Nightshade and Ember
Cora Nightshade is a curse-breaker with a reputation for taking the jobs that kill lesser thieves, and a price on her head that makes the penthouse elevator feel like a one-way trip. The locket is wrapped in enough dark magic to make a priest go deaf and a witch go mad, and Lord Malachi wants it back badly enough to send his enforcers hunting. She takes the job anyway, because no one else will, and because the payday means finally disappearing from everyone who wants her dead. The complication has a name: Kieran Ashford, a centuries-old vampire whose hidden journal is the key to the curse, but also to a bloodline mystery someone is willing to kill to keep buried. As Cora's heist spirals into a web of vampire informants, gorgon enforcers, and a banshee who knows her by reputation, she finds herself allied with the one creature more dangerous than the Council's hunters. Together they must outmaneuver Malachi, survive the curse, and decide whether the truth buried in Kieran's past is worth the cost of claiming it. In a world where every monster has a motive, trust is the most dangerous thing she can steal.