From the #1 <New York Times <bestselling author of <And I Darken< comes a dark fantasy about a girl who will do anything to find her sister, including posing as a maid to infiltrate the mysterious House of Quiet.

To save her sister, she must enter the House.

In the middle of a deadly bog sits the House of Quiet. It&rsquo;s a place for children whose Procedure triggered powers too terrible to be lived with&mdash;their last hope for treatment. No one knows how they&rsquo;re healed or where they go afterward.

Birdie has begged, bargained, and blackmailed her way inside as a maid, determined to find her missing sister, Magpie. But what she discovers is more mysteries. Instead of the destitute children who undergo the Procedure in hopes of social advancement, the house brims with aristocratic teens wielding strange powers they never should have been burdened with.

Though Birdie wants to ignore them, she can&rsquo;t help being drawn to stoic and silent Forest, charmed by clever River, and concerned for the youngest residents. And with fellow maid Minnow keeping tabs on everything Birdie does, danger is everywhere.

In her desperate search for Magpie, Birdie unearths terrifying threats and devastating truths, forcing her to confront just how much she&rsquo;s willing to sacrifice to save her own sister. Because in the House of Quiet, if you find what&rsquo;s lurking beneath . . . you lose everything.

Unravel the mystery. Ignite the rebellion.

Autorentext

Kiersten White is the #1 New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award–winning, and critically acclaimed author of many books, including Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel, Hide, Mister Magic, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, the And I Darken trilogy, the Camelot Rising trilogy, and Star Wars: Padawan. White lives with her family in San Diego, where they obsessively care for their deeply ambivalent tortoise, Kimberly.

Klappentext

*From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide* comes a dark fantasy about a girl who will risk everything—posing as a maid, confronting powerful enemies, and unraveling deadly secrets—all to save her missing sister from the enigmatic House of Quiet.

“A brilliant, imaginative fantasy.” —Allison Saft, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wings of Starlight

"A chilling, dystopic world enclosed in a locked-room mystery." —Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights **

To save her sister, she must enter the House.

In the middle of a deadly bog sits the House of Quiet. It’s a place for children whose Procedure triggered powers too terrible to be lived with—their last hope for treatment. No one knows how they’re healed or where they go afterward.

Birdie has begged, bargained, and blackmailed her way inside as a maid, determined to find her missing sister, Magpie. But what she discovers is more mysteries. Instead of the destitute children who undergo the Procedure in hopes of social advancement, the house brims with aristocratic teens wielding strange powers they never should have been burdened with.

Though Birdie wants to ignore them, she can’t help being drawn to stoic and silent Forest, charmed by clever River, and concerned for the youngest residents. And with fellow maid Minnow keeping tabs on everything Birdie does, danger is everywhere.

In her desperate search for Magpie, Birdie unearths terrifying threats and devastating truths, forcing her to confront just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save her own sister. Because in the House of Quiet, if you find what’s lurking beneath . . . you lose everything.

Unravel the mystery. Ignite the rebellion.

Leseprobe
Chapter One

A House Is Not a Home

The House of Quiet sits waiting, the only firm, immovable point in a landscape of rot and treachery. Deep within it, a heart beats. The heart of the house feels everyone scurrying around above it, all those little points of heat and life and noise. The heart hates the noise, and it needs it, all at the same time.

Inside the house, tucked not where they belong but instead in the bedrooms downstairs, young people sleep. They’re so loud. The people who used to lie in those beds were old. They took the noise away; they didn’t bring it with them.

But now the young things are there and the house can never rest. Its heart beats too hard, agitated and twitching, and the House Wife feels it and knows that agony but cannot help it.

Yet.

The House Wife, eyes and hands of the house, drifts down the hallway. The heart squirms and thrashes somewhere beneath them all. She wants to soothe it, to promise that soon, soon, things will go back to how they were. Soon, they’ll always have enough.

They just have to deal with all the bodies sleeping fitfully around them first.

She stands over them, staring, hating them. Knowing they must hate themselves, too. She presses a hand to a fevered brow and shushes, but it does no good. She’s not the one who can take this burden from them. She glances upward in longing toward the second floor.

That used to be the noisiest place in the house. There was an order to things then. An even, predictable ebb and flow. Nothing like the strain of how things are now.

They explained the change to her so many times, but words are hard to hold on to. All she knows is now she must be careful. But the house isn’t built to care, and neither is she. She thinks she might have been once, but it’s too hard to think of anything before the house.

She’s always been in the house, and the house has always been in her.

The House Wife returns to where she belongs, standing in front of the red circle. She stares into that scarlet abyss and waits, listening to the cries coming from somewhere far beneath.

“Shh, shh, shh,” she whispers, like the whoosh of blood pumping through a heart. “Soon.”

Chapter Two

A Bird in Flight

Maids aren’t supposed to be seen, but they’re always supposed to see. Birdie tugs on the carriage curtains once more. They’re sewn firmly in place. It makes her feel unsettled and vulnerable to have no idea where she is. The driver could be taking her anywhere.

She used to watch carriages pass by and dream of what it would be like to ride inside instead of clinging to the back like a tick, but right now she’d give anything to be hanging on, breathing in the familiar burning stink of Sootcity. Able to anticipate anything coming for her. Able to jump off and flee, if she needed to.

She can’t run away, though. Not now that she finally has a destination to run toward. She takes deep breaths and closes her eyes. They’re picking up two other maids. She has to calm down first. The worst thing she can do right now is look suspicious.

“Magpie in the tree, are you looking for me?” Birdie sings, voice so quiet it’s lost to the clattering of wheels on cobblestones. And then she sings the answer, even though it’s Magpie’s part, not hers. “Birdie in the bush, will you learn to shush?”

She closes her eyes at the memories of Call and Answer, Magpie’s favorite other than the dizzy game. The way Magpie always giggled singing her response. She was convinced she could throw her voice when it was Birdie’s turn to look. Birdie bumbled through cupboards and stoves and cabinets in the neighborhood junk pile, never getting close to where she knew her little sister was.

Birdie knows where Magpie is again, at last. And nothing’s going to stop her. Birdie’s heart rate calms. She retreats into herself and becomes a perfect maid once more.

The ca…