After eliminating the source of the hidden world's corruption, Sidney is left with virtually no magical ability. Feeling alienated from herself, Sidney is determined to find a way to regain her place as one of the world's most dangerous sorcerers. Unfortunately, she has to do it fast: the House of Shadows, the hell on earth that shaped her, the place she sacrificed everything to destroy, is rebuilding itself.

"The House of Shadows stands on bones. All the sacrifices, all the mages who died in the Shadows, are buried beneath the foundations. The bones hold the magic."

The magic of the Unseen World is behaving strangely, faltering, bleeding at its edges. Determined to prevent the House of Shadows from returning to power and to defeat the magicians who only want it back, Sydney goes to extreme lengths in a desperate attempt to reclaim the magic she sacrificed. She is forced to decide what she will give up and what she will lose, and whether what must be destroyed is not just the House of Shadows, but the Unseen World itself.

World Fantasy Award finalist Kat Howard has written a sequel that asks how you can live a happy life in a world that doesn't want it, and where the cost of that happiness may be so high it's unaffordable.