_Poison Study_ by Maria Snyder

My friend I. sent me three books for my birthday, including this one. Which I promptly devoured, tho I really did start _The Wisdom of Crowds_ first. Yum! Great F2M transgender character. Lots of ambiguity in bad-guy-hero Valek: is he _really_ killing a bunch of teenagers showing magical ability or is he sneaking them south? And if he is killing them, would Sitia have judged them all too old to train and therefore offed them anyway? We won't know till a later book, presumably. The sequel is out in hardcover, leaving me with a tough decision. I'll probably stall until September when it comes out in paper, because that one ends on a cliffhanger as well, if reviews are to be believed.