From the world of The Bet in Nocturne Alley (now available)

Foggy Nocturne Alley doesn’t keep secrets well—too many alleyways, too many whispering windows, too many spells drifting through the smoke. But there’s one place where even ghosts learn to hold their tongues. A bar where the candles remember, and the woman who tends them remembers more.

Her name is Amara Nocturne.

She is not what you expect, and never what she was. Once a feared and formidable witch, Amara now walks the line between life and death, her body kept standing by magic and sheer refusal. Her bar is a haven for the lost, the dangerous, and the debt-ridden—but don’t mistake refuge for mercy. Her wit is sharper than any dagger, and her frost magic doesn’t wait for permission to flare.

I asked if she’d be willing to talk.

She sighed. “If this is going to be sentimental, I’m charging double.”

 I said I’d bring good whiskey. She gestured to the bar. “Then sit down and don’t ask anything stupid.”

On the bar, the candles burned blue. That meant curious. Or annoyed.

“People like to pretend I just popped up here, cloaked in gloom and candle wax, but no—I had a life before all this. A purpose. I led covens. Wove spells that twisted time. And then came the alabaster bow.”

She doesn’t touch her side as she speaks of it, but the scar there pulses faintly, reacting to the frost in her blood. The injury didn’t kill her, but it didn’t let her live, either. It left her undead—anchored to magic, memory, and a sense of unfinished vengeance.

“I don’t sleep much anymore. When I do, I dream of bone-white arrows. Of the night it all went wrong. I thought I'd healed, until I realized I couldn’t tell where the pain ended and I began.”

She runs a bar now, tucked behind charmed brick and shadowglass windows. It smells like lavender ash and old ink. The tables are always clean. The regulars never ask too many questions. The candles, enchanted with her frost magic, glow blue-black when she’s thinking too hard—or when danger is near.

And lately, the candles are always flickering.

On her current obsession: the mind-altering ring

“There’s a thing. A relic. Twisted and luminous and wrong in just the right ways. They say it can untangle what magic’s ruined. I intend to win it.”

Amara is one of the contenders in the alchemical bet—a city-wide game of power, politics, and perilous artifacts. She entered for one reason: the ring. Not for vanity, not even revenge. She believes it may be the only way to sever herself from the injury’s lingering magic. To either heal—or fall apart cleanly.

“Of course,” she adds, tilting her glass, “there’s a catch. If I take the ring, I lose the magic that’s keeping me stitched together. Including the part that makes the candles listen. Including the frost.”

She doesn’t say it, but the fear lingers just under her tone. Who is Amara without her magic? What does it mean to recover, if recovery means erasing the only thing keeping you alive?

She’s not sure. But she’s going to find out. On her terms.

On the warlock and the merchant

“I’d have better luck herding plague rats.”

She means Rhys Dagonhart (the cursed warlock) and Finnian Quibble (the rhyming merchant with cursed herbs and questionable timing). They’re entangled in the same magical web as Amara—though she’d call it an unfortunate alignment of bad decisions.

“Rhys broods like it’s a religion. Finn never shuts up. Together they’re a walking headache. But I suppose… I’ve had worse company.”

The candles flicker pink for a second. Embarrassment.

 She snuffs them with a glance.

On what keeps her going

“Revenge. Ice. Wine. And knowing I’m still the smartest person in the room.”

She says this with a smirk, but behind the sarcasm, there’s something else: exhaustion. Hope, maybe. The kind that hurts.

“I’ve lived too long to be naive, and not long enough to stop caring entirely. So I pour drinks. I light candles. I pretend the frost on my fingers is a choice. And every so often, someone walks in who deserves protection. Or vengeance. Or both.”

Amara has a soft spot for underdogs, though she’ll hex anyone who points it out. She hides her grief in candlelight and glass, and her kindness behind blistering sarcasm.

But it’s there. In every warded door, in every candle lit to mourn the forgotten. In every spell she casts to keep her bar safe—even if she claims it’s just for the aesthetic.

As for what comes next?

She shrugs. “I’ll win the ring. I’ll fix what’s broken. And then I’ll decide whether I still want to exist.”

I believe her. But I also believe she’s already deciding, every day, to keep going. One potion. One curse. One cracked smile at a time.

Whatever happens, Amara Nocturne is not done. And Nocturne Alley hasn’t seen the last of her.

The Bet in Nocturne Alley is available now in paperback and ebook.

 Candlelight, frost, and secrets await.

 Be careful what you order.