Fern Pemberton

Dearbhail wants nothing more than a quiet season tending her potted tea-bushes aboard the trans-continental railway. Armed with gentle plant biokinesis, she can coax the most stubborn bergamot into fragrant blossom, provided the train's thermostat behaves. But when the rail network assigns her Eachann—a towering, frost-antlered stag-shifter whose body temperature sits permanently below freezing—her cozy parlor car turns into a winter wonderland. Between dodging his magnificent antlers in the narrow galley and thawing the teapots his sneezes keep flash-freezing, Dearbhail finds herself warming up to the shy alpine shifter. As their train glides past snow-capped peaks, brewing the perfect cuppa might just lead to cultivating true love.

On the razor-thin glass plates of the Prismatic Shards, steam-powered beacons guide void-skiffs through the dark. Ealasaid keeps the lenses polished, ignoring the urban legends about what lives behind the silvering. But when her reflection begins whispering to her in the boiler room, she meets Tighearnan—a haunting fae shifter whose body reshapes itself according to the desires and fears of those who look upon him. Tighearnan was sent to smash the beacons and plunge the human colonies into ruin, but Ealasaid’s sharp mind and unyielding gaze pierce straight through his illusions. In a world of steam, light, and deadly reflections, trusting a monster might be her only way home.