This review first appeared in Booklist on December 1, 2025.
Ix Tatterfall has everything she thought she wanted: a relationship with her parents, friends (part-Nightmare Morrigan Bea and literal bookworm Oliver Pembrook), and a place to call home (the magical school of Covenant Keep). So why has she been feeling increasingly hollow inside lately? Before she can find an answer, Ix and her friends are summoned back to the school, where long-dead members of the Candle Corps are rising as ghosts, heralding the start of an ancient ritual meant to reinforce the school’s protections against threats from the Labyrinth. But the arrival of the mysterious Nowhere Beast threatens to drag not only Covenant Keep, but the whole of the Waking World, into Nothing. To save the friends and Nightmares she loves, Ix will have to face the Nothing stirring within her . . . or be devoured by it. In this ambitious sequel to The Labyrinth of Souls (2025), Vedder continues to expand her whimsical world and the characters who inhabit it, exploring themes of resentment, remorse, and the unrelenting ways we struggle to feel whole.
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