It's 1918, and Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it's connected to the mysterious books his brother left strewn around the house. Rob knows something other than just Arthur's death is bothering Matty. He's know him for years and been in love with him just as long. And when he finds something that looks like a gate, a glowing, terrifying doorway to the unknown, it all starts to fall in to place. Matty's looking sicker and sicker in the same way Arthur did. What is Rob prepared to sacrifice to cure him? The answer is in the esoteric books ... and with the mysterious Lin of the Frem, who lives beyond the gate to nowhere. It's taken Matty and Rob more than a decade to admit they have feelings for each other and they are determined that neither social expectations or magical illness will part them now.

Inheritance of Shadows

“I only know of one other person who even knows it exists and he is on the other end of this line that I can’t break. And tried to drain me.”


Lin nodded again. “It is an extraordinarily bad thing, the line. No good things ever come of a permanent connection. Severing it is almost impossible now it has been used for such strong work. We cannot break it safely for you without him here and we only cross to the Delfland in dire crisis.”


Marchant took from this that his situation was not a dire crisis. “What happens to me, then?” he had asked Lin. “What do I do?”


Lin looked at him almost sympathetically. “You wait.” He stopped walking and turned to face Marchant. They were walking their regular circle around some of the inner halls where there seemed to be a market and places that sold food. It was crowded and humid and warm. “You wait, and because his kias is bleeding through you and into the shimmer, eventually he will die, and the line will die with him.” He was very matter of fact.


Chapter 26