The Echo Thief

Seventeen-year-old Arden Vale has a secret-he can steal echoes: fragments of voices, thoughts, and memories that linger in places people leave behind. It's not something he chose, and it's not something he's proud of, but in a crumbling city where silence is power, stolen echoes are currency.

Arden scrapes by selling whispers to the black market, until one night he accidentally steals an echo that isn't just a memory-it's alive. The voice belongs to Cael, a mysterious boy whose soul seems trapped between worlds. Cael remembers nothing of who he was, only that he's fading.

As Arden and Cael unravel the truth behind Cael's half-existence, they uncover a dangerous secret: echoes aren't just remnants-they are pieces of people, stolen over centuries by an order known as the Hollow Choir. And Cael was never meant to survive the theft.