The Twelfth Crossing

Funeral cosmetician Basia Sikora has spent eleven Halloweens crossing to a vampire court under Manhattan for one night with the man she buried in an empty casket. Its law lets each of its dead name one living guest a year, for twelve years. This is the twelfth.

At dawn the Ferryman must speak the Release, give her back to the living and the sun, and let the Cut close the stair. The Ferryman is Mikkel Ottens: forty-four by the calendar, thirty-three in the body, a man of few words who tests every hand's length of the rope that carries her.

Eleven years of wanting him, and the court's first act is to forbid his hands. No touching until the Toast. He may steady her. He may not keep her.

The law leaves one door open: a petition to the queen, two sponsors, and the Hold of the man who named her, spoken aloud. When a courtier grabs for her kit, Mikkel says, flat, "No one touches Basia."

A steamy second-chance vampire romance for Halloween.