Step into a city where monsters feast on human emotions knights split their souls to make their weapons and witches always take more than they give. Pain is Dymitrs calling. To slay the monsters hes been raised to kill he had to split his soul in half to make a sword from his own spine. Every time he draws it he gets blood on his hands. Pain is Alas inheritance. When her mother died a family curse to witness horrors committed by the Holy Order was passed onto her. The curse will claim her life as it did her mothers unless she can find a cure. One fateful night in Chicago Dymitr comes to Ala with a bargain: her help in finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga in exchange for an enchanted flower that just might cure her. Desperate and unaware of what Dymitr really is Ala agrees. But they only have one day before the flower dies . . . and Alas hopes of breaking the curse along with it. Lovely lush and full of otherworldly longing this modern fairy tale is Roth at her most imaginative and ethereal.--OLIVIE BLAKE New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
