Her brother woke up gray and dying. The witch who did it is running north. And Zely's about to discover her father—the kingdom's most decorated knight—has been lying to her all along.

On a gray autumn morning in Western Tassel, Zely Bagwell makes a deal with the devil: help her legendary father hunt down the witch who cursed her brother, and he'll break her arranged marriage to the brute knight waiting at home. It's supposed to be simple—her father's Sir Trevor Bagwell, the man who's never lost a battle. All Zely has to do is follow orders, stay quiet, and collect her freedom when it's over.

But the witch isn't cowering. Every night, Symphony Rose reaches into Sir Trevor's dreams and drains his strength. Every morning, he wakes weaker. More desperate. Under mounting pressure from an enemy who won't fight fair and a father who's used to winning, Zely starts asking the questions he doesn't want to answer: Why did Symphony really curse Trevor? Why is she running north instead of hiding? And why does the rune her father drew to track her look exactly like the one tattooed on Symphony's stolen hat?

As they chase Symphony through bandit country and into blizzards that kill horses, Zely realizes her father isn't leading a rescue mission—he's walking into a trap he doesn't understand. The witch isn't the villain. The castle at the end of the frozen road is. And the thing living in its basement has been feeding on women for centuries, waiting for someone exactly like Zely: a woman who can enter where men cannot, who's desperate enough to risk everything, who's been lied to her entire life about what magic really costs.

Her father taught her to follow. Now Zely will have to teach herself to lead—even if it means leaving him behind. Because the witch who cursed her brother knows how to save him. And the only way Zely's getting her home alive is by trusting the woman everyone says she should kill.

Beneath the Ley Line is a character-driven dark fantasy about family bonds, hard-won agency, and the brutal cost of heroism—with appeal to fans of Naomi Novik's Uprooted, Joe Abercrombie's morally complex characters, and R.F. Kuang's unflinching examinations of power.