A Deal with the Shadow King

A princess crosses through a mirror to pay her father's debt

Nell is eighteen, blessed with forbidden shadow magic in a kingdom that worships light.

A princess crosses through a mirror to pay her father's debt

Nell is eighteen, blessed with forbidden shadow magic in a kingdom that worships light. Years ago, her father struck a bargain with the Shadow King to cure her dying mother: Nell must spend two weeks out of every four in Faerie for a full year. On the eve of her birthday, a masked figure arrives at the royal summer house and carries her, blindfolded, through a mirror into the shadow realm. She discovers this terrifying stranger is not the king at all but a knight called One—the first of three identical masked brothers who serve the court. A sprite named Baka draws her a bath and readies her for dinner. Already, Nell's old world of corsets and forbidden reflections is receding behind the glass.

The faceless king marks his three new seedlings with a blade

At the welcoming banquet, Nell meets Mara and James, two fellow seedlings from the new world—brash and devout, respectively. She refuses the food, heeding her father's warnings. When the Shadow King steps through the enormous mirror behind his throne, the room freezes. His golden mask hides every feature. He approaches Nell first, pricks her finger with a pointed nail, and collects a drop of blood. Time stops around them as his power roams her body. Each seedling's blood mingles in a shared glass, which the Fae lords drink in communion. One watches from across the room with clenched fists. Nell is escorted to a locked underground bedroom and drapes her duvet over the free-standing mirror, certain the king is watching from the other side.

Identical triplet knights train Nell to hunt the monsters of dreams

One teaches Nell to fire a crossbow, run the castle's vast gardens, and channel her magic into her aim. She discovers the sacred Hawthorn tree from her childhood dreams growing in the courtyard, thick with teal moss and silver branches. In the library, a sprout named Lori becomes Nell's closest confidant, explaining the training stages—seeds, sprouts, sepals, stigmas—and whispering that seeds who grew too attached to the triplets simply vanished. The second brother, Two, carries a mask of shattered glass and moves with arrogant precision. Three wears an iridescent mask and never speaks. Together, the three knights are identical in body but unmistakable in temperament. The combined pulse of their power raises gooseflesh on Nell's skin from across a courtyard.