The Rules of the House

At Halcyon, every rule exists for a reason.

No one will tell Mara Ellison what those reasons are.

After a career-ending clash with the institution she once trusted, Mara accepts a one-year position directing Halcyon-an isolated estate where six teenagers live under extraordinary security, restricted contact, and rules that seem designed to prevent questions as much as danger.

She expects difficult kids. Complicated families. A secretive founder.

She does not expect a girl in an upstairs window counting down as she arrives.

She does not expect locked rooms, missing records, identities that vanish from the outside world, or residents who seem to know things about Halcyon that no adult is willing to say aloud.

And she certainly does not expect the house to know things about her.

As Mara begins breaking rules in search of answers, she uncovers a truth far more disturbing than imprisonment: Halcyon was built because powerful people needed six young witnesses contained-and the system protecting them may be the same system keeping them trapped.

Now someone outside wants back in.

Someone inside has been waiting for that moment.

And Mara must decide which is more dangerous:

the rules she was hired to enforce... or what happens when she finally breaks them all.