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

Rob tugged at his ear, still not quite with it. Matty hit him again. There was blood all over his face now, as well as all over his chest and lap. “Rob! Help me! I need you to help me!”


And then Rob was back. “Shitfire,” he said. “Are you sure?”


“Of course I’m bloody sure, Rob! I’m not going to let you have this on your conscience. Now help me stop the bleeding!”


Marchant was pretty out of it, not gone completely, but certainly away with the fairies. Matty tugged him off Rob’s lap completely, pulled his own jacket off and wadded it up, cotton-lining out. He pressed it against the cut.


“Go and get the doctor,” he said to Rob. “It’s going to need to be stitched. And his hand.”


Rob stared at him for a moment. “Rob! God! Go!” Matty shouted and then the other man shot to his feet and was moving. Matty shouted after him “Get her to bring a transfusion kit if she has one!” Marchant was going into shock.


Chapter 35