A Strange Hymn

The second book in Laura Thalassa's Bargainer series picks up shortly after the events of Rhapsodic, in which siren Callypso "Callie" Lillis was rescued from imprisonment by Karnon, the ruler of Fauna, one of the four fae kingdoms in the Otherworld, the realm of the fae. During her captivity, Karnon's magic gave Callie iridescent black wings, scaly forearms, and claw-tipped fingers. Her soul mate, Desmond "Des" Flynn, the King of the Night Kingdom and a notorious dealmaker known as the Bargainer, killed Karnon to free her. Now Callie is stranded in the Otherworld, her wings making a return to earth impossible and her siren glamour, which allows her to magically compel humans, useless against fairies.

Callie struggles with her transformed body and the emotional aftermath of her captivity in Des's chambers in Somnia, the Night Kingdom's capital. Des reassures her that her new features are assets and begins training her in combat, using a bead from her enchanted bracelet, each bead representing a favor she owes him from past deals. He introduces her to Malaki, the Lord of Dreams and his oldest friend, a scarred, one-eyed fairy who greets Callie warmly. In the throne room, Callie watches Des unleash a bog, a sentient nightmare that devours its victims, on a Fauna messenger who delivers the severed heads of Night Kingdom diplomats and demands Des's abdication. Callie is disturbed by the brutality but tells Des his darkness does not change her feelings.

The two grow closer through exchanged secrets and intimacy. Des shares how he met Malaki as a teenager in Barbos, the City of Thieves, where both belonged to a gang called the Angels of Small Death. Callie has prophetic nightmares in which voices warn, "He's coming for you." She visits the casket children, the blood-drinking, prophesying offspring born to the sleeping warrior women during captivity, and notices none of them share Karnon's animal features, which most Fauna fae would inherit. She concludes Karnon may not be their biological father. Des reveals he already knew but withheld the information.

Des takes Callie on a tour of the Night Kingdom's floating islands. He tricks her off a high balcony to teach her to fly, transforming her shame over her wings into exhilaration. They visit Phyllia, the Land of Dreams, and Barbos, where Callie acquires a pair of daggers that make her feel powerful for the first time. On Arestys, the kingdom's poorest island, Des reveals he was raised in caves by his mother, a scribe, and shows Callie the crater where she died, saying only, "My father happened." Over several conversations, Des reveals his family history: His father, Galleghar Nyx, was the previous Night King who killed all his children after receiving a prophecy that his legacy would cause his downfall. Des's mother fled the palace while pregnant, raising Des in hiding until Galleghar discovered and killed her when Des was 15.

Back in Somnia, Callie no longer sees her features as monstrous but as empowering. Over dinner, Des shows her a chart of disappearances: Since Karnon's death, no women have vanished, but men continue to go missing. Callie theorizes that Karnon's erratic behavior, alternating between wild gentleness and calculating cruelty, suggests two separate beings shared one body. She believes the gentle Karnon deliberately provoked Des into killing him to escape the parasitic entity, which survived and continues to operate.

Temper, Callie's best friend and a sorceress whose nearly limitless power erodes her conscience each time she uses it, blows up a portal to enter the Otherworld. Callie talks her down, and Des grants Temper his protection. Malaki argues that Des must attend Solstice, an annual gathering of the four fae kingdoms hosted in the Kingdom of Flora, to prove he remains a trustworthy ally. Des reluctantly agrees, despite Flora's loi du royaume, a principle requiring visitors to follow the host kingdom's laws, which permit human enslavement.

The Night Kingdom's procession rides for Solstice. During the parade, a Fauna assassin fires an arrow at Callie; Des snatches it from the air and kills the archer. At the Flora palace, Callie meets Mara Verdana, the Queen of Flora, and her consort-king, the Green Man, whose pale green skin and unsettling gaze put Callie on edge. At the opening celebration, the Green Man dances with Callie and casually reveals Flora's bigotry toward humans. Callie has recurring nightmares in which a figure resembling Des slits her throat.

At a diplomatic breakfast, Callie confronts Janus Soleil, the King of Day, accusing him of abducting her and delivering her to Karnon. Janus denies involvement. The Green Man points out that the casket children exhibit Night Kingdom traits such as blood drinking and prophesying, implicitly accusing Des of fathering them. Privately, Des reveals their bond "has issues": Because Callie is human and he is fae, their magic is incompatible, preventing the bond from fully forming and explaining why he could not locate her during her captivity.

At a public gathering, Mara presents Callie with a goblet of lilac wine, a rare elixir that can make a mortal immortal and would complete their imperfect bond. Des intercepts, pouring the wine on the floor, and later confesses he has fantasized about giving it to her but refused to act without her consent. During a court session, a human servant is dragged before Mara, accused of sleeping with a fairy. The woman explains she was raped, but Mara sentences her to 20 lashes. Callie intervenes, draping her winged body over the shackled woman to absorb the blows. The headsman's whip breaks Callie's wing bones before Des arrives and stops the punishment by force. Temper heals Callie's shattered wings with her sorcery.

Following her instincts into the queen's sacred oak grove, Callie discovers that the bleeding trees conceal bodies: Soldiers are cocooned inside the trunks, identical in condition to the enchanted women in their glass coffins. As Des clashes with Mara over the desecrated trees, Callie follows a voice deeper into the grove and encounters Galleghar Nyx, Des's father, who was supposedly killed years ago. Galleghar attacks, breaking Des's wings.

The Green Man then reveals his true nature to Callie: The real Green Man died long ago, and the being inhabiting his body is the Thief of Souls, an entity capable of possessing both living and dead bodies. The Thief explains he also possessed Karnon, confirming Callie's theory about Karnon's split personality. He tells Callie that a prophecy requires her death, but her human magic currently places her beyond his reach; only by drinking lilac wine would her soul become vulnerable to his power. He then stabs Callie with her own dagger, inflicting a mortal wound.

Des abandons his fight and tries to use the magic of Callie's bracelet to command her to live, but the spell fails. Callie pulls the dagger from her wound, staggers to the fallen Thief, and drives the blade into his heart. As the Thief dies, he reveals that Janus had a twin brother whose dead body the Thief possessed when he abducted Callie, meaning Janus was telling the truth. The Thief warns the game is far from over.

As Callie fades, Des makes the choice he swore he would never make: He retrieves a bottle of lilac wine from Mara's cellar and pours it down Callie's throat, forcing her to swallow with his magic. In a chapter narrated from Des's perspective, he watches their bond fuse at last as the wine fulfills the remaining bargain on her bracelet. Callie's wound heals, and she lives.

Callie wakes transformed and immortal, her bond with Des now tangible beneath her rib cage. Her wings, scales, and claws are gone in their default state but can be summoned at will. Her bracelet has vanished, all debts fulfilled. Des confirms what he did, and Callie realizes the terrible cost: The lilac wine has made her magic compatible with fae magic, rendering her soul vulnerable to the Thief of Souls, exactly as the entity intended.

In an epilogue, sacred oaks are cut down across the Otherworld and sleeping soldiers are recovered. Then, in an ominous final scene, glass coffins begin to crack, oak trunks splinter, the casket children smile, and thousands of eyes snap open simultaneously.