Stolen Midnights

The first installment in a new series, the story is set in Aurilia, a realm governed by three immortal beings known as the Fates: Dawn, Day, and Dusk. In the capital city of Andalay, at midnight on a citizen's eighteenth birthday, one of the Fates' onyx hounds delivers a blue box containing an enchanted object. The city is divided between a wealthy northern district, home to the gifted elite, and the impoverished southern district called the Void.

Wren Hayes is the younger daughter of Cameron Hayes, the powerful Representative of Ward One. Her family is among Andalay's most prestigious: her father wields a magical fountain pen granting persuasion, her mother Lenore owns enchanted dancing slippers, and her older sister Callie possesses silver earrings that control others' emotions. When no hound arrives at midnight on Wren's birthday, she becomes the first Hayes in family history not to receive a gift.

The narrative alternates between Wren's perspective and that of Damien, a nineteen-year-old thief from the Void who possesses a magical mirror granting invisibility. He intercepted Wren's gift before the hound could deliver it, hired by a mysterious, cloaked buyer he has never seen. When Damien opens the stolen locket and discovers a photograph of himself inside, he keeps the object rather than delivering it.

A week later, at the season's opening ball, society shuns Wren. She meets Ruby, Damien's partner in crime, and Lord Everett Sinclair, a quiet nobleman who confesses he admires Wren's defiance. When Damien, disguised as a waiter, steals Everett's wristwatch, Wren chases and tackles him in the garden. Damien escapes but later discovers the locket has vanished from his person.

Wren visits the Fates' palace, where guards grant her entry to the Gardens of Dusk. She finds a note addressed to "Little bird," her family nickname, alongside a trail of blood. The letter reveals her gift was crafted from Dusk's own dangerous magic and was stolen, and it instructs her to find someone "cunning and deceptive enough to secure it once more. A dark soul with green hopes" (78). Wren destroys the letter as instructed and surrenders to the guards.

Using his mirror, Damien sneaks into Wren's interrogation room. He notices his invisibility works flawlessly near Wren but has been flickering since he stole her locket. Wren's father secures her release but confines her to the house for two weeks. During this time, she overhears Cameron pressuring Callie to complete an unnamed task and dismissing Wren as a disappointment. She resolves to seek Damien once free, recognizing he fits Dusk's description.

Wren ventures into the Void for the first time, stunned by its poverty. At the Broken Wing Tavern, she encounters Everett, who claims he needed to escape the north. Damien corners Wren and they strike a deal: She pays one silver coin per day for his help finding her gift, while he demands access to high-society events to search for whoever took the locket from him.

At the Registry of Magical Gifts, Damien searches invisibly while Wren distracts the staff. He spots Cameron entering an unmarked room with another lord and discovers files documenting missing people from the Void: photographs, death dates, and clinical notes about "procedures" and "extraction." He steals two pages as proof. When Wren sees the documents, she is devastated but resolves to expose the truth.

At the Hockley ball, Wren meets Grayson Hockley, Lord Stuart Hockley's charming younger son, who reveals his older brother Adrian never received a gift and recently claimed he found a way to "earn" one. When Cameron and Lord Hockley slip away, Wren and Damien follow, discovering that holding hands extends Damien's invisibility to Wren. Hidden in Hockley's study, they overhear Cameron threatening Lord Hockley about a deadline set by Day. Trapped and frightened, Wren kisses Damien. He returns the kiss but abruptly vanishes, leaving Wren hurt and furious. She refuses to see him for several nights.

Grayson visits Wren with a note in Cameron's handwriting: "Fifty more souls and your debt is paid" (304). They agree to work together. Separately, Wren rides with Everett, whose supposedly magical glasses shatter when his horse throws him. Everett admits he never received a gift and his father responded with violence. Wren promises to keep his secret.

One night, a hooded figure stabs Damien outside the Broken Wing. Delirious, he drags himself to Wren's window. She hauls him inside, stitches his wound, and stays beside him all night. He murmurs she reminds him of safety and light; she whispers she likes him too. He slips out before dawn, leaving only a brief note.

At the docks, Wren, Grayson, Damien, and Ruby watch Cameron and Lord Hockley oversee the unloading of frightened men, women, and children from shipping crates. Two explosions rock the port, and Damien chases a fleeing hooded figure to the Black Dahlia, a notorious brothel in the Void. Inside, the figure kneels before a woman hidden behind a screen who declares the next shipment of souls will go to her alone, not the Fates. As the man departs, she calls him "Everett" and orders him to eliminate Damien, calling him Everett's brother "even if by half" (364).

Shaken, Damien reunites with Wren and shares what he overheard. After exchanging confessions, they spend the night together. The next morning, Callie walks in, promises discretion, and reveals that shipping ledgers show containers going to two addresses: one to the Fates' palace and one blacked out.

Two discoveries follow in quick succession. Wren finds a Black Dahlia business card in Callie's vanity drawer, matching one she found in their mother Lenore's cloak. Then a drunk Ruby reveals that Damien originally stole Wren's locket. Devastated, Wren storms out and breaks into the Black Dahlia alone.

In a private room, Wren finds clothing matching her mother's recent outfits, blackmail files, and a locked drawer containing dozens of stolen magical gifts, including her locket. When she puts the locket on, visions flood her mind: the Fates consuming extracted souls to sustain their immortality, and Dusk fleeing through the Void to abandon a gray-eyed baby, Damien, at an orphanage.

Callie enters and reveals herself as the mastermind. Using her earrings to paralyze Wren, she explains that the Fates are ancient mortals who consume human souls to maintain their immortality and are growing weaker. Callie has spent years collecting stolen gifts, using their combined power to control lords, including their father. She has diverted shipments of souls to herself, planning to overthrow the Fates and install herself as a new Fate, with allies in the remaining two seats. Everett has served as her loyal agent. She reveals Damien is the son of Dusk and Arthur Sinclair, Everett's father, making him a latent reaper, a being with innate power over death.

Damien bursts in. Callie's emotional manipulation has no effect on him, a resistance she attributes to his reaper nature. Everett arrives, blood-soaked from murdering his father under Callie's influence, and attacks Damien. While Everett restrains him, Callie coerces Wren into surrendering the locket and whispers an incantation that strips Wren's memories of Damien. When Wren's eyes clear, she does not recognize him. Callie claims Damien is an attacker and orders Everett to kill him. Damien calls Wren "sunshine," causing her to freeze momentarily, but the recognition does not break through. Realizing he cannot win, he flees, vowing to return.

In the epilogue, Wren wakes at Everett's estate wearing a pink diamond ring. Everett tells her they eloped and she lost her memory in a fall. A glimpse of Callie's pink skirt in the hallway and a wave of soothing calm dispel her unease. As she drifts to sleep, she faintly hears a voice whispering "Sunshine," but the word fades. The novel ends with Wren under Callie and Everett's control, her memories of Damien and their shared discoveries erased.