Twelve years after the events of House of Salt and Sorrows, the Thaumas sisters are scattered across Arcannia. Despite dreams of adventures far beyond the Salann shores, almost-eighteen year old Verity has remained at Highmoor, lending a helping hand to older sister Camille.
When Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem wife to the celebrated botanist, Gerard Laurent is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance, but can’t understand why Camille won’t allow it. When an argument breaks out between the two, Camille reveals the truth: Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it.
Stunned, Verity flees Highmoor that night and with nowhere else to turn—makes her way to Bloem. At first, she is captivated by the lush and luxurious province and is also quickly drawn to Alexander Laurent, finding the heir charming, witty, and impossibly handsome.
But it’s not long before she is plagued with nightmares, and the darker side of Bloem begins to show through its sickly-sweet façade.
Cendrillon de Louvois was poised to be the most eligible maiden in all of France. But the death of her father, the king’s favorite advisor, has left Cendrillon at the will of her cruel stepmother and stepsisters.
Dubbed Lady Cinder by the court, Cendrillon is forced to become a servant to her new family. But when she attends the royal ball, she catches the eye of the handsome Prince Louis and his younger brother, Auguste.
Even though Cendrillon has an immediate aversion to Louis and a connection with Auguste, the only way to escape her stepmother is to compete with the other girls at court for the Prince’s hand.
As her stepmother’s cruelty grows, Cendrillon captures the prince’s heart . . . though her own heart belongs to Auguste. Cendrillon’s fate rests on one question: Can she bear losing the boy she loves in order to leave a life she hates?
Darling Seabreak cannot remember anything before the murder of her family at the hands of House Dragon, but she knows she owes her life to both the power of her Chaos Boon and House Kraken for liberating her from the sewers where she spent her childhood. So when her adoptive Kraken father is captured in battle, Darling vows to save him—even if that means killing each and every last member of House Dragon.
Talon Goldhoard has always been a dutiful War Prince for House Dragon, bravely leading the elite troops of his brother, the High Prince Regent. But lately his brother’s erratic rule threatens to undo a hundred years of House Dragon’s hard work, and factions are turning to Talon to unseat him. Talon resists, until he’s ambushed by a fierce girl who looks exactly like the one his brother has painted obsessively, repeatedly, for years, and Talon knows she’s the key to everything.
Together, Darling and Talon must navigate the treacherous waters of House politics, caught up in the complicated game the High Prince Regent is playing against everyone. The unlikeliest of allies, they’ll have to stop fighting each other long enough to learn to fight together in order to survive the fiery prophecies and ancient blood magic threatening to devastate their entire world.