The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 1

I won't say that I loved this first volume, but it definitely caught my interest enough that I'd like to continue the series. There were some really interesting characters here and I love the designs of a lot of them, especially Thorn/Ainsworth and the Ariels. I was a little iffy when I realized the whole “Magus' bride” bit in the title is referencing the fact that Thorn intends to eventually marry this teenage girl he's “bought” (though to be fair, he hasn't bought her as a slave at all — he essentially bought her freedom and offers her a home/family), but I decided to stick it out, and there is no romance at all at this point, so I'm going out on a ‘benefit of the doubt' limb here and assuming that this is not a grooming story. (If I'm wrong in later volumes, I'll come back and update this with a warning