This book (and the rest of the series) has been an obsession of mine since I read it 2 years ago, and as a Jew with an intense relationship to the communities and experiences of mysticism, otherkin, guttertrash, and also psychosis and other madness, I have never before discovered a book that combines so many unrelated ideas that are appealing, recognizable, frankly poking, and wrestling to my worldviews and culture into one single book.
The setting is a pair of motorcycle-filled Levantine fantasy cities with 1930s-ish technology and a casual, blithe attitude to the presence of angels, morally equivalent fallen angels, magical manifestations of people’s souls that are given businesslike and normalized legal protections, gnomish bucolic demons who run orphanages in the wilderness, or harsh and half-mad street merchants and authors scorched into disability by G-d-fire. (G-d is an endlessly curious, mirthful, and flamingly harsh inhuman beautiful entity with no words or body but a very strong and specific sense of personhood; though in personality They more resemble a devil. And those attracted to Them are more arrogant, amoral, and abnormal, like my favorite character Tamar, who has what many would call an inflated ego in her demanding greed and bargaining for a most extreme experience.)
The plot focuses on the minute implications (personal and in the worldbuilding and internal history) of the concept of Theurgy, as the de facto main character Eliya learns it, which is maybe the best take on ‘soul magic’, or magic that comes from one’s soul, achieved through careful pondering and self-understanding of identity and interiority. Anyone who has strenuously pondered their own gender, sexuality, or neurotype would find it recognizable (but more expansive).