Winner of the 2024 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal for Magic & Wizardry!Castelio is a Quietus who exorcises the risen dead - though he can't seem to banish his own demons.Delilah is a wind ship captain obsessed with finding her missing parents - and who just developed strange powers she barely understands.When their paths cross, the pair are drawn into a dangerous world of dark magic, royal intrigues, violent revolution, and eventually, the shadowlands behind the Veil where the Drowned Woman, Kaethe, holds sway.This is epic fantasy with a slow-burn romance (light on spice), pulse-pounding action, captivating characters, and a dash of humor. When someone dies in Aveline, they don't always stay that way.Castelio learned this hard lesson when he was a boy.Now he roams from village to village as a Quietus, banishing restless spirits and keeping the Ducissa Orlaith's peace-until the day her only son is kidnapped.Blame falls on the land across the Boundary, where necromancers practice their black arts in eternal darkness.To get the child back, Castelio recruits the aid of a young stranger named Delilah, along with her peculiar (and possibly demonic) cat Thistle. The pair has a habit of attracting violent thunderstorms, but their wind ship can cross the high mist-cloaked passes of the Boundary.As the trail leads deeper into the wilds of midnight, Castelio and Delilah discover there are worse things than the risen dead. Yet nothing is quite as it seems in the Moon Courts. Despite the dangers all around, they find allies in unexpected places.And choosing a side in the brewing war between light and dark magic might be harder than they imagined.
