Iris Kade, part-time barista and reluctant gate-walker, is just trying to finish her senior term in Greybridge. After sealing rifts beneath the Old Salt Subway and surviving run-ins with glass giants and tax-collecting wraiths, Iris thinks she's earned a quiet semester at Northgate Institute, where lab time beats sword time.
Unfortunately, the Realm has other plans. The Ministry of Thresholds informs her that if she wants sponsorship to the Aureline Collegium—the only university that trains licensed bridgekeepers—she must complete three sanctioned deeds and earn three letters of passage from the Courts. Deadlines, rubrics, and monsters: her least favorite combination.
First up is Valen of the Moon Court, a fastidious steward whose Lustral Chalice has gone missing from the Silver Pantry. One sip from the chalice can wash a mortal clean of limits—granting them night-sight, tide-speech, and an immortal's calm—and the Moon Queen will raze a borough if it appears in the wrong hands. With a fox-eared courier named Jax, a practical engineer, Tamsin Reeve, and a bog-witch-in-training, Sila, Iris must chase the trail through the Hollow Market, the Museum of Broken Weather, and a ferry of mirrors on the Sable River. But if they find the chalice, will they be able to ignore what it promises—especially to someone who secretly longs to never be afraid again?
With sly banter, found-family warmth, and a toolbox of folklore that includes paper labyrinths and brass-born storms, this stand-alone adventure welcomes new wanderers while rewarding long-time travelers with Easter eggs tucked behind every threshold.
