Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Queen of Faces by Petra Lord A desperate girl at a cutthroat magical academy faces a choice between life and death: become an assassin or watch her decaying body slowly die. By Petra Lord | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Queen of Faces, a young adult fantasy by Petra Lord, out from Henry Holt & Co. on February 3. Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. But Ana can’t afford to escape it, even as the wealthiest in Caimor buy and discard expensive designer bodies without a thought. When she fails to gain admittance to the prestigious Paragon Academy—and access to the healthy new forms the school provides its students—her final hope implodes. Now without options, Ana must use her illusion magic to try to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of renegades: an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.  “When you applied to Paragon. All”—he checked my letter—“three times. Were you striving to be an Exemplar?” I closed my eyes. “For a moment,” I mumbled, “yes.” “Splendid.” Carriwitch leaned forward. “In that case, I’d like to extend an offer to you.” “O-offer?” “I’ll be quick,” said Carriwitch. “Lose too much blood, and your brain will start to break. And if your brain breaks, well… your Pith does, too. Even swapping won’t heal it. You start to forget things. Lose a limb here and there.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “Have you ever heard of the Grey Coats?” I nodded. “They’re assistants at Paragon. They clean toilets and”—I coughed up blood—“deliver mail.” Their drab uniforms gave them their nickname. “An uncouth description, but not inaccurate. Every year, we select the best Paragon applicants who didn’t make the cut and allow them to take some non-magical classes. In exchange, they are assigned to a top-ranked fourth-year or a professor. They take notes for that individual, assist them in studying, and, yes, clean. At the end of the year, they can usually get admitted to any Humdrum university in the country. Or, on occasion, they can be promoted to Paragon student.” Grey Coats were dirt compared to real students, unpaid apprentices who emptied trash or scrubbed toilets at the most prestigious school in the world. They didn’t get a free body, didn’t sleep in the castle, and weren’t taught a scrap of magic. But if they did their job well, that grey jacket could turn into a blue one. They could become a real student. And full admission was what I’d wanted all along. It meant a free combat chassis. Meant living. “I can make you a Grey Coat this term,” said Carriwitch. “Give you a real shot at becoming a student. Call it a perk of what I’m offering. I’ll tell my colleagues you died on this bridge, and that I couldn’t find your original body.” “Don’t belong,” I mumbled. “N-not genius material.” Carriwitch looked again at my letter and shrugged. “Fifty-three years ago, the Eldritch Guard named me chief mage of their entire body. Care to guess why?” “Because you’re good with magic? With science?” Headmaster Carriwitch shook his head. “Not quite. That helped, of course, but why did they put me in charge? What did they see in me?” “I—” I coughed. “I don’t know.” Buy the Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Tonight, when you fought my students, I stayed back to watch. I guessed your Whisper Codex stopped working at twenty yards, when you ran away and Nell and Samuel started looking at you again. Then, when I could, I dealt you a fatal blow.” Carriwitch pointed at me. “Tactics. Creativity. A tranquil focus in a sea of blood. I possess all of these qualities. And so do you. Ninety-eight in strategy, ninety-seven in psychology. All of which led you to trounce two of my best, with next to no training. You showed marvelous talent for knife-work tonight, young lady. And you showed it on your first day on the job.” “Job?” Carriwitch floated a pitch-black envelope out of his pocket and set it down next to me. “I’d like you to work for me. To help protect our country as a witch of the coin.” I understood in an instant. He wanted me to become an illegal mercenary. A hired mage, like Clementine, who would kill whomever he wanted, and take the blame if things went wrong. If I made enough money, I could buy a new, healthy chassis. And, as a Grey Coat, I could become a real student and get a free body. If I took Carriwitch’s offer, both paths would be open. But they would come at a price. The pool of blood grew beneath me. The black letter floated on the surface, like a leaf on a river. “You want me to kill people.” Carriwitch stared at me. “Tell me what you know,” he said, “about Khaiovhe.” I flinched. A bitter wind howled across the bridge, and the night sky seemed to blacken. “A dark witch.” I swallowed. “The worst dark witch in history. She graduated from Paragon and joined the Eldritch Guard during the war against Shenten.” My mother’s homeland. Back when magic had been secret from the Humdrums. The headmaster nodded. “And then?” “She—” Pain twisted through my belly. “She went mad fighting the Shenti. The radio said—” My voice lowered to a whisper. “The radio said bamboo forests burned like matchsticks, that the sky turned red for a month. That mountains covered in snow turned black and dead as charcoal.” My mother had immigrated to Caimor years before, but many of her friends back home had not escaped the inferno. And in the witch’s slaughter, she’d exposed the hidden world of magic to the Humdrums. A brutal first impression. “The Guard sent Tybalt Ebbridge after her,” I said. Her old professor at Paragon, leading dozens of mages. I choked. “She sent their ashes back in a flour sack.” Carriwitch’s face darkened. “And after?” A familiar chill racked my body, and I shook away the memories darkening my mind. “She flew back to Caimor, far across the oceans. And she blew up a dam. Almost drowned a whole village in the south. And she took her own life in the process.” “Yes.” Carriwitch twirled his beard. “She blew herself up. That’s the story we told, isn’t it?” He cleared his throat. “I’m terribly sorry, but we lied.” My chest jolted. “What?” “The Black Wraith is very much alive. When she killed Professor Ebbridge and blew up that dam, the explosion did not kill her. In the aftermath, she vanished.” I stared at him. “You lied?” “The public was in quite the tizzy, learning that witches and wizards were living among them, wiping their memories and living in secret castles. Paragon was enduring its own sort of panic. If they’d all learned Khaiovhe was still out there, well.” He shrugged. “Chaos. Besides, the Shenti were continuing to invade. We still had a war to win.” “Why did she do it?” I said. “Why that dam? Why that village?” I swallowed. “Why make herself vanish?” “An excellent question,” said Carriwitch. “One that our brightest intellects have failed to answer.” Blood soaked my clothes, trickling into the puddle at my feet. “And what does a living nightmare have to do with me?” “You, dear Ana,” he said, “are going to hunt her for me.” Excerpted from Queen of Faces, copyright © 2025 by Petra Lord. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Queen of Faces</i> by Petra Lord appeared first on Reactor.