The Emperor of Evening Stars (the Bargainer, #3)

This novel retells and expands the story of the first two books in the Bargainer series entirely from the perspective of Desmond Flynn, the King of the Night Kingdom. Set in the Otherworld, a magical realm of floating islands inhabited by fairies and other supernatural creatures, as well as on Earth, the narrative spans roughly 270 years as it traces Desmond's origins, his quest for vengeance, and his search for his fated soul mate.

The novel opens 270 years before the main events. An unnamed woman, one of many concubines of the Shadow King, Galleghar Nyx, the tyrannical ruler of the Night Kingdom, escapes his palace by drinking a tonic purchased at the cost of four hundred years of her life. Rendered incorporeal, she floats into the night, pregnant with a child she is determined to protect from a king known for killing his own heirs.

The story shifts to Desmond Flynn, a teenage fairy living in Arestys, the poorest floating island in the Night Kingdom, with his mother, Larissa Flynn, a town scribe. Desmond endures constant taunts as a "bastard" and secretly possesses abundant magic that Larissa forbids him from using. During a heated argument, Larissa accidentally reveals that Desmond is not illegitimate but refuses to name his father. Desmond's fury triggers his wings to sprout for the first time. Their talon-tipped shape, unique to the royal bloodline, terrifies Larissa. His power spirals and compels her to confess: His father is Galleghar Nyx.

Three years later, someone reports Desmond's royal wings. Larissa reveals her true identity as Eurielle D'Asteria, once a spy who was forced into Galleghar's harem, and instructs Desmond to take her hidden fortune and buy asylum in the Kingdom of Day. Desmond refuses to leave. He wields his shadow magic for the first time and knocks the approaching soldiers unconscious. When he returns, Larissa is gone. He finds her confronting Galleghar, who has come personally. Desmond charges from hiding and strikes the king, but Galleghar vanishes and reappears behind Larissa, slitting her throat. Desmond's grief triggers an explosion of power that vaporizes the caves, though Galleghar escapes. Desmond swears vengeance and takes to the sky with his mother's body.

Penniless, Desmond travels to Barbos, the City of Thieves, where he is recruited into the Angels of Small Death, a criminal Brotherhood built on trafficking enslaved humans. When the leader tries to force his compliance, Desmond releases his shadows, devouring the leader and his men while sparing the enslaved humans. Rather than seize leadership, Desmond becomes a rank-and-file member under a false alias, using anonymity to hide from his father while ending the Brotherhood's trafficking. His closest friend, Malaki, a fairy who can enter sleeping minds, supports him.

A silver-haired prophetess in the forests of Memnos, the Land of Nightmares, tastes Desmond's blood and delivers a prophecy: He is soul-mated to a human slave. She advises him to join the royal guard to find his "valor" and what he seeks. Malaki overhears the truth about Desmond's parentage and swears a blood oath of secrecy. Despite the prophecy, Desmond is repelled by the idea of a human mate, recognizing his hypocrisy in freeing enslaved people while refusing to love one.

Thirteen years later, Desmond and Malaki enlist in the Night Kingdom's military. After nearly two decades at the Borderlands, a disputed territory between the Night and Day Kingdoms, Malaki loses an eye intercepting a strike meant for Desmond. Desmond finds an enslaved human woman he befriended dead among the casualties. Her death shatters his prejudice, and he vows to find his soul mate and love her without shame. His defeat of a Day prince earns him an audience with the king.

In the throne room, father and son face off. Their identical shadow powers cancel each other out, forcing them into swordplay. Galleghar wields an iron blade, which weakens fairy magic on contact, and methodically wounds Desmond. Desmond rallies, seizes his father by the throat, and drives a sword through his heart. Galleghar dies laughing, acknowledging fate's inevitability.

Desmond reluctantly takes the throne. Galleghar's body proves incorruptible, so Desmond entombs it in the Banished Lands, a magically barren wasteland. He returns to the prophetess, who warns that love costs more than power or revenge. After scouring the Otherworld without success, Desmond travels to Earth and adopts the persona of "the Bargainer," a feared dealmaker who trades favors with supernaturals, marking debts as black lines on debtors' skin. For over a century he searches, growing increasingly desperate.

Eight years before the present, a voice summons the Bargainer to a blood-soaked Los Angeles kitchen. Callypso Lillis (Callie), a fifteen-year-old siren whose supernatural glamour can bewitch others, stands over the body of her stepfather, whom she killed after years of abuse. Desmond's magic surges, and he recognizes the signs of a soul mate bond, though it feels incomplete, making him distrust what he experiences. Breaking all his rules, he cleans the crime scene for free and enrolls Callie at Peel Academy, a supernatural boarding school. To protect Callie from suspicion, he has a necromancer resurrect her stepfather so the man's death can later be staged as a heart attack. He resolves to watch over Callie from afar.

Over the following months, Desmond tends to Callie when she is sick, makes her a crown of fireflies, and takes her on outings around the world. When she reveals that an instructor tried to assault her, Desmond comforts her, then kidnaps the teacher and tortures him into confessing attacks on other students, magically binding him to turn himself in. Desmond realizes he is deeply in love with Callie.

At her school's May Day Ball, Desmond takes Callie as his date. His fairy instincts nearly overwhelm him. They share a first kiss, and his wings burst free, revealing his true nature. Panicked, he says he needs time. As he reaches the door, Callie recites words that function as an ancient vow: "From flame to ashes, dawn to dusk, for the rest of our lives, be mine always, Desmond Flynn" (182). His magic, acting autonomously, accepts these words as a binding deal. The price is seven years of forced separation, during which Desmond's own power bars him from approaching Callie.

For seven years Desmond endures the separation, tormented by jealousy when he learns Callie is dating someone else. One evening the barrier shatters. He flies to her Malibu home and re-enters her life. When Callie demands answers, Desmond reveals everything: She is his soul mate, he has loved her since she was a teenager, and his magic exacted seven years as the cost of her wish. He recites an ancient lover's vow: "And mountains may rise and fall, and the sun might wither away, and the sea claim the land and swallow the sky. But you will always be mine" (220). Callie accepts him.

Their reunion is interrupted when Callie vanishes. Desmond traces her to the castle of Karnon Kaliphus, the ruler of the Fauna Kingdom, whom he suspects is connected to the Thief of Souls, a mysterious entity behind the mass disappearance of female fairy warriors. He smashes through the palace's magical wards and finds Callie bloody on the throne room floor, feathered wings forcibly grown from her back. When Karnon threatens her life, Desmond gathers all his darkness, declaring "I am the dark" (229), and vaporizes the king and his guards while sparing Callie and hundreds of captive women imprisoned below, many held in an enchanted sleep.

In the present, Callie rests in Desmond's chambers, having drunk lilac wine, a fairy elixir that saved her life, granted her immortality, and completed their soul mate bond. Desmond now understands that Galleghar was kept between life and death by the Thief of Souls and has been revived. A shadowy figure appears over sleeping Callie; when Desmond's magic fails to destroy it, the creature vanishes. A thousand screams erupt from the castle's depths: The enchanted sleeping women have awakened simultaneously, signaling a terrifying new phase of the Thief's plan.