Seven years ago Kaylin fled the crime-riddled streets of Nightshade, knowing that something was after her. Children were being murdered—and all had the same odd markings that mysteriously appeared on her own skin. Since then, she's learned to read, she's learned to fight and she's become one of the vaunted Hawks who patrol and police the City of Elantra. Alongside the winged Aerians and the immortal Barrani, she's made a place for herself, far from the mean streets of her birth.

But children are once again dying, and a dark and familiar pattern is emerging. Kaylin is ordered back into Nightshade with a partner she knows she can't trust, a Dragon lord for a companion and a device to contain her powers—powers that no other human has. Her task is simple—find the killer, stop the murders and survive the attentions of those who claim to be her allies!

In Elantra, a job well done is rewarded with a more dangerous task. And so, after defeating a dark evil, Kaylin must enter a place of deceit and treachery. A world where silk and jewels hide deadly secrets…. Kaylin goes before the Barrani High Court, where a misspoken word brings sure death.

And Kaylin's never been known for her grace or manners. But the High Lord's heir is suspiciously ill and Kaylin's healing magic is the only shot at saving him—if she manages to dodge the traps laid for her. Only to discover that the healing might turn out to be the simplest of the tasks before her.

Still avoiding her magic lessons—yet using her powers when need be—Private Kaylin Neya is relishing investigating a regular theft once again. That is, until she finds out the mysterious box was taken from Elani Street, where the mages and charlatans mingle and it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the two.

Still, she hopes this might be a mundane case. Then in a back room, Kaylin sees a lost-looking girl in a reflective pool…who calls out for Kaylin's help. Shaken, Kaylin tries to stay focused on the case at hand. But since the stolen item is ancient, has no keyhole and holds tremendous darkness inside, Kaylin knows unknown forces are again playing with her destiny and her life.

When a minority race of telepaths is suspected of causing a near-devastating tidal wave, Private Kaylin Neya is summoned to Court—and into a PR nightmare. To ease racial tensions, the emperor has commissioned a play, and the playwright has his own ideas about who should be the focus.

But Kaylin works her best magic behind the scenes, and though she tries to stay neutral, she is again drawn into a world of politics…and murder. To make matters worse, Marcus, her trusted sergeant, gets stripped of his command, leaving Kaylin vulnerable. Now she's juggling two troubling cases, and even magic's looking good by comparison. But then nobody ever said life in the theater was easy.

A member of the elite Hawk force that protects the City of Elantra, Kaylin Neya has sacrificed much to earn the respect of the winged Aerians and immortal Barrani she works alongside. But the mean streets she escaped as a child aren't the ones she's vowed to give her life guarding. Those were much darker.

Kaylin's moved on with her life—and is keeping silent about the shameful things she's done to stay alive. But when the city's oracles warn of brewing unrest in the outer fiefdoms, a mysterious visitor from Kaylin's past casts her under a cloud of suspicion. Thankfully, if she's anything, she's a survivor.

Kaylin Neya is a Hawk, part of the elite force tasked with keeping the City of Elantra safe. Her past is dark, her magic uncontrolled and her allies unpredictable. And nothing has prepared her for what is coming, when the charlatans on Elani Street suddenly grow powerful, the Oracles are thrown into an uproar and the skies rain blood.

The powerful of Elantra believe that the mysterious markings on Kaylin's skin hold the answer, and they are not averse to using her—how ever they have to—in order to discover what it is. Something is coming, breaking through the barriers between the worlds. But is it a threat that Kaylin needs to defend her city against—or has she been chosen for another reason entirely?

Seven corpses are discovered in the streets of a Dragon's fief. All identical, down to their clothing. Kaylin Neya is assigned to discover who they were, who killed them—and why. Is the evil lurking at the borders of Elantra preparing to cross over?

At least the investigation delays her meeting with the Dragon Emperor. And as the shadows grow longer over the fiefs, Kaylin must use every skill she's ever learned to save the people she's sworn to protect. Sword in hand, dragons in the sky, this time there's no retreat and no surrender.

It has been a busy few weeks for Private Kaylin Neya. In between angling for a promotion, sharing her room with the last living female Dragon and dealing with more refugees than anyone knew what to do with, the unusual egg she'd been given began to hatch.

Actually, that turned out to be lucky, because it absorbed the energy from the bomb that went off in her quarters. So now might be the perfect time to leave Elantra and journey to the West March with the Barrani. If not for the disappearances of citizens in the fief of Tiamaris—disappearances traced to the very Barrani Kaylin is about to be traveling with.

Any day that starts with dragon arguments is going to be bad Kaylin returned from the West March in one piece. Now that piece is fraying. She's not at home in the Imperial Palace—and she never intends to be. All she wants is normal garden-variety criminals and a place of her own. Of course, normal in her new life involves a dragon as a roommate, but she can handle that.

She can't as easily handle the new residents to the city she polices, because one of them is Nightshade's younger brother. On a night when she should be talking to landlords in perfectly normal buildings, she's called to the fief by Teela. A small family disagreement has become a large, complicated problem: Castle Nightshade's latent magic is waking. And it's not the only thing.

In the aftermath of a vicious battle between darkness and light, the city of Elantra has emerged victorious. But Shadows continue to haunt every corner of its streets. Elantra stands strong, but countless numbers of Hawks, the city's staunchest protectors, were lost in the brutal attack. Humans, Barrani, Aerians, Leontines--none of the races emerged unscathed from the defense of the city. Homes were lost, families were scattered...and the outcast Barrani Lord Nightshade is missing from his castle in the fiefs.

Yet as the chaos surrounding the battle begins to wane, Private Kaylin Neya's duties must resume, despite her grief. Called in to investigate a triple murder in a quiet part of town, Kaylin and her companions are soon embroiled in a case that is anything but routine. Evidence of the deadly Shadows that still threaten the city leads to hints of ancient, forgotten magics...and everything can be traced directly to Ravellon, the heart of the Shadows and the darkness they contain. But it is there that Lord Nightshade will be found--if he still survives.

Private Kaylin Neya already has Dragons and Barrani as roommates. Adding one injured, flightless Aerian to her household should be trivial. Sure, the Aerian is Sergeant Moran dar Carafel, but Kaylin's own sergeant is a Leontine, the definition of growly and fanged. She can handle one Aerian.

But when a walk to the Halls of Law becomes a street-shattering magical assassination attempt on the sergeant, Kaylin discovers that it's not the guest who's going to be the problem: it's all of the people who suddenly want Moran dar Carafel dead.

And though Moran refuses to tell her why she's being targeted, Kaylin is determined to discover her secret and protect her at all costs—even if keeping Moran safe means dealing with Aerian politics, angry dragons and something far more sinister.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? Private Kaylin Neya thought her home couldn’t possibly get more crowded. But when one of her housemates, Annarion, decides to undertake the Barrani Test of Name, his friends refuse to let him face his task alone—and Kaylin’s sentient home, Helen, is the only structure capable of shielding the rest of Elantra from the magnitude of their power.

Annarion and Mandoran almost caused the destruction of the High Halls once already. Add nine of their closest friends, and the danger is astronomically higher—especially since these guests are at the heart of a political firestorm. Imprisoned almost a millennium ago, their recent freedom threatens the rulership of several prominent Barrani families, and the machinations of those Lords make it almost impossible to tell friend from foe.

As political tensions ramp up, the shadows beneath the High Halls are seeking a freedom that has never been possible before. Kaylin must find a way to keep those shadows from escaping, or that freedom will destroy her city, the empire and everything she holds dear.

POLITICS ARE HELL Kaylin wasn’t sent to the West March to start a war. Her mission to bring back nine Barrani might do just that, though. She traveled with a Dragon, and her presence is perceived as an act of aggression in the extremely hostile world of Barrani-Dragon politics.

Internal Barrani politics are no less deadly, and Kaylin has managed barely to help the rescued Barrani evade both death and captivity at the hands of the Consort. Before the unplanned “visit” to the West March, Kaylin invited the Consort to dinner. For obvious reasons, Kaylin wants to cancel dinner forever.

But the Consort is going to show up at the front door at the agreed-upon time. The fact that she tried to imprison Kaylin’s guests doesn’t matter at all to her. A private Barrani Hell, built of Shadow and malice, exists beneath the High Halls. It is the High Court’s duty to jail the creature at its heart—even if it means that Barrani victims are locked in the cage with it. The Consort is willing to do almost anything to free the trapped and end their eternal torment. And she needs the help of Kaylin’s houseguests—and Kaylin herself. Failure won’t be death, it will be Hell. And that’s where Kaylin is going.

SOMETHING IS WAKING The fiefs that exist at the heart of the city of Elantra are home to sentient Towers that guard the world against the incursion of Shadow. But between the fiefs exists the gray world of the border zone. In it, geography changes between one passage across a border and the next. The rules of magic are different there—and yet somehow familiar to Kaylin Neya. When a Shadow escapes, Kaylin must find out how…and why.

If Shadows can breach the barrier erected by the Towers, the whole of Elantra will be devoured. It’s happened on other worlds. Bellusdeo, Kaylin’s Dragon companion, absolutely believes it can happen on theirs. The border zone holds secrets and ancient histories, and people are gathering there in search of its power. Without even understanding what that power is, or why it exists, Kaylin is in a desperate race against time to find those secrets first. She doesn’t know who her enemies are. She doesn’t know how many she’ll face. But she won’t face them alone.

After the near-destruction of the High Halls, Corporal Kaylin Neya is looking forward to resuming her patrol. But once more an empty Tower stands in Elantra, and Kaylin’s companions won’t let an advantage slip by. They see the Tower as a base to fight Shadow. The Dragon Bellusdeo as a protection for the cohort; Sedarias as a potential hoard. And others are interested as well.

Kaylin knows when she’s in over her head. Claiming a Tower is not the future she wants. And the Tower has strict requirements—ones that daunt even the Dragons and the Barrani. But as the various factions strategize, the Shadows are making their own plans. They still want to cross into Elantra, and this might be the perfect chance.