Growing up in a ghastly orphanage run by an abusive matron, Nica coped in the only way she could—by retreating to her imagination, where she lived out fantastical stories, especially about the Tearsmith, the man who makes tears, a terrifying figure who forges all the fears that dwell in people’s hearts.

When she’s finally taken in by an adoptive family at seventeen, Nica thinks she’s leaving the group home, its torments, and her prison of otherworldly tales behind her. That is, until Rigel—a young man raised from birth in the same dreadful orphanage—joins her new family.

Rigel is as mesmerizingly handsome as he is troubled, and he and Nica have a long history of distrust and hostility. But as they come to live together again under one roof, the deep shared trauma of surviving such vicious circumstances sparks something magical, and Nica begins to fall for Rigel’s forbidden love.

Before any relationship can become reality, though, they’ll have to face the darkness of their past  . . . and the dangerous stakes of pursuing a future together.