Malice in the Air

She's lost one friend already. She can't bear to lose another - not to malice, not again.

Alice has survived hunters, secrets, and betrayal, but nothing prepared her for this kind of loss. With one friend slipping away and another barely holding on, she's doing her best to stay steady - even if the universe seems determined to test the patience of this nineteen-year-old.

As siddha society slips into confusion, Alice finds herself more isolated than she's been in years. Someone out there is exploiting the fractures left behind by the university's closure - someone who understands her history, her training, and her deepest vulnerabilities. Her friends are falling apart, and Alice can't find the words to pull them back. At this point, she would settle for one crisis at a time, but apparently that's too much to ask.

From the snow-shadowed peaks of Colorado to the industrial labyrinth of London Gateway, from the neon-lit streets of Taipei to Taiwan's dangerous, heavily armed coastlines, Alice must navigate a maze of half-truths, buried loyalties, and threats that refuse to stay hidden. But the deeper she digs, the more she senses a terrifying pattern: the threat isn't just external. It's personal. It's calculated. And it's closing in.

To protect her friends - and herself - Alice must confront the secrets they've kept from each other, the ones she's kept from them, and the ones none of them know they're carrying.

The mysteries tighten. The air shifts. And the next move belongs to someone who's been watching all along.

The fifth book in the Alice Brickstone series, MALICE IN THE AIR deepens the shadows around Alice and her friends, testing the limits of their power, their loyalty, and their hope - and pushing a traumatised, reluctant, morally-strained heroine further than she ever should have to go.