I push the thought away, swallow it down until my mouth tastes of copper and salt. I bite back a cry at the pain, grabbing his other hand before he makes the scratches worse. I cling tight to Arien, whispering to him, “I’m here, I’m here,” not letting go even when he growls viciously and starts to claw me. The shadows are like midwinter frost against my skin, a cold that burns. Darkness pours through our clasped fingers, blotting out the moonlight. I take his hand, starting to tremble, hating myself for it but unable to stop. Then his voice changes to a drawn-out snarl. “Leta?” He calls for me again, sounding frightened. Then they build and build, until all the light is gone, and there’s only me and Arien and the gathering dark. At first they’re smoke, a haze that thickens.

I move toward him as the shadows cloud over us, filling the room. He looks at me with eyes gone solid black they change when he dreams, and those blank eyes in his frightened face are so wrong. Shadows spill from his hands like unfurled ribbons, shrouding the floor with an inky mist. He calls my name and reaches out as the darkness rises through him. A hot night, airless, even with our window wide open. Curled up on my narrow bed in the small, plain room we share. I can feel them coming even before he does. All day it’s followed me, that familiar heaviness in the air. It’s been weeks, longer, since Arien’s last nightmare, but I knew they would come tonight. They find their way into my brother’s dreams. To save Lakesedge, she must make a bargain of her own with the fiendish being who rules over the world Below.They slip inside at night. As their friendship blossoms, Violeta learns the tragic truth of Rowan’s curse and his fateful bargain with the Lord Under. Yet as Violeta investigates Lakesedge's tragic history, she discovers that its prickly, standoffish lord is far from a monster, but an orphaned boy not much older than she is. The monster who, it is whispered, stalks the halls of his manor and the shores of the blackened, cursed lake. To escape means taking a position at the haunted estate of Rowan Sylvanan-the so-called “Monster of Lakesedge”-who comes seeking Arien's dark magic. A cruelty driven by the mysterious shadows that unwillingly spill from Arien’s hands, spelling dark magic and an even darker underworld.

Violeta Graceling has spent her life in an isolated cottage, trying to protect herself and her beloved younger brother Arien from their adoptive mother’s twisted cruelty. A stunningly written, lush dark fantasy perfect for fans of A Curse So Dark and Lonely and Uprooted.

Lakesedge series