Broken by Daylight

In 1904, on a dig near the Nile, a young archaeologist named George O'Connell finds himself bewitched by an uninvited woman brushing sand from a slab of stone.

In 1904, on a dig near the Nile, a young archaeologist named George O'Connell finds himself bewitched by an uninvited woman brushing sand from a slab of stone. She reads hieroglyphs, laughs like a donkey's bray, and carries a rose-shaped necklace that catches the Egyptian sun in every color at once. Her name is Anya. She tells George he cannot own history, then rides off into the dunes on a camel, leaving him with the unshakable certainty that his life has just begun. Together they piece together a broken slab that reads 'Here lies the Queen.' Neither understands, yet, how literally those words will haunt them both across centuries.

Delphia's crew cuts through prison glass six hundred feet below

Rosalina has spent three months in an underwater cell beneath Kairyn's floating prison barge, interrogated daily about a missing necklace, a stolen token, and Ezryn's whereabouts. She resists with mental word games, hiding Dayton's token inside her mattress. When Dayton's teenage sister Delphia appears outside the glass with a cutting tool, Rosalina seizes the moment—she slams Kairyn's metal helm into the weakened barrier, flooding the cell, then gives herself gills through transformation magic and swims free. In the chaos above, Dayton arrives on a fishing skiff and uses a burning harpoon to detonate the enemy warship's own gunpowder. Rosalina surfaces aboard Delphia's stolen ship, breathing sunlight for the first time in months.

Rosalina's grief at Dayton's new mate shatters part of their home

The group returns to Castletree through Rosalina's golden thorns. Farron is waiting, and the reunion is ecstatic—until the acolyte Wrenley announces that she and Dayton are fated mates. Rosalina's grief erupts as uncontrollable magic: wind and seawater swirl around her body while the Summer Wing begins to collapse. Dayton charges in as a wolf to rescue trapped staff. Caspian materializes through purple thorns with Keldarion, confirming what Rosalina had suspected—his briars have secretly been holding Castletree together, not draining it. Keldarion's ice calms the storm, but the Summer Wing is beyond saving. Hot springs, training grounds, and Dayton's quarters crumble into rubble. Rosalina's inherited connection to Castletree means her pain is the castle's pain.

Caspian knew Aurelia was alive and imprisoned in the Below Rosalina's father George arrives at Castletree, recovered from months of delirious sleep. He recognizes Caspian—during his illness, he dreamed of a dark-haired boy speaking with a woman trapped between towering green crystals. Rosalina confronts Caspian, and the truth floods out: her mother has been Sira's prisoner for twenty-five years, her magic siphoned through crystals to power…