Seventeen-year-old Lux Thorn, a necromancer able to paint the dead back to life, prefers corpses to the living in the grim city of Ghadra—a place trapped between a lethal forest and a toxic marsh. When a mysterious contagion begins killing people and their bodies are fed to the forest, Lux suspects something monstrous is growing beneath the surface. To survive, she’s forced into an uneasy alliance with a vengeful vigilante who blames her for the spreading horror. But as dark forces close in, Lux discovers that vengeance, corruption, and betrayal may all be entwined—and that even the dead don’t stay loyal for long.