First read lands a 3/5. There’s a lot to enjoy about this book, but I maybe wasn’t giving it the attention it deserved or maybe I read The Scholars of Night too recently because the misdirects and subtleties of the narrative were largely lost on me. And I’m not entirely sure these characters are as fully realized as in more powerful works by Ford like Dragon or Aspects or Weightless. I will revisit this one, one day, but for now I can not remark with praise upon this one.