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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2025 by Kalie Cassidy
Cover design and image composite by Kirin Diemont
Cover images by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2025 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Excerpt from In the Wake of the Ruined copyright © 2025 by Kalie Cassidy
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ISBN 9780316587617
E3-20250624-JV-NF-ORI
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Part I: The Mountain
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Part II: The Surface
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Part III: The Deep
26
27
28
29
30
31
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
Praise for Kalie Cassidy’s In the Veins of the Drowning
A Preview of In the Wake of the Ruined
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For those who seek a home.
May you find it, and when you do, may it be sturdy and warm.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
In the Veins of the Drowning is a story about belonging, love, and identity. While it explores the lighter side of those themes, this story also contains darker imagery that might be difficult for some readers, including body horror and abuse. A full list of content warnings can be found on my author website.
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Far below, in the water, she waits.
I wake and she fades. I sleep and she surges.
Held in a decaying body, an ancient, familiar power hums through her veins.
She is the clawed hand searching the waves.
The tight fist around my gut.
Always there in the water. Always there in my dreams.
She is want, and I know her well.
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The air had grown heavy with the scent of the sea. I could nearly taste it, curling through the warm throne room like a tentacle.
It filled me with an upending sort of dread.
Guests poured in from the entry hall, their tittering and chatter pinging off the marble, but I clung to the outer edges, closer to the bone-white walls. I’d done so well keeping away. I’d spent my life ignoring the lure of the sea, only for it to slink past Fort Linum’s defenses on the silks and fine wools of the long-traveled guests like an insidious stowaway.
“Imogen?” Agatha came to my side, studying me with sharp, worried eyes. She looked much the same as she had when she had been my teenage governess and I had been a girl of six. Impossibly youthful, warm brown skin, curls as shiny and dark as the ink in a pot. Soft lines did not even crease the high edges of her cheekbones, but I supposed one must smile often to earn them. “What’s wrong? You’re pale.”
“It’s the dress.” I set a hand to my sternum, where a deep fluttering had started. “It’s too damn tight. Will you loosen the laces?”
Her look turned raw with frustration. “They’re not long enough. I don’t understand why you agreed to wear this awful thing.” She adjusted the ruffle at my shoulder, shaking her head. “How you agreed to marry a man whose job it is to hunt and kill—”
“Agatha, please.” I kept my attention on the room—the food-laden tables, the flickering candles, the cups filled with wine. “Not now.”
“Then when? The wedding is in two days.”
“I’m aware.” When I met her gaze, there was a desperation in it that twisted my insides. “You know that I wasn’t given a choice.”
Tense, she scanned the throne room, then leaned in close. “We could leave,” she whispered. “We should have left years ago. There might be a way—”
I grabbed her by the hand and dragged her around the head table, into a tight, shadowed alcove. “Agatha, enough.” Her brown eyes were wide and searching, as faceted as polished wood. “Please. I beg you to stop condemning me for trying to make the best of this situation. I’ve done well keeping myself safe here, haven’t I? I will continue to. I must.”
