One day, an unknown young man appears at Lexi's house in the wasteland. And the next night, children begin to disappear in the village, and a mysterious stranger becomes the first suspect. All efforts are thrown into searching for the children, and Lexie, with the same tenacity, searches for the truth about the Witch, about the wind that speaks to her through the walls every night, and about the nameless young man who came to her village. A riddle, a love story, a song of the wind - everything this is in the debut novel by Victoria Schwab, who gained worldwide fame thanks to the Shades of Magic trilogy and a series of novels about Cassidy Blake (City of Ghosts, Tunnel of Bones, etc.). “The Boy Born from the Ashes” is also a story included in this book. This is a prequel to the story of the Near Witch.