The Glass Forest

You can leave the woods. But you can't outrun the roots. Chicago, 1930. Four years have passed since Verity Thorne destroyed the Mother Tree. She and Silas Blackwood have vanished into the smog and steel of the city, living a quiet life as "Mr. and Mrs. Vance." Silas works the iron at the steel mills, his memories of the curse wiped clean. Verity works as a seamstress, carrying the burden of their past alone, desperate to keep the monsters at bay. But the city is rotting. A new bootleg liquor called "Black Shine" is flooding the speakeasies. It's cheaper than whiskey and hits harder than gin. It makes men feel like gods—until their skin turns gray, their bones turn brittle, and their minds merge into a singular, violent static. Verity recognizes the scent immediately. It smells like pine needles and old blood. Someone has scavenged the charred remains of the Appalachian roots and is feeding the curse to the city, one bottle at a time. When Silas begins to sleepwalk, waking up with blood under his fingernails and phantom pains in limbs he doesn't have, Verity knows their time is up. The Wolf is trying to claw its way back out. To save the city from an industrial nightmare, Verity must do the one thing she promised never to do again: tell Silas what he really is, and unleash the beast she fought so hard to bury.