Hillcross runs on inherited magic and rigid etiquette. When the town's Magic Keeper dies unexpectedly, her eldest daughter Carter inherits control of the archive — generations of hoarded spells and power. On the same day, a wandering eldritch house settles at the edge of town. A warning poem from a neighboring city arrives with it: houses like this do not simply visit. They consume.

Carter's answer is to consolidate. Riley's is to share. When her defiance costs her exile, Riley begins building something her sister never would — a network where magic moves freely. And the further she gets from Hillcross, the clearer it becomes: the house feeds on exactly what Carter is doing.

But Riley isn't only trying to save a town. Ash is a time-displaced outsider with no era to call home, and the only way to reach him across impossible distance is through the same poetry that holds Hillcross together. Saving Ash and saving her town have become the same act. To bring him home, she'll have to dismantle the archive that defines everything Hillcross has ever been.

If she fails, the house continues to feed. If she succeeds, Hillcross will have to learn how to bend.

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