Fresh off her triumph in the Night Forest, Lucha Moya is back in Robado to settle unfinished business. The stunning fantasy duology about addiction, power, and love comes to a close in tale of treacherous villains, environmental disaster, and a love triangle its heroine doesn’t see coming. A ruthless monster. A daring heist. A heart pulled in two directions. A long-forgotten myth. Killing a god was only the beginning of Lucha Moya’s story. . . Her mission is simple—eradicate olvida, the forgetting drug, once and for all. But something sinister is lurking in the Night Forest, eager to claim its prize… Will Lucha’s training allow her to survive the machinations of the Forest and save the vulnerable people at its mercy? In this page-turning conclusion to this Latine folklore-inspired duology, Lucha must face long-avoided fears to save the people she cares for—or risk losing everything she's fought so hard to obtain. ★ "A satisfyingly resonant and page-turning duology closer." — Kirkus Reviews , starred review Tehlor Kay Mejia is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult fantasy novel We Set the Dark on Fire , and the Paola Santiago trilogy from Rick Riordan Presents, as well as several more books for all age groups. They strive to create stories which showcase the importance of community, radical inclusion and abolitionist values. Tehlor lives with their child, partner, and an ever growing pack of dogs in their home state of Oregon. They are active on Instagram @tehlorkay 1 The city of Robado was a night place, so its emptiness beneath the stars was twice as eerie as any normal sleeping city’s might have been. Overhead, a crescent moon provided little illumination. The stars themselves felt distant. Lucha Moya, after days of traveling on foot through unforgiving terrain, had been prepared to stick to the shadows. To avoid detection. Pick her moment . . . But there was no one here to hide from. She wandered down the center of the north road. The torches that had once burned with oily animal grease stood cold and dark along the roadside. The subtle colors of the night were easy enough to read after a solitary trek through much darker places. Still, the hair on the back of Lucha’s neck prickled. A warning. Behind her stood the forest she’d only just emerged from. The Bosque de la Noche. Most Robadans avoided even looking at it—afraid monsters from their folktales would snatch their souls for gazing too long. It had been the subject of Lucha’s endless fascinations as a child. Though back then she’d never dared to go deep enough into the trees for the city to be lost to her. Now she’d traveled farther into the forest than anyone in Robado could ever have dreamed. She’d communed with it, summoned its power. Visited its goddess’s sanctuary. Defeated the feral, captive god intent on its destruction. Lucha felt she’d learned the forest’s rhythm, its language, but on this trip back to the town she’d never expected to come back to, that rhythm had been disrupted. Plants were overgrown, or else scarce in places where they should have been plentiful. The whispers had changed. And now this. Robado, empty. In Lucha’s dreams she’d arrived to clear the city of innocents, then set the place on fire. Stood in the shadow of the trees to watch it burn. But she couldn’t burn it now. Not even as empty as it seemed. She couldn’t do anything until she knew the people would be safe—otherwise she’d be no better than him. During her long trek through the changing forest, Lucha had tried to keep thoughts of Salvador at bay. The sneering son of Elegido’s revered forest goddess. The slender, pale young man who’d wormed his way into her consciousness. He’d convinced her their goals were aligned, only to betray her. She’d fought him just a few weeks ago. A battle where she almost lost something infinitely more precious than her life. She could sometimes still feel the decay as it threatened to swallow them both. On those nights, she woke with a scream lodged in her throat, believing she stood there still, on the precipice between creation and destruction, watching the mushrooms devour every bit of him that was left. In the present, an unseasonably chilly gust rattled the branches. Sent two dried leaves skittering after each other down the road. You’re here, and he’s gone, Lucha reminded herself. And you still have work to do. But how to begin when she didn’t even recognize the city she’d returned to save? Lucha had come from the west, headed for the normally quiet stretch between the north ward compound and the marketplace. The last time she’d been here, she’d been imprisoned for months. Starved and beaten. Presumed dead by anyone who might have cared enough to look for her. That had been before she left Robado’s prison, Encadenar, in what one might consider spectacular fashion. She’d taken her sister—Los Ricos, property at the time—and using power gifted to her by