Perfect for fans of the Twisted Tales series and Doll Bones , this thrilling, “cleverly original” ( Kirkus Reviews ) middle grade fantasy follows a girl without a face as she battles a deadly enchanted forest and learns the truth behind her world’s fairy tales. Appearances are always deceiving… Fable has been cursed by what the people in her village call the Blight, a twisted enchantment that leaves her without a face of her own. To stay alive, Fable has to steal the faces of others, making her an outcast that no one trusts. When the fierce Blighthunter Vycorax comes to kill Fable to stop her curse from spreading, Fable narrowly escapes by fleeing into the thorny woods surrounding her small village. The treacherous forest has been ruled by a demon-prince for centuries, a deadly place trapped in time. Fable—and her opinionated feline companion, Moth—is the first to dare enter in a very long time. There, she encounters a tediously chatty skull, dangerously meddlesome deities, and a beast so powerful it tears at the fabric of reality, leaving nothingness in its horrible wake. Fable will soon discover that, in the Mirrorwood, nothing is quite like the stories say, and the perilous realm may be the only chance she has to break her curse and find her true self. "Realistic fans will have plenty to appreciate, as the girls’ slowly building friendship and their struggles to find their own cores independent of family influence or enchantments feel just as vital to the novel as the magic." -- BCCB "Starts as a fairy-tale retelling but goes somewhere cleverly original once in the enchanted wood." -- Kirkus Reviews "The author excels in setting expectations and then subverting them: the Withering offers advice; the demon prince turns out to be nice; a blessing given to the true prince turns out to be a curse. Fable’s twist ties in to themes of identity and self-confidence with gratifying neatness as the novel unfolds in unexpected directions through Fable’s and Vycorax’s competing motivations and pushes through multiple complications to a highly satisfactory conclusion." -- The Horn Book "Fagan’s sinister, fast-paced fantasy adventure is elevated by Fable and Vycorax’s warm, slow-building friendship. This thrilling and unusual tale suggests that self-reflection—and self-acceptance—can be the difference between heroism and villainy." -- Publishers Weekly Deva Fagan writes fantasy and science fiction for all ages. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading, doing geometry, playing video games, hiking, and drinking copious amounts of tea. She is the author of several books, including Rival Magic , Nightingale , The Mirrorwood , A Game of Noctis , and The Delta Codex . She lives in Maine with her husband and their dog. You can find her online at DevaFagan.com. Chapter One CHAPTER ONE I was wearing my sister Gavotte’s face on the night the blighthunters came to our cottage. All eight of us were crowded around the table, waging a fierce poetry battle to decide who would get the last slice of Da’s gooseberry pie. Indigo was arguing passionately that “savage” really did rhyme with “cabbage,” which was probably why none of us noticed the threat except Sonnet, who didn’t care for gooseberries. “There’s someone coming down the lane.” Sonnet rose from the table and went to peer through the diamond-pane window beside the door. A spark of worry nibbled at me. Hardly anyone came all the way out to our farm. We were too close to the Mirrorwood. Our cozy cottage—a bit ramshackle with the extra rooms tacked on over the years to handle three sets of twins—lay on the farthest edge of town. If you stood in just the right spot, you could see the enormous wall of thorns bristling along the northern hills. A prickly promise, meant to bind away the magic of the blighted realm and keep it from tainting the rest of the world. But it hadn’t worked. Magic still escaped. Dribs and drabs, like the spatters of madder and saffron that flecked Mum’s apron after a day working her dye pots. Fragments of raw blight that warped whatever—whomever—they touched. Twists, we called them. You might suddenly sprout wings or claws. Your skin might turn to flames or ice. No wonder folks were scared of it. I would be too. That is, if I weren’t already blighted. For me, the greatest danger wasn’t the thorns or the corrupting magic. It was being discovered by those who thought anything touched by the twists had to be destroyed: blighthunters. The crimson-coated warriors trained to fight and kill people like me. But surely there was no reason for hunters to visit our farm. “Is it Aunt Nesta?” I asked hopefully. She was family. She knew my secret. She was safe. “No,” said Sonnet. Her shoulders were stiff, and there was a note of wary tension in her voice. “There’s two of them. Riding horses.” Da and Mum exchanged a look. Mum’s lips had gone tight. “Allegra,” Mum said to my twin sister. “Best be ready, just in case.” Alleg