For about fifteen seconds, I considered setting Shadow of the King in the same story world as the Into the Wonder series. Thankfully, I managed to talk myself out of it.

First, I already knew Shadow of the King was going to skew more “adult” in themes and presentation, so some of the rule-of-funny handwavery in my previous novels just wasn’t going to fly. This story was going to be serious, dammit!

Second, the story that was hatching in my mind needed a different set of political circumstances in the magical realm. There’s a story here involving Brandon Sanderson and a popular D&D YouTuber that I’ll get to eventually.

But third and most important, I wanted a magic system with teeth. Taylor Smart, the protagonist in Into the Wonder, was just beginning her magical journey, so she had one—by the end, two—big magical stunts she could pull off. But Rune is a somewhat seasoned practitioner. I needed to enforce some hard limits on what he could do, or he’d curb stomp all the terrible beasties I was planning on throwing at him!

So here’s what I came up with:

1. Magic is tied to the classical elements—with a bit of wiggle room. Beyond the four elements of Western alchemy (air, earth, water, and fire), I wanted to include the Chinese five-element system where wood replaces air and metal is considered distinct from earth. I also wanted to at least leave the door open for a few other basic forces or energies as the story might require.

This means that Rune can perform magic related air, period. That is his one and only one talent. It doesn’t matter if he can ride the wind or summon a whirlwind, he couldn’t shake the earth or lob a fireball save his life.

2. There is a tradeoff between magic use and free will. Classical alchemy, both East and West, associates the elements with certain traits of temperament and, if you lean too heavily into one or the other of them, certain character flaws.

I thought it would be interesting if, the more magic you used, the deeper into these patterns of behavior you fell, to the point that eventually you literally had no choice but to be the stereotypical temperament associated with your element. In conversations with my neurodivergent daughter, I came to realize after the fact that a lot of these tendencies might even approximate things she and her ND friends experience. For example, when air-weavers overdo it, they become detached and flighty. In other words, they demonstrate an ADD/ADHD-like tendency to have trouble with focus, either becoming hyper-focused on something or unable to focus at all.

I think these parameters let me develop not just my protagonist but a diverse cast of sidekicks and villains. It also led me down interesting yet labyrinthine rabbit holes related to medieval humorism, neo-Pagan witchcraft, and the Hermetic magic systems of the Renaissance, but that’s another story.

The shadow falls on October 1.