Cuckoo

Violence is a drug, and Sarah is six years sober.  Over half a decade has passed since a stream of crimson effluent has last kissed the side of her cheek, yet - despite the march of seasons - she can't quite forget the taste.  It's too worked into her mouth - too stuck against the back of her teeth.  Some among the Offal Sea would consider that only natural.  The humans they've conspired against on Earth might call it her just deserts.  Sarah views it as an unwelcome obstacle, when she's already struggling to put the past behind her.  She has rent to pay, after all - and a grandmother she's come to love.  She doesn't have the energy to force her gorge down every time she looks in the mirror. It's a shame her conscience refuses to get with the program.  Especially, now that the Light of the World has crawled into local reality.  Magic, nominally the domain of con-artists and medieval soothsayers, has finally appeared in truth.  With it has come a measure of both wonder and fear; however, neither weighs on Sarah's mind as heavily as the nobility lurking on Deravan.  For the Light of the World isn't the only Network, which hopes to make cattle of men:  there exist five more, along with the broken corpse of a sixth. Soon, the Offal Sea will arrive to chase its ever-furtive prey.  When it does, Sarah knows that her life will collapse amidst their vicious war for supremacy, yet she can't quite bring herself to let it all turn to dust.  Her identity means too much to her.  Even though it's fake; even if it's been stolen.  In the end, this life is hers, and she cannot return to being a cog in the nobilities' grand design.  Until then, the only question is which will snap first:  Sarah's nascent humanity or the Sea's heartless machine as the curtain comes tumbling down during Boston's final days.