Sorcery of Thorns

The power of knowledge is the foundation of Rogerson’s fantasy world, and the author explores how this power can be used for both good and evil throughout the narrative. Sorcery, demons, and grimoires all serve as examples of how people gain power through knowledge. Sorcerers’ high social status depends on maintaining their exclusive access to both knowledge and power through their relationships with demons. In the world of Rogerson’s story, humans can only possess magic if they have a contract with a demon. In most cases, “magic is an inheritance” because families pass down the Enochian names used to summon demons “through the generations like heirlooms” (114). Even within these elite families, only one person at a time can hold the demon’s contract. Throughout the history of Austermeer, the sorcerers’ use of magic defies a binary of pure good versus pure evil. For instance, the Lexicon of the Sorcerous Arts declares that necromancy is “the darkest of all magics” (67), but the grimoire goes on to say that Balthasar Thorn “is credited with the kingdom’s continued independence from its neighbors” because he raised an army of the dead in the War of Bones (68).