No walls can keep me protected, no sleep, nothing in between me and the rain. And you can’t save me now: I’m in the grip of a hurricane. I’m gonna blow myself away.

I’m going out, I’m gonna drink myself to death. And in the crowd I see you with someone else. I brace myself ’cause I know it’s going to hurt, but I like to think at least things can’t get any worse.

No hope: don’t want shelter. No calm: nothing to keep me from the storm, and you can’t hold me down ’cause I belong to the hurricane. It’s going to blow this all away.

I hope that you see me ’cause I’m staring at you, but when you look over you look right through; then you lean and kiss him on the head, and I never felt so alive.

And so dead.
– Florence Welch

Just needed to get that out of the way. It’s appropriate for my mental state today since I had some rather unpleasant dreams last night about Seth that have left me kind of depressed and moody today.

This won’t be so much an excerpt as a publishing of my cast list for the novel. It’s always evolving as new characters introduce themselves, but this is the main cast of characters that appear consistently throughout.

Dramatis personæ

The Mortals

Kiera Adler, a shop girl
Russell Jaffree, an eleven-year-old boy
Katherine Jaffree, Russell’s mother
Harry Royston, a taxi cab driver
Maris Jurczyk, proprietor of TheBonum FerculumDiner

Edward Montrachet, President of the United Colonies of America
Charles Berne, chief-of-staff to Edward Montrachet
Calvin Wescott, a male escort attached to the President

The Oracle
The Passenger

The Gods

Apollo, also known as Bragi, also known as Lugh
Athena, also known as Scathach, also known as Minerva, also known as Gefjon, also known as Nissaba
Camalus, also known as Ares, also known as Chernobog
Lir, also known as Poseidon, also known as Neptune, also known as Aegir
Loki, also known as Prometheus, also known as Gwyddion, also known as Enki
Odin, also known as Zeus, also known as Jupiter, also known as Dagna, also known as Marduk

The Dark Ones

Dominique, also known as Hel, also known as Hades, also known as Cernunnos, also known as Mot
Rose, also known as Nemesis, also known as Var, also known as Shiva
Méabh, also known as Nyx, also known as Nótt
Clay Toneco, also known as Tezcatlipoca

The Dreamless Ones

Dana Salo, also known as Aphrodite, also known as Venus, also known as Freya, also known as Ishtar – the president of Joutsen Cosmetics & Spas
Thérèse Konen, also known as Thalia – Dana’s personal assistant and one of the Graces (“Abundance”)
Agatha Belecourt, also known as Aglaïa – the head of Joutsen Cosmetics and one of the Graces (“Splendor”)
Allegra Freudlich, also known as Euphrosyne – the head of Joutsen Spas and one of the Graces (“Joy”)
Chloë, also known as Ceres or Anu – the owner of a flower shop in Manhattan
Pete Cochren, also known as Hermes, also known as Mercury, also known as Ogma, also known as Namtar – a stock trader

Huginn and Muninn, ravens of Odin’s
Sleipnir, a horse and sometimes centaur (when he feels like it)
Ratatöskr, a squirrel