The hunt has only just begun.
A cry sounds over Elphame.
A silent hunt has begun.
Dread fills the realms.
The weak will succumb.
The chase has started.
Crows they will become.
The Gate is where it starts.
A new enemy has come.
In Elphame, where every Crow faces slavery and certain death at the hands of Fae, Perdita Darkmore is the first to survive, gain her freedom and wage wars to protect her home. With the Gate destroyed, Perdi returns to the mortal realm to help rebuild. But returning to Whitwick Gates was not the warm welcome she had hoped for, leaving her balancing perilously between mortals and Fae.
When her enemies come for her family, Perdi is forced to navigate a world she’s still learning and a throne she’s never sat upon before her family is put to death. Caught between two worlds, Perdi is tasked with fighting against life-altering decisions, rescuing her family or saving her people.
Excerpt:
We are composed of a junk drawer we carry around in our souls. We’re made of baggage we can’t let go of. Some of us pack light, while others drag around every memory they’ve ever had or thing they wish they’d said. Some, more than others, hoard every regret, slight, tear or unwilling parting in life like a troll under a bridge with his precious trinkets. We all have odds and ends hanging off our souls. Some of us just pack it differently. The trick is learning to carry that baggage the best we can while figuring out how to unpack it and face what we’ve towed around from place to place, person to person. That’s what healing forces a person to do—dump it out and sit on the floor with all the broken pieces you haven’t been willing to face or throw away, deciding what to take and what to leave behind. Sometimes we do the same thing with people or places we once loved. We let them go. We move on. We choose to become better versions of the person who had a death grip on all the junk that kept us in the moments of yesterday.
Unpacking my baggage was what coming to Whitwick was supposed to do for us all. It would let us look into the black hole we all carried on our backs and take pieces out, brick by brick, using them to build the foundation of a new future…a new beginning. Instead, we used those bricks to beat each other bloody. No one was safe from the anger or blame, and everyone was at fault. The Guardians of Whitwick hadn’t protected the people, only their own children. The children marked for the Taking didn’t leave fast enough and caused the deaths of those who didn’t need to die. The Fae tormented more than they needed to. A Crow, in their mind, had broken the Gate, and now Fae could roam as they pleased. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the one who had done it. I was still responsible because, somehow, I hadn’t stopped it. It was easier to unload the bricks of the past onto someone else than to let go of them. And every time I came to Whitwick to repair the wounds, it felt like new wounds opened, fresh reasons to bleed for Whitwick Gates.
Lanne Garrett 