Avalon Tower

Agent Alix, one of MI-13's only two Sentinels—rare spies who can disable the Fey's lethal magical veil—waits at a café in southern France for her partner Rein.

Agent Alix, one of MI-13's only two Sentinels—rare spies who can disable the Fey's lethal magical veil—waits at a café in southern France for her partner Rein. She is eleven minutes late for an extraction rendezvous, distracted by forbidden feelings. When she follows what sounds like their signal whistle down a narrow lane, two Fey soldiers in royal blue are waiting. A blade sinks into her stomach. She bleeds to death on the cobblestones, thinking of Rein. MI-13 has lost its most critical asset, and the magical war between humans and Fey tips further toward catastrophe.

A tourist pretends to be a tour guide to save twelve lives

Seven minutes before Alix dies, Nia Melisende—a twenty-six-year-old bookseller from LA—sits alone at a French café eating birthday cake near the shimmering magical veil that separates human territory from occupied Fey France. She saved for five years to afford this vacation. When she spots demi-Fey fugitives in torn gossamer clothes outside the café, one grabs her arm in desperation. A suspicious local glares. Nia sees a blood smear in a nearby alley, knows Fey soldiers are patrolling the streets, and makes a choice that will end her old life: she pretends to be a tour guide, cheerfully announcing historical facts in French while herding twelve terrified fugitives—including a four-year-old orphaned boy named Malo—toward the docks and safety.

Nia walks into the lethal veil and discovers it cannot kill her

Red dragons circle overhead, hunting the fugitives from the sky. Nia commands the group to wave and grin like enchanted tourists, and the dragons glide past with disinterest. When Fey soldiers close in from every direction, Nia stumbles backward into the veil—a magical barrier that kills everyone it touches. But the death never comes. The mist slides over her skin like something alive and gentle. She pulls the fugitives inside to hide while soldiers march past, oblivious. One fugitive panics and runs. Nia finds her moments later, executed by a Fey soldier's lazy sword swing, blood drenching her green skirt. The casual brutality hardens Nia's resolve. She leads the survivors to the docks, distracting police with a deliberately obnoxious American-tourist performance.

Raphael kills a cop, a sea monster attacks, and Nia's world cracks open At the docks, the ship is commanded by Raphael Launcelot—the devastatingly beautiful demi-Fey who broke Nia's heart at a Bordeaux château when she was seventeen. He refuses to take Malo and two unauthorized refugees. Nia threatens to alert the police. Raphael relents, but when a cop spots Malo's pointed ears, Raphael snaps…