While juggling a complex epic fantasy plot may be child's play for veteran word-wizard Williams , the bewildered star players of the fine second volume in his Shadowmarch trilogy must deal with a very adult world being transformed by war, magic, secrets and a weird, powerful scrying-mirror. Back in Southmarch, Hendon Tolly has usurped the throne, while King Olin's held in captivity in Hierosol. Olin's young twins, Princess Briony and Prince Barrick Eddon, struggle to survive in exile on separate but equally perilous paths. Barrick's trapped behind the Shadowline with Capt. Ferras Vansen; Gyir the Storm Lantern, a formidable, faceless fairy; and Skurn, a quirky talking raven. Briony's helped by a forest demigoddess and winds up with a band of endangered traveling thespians. Though the pace lags at times, bestseller Williams once again delivers a sweeping spellbinder full of mystical wonder.

Prelude

PART ONE: MASKS

1. Exiles

2. Drowning

3. Night Noises

4. The Hada-d'in Mozan

5. At Liberty

6. Skurn

7. Chasing the Jackals

8. An Unremarkable Man

9. In Lonely Deeps

10. Crooked and his Great-Grandmother

11. A Little Hard Work

12. Two Yisti Knives

13. Messages

14. Hunted

PART TWO: MUMMERS

15. The Boy in the Mirror

16. Night Fires

17. Bastard Gods

18. Questions with No Answers

19. Voices in the Forest

20. A Piece of the Moon's House

21. The Deathwatch Chamber

22. A Meeting of the Guild

23. The Dreams of Gods

24. Three Brothers

PART THREE: MACHINES

25. The Gray Man

26. Rising Wind

27. The Players

28. Secrets of the Black Earth

29. Bells

30. The Tanglewife

31. The Dark-Eyed Girl

32. Remembering Simmikin

33. The Crocodile's Roar

34. Through Immon's Gate

35. Blessings

36. The False Woman

37. Silence

38. Beneath the Burning Eye

39. City of the Red Sun

40. Offered to Nushash

41. Kinswoman to Death

42. The Raven's Friend