadful, but her husband’s obvious grief made for excellent tragedy in the society papers. Two families mourned. Life moved on.
Effie…didn’t. Move on, that was, and her memory of what had actually happened that dark night on the train stayed crystal clear. Tied now to Never, she’s forced to make do with what she has left–her pretty face–but the possibility of someday wrapping her delicate hands around her former husband’s neck keeps her focused on the future.