A Dirge for St. Monica

A tiny, rustic cabin stands alone in the rural fringes of the bustling city of Dolores. Not too far from it lies an old and overgrown cemetery whose thirteen sleepers appear to have been forgotten by the world. Darcy Winter is a young man whose strange legacy includes the cabin, which he calls home, and St. Anthony's cemetery, whose silent occupants come to him for their midnight lullabies on his cello every seven days.

An eerie bond has long formed between Darcy and the ghostly "mothers". While he suspects he's the latest of a dying bloodline to be compelled to maintain a connection with the nameless and forgotten dead, he still doesn't know why the Winter family seems to be bound forever to the cabin and St. Anthony's. Unless, of course, terrifying fragments of dark dreams - soft voices calling his name in the shadows - hold the answers to the mystery.

Arlen Stroescu is a sorcerer-hunter from the Institute of Arcane Studies. Intelligent, driven, and a symbol of the Arcane Institute's future academic leaders, his single-minded desire to learn more about the darker workings of the otherworld enjoys a boost when he crosses paths with Darcy and reads unusually strong supernatural imprints on him. One encounter leads to another, and Arlen realizes those imprints defy all his efforts at further understanding, giving his magic an unsettling sense of nothingness and an impenetrable void.

Darcy Winter could very well be in danger without knowing it, and Arlen decides to get to the bottom of things by nurturing a deeper friendship with him. A casual date offers Arlen an excellent chance at gathering information. But it also turns into an awkward and increasingly complicated dance. One that leaves Arlen suddenly unsure of his purpose for getting close to a lonely young man bearing the weight of what Arlen soon discovers to be a centuries-old curse.