introducing Raven Ivany

We met Raven briefly in Through Shade and Shadow, as one of the agents that Mason Jerah works with at the unnamed government agency, but in the next book, In Gathering Shade, Raven comes to the foreground.

We first meet her when she is helping an instructor teach hand to hand skills to a group of new recruits, before Adam Darvin pulls her aside with a job hunting down a killer that might be a Shade.

We learn a good amount about Raven in that short scene.  She’s a decent fighter, hand to hand.  She’s smart, worried about Mason, despite the fact that she doesn’t really know him and she is wary of working with others after being betrayed by her previous handler.

Raven is in her early thirties, and her family background is not entirely clear.  In the course of the story we learn about a sister who died, a father who is clearly no longer around and a grandfather who helped to raise her.  She learned what a Shade was capable of from a young age, unlike Mason, and is well trained in using those skills, both to heal and to harm.

Also, unlike Mason, Raven isn’t afraid of those darker skills when the occasion calls for it, and while it’s never stated outright, she has used those skills to kill at least once.  We get the sense that through Darvin’s influence, she is probably more educated on the other tribes than many others.

There is also some history hinted at between Raven and Darvin, a friendship that extends back before she came to work for him, which might be something interesting to explore some time.