'Brilliant and vivid world-building . . . riveting' CHAD STAHLESKI, director of John Wick

'A masterful blend of Sebastien de Castell's unique brand of wry humour, elegant prose, and wonderfully imaginative worldbuilding. I devoured this book and loved every page' NICK EAMES, bestselling author of Kings of the Wylde

From the bestselling author of THE GREATCOATS: seven war mages with dark pasts must come together to fight an unknown enemy - but the stakes are higher than anyone can imagine . . . and someone's setting the seven up for a fall.

Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. The hat's a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing. Wouldn't want a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know, protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical forces from being bashed in with a mace (or pretty much any household object).

Yep. Behold the mighty wizard.

Now open your eyes and let me show you what a real war mage looks like . . . but be warned: you're probably not going to like it, because we're violent, angry, dangerously broken people who sell our skills to the highest bidder and be damned to any moral or ethical considerations.

My name is Cade Ombra, and though I currently make my living as a mercenary wonderist, I used to have a far more noble-sounding job title - until I discovered the people I worked for weren't quite as noble as I'd believed. Now I'm on the run and my only friend, a homicidal thunder mage, has invited me to join him on a suicide mission against the seven deadliest mages on the continent.

Time to recruit some very bad people to help us on this job . . .