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The True Queen: A Welcome Return to a Magical Alt-Regency World
Not long into her sojourn in an alt-Regency England, the not-quite-magicienne Muna stumbles upon a portrait gallery of the English Sorcerers Royal going back generations, all of them well turned-out men of power. Muna doesn’t know to expect this, because she is neither magical nor English. Not unlike the portraits at Hogwarts, these paintings can talk. They can also harangue, insult, and generally behave badly. They treat her as a servant; they heckle the Sorceress Royal who has taken Muna in; they swear and curse. As the avatars of a bunch of grumpy white dudes, they don’t—or can’t—afford anyone who doesn’t look like them the simple courtesy.
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Muna is taken aback; just who do these people think they are? That is the operative question for much of the plot of The True Queen, Zen Cho’s standalone followup to Sorcerer to the Crown: Who do you think you are?
Indeed, Muna isn’t entirely sure who she is, she and her sister Shakti having recently washed up on a beach in Janda Baik without their memories. They are taken in by the powerful witch Mak Ganggang. After the girls get involved in a spot of local trouble, Mak Genggang decides to send them to England, and into the care of the Sorceress Royal, Prunella Wythe, both to further the education of the magically inclined Shakti, and to give them a chance to discover the identity of curseworker who stole their memories. Things do not go according to plan: Shakti is lost on the road through Fairy, and her magically inert sister Muna arrives in England alone.
Muna’s first stop is the newly opened Lady Maria Wythe Academy for the Instruction of Females in Practical Thaumaturgy, which certainly is a mouthful. It was there that Shakti was to be instructed in magic, and also to consult with the irrepressible Prunella Wythe (née Gentleman), whom we first met in Sorcerer to the Crown. Before Prunella’s ascension to Sorceress Royal, girls with magical abilities were sent to schools that taught them how to repress their powers, not develop them. Lady Maria Wythe Academy is the first school dedicated to instructing girls in the magical arts. Muna must both search for her sister, lost to Fairy, and maintain the fiction that she is the magical one, fearing she’ll be turned out if anyone learns the truth.
Muna has one clue to go on—the name Midsomer, delivered to her via a ritual to discover the identity of the curseworker—and a potential ally in a polong, a djinn-like creature of magic given to her by Mak Ganggang. Unfortunately, like much of the magic in this world, the polong only helps on its own timetable, and by its own obtuse means.
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These difficult tasks are compounded when an emissary from the Fairy Queen arrives in the middle of a ball. (On some level, the disruption is welcome, given how the English are pawing over Muna like she is something between an exotic toy and a mute child.) He announces that all English magicians will be murdered unless they return a stolen amulet called Virtu. The Queen, employing extremely suspect reasoning that is her wont, believes the English are behind the theft. Suddenly, Prunella has little time for a wayward girl and her lost sister. As in the way of mysteries, of course, the sisters’ plight and the stolen amulet are matters not as discrete as they initially appear (the novel’s title might also offer us a clue as to what’s really going on).
Muna isn’t nearly as vivacious a main character as Prunella was in Sorcerer to the Crown, which is initially a bit disappointing, but eventually opens up narrative possibilities not available to someone like Prunella. In fact, much of The True Queen focuses intentionally on the sidekicks and dogsbodies, the characters just to side of the action. (Henrietta Stapleton, Prunella’s friend from childhood, also steps into a more active role.)
Though its principle actors may be on the quiet side, the plot of The True Queen is active and busy, peppered with lovely set pieces and all manner of intrigue. All the mysteries gather up into and enjoyably tidy conclusion, with just enough human (or fairy) foible to keep the solution from being too neat. This is lovely follow up to one of my favorite debut novels: a sequel that didn’t give me what I was expecting, but what I didn’t know I wanted all along.