What the Earth Devours

Idalia Hartley has always known what she wants: to study the Varethians, the ancient culture that left Avonmere its beautiful ruins and elusive buried magic. She's gritted her teeth and worked to become the top archaeology student at Avonmere University, despite her father's disapproval, her family's disgrace, and the thousand insults she weathers as the only woman in her field. If she can win approval for the dig that will prove her thesis, the life she's dreamed of since childhood is in reach.

But Avonmere is at war, and magic and money alike are in short supply. When the single-minded search for more magic uncovers her thesis, Idalia must choose. She can abandon her life's work—or head her dig under the supervision of her enemy, rakish lordling Leith Sterling.

Leith let his friendship with Idalia sour rather than confide in her. But as they excavate in the remote borderlands, Leith and Idalia find more than Varethian artifacts. Spies walk among them, seeking a lost city whose secrets could end the war. When disaster strikes, Idalia and Leith must decide whom to trust—before the magic they've sought consumes them both...