The Library is dying.



Ryn is finally working in the Ancestral Library, a childhood dream and a way to find her birth parentage. But the magic of the Library is being sabotaged, allowing pests, water damage, and worse, while hostile Ancestor Houses are vying to move the books from the location they've occupied for a thousand years.



Rumors of a secret society bent on sabotage, with only the words 'Kill the roots, take the fruits,' leads Ryn and her stepbrother Zo on a chase across Waatch and the ancestor Islands. Three items are a danger to the Library: a rock, and sword, and a branch. Though Ryn has hated being an Ordinary her whole life, it seems the Ordinaries of Waatch, disdained by the Ancestor descendants, might hold the true key to the Library. They might be the only way for Ryn to find the saboteur and items, and save the Library along with any hope of finding her birth family.



Discover the fate of the Library in the second book of Beads of Bone.