“You’ve given High Queen Selyka something invaluable, Carolee.”

“I haven’t given her anything yet.”

Colm O’Riordan made the bargain. Carolee will live the consequences. When Colm and Carolee O'Riordan's Fae debt comes due, domestic betrayal and the appearance of trolls is the least of their worries.

Carolee has run out of grace, patience, and anyone else to blame. To save her son's soul, a mother would do anything, really. The cost of her choices will be written in blood.

Welcome to the beginning of Carolee's fall, continued in the Judge of Mystics Saga. Here, horror is bodily intimate and relentless: blood that won’t scrub out, consequences that won’t stay buried, and a woman's refusal to be patient, gracious, or helped. Refusal itself becomes a form of faith.

Carolee created her own fate, and when she chooses power over mercy, she discovers too late that every gift is a hunger, and every bargain asks for more than a mortal thinks she can bear.