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Elliot Howell is a rising star in the Seafall painting community. He has a promising career as a portrait artist, good friends, and a fabulously wealthy patroness. In other words, he has everything to lose.

Queen Nyx rules the Gentry court in Valwode, the magic country between the mortal world and Bana the Bone Kingdom where goblins dwell. She is powerful, and beautiful, and wise beyond all imagining, but her heir is planning a coup to overthrow her and tear the Antler Crown from her brow.

Elliot and Nyx meet at Breaker House, a building anchored in all three worlds: mortal, Gentry, and goblin. For Elliot, seeing Nyx is love at first sight. For Nyx, loving a mortal man may mean giving up her crown, her country, and her eternal life.

But some things are worth any price.

This novella was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2017.

Sculptor Gideon Alderwood can't decide if he worships Analise or loathes her. Novelist Analise Field is pretty sure that if Gideon cuts her one more time with the sharp side of his tongue, she'll grab a sledgehammer and break something other than his beautiful clay statues.

Neither can bear to live more than one wall apart from each other in the Seafall city garret they call home.

Gideon is determined that Analise will never discover the secret of his statues, lest her life be in as much danger as his. He will do anything to protect her, even if it means destroying their tenuous chance to be together. Analise will not stand by and watch any friend of hers fight an impossible war alone. If she has to walk through the shifting walls of Breaker House and into another world to help him, that's what she'll do.

But in order to go up against a magical Gentry army, Analise Field needs allies. Maybe even one she has to steal right out from under Gideon Alderwood's nose.

This novella can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016, edited by Rich Horton.