About this audiobook

A house that has been sealed room by room since an execution is not a home. It is a waiting room, and tonight somebody has come to collect. *They're here.* Rosalind Blackwood presses her back against the cold plaster of the hallway wall with a candle trembling in her hand. Below, the front door groans open, too heavy for a servant's knock, and a man's voice sharp as broken glass carries up the stairs. *By order of Lady Morningside. The Blackwood girl is to attend the Veil Festival immediately.* Her aunt's answering murmur is silk over gravel, placating and useless. Those guards have never waited for pleasantries. They will be up the stairs in thirty seconds. She blows out the candle. The corridor goes black and she moves by memory: past the grandfather clock stopped at her brother's hour of death, past the portrait of her mother whose eyes follow even in pitch dark. Her fingers find the door to Julian's old room before her eyes adjust. Dust and dried lavender. The room was ordered sealed after the execution. Rosalind picked the lock two years ago and knows which floorboard creaks, which window sash sticks, and exactly where the thing she is going back for is hidden. What follows: a debt she never asked for, a carriage ride she did not agree to, a name she cannot escape, a promise made to the dead, blood she never asked to carry, a drink she should not have accepted, and a laugh that costs her everything. *Yes, you ridiculous man. Yes.* The court exploded. Aldric did not hear any of it. Nobody knows what they are walking into. Nobody knows whether the locket will open, or whether the woman holding the other half of the bargain will keep it, and Rosalind has to decide whether an alliance with the family that ruined hers is worth the one thing she swore over her brother's body she would never trade.

Magic Royalty & Courts Family Mystery Political Intrigue Conspiracy Enemies to Lovers Thriller Supernatural Espionage Dark Fantasy Royalty Romance Chosen One Betrayal Survival