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

Matty had been expecting a carnas or some other twisted creature, not a human. It foxed him momentarily. Then, “It’s a person!” he shouted back at Rob. “Grab him!”


They both piled forward onto the new arrival and there was a cartoonish mess of arms and legs and swearing which gradually slowed to three people in a heap panting heavily, which was a lot less traumatic than he had expected when they started.


One of them was being sick. It was the man who had come through the shimmer, who was at the bottom of the pile. Matty hastily rolled to one side, out of the way.


Their prisoner did nothing to escape but continued to retch.


Rob rolled aside and sat propped against the wood of the barn wall; head tilted back. He looked as if he might be sick too. Matty clambered to his feet and stood against the wall beside him with the Luger held loosely by his side, ready for any trouble.


Chapter 33