The Gold in the Dark

Tia's been fantasizing about dancing the part of Queen Osanne in the prestigious Queen's Fair since she was seven years old. Stuck in a humdrum town on Hygot's outskirts, she settles for sneaking in some pirouetting and arabesquing whenever she gets a spare moment. When a dance master catches sight of her practicing through her parents' shop window, she leaps at his offer: training in Haplyr at the Royal Academy.

But life in the capital is not just glittering parties and stolen kisses in moonlit studios. Dancers are graceful on stage yet cutthroat behind the curtain, and Tia's making enemies just as quickly as she's forging friendships. Every move is tangling her deeper in a web of lies and subterfuge, and the looming Queen's Fair lies at the very center.