Rust & Rosemary
Tess Marlow can see the last two miles of the Enchanted Highway dying in front of her, and the wards that have kept Alderbrook safe for generations are failing with it. The signature violet glow has begun to bleed sickly green, fading by the foot. Tess knows what waits in the hills when the wards go dark, she has seen it before. Joined by the brooding cartographer Orin Dusk, the quick-witted apprentice Pip Thorn, the hedge-witch Fenn Ashwood, and the dangerously clever Sable Vex, Tess must reach the town before the last pulse of light gutters out and something old and hungry walks free. But the road has other plans. As the magic decays, it releases memories, trapped travelers, forgotten bargains, debts the highway itself has been collecting for centuries. Sable Vex knows more than she is telling, and Orin's careful maps may hold the secret to restoring the wards, or to finishing what someone began long ago. When Tess discovers that the magic was never meant to last forever, the group faces an impossible choice: pay the price to keep the light burning, or let the old darkness return and learn what it has been hiding since the highway was first painted. Either way, nothing in Alderbrook will ever be the same.