Second books in series are the most crucial in terms of readership. Can the author build upon and surpass the first book? This is a question whose answers will dictate whether readers and publishers will continue onward. An Instruction in Shadow answers that question with an emphatic yes. Benedict Jacka’s second book in the Inheritance of Magic series enlarges the world of the first book; builds upon the mythology, stakes, and characters of An Inheritance of Magic; and delivers an excellent story on its own. Stephen Oakwood returns with deeper problems and yet more agency as he learns how the drucraft world operates.
In this world, magic is accessible to anyone with the money to have it crafted for them. Essentia, as magic is called, flows through everyone and everything. “My dad taught me that [essentia] makes up everything, a kind of universal energy,” Stephen says in the first book of this series. “You can’t create it and you can’t destroy it, but with the right art—and the right tools—you can use it” (Inheritance, p. 13). Large, natural sources of essentia exist as “Wells.” The rich and their corporations control these Wells, creating devices known as “sigls” to use their magic. But Wells are hard to find. Flows of essentia are difficult to detect; corporations employ gig workers to look for them. But, this being a capitalist world, the corporations also sell devices to search for the wells, and, of course, those magical devices are priced such that the gig workers must take out loans to afford them. Magic in this world, then, is like technology in ours: Anyone with money can access it; the more money people have, the better magic to which they have access.
Much of An Inheritance of Magic revolved around Stephen’s secret: He can use magic, which is called drucrafting, but he’s not rich, not even middle class. Instead, he is special: He may be weak in using the magic, but he can see the essentia flows and can also make sigls without help. He lives hand-to-mouth as a temporary employee who exists on the fringes of the drucraft world and the quotidian. But a chance encounter with a member of one of the rich families, House Ashford, brings him attention he doesn’t want. He barely survives and learns secrets that change the course of his life. The core tension of the first novel is simple that, in order to protect himself and his cat, Stephen must become stronger; but he may not be able to afford to—literally and figuratively.
At the end of that first book, Stephen was left still waiting for his mother, who left before he could form memories of her. It turns out that she’d been in London, not far from Stephen, his whole life. Yet she had never contacted him. Why? Much of this book is dedicated to Stephen’s family. He continues his search for his father; he learns more about his mother; and, by proxy, about the Ashfords, with whom he has become associated. Stephen and the readers learn about the strictures of the “drucraft” world and how it chains people in obligation, in decorum, and in custom.
An Instruction in Shadow opens with Stephen confronting his absent mother at the airport. It doesn’t go as he wants. It’s clear that his presence means trouble for her, though they make plans to meet. Simultaneously, Stephen’s economic position has been made even more untenable by the careless talk of a friend: He hasn’t been fired from his position as a Well finder, but the corporation no longer allows him to do his job. As such, shadier work starts to come Stephen’s way. He’s forced into a position raiding Wells to earn income. Raiding is an illegal activity that the drucraft world knows exists and condones by not acknowledging yet paying for it. Stephen tries to stay away from the business, but his bank account keeps dwindling. In addition, Calhoun Ashford, the presumed heir of House Ashford, has a job for Stephen: He wants Stephen to be part of the security group that protects Calhoun’s future bride and path to cement an alliance with another House. As with all things House Ashford, the request comes with inherent dangers.
Meanwhile, a character from the earlier novel, Byron, attempts to recruit Stephen into the Winged, a society—or cult, depending on who you ask—that is as mysterious as Byron himself. Byron’s attempts to woo Stephen to the Winged surround Stephen’s attempts to find his missing father. Yet, as with anything in the drucraft world, Byron’s attentions bring violence and pain to Stephen.
In other words, An Instruction in Shadow by Benedict Jacka delivers on a lot of the setup from the first novel while further complicating Stephen’s life. When it comes to Stephen’s mother, he finds that ignorance was bliss. Family plays a big role in these books. As well as navigating the politics of House Ashford and the other elite families, and reuniting with his mother, Stephen also searches for his father, asking whether his life improved by acting upon his longing for family? So far, Stephen’s family has brought him nothing but pain and new burdens. An Instruction in Shadow sees Stephen derive some benefit from his family through Calhoun, yet even this request will tie Stephen closer to the Ashfords than he’s even been.
As an outsider in House Ashford, Stephen is free of the strictures that govern the other Ashfords. For example, he gets to spend time with his half sister, Bridget, and her life sounds like a prison of privilege. She is treated more as a doll than a person. She isn’t, however, a “woe is her, feel bad for the little rich girl” character. Jacka is instead concerned with showing how societal position shapes a life. These concerns aren’t just for society at large but are also present in sub-societies, like House Ashford or the Winged. While Bridget’s boundaries are wider than Stephen’s due to House Ashford’s money, she is still bounded in ways that Stephen is not. Likewise, how she transgresses those boundaries is different: She can choose to be transgressive in her position with little consequence, whereas Stephen faces all of them.
In a similarly complex way, Jacka also explores the dual faces of corporations. There is the outward, public facing corporate citizen, who obeys the law and is just trying to turn a profit. In An Instruction in Shadow, however, Jacka looks at the hidden face of corporations, the one unacknowledged and denied. Corporate espionage, participation in black markets, and plausible deniability all show up in Stephen’s world. His economic precarity pushes him into the dangerous world of raiding, and in his naivete, he believes it’s only criminals that do this. Of course, it turns out that there must be a buyer for all the essentia stolen during a raid. And if that buyer happens to be a corporation, well, what’s the harm, right? “By total weight, something like twenty per cent of the sigls sold in the Exchange are made from illegally acquired materials,” we read (p. 132). With profit being their ultimate motive, corporations are forced into the essentia black market; yet, they have to act as if they don’t participate. In public, corporations must follow the law; but in private, they will lose out to their competitors if they don’t engage in the black market. This undercurrent is known among the elites and accepted as the norm.
An Inheritance of Magic read as an introduction to this new world. This second book in the series far surpasses it. It’s packed with more: More action, more revelations, more essentia, and, even, more agency for Stephen. While he is bumped around by economic forces in the first book and for much of this one, he is also beginning to make moves for himself. He begins to understand that he can’t just search for his father and be left alone by society at large. Whether he likes it or not, he’s part of the drucraft world and part of House Ashford. In An Instruction in Shadow, Stephen realizes that he’s got to play the game. What he wants isn’t a concern to anyone but him, and he must be more active in his self-protection. He’s also realizing that he can’t play the game alone. He needs allies, and in this novel he begins to make them.
With all of this, An Instruction in Shadow is a fast-paced book that pulls the reader in with action and a deepening of an already interesting world. In fact, the book is so fast-paced that the ending came suddenly and unexpectedly. It didn’t feel like a conclusion in terms of story; it just felt like the story stopped. An Instruction in Shadow ends on a cliffhanger that was frustrating because it felt like the middle of a storyline, not a crescendo within it. However, this isn’t enough to put one off the series as a whole.
Indeed, An Instruction in Shadow cements the Inheritance of Magic series as an urban fantasy series to pay attention to. It’s full of intrigue, action, and, of course, magic. Jacka explores interesting areas of family, economic relations, and the roles people play. Stephen Oakwood’s world is a brutal one, and his journey in it is just beginning. For him, this means tough times ahead; for the reader, it means excellent reading in future installments.