A year has passed since the fire-eater Dustfinger was stranded in our world, and his longing for the Inkworld—the home that lives inside the pages of a book—has become an all-consuming ache. When he finally discovers Orpheus, a reader with the rare and dangerous power to send him back, he abandons his apprentice, Farid, and vanishes into the story. However, the world he returns to is not the one he remembers from the printed word. It is a place of visceral danger, where the ink is still wet and the politics of the Wayless Wood are far more lethal than any reader could imagine.

Meggie Folchart, the girl who once brought characters to life with her voice, finds herself unable to resist the pull of the narrative that shaped her family's trauma. Teaming up with a desperate Farid, she crosses ...

A year has passed since the fire-eater Dustfinger was stranded in our world, and his longing for the Inkworld—the home that lives inside the pages of a book—has become an all-consuming ache. When he finally discovers Orpheus, a reader with the rare and dangerous power to send him back, he abandons his apprentice, Farid, and vanishes into the story. However, the world he returns to is not the one he remembers from the printed word. It is a place of visceral danger, where the ink is still wet and the politics of the Wayless Wood are far more lethal than any reader could imagine.

Meggie Folchart, the girl who once brought characters to life with her voice, finds herself unable to resist the pull of the narrative that shaped her family's trauma. Teaming up with a desperate Farid, she crosses ...