My word, but I absolutely adore this -- so well-written and imagined, so fully-characterized. As chantefable says, you've built an entire, believable world here. I confess to having caught the Snitch (or at least hir identity) early, but the other mysteries were fine surprises. I love the inventive magic, Viktor's backstory, the politics, Magda, the phone, the cat, the perfect details, the way you've captured so many different writing styles so well.
Allow me some favorite lines:
"Anyone who says we hate what we don't understand," he said slowly, not entirely aware at first that he was speaking aloud, "is a gibbering idiot. We hate what we understand all too well.
On the contrary, he had come to discover that a stolen life was, in its way, more genuine than the fickle circumstances of fate and luck. He had also discovered that country living bred amateur philosophy.
He had excised quite a few unpleasantries from his life—some more literally than others—and on a good day, he was forgetful enough that the whole of his past was akin to some impressionist landscape, all flecks of light on darkness that blurred to nonsense if one peered too closely.
There was only "dealt with" and "to deal with," as impersonal as a shopping list in its own way.
So? Many things were not wise. Executing the Wronski Feint. Playing a black knight as an opening move. Sometimes they paid off.
It was a strange thing, he had noticed as part of his farmyard philosophising. The less one wished to live, the more likely one was to survive. What sort of cruelty was that? What just god would allow it?