For years, she has navigated the suffocating constraints of boarding school and chaperoned dances, and she is ready to detour from the perfect path her parents set her on. Luke Carrington is the swoon-worthy stranger who arrives to spice up the party, convincing Lexi that it's okay to ditch her uniform and spread her wings. Despite Luke's charm and intelligence, Lexi's family shrugs him off and refuses to tell her why. In her mind, the man has more to offer than any gel-headed boy she's met. Not only does he share her interest in Greek mythology, but he has devoted his life to helping people cope with death. What could be more admirable than that? When Lexi learns that her life has been a big fat lie, and the people claiming to be her family aren't who they say they are, she turns to Luke for solace. He is the only one who has not betrayed her, and he helps Lexi prove she isn't a little girl anymore. Once Luke's earns her trust and her heart, Lexi is willing to follow him anywhere to keep him close-even into the underworld.

    Children, clinging together in a crowded orphanage; friends, battling back to back in a school yard; and bedmates, finally bridging the gap between sleeping next to a body and allowing it to touch you in the night—all of these roles are summed up by just their names: Hammer and Air.The innocent exploration of their newest roles is brutally marred when a violent, ill-tempered master threatens Eirn, and Eirn's "Hammer" kills the man in a fair fight. The two run off into the wide world with only each other for safety. It's difficult to forge a good life with only a blacksmith's hammer and a printer's cleverness, but together, Hammer and Eirn will learn to negotiate the dangers of magic and motion, of sex, obsession, and tenderness, and of the word that can make sense of it all—one word they must earn for themselves.