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Holly Black's long-awaited sequel to Tithe sees Roiben uneasy on the Unseelie throne, his tenuous hold on his subjects compounded by his relationship with a commoner -- and one raised as a human to boot. Then Kaye, drunk on faerie wine and goaded by malicious ill-wishers, makes a passionate declaration -- in public -- which makes their situation immeasurably worse. Because of it Roiben must set her a task which she must complete to show that she is worthy to be his consort. The quest he gives her, however, is an impossible one: to find him a faery who can lie. Devastated as she is by his rejection, belonging neither in Faerie nor the human world -- Ironside -- Kaye is not the only one in trouble. Corny too has acted rashly and has to face some harsh and unpleasant consequences when he is cursed so that every thing he touches decays and dies. Together they set out to seek an answer and a cure, and both find more than they bargain for. Corny finds a soulmate in the mysterious and taciturn Luis -- whom he dare not touch -- but Kaye uncovers a plot to destroy Roiben once and for all by an act of exquisite cruelty and revenge. A plot hatched not in the twisted heart of the Unseelie Court but by the Seelie Queen herself: the bright star, Silarial, to whom Roiben in turn had once declared his love. Love and hate and good and evil are only sides of the same coin. But which is which and how fine is the line that lies between them?
