Every alchemist knows blood is thicker than water, but for Bronte Everett, this fact is a twisted joke. When your father was a notorious murderer and your mother, a liar, the distinctions between the two quickly blur. Whispers of Bronte’s sinister lineage are unavoidable after an alchemist is brutally killed; their pure enchanter power harvested using a forbidden branch of magic renowned by her father. Someone is gaining strength, threatening to unravel not only her identity, but the delicate balance of control the city fought to salvage after her father’s macabre reign.
Faced with the chilling truth that her blood holds the key the killer seeks, Bronte’s life is forfeit unless she can harness her newfound magic to protect herself from the generations-old blood feud condemning her. Failure would not only mean her demise but also the release of her father from eternal purgatory, unleashing his terror on the world once again.
Nick Henderson is an alchemist capable of transmuting water into wine—or blood if he desires—but altering the past remains frustratingly beyond his reach. When Nick unexpectedly encounters the presumed-dead daughter of his brother’s murderer, he fears she has returned to avenge her father’s legacy, a fate Nick will do anything to prevent. Yet, his quest for justice becomes a fight for his innocence when misplaced trust brings deadly consequences. Complicit in illegal magic, Nick grapples with the troubling knowledge of the killer’s identity. Exposing this truth would damn him, but concealing it risks the lives of everyone around him—most of all Bronte, the killer’s ultimate target, and the one person Nick has grown to care for more than he should.
As Nick and Bronte navigate the fragile bond between them, their choices will ultimately reveal whether blood is truly thicker than water, or if they are destined to be victims of the betrayals that haunt their pasts.