Mara Ward
Archivist inquisitor. Researcher.
Mara Ward is not an easy person to like. And she'd be the first to tell you she doesn't particularly care. Sharp-tongued, impatient, and constitutionally incapable of leaving a mystery alone, she operates on the edge of the Archivist order's tolerance, pursuing a theory that the entire council has chosen to ignore: that human knowledge isn't just being lost. It's being actively erased.
Elin Turner
Assistant To Mara Ward
Elin joined Mara Ward's research team without fully understanding what she was agreeing to. The daughter of a pilot, raised in a military household that never stayed anywhere long enough to call it home, she joined Mara's team with help from her father and believing in Mara's cause. She is warm where Mara is guarded, instinctive where Mara is calculated, and very willing to trust people she probably shouldn't. She also turns out to be a better shot than anyone expected.
Arthur McNally
The Captain. The stranger.
Arthur McNally last left Egypt at age six, smuggled out of the rebel Archivists by parents whose loyalties and fate he'd rather not discuss, or perhaps he can't remember...
Now he's back and hoping to find justice in what once was his home.
Whatever Arthur McNally is, he isn't quite what he appears. Whether he knows that is another question entirely.