Two lovers on the edge of escape, bound by music, folklore, and each other—until the night the forest calls one of them away.

In the shadowed streets of Cluj-Napoca, Vasile and Alexandru are running out of time—and places to hide. Fired from the orchestra, living in an abandoned house, and haunted by the stares of those who will never understand them, they cling to each other as fiercely as they cling to their dreams.

Alexandru dreams of flight: a new life in New York, freedom from fear, and the space to finally live as himself. Vasile dreams only of keeping him close, even as the looming forests whisper of things older and stranger than either of them can name.

When Alexandru leaves on a short errand, Vasile waits for him at their favorite café. But as the sun dips behind the city and night deepens over the rooftops, that wait stretches into something darker—until a single choice will send Vasile down a path into the heart of Romania’s most haunted forest, where folklore breathes and nothing is as it seems.

How Beautiful Things Disappear is a lyrical, devastating tale of love, identity, and the strange ways the world can take us—and the strange ways it sometimes gives back.

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