Pactlands: HALL OF THORNS

No one said anything about an attack vine.

Rose Thorn should never be left unsupervised around plants. Potted things tend to die around her as if on principle. But when her great-aunt calls and asks Rose to watch her garden nursery for a few days, Rose can hardly say no. After all, Aunt Lily is the closest thing Rose has to a grandmother—and the only family she has left—so Rose doesn’t mind driving out to her tiny mountain town to look after the place.

Aunt Lily never mentioned anything about an inspection, however.

Rose is taken aback when an agent from an organization she’s never heard of arrives and panics to find Aunt Lily missing. As it turns out, Aunt Lily hasn’t been entirely straight with Rose. She’s not visiting a sick friend—she’s in danger and on the run. She keeps a hidden greenhouse on the property in which she grows highly regulated magical plants. And she’s an elf…as was Rose’s grandfather.

Though stunned to witness magic at work and shocked that no one ever divulged the family secret, Rose refuses to abandon the nursery until her great-aunt is safely home. But as she and the agent, now awkward housemates, try to keep up their cover story and find the missing grower, they realize that whatever led to Aunt Lily’s disappearance might not be the only magical crime in progress.

And while Rose has no green thumb, another talent of hers may be budding…

How much trouble could one party be?

When Rose Thorn’s friend Maya extends an invitation to her annual Halloween bash, it’s tough to decline. But this year, Rose has other plans. For four months, she’s been trading lessons every weekend with Special Agent Yven ti’Ansha: he leaves the Pactlands for a few hours of artistic instruction in her studio, and then he more than reciprocates by offering Rose illicit tutelage in magic. It’s a great arrangement…as long as Yven’s bosses don’t discover what he’s up to.

But Rose and Yven’s weekend plans fall apart the morning after Maya’s party. Some guests awake unharmed after a long, unplanned nap. Others awake with unexpected new body parts. And a few don’t wake at all.

Yven’s training tells him that magic is at play, but who could have targeted a random crowd of Halloween revelers, and with what? But while the Division of Plants and Potions races to solve the mystery and stop the rising body count, Rose can’t just sit on the sidelines.

Someone attacked her town. Her friends.

And though Rose is still very much a magical novice, her secret weapon is growing stronger… 

When an agent goes missing, it’s all hands on deck.

Six months after discovering her magical talent, Rose Thorn hasn’t exactly mastered her abilities. Her supportive non-boyfriend, Yven ti’Ansha, has helped her along, and now his colleagues at the Division of Plants and Potions are teaching her how to use magic in combat—albeit painfully.

But Rose’s lesson plans fly out the window when one of DPP’s own goes missing. A siren—a rarity even among the peoples of the Pactlands—has vanished in the line of duty, having been embedded with a group of illegal producers in the Blue Ridge Mountains. As the other agents work every lead to find him, Rose is asked to use her farsight in the hope that she’ll see him before it’s too late.

Rose may be a farseer, but she’s barely trained. Now, when it’s needed the most, her vision is blank. Something is blocking her sight, but what?

And as the investigation continues, the agents begin to wonder whether their lost colleague was kidnapped…or whether the siren is luring them into danger.

When the waters rise, you either swim or drown. 

Expelled from the Pactlands and cut off from the man she loves, Rose Thorn is left reeling and desperate to find a way back to Yven. But as months pass without a reprieve, she struggles to keep hope alive.

Until Lord ti’Cren comes to call.

Rose’s great-grandfather disowned his son for daring to love a human woman. Now his youngest daughter has vanished, a potential scandal for image-conscious Hall ti’Cren. Rather than go public with her disappearance and damage the Hall’s reputation, he instead demands that Rose help him with her farsight—and keep her silence.

Though Lord ti’Cren’s disdain for Rose wounds her, she sees a chance. If she can earn her great-grandfather’s favor, then perhaps he’ll acknowledge her into the Hall—the one thing she needs to legally be with Yven. But as Rose begins to search for the missing woman, her farsight takes her in unexpected directions.

Deadly directions.

Rose’s gift may be the key to bringing down one of the Pactlands’ most dangerous criminals…but only if she survives Floodtide.