THE GARGOYLE QUEEN FALLS AT MIDNIGHT

Nia Bell steals Queen Sable Ardent’s Heart-Stone to buy medicine for her brother, a living clapper inside Vespera’s cathedral bells. The theft teaches the floating city to fall toward Nia. Each midnight gives the gargoyle queen thirteen minutes of warm flesh—and turns the cracks across her body into an execution blueprint. To save millions, thief and tyrant must expose the tenth heart and decide whether Vespera deserves to remain in the sky.

She steals the Gargoyle Queen’s heart to save her brother, then learns the falling city has hidden a second heart inside her chest.