Weavingshaw

The first installment in a fantasy series, the story is set in a world resembling industrialized Victorian England, where the nation of Morland is home to both native citizens and refugees from civil war in the neighboring country of Algaraa. Ghosts walk unseen among the living, demons inhabit an underworld called Bastmore, and an ancient class of Saints once banished those demons from the human world centuries ago.

Leena Al-Sayer is a 20-year-old Algaraan refugee living in Golborne, Morland's capital. Three years earlier, she began seeing ghosts, an ability she cannot explain or control. Her father, Ali Al-Sayer, a former university lecturer, was imprisoned for attempting to start a workers' union. Leena's younger brother, Rami, participates in fighting rings run by the Black Coats, a violent gang, and is now dying of Sweeper's Cough, a deadly illness.

Desperate for the expensive medication she cannot afford, Leena seeks out Mr. St. Silas, known as the Saint of Silence, a feared young man who pays people for their secrets and punishes liars by carving an X into their mouths. His housekeeper, Mrs. Van, reluctantly admits Leena, who signs a contract trading her ghost-seeing ability for medication. St. Silas tests her claim at Newtorn Prison, where she identifies him as a ghost's killer. He reveals that Leena is also infected and leverages her illness to force a second contract: She must work as his secretary and find the ghost of Lord Percival Avon, the deceased 16th Marquess of Avon and former master of the northern estate Weavingshaw. In exchange, he provides medication, lodging, and protection.

After recovering, Leena researches Lord Avon and learns he died under mysterious circumstances, left no known heirs, and that Weavingshaw was purchased by a wealthy tradesman named Mr. Martin. Before departing for St. Silas's residence, her elderly neighbor Margery gives her a gold timepiece engraved with the name "Fray."

Leena's daily work involves sitting in on St. Silas's consultations and noting any ghosts trailing confessors. She observes that he writes secrets in black ledgers he handles only with gloves and that confessors leave looking devastated and aged. When she touches a ledger against his orders, she is struck by a wave of concentrated grief, confirming the books are preternatural. St. Silas confiscates her beloved A Guide to Botany, her last tangible link to her deceased mother, threatening to destroy its pages for any lapse in her duties.

Through traded secrets, Leena learns that the Wake, a shadowy group of aristocrats, smuggles prisoners from Newtorn Prison and sells them. During the Festival of Demons, St. Silas takes Leena to confront Basil Richards, a Black Coat informant. Leena sees the ghost of an Algaraan prisoner whose branded wrist confirms the Wake's involvement in prisoner trading. Basil reveals Lord Avon once led the Wake, and after Leena finishes her questions, St. Silas shoots him dead. Rami confronts them, drawing his sword on St. Silas; Leena intervenes and convinces Rami to leave. She then seizes St. Silas's gun and demands answers. He confirms Avon took something from him that altered the course of his life.

When Rami is kidnapped by Black Coats on Martin's orders, St. Silas helps Leena rescue him. During the confrontation, St. Silas shoots a hidden attacker strangling Leena. As they bury the dead man, St. Silas reveals he buried his first body at age 12, telling her that "survival is a sordid business" (176).

The narrative shifts to Lord Hargreaves, a half-Algaraan viscount who co-founded the Wake alongside Lord Avon. He convenes a meeting at Weavingshaw with Lord Kilworth, Martin, and Lord Calligan Fray, a demon nobleman. Hargreaves proposes finding the Limitless Vessel, a legendary object capable of opening portals for hundreds of demons simultaneously, to bring a demon army into Morland and crush growing revolutionary sentiment.

A chapter from St. Silas's perspective reveals that he visits the Duke of Fray's estate in Bastmore and reads from his black ledgers while the Duke feeds on the trapped emotions, visibly growing younger. St. Silas devised this system at 16 to survive: Rather than allowing the Duke to drain him directly, he feeds the demon through captured secrets. St. Silas was traded to the Duke at age 12 alongside Theodore Daye, a boy raised with him at Weavingshaw, and the Duke's system killed the other boys held captive.

St. Silas arranges to attend Martin's hunting party at Weavingshaw to search for a red diary that belonged to Lord Avon. Near the estate, the ghost of Lady Hargreaves, the viscount's wife who drowned herself, leads Leena to a hidden letter on the beach. St. Silas confirms that Mrs. Van is half-demon and that Mr. Orley, the Black Coat leader, is also a demon.

At Weavingshaw, the ghost of Moira, Lord Avon's secret wife, possesses Leena. Through Moira's memories, Leena witnesses Percy strangle Moira on their wedding night, claiming he needed to be certain she would keep a secret he had entrusted to her. In the estate's crypts, Leena encounters a demon bound to Weavingshaw and learns the first Marquess of Avon made a blood contract 900 years ago, binding every future Avon lord to feed the demon in exchange for the estate's protection. Rami destroys a drug supply hidden in the tombs by Martin, an act with deadly consequences.

Leena visits Lord Avon's elderly former housekeeper, who reveals that Avon had a son taken by the Wake. Leena realizes St. Silas is that son, Bramwell Avon, the rightful 17th Marquess. Bram confirms his identity, revealing that breaking the demonic contract binding him to the Duke of Fray is the true reason he has sought his father's ghost. Their confrontation nearly ends in a kiss, but Bram pulls away. Through dreams left by Lady Hargreaves's ghost, Leena learns that Hargreaves killed Lord Avon and that Lady Hargreaves drowned herself afterward.

Bram retrieves the red diary by crossing a demon-infested lake beneath Weavingshaw that only an Avon can survive. When Martin discovers Rami's destruction of the drug supply and demands the boy's execution, Bram offers to duel Martin instead. That night, he visits Leena to return her Guide to Botany with its torn pages restitched by his own hand, teaches her to use his pistol, and removes her hairpins in an unspoken farewell.

The duel is an ambush. Hargreaves coats his sword with Detritus Poison, a rare demon venom, and slashes Bram from behind. He reveals that Theodore Daye's ghost was controlled by Orley on his instructions all along; Lord Avon's ghost was never going to appear. Bram shoots Martin and escapes with Rami. Meanwhile, Leena shoots Lord Kilworth through the heart when he corners her in the crypts.

The group reunites but must separate: Rami and Mrs. Van ride to Golborne for an antidote while Leena walks through a snowstorm with the increasingly delirious Bram, feeding him her secrets to keep him conscious. At a posting inn, Bram kisses Leena in a moment of delirium, but she pulls away, refusing intimacy he has not freely chosen. She discovers the red diary's seemingly blank pages are covered with writing.

Orley ambushes them and knocks Bram unconscious. He reveals that Leena is a "vessel," a rare object embedded within her body that allows demons to cross between worlds. This is the true source of her ability to see ghosts. With soldiers closing in, Leena strikes a deal: She touches a gold-framed mirror, and the glass dissolves. She steps through into Bastmore, taking Bram and Orley with her.

Orley immediately betrays her, smashing the antidote and firing at the unconscious Bram, though the pistol is empty. Leena drives him out. When Bram awakens, they realize the Limitless Vessel may be what his father traded him for and that the red diary may map its location. Bram releases Leena from her contract: "Leena Al-Sayer, I release you from your contract" (448). The novel ends with Leena and Bram stranded in the demon world, the antidote destroyed, and their fates unresolved.