The Drowned Bargain

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He promised to stay under the reservoir until the Forth itself came for him. The Forth doesn't climb hills. Wren does. THE SALT COURT, BOOK FOUR. Wren Balfour is the Queen of the Ebb for a year and a day. She works for the council's coastal team in Leith, she's engaged to a two-hundred-year-old ferry engineer who cannot tell a lie, and she has a stone in her pocket from under a reservoir that says: At midsummer, he'll ask for you. Don't come. Then the Water of Leith starts running backwards at night. The Salt Court's spring under Leith Shore turns sweet, and the oldest of the court begin to cough in their niches. The lord of the Hollow wants Ronan, and he's found two things Ronan wants more than himself. So Ronan makes a bargain at the meeting of the waters: he'll go under Harlaw and stay there until the Forth itself comes for him. The Forth doesn't climb hills. But an old law says where the Ebb walks, the Forth walks. Wren has a borrowed flask, the shortest night of the year and twelve miles of road to cover. Every cold line she crosses between the Shore and the Pentlands will cost her a year of her life. • A contemporary romantasy of selkies, sweet-water lords and very literal promises, set in present-day Edinburgh. • Found family, a council spreadsheet, and a heroine who says excuse me to the drowned. • Sensual, not explicit. Book 4 of 5 in The Salt Court: read books 1 to 3 first. For readers who love bargains with loopholes, sea magic and a love that pays its own way.