A Future Unpainted

Every year, the Paintress wakes.

Every year, she paints a number.

And everyone of that age disappears.

33.

Élodie has spent her entire life beneath the shadow of the Gommage, watching Lumière lose more of its people with every passing year. Sensitive, compassionate, and far braver than she gives herself credit for, she refuses to stand by and wait for the Paintress to eventually claim everyone she loves.

So when Expedition 33 sets sail for the Continent with one impossible mission-to destroy the Paintress and end the Gommage forever-Élodie goes with them.

And she goes alongside Gustave, her closest friend and the man she has secretly loved for longer than she's willing to admit.

After finally confessing their feelings on the eve of the expedition, Élodie and Gustave leave Lumière with something neither expected to have: a future worth coming home to.

But the Continent is nothing like they imagined.

Their expedition is devastated almost immediately by a mysterious man named Renoir, leaving Élodie, Gustave, Maelle, Lune, and the remaining survivors stranded in a beautiful nightmare filled with Nevrons, impossible landscapes, buried secrets, and truths that threaten everything they thought they understood about their world.

As Élodie and Gustave fight side by side, their new love becomes their refuge. Stolen kisses beside dying campfires. Hands intertwined between battles. Quiet nights sharing a bedroll beneath unfamiliar stars. Dreams of returning to Lumière, getting married, and perhaps even starting the family neither of them dared imagine they could live long enough to have.

But Expedition 33 was never supposed to have a happy ending.