We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Hollow and the Haunted by Camilla Raines, a new contemporary fantasy novel out from Titan Books on October 22nd.
Miles Warren hails from a long line of psychics. Resigned to a life in the family business, Miles is perfectly happy, thank you very much. Apart from the fact he hasn’t told anyone he’s gay, and that he’s constantly exhausted from long nights spent wrangling angry ghosts in creepy cemeteries. Perfectly happy.
But Miles’s comfortable routine is interrupted when he starts having visions of an unfamiliar boy. He soon learns the stranger is Gabriel Hawthorne, whose family have a mysterious, decades-long feud with Miles’s own—and that the visions are a premonition of his murder. Gabriel is everything Miles expects from a Hawthorne: rude, haughty, irritatingly good-looking. But that doesn’t mean Miles is just going to stand by and let someone kill him.
The two form an uneasy alliance, trying to solve Gabriel’s murder before it happens. As they begin to unravel the web of secrets between their families, and with dark magic swirling around them, Miles is horrified to realize that he doesn’t hate Gabriel quite as much as he’s supposed to. He might even like him.
Too bad Gabriel is probably going to die.
Faces blurred together as Miles weaved his way through the crowd towards the buffet table. Everything inside him was urging him to run straight out of this place without looking back.
The first thing his dad ever taught him about being an empath was how to throw up a firm mental shield to protect himself in a busy place, but this was too much at once. Too many emotions, a suffocating weight crushing against him. The edges of his shield were splintered, cracked where things were slipping through.
Delight, bright and fresh, bubbles popping against his skin.
Bitterness, acrid on the tip of his tongue and hard to swallow.
Interest, a tickling urge dancing through his veins.
The bow tie around his windpipe shrank, cutting off his air. He wished Charlee were here—she’d go find him a chilly drink he could press to the back of his neck, count inhales and exhales with him, make him start listing off details in the room.
He recalled what she’d said: bathrooms had locks. Maybe he could find one far enough away that he wouldn’t be so overwhelmed with emotions, but close enough he wouldn’t miss his parents when they were ready to leave. If he was going to have a panic attack, he’d rather be alone.
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Having a half-formed plan helped him focus, the room steadying as he skirted around the crowd, keeping close to the walls. It was easier to blend into the background here, though there was no escaping the judgmental gazes of the creepy paintings. He passed Heidi and Landon Cayne admiring a lush tapestry on the wall, their teenage son looking about as thrilled as Miles. They’d never met, but shared a miserable glance. In a group next to them, twin sisters in matching pink hijabs and floral gowns that sparkled when they shifted were talking with the woman Miles had noticed earlier in the peacock-feather headpiece. An older man in a vibrant violet suit and a waterfall of silver-tipped micro braids down to his waist came up behind her and whispered in her ear, making her cackle, feathers bobbing up and down. He had a plate full of macaroons—Chelsea’s mom must have managed all right, even with the tight deadline.
Across the room, an open door by a velvet curtain caught his eye and he course-corrected. Felicity Hawthorne herself would have to be on the other side of it to keep him from—
A whisper of awareness brushed against his skin, skittering along his senses and stopping him dead mid-step. A warm breath on the back of his neck, heat running down the length of his spine.
A group of people in the middle of the room shifted, and Miles saw him.
Hair the same shade as fresh ink. Pale face with a pointed chin. Eyes he could tell even from a distance were fringed with thick lashes. A shadow amidst a riot of color.
The boy he’d seen in the mirror.
He was leaning against the wall, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks, watching the party with an expression of mild boredom.
Miles had the strangest sensation, the room tilting around him. He… he hadn’t thought the boy was real. That he had to be a ghost. But here he was, flesh and blood.
He grabbed the nearest person, a stocky man with rich russet skin and gold-rimmed glasses. “Who is that?” he asked, nodding in the boy’s direction. “Against the wall?”
He half expected the boy to be visible only to him, but the man followed where Miles was gesturing with a sniff of annoyance. “The young man? That’s Gabriel Hawthorne.”
The pit in Miles’s stomach grew into a boulder. “Hawthorne, as in… Hawthorne, Hawthorne?”
The man arched a thick eyebrow. “As in, Felicity Hawthorne’s son.”
Of course. Of course, he was.
He looked like Felicity, with the same hair and sharp features. Miles already knew Gabriel had gray eyes, though they’d been significantly less hate-filled than his mom’s.
No one was standing with him, no one stopped to talk to him. He didn’t seem upset, but the set of his shoulders and tilt to his chin was decidedly defiant, as if making a point to not care.
But it didn’t make any sense. Miles couldn’t be haunted by the ghost of someone still alive. What could it have been, then? Some sort of vision? A premonition?
Miles didn’t know much about premonitions. The closest experience he’d ever had was years ago, when he’d woken in the middle of the night unable to breathe, his lungs on fire. The next morning, he found out his great-grandpa had passed away from pneumonia.
He’d written it off as an empathic thing, a fluke. Having more than one gift was unheard of. Certain shared abilities came with being psychic—seeing ghosts and spirits, or sensing auras—but once you started showing your main gift, that’s what you were stuck with. And Miles was an empath, not a seer.
It should be impossible.
Something else was there too, an urge stronger than curiosity pulling him towards the boy. A string woven through his ribs, tug-tug-tugging insistently.
He was moving closer before he stopped to think about it, staring with all the subtlety of a gawking giant who’d realized a worst-case scenario was unfolding before him.
Gabriel noticed him immediately. He examined Miles up and down, much like his mother had earlier. His head cocked slightly in confusion, or surprise. Was that recognition that flashed across his face, or just wishful thinking on Miles’s part?
A strange feeling thrummed through him, a sensation he couldn’t quite put a name to. Miles had to say something. “Hi,” he croaked.
Gabriel stared. “Do I know you?”
It was so strange to hear his voice after begging him to speak earlier. It was as cold and crisp as the autumn wind that rattled the tree branches outside.
“No, sorry.” What was Miles supposed to say? What could he say? That he’d been seeing Gabriel in his mirror, bleeding and asking to be found? That he had a hunch it was a vision of the future, a warning? “I just… I wanted to tell you to look out for yourself.”
Gabriel was quiet, Miles realized with a jolt. Everyone else’s emotions were pressing against him, suffocating even when they weren’t cracking his shield, but Gabriel… he was a blissful void. Even the energy of this house—wrong and sticky, spiderwebs that would linger on his skin long after he left—faded.
“Excuse me?” Gabriel’s eyebrows came together. “Are you threatening me?”
Yeah, Miles could see why he might jump to that conclusion. God, he was an idiot. “No, no, I’m not, I swear. Listen… I know this seems weird, but be careful, okay? You might be in danger.”
If there was the tiniest shred of doubt in Miles’s mind that he was the same boy from the mirror, it dissipated now—that solemn frown was all too familiar. “Who are you?”
His name was the last thing Miles should tell him. He shouldn’t be here in the first place, shouldn’t be talking with a Hawthorne.
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step back. “I have to go.”
He turned and worked through the crowd as quickly as he could without making a run for it. Several disgruntled voices followed as he cut through conversations, but no one tried to stop him, and Gabriel didn’t follow.
Stumbling over his own feet, Miles retreated through the double doors of the ballroom and into the empty hallway. He leaned against the wall, digging his fingertips into the wallpaper in search of something to grip, something to hold on to. His skin was scorching, his heartbeat thumping in his ears.
What did this mean?
Gabriel Hawthorne had appeared in Miles’s mirror, asking to be found. Okay, he’d found him—now what? Was his identity supposed to reveal anything other than the universe having a sick sense of humor?
Even now, that compulsion was tug-tug-tugging from deep in his chest to go back in there, to find Gabriel and talk to him. A steadier, stronger rhythm than the rise and fall of classical music floating out from the ballroom.
No. Miles crossed his arms and pressed his shoulder blades firmly against the wall. He was going to stay right here.
Whatever was happening, whatever this was, he wasn’t going to play along.
He’d warned Gabriel. That had to be enough.
His dad found him there, however long later, his forehead creased with concern and jaw tight. Tonight had been a strain on him, too.
“Your mom and I have been looking for you. Everything okay?”
The question made a barbed pain settle in Miles’s throat—he felt stupidly close to tears. “I’m… I needed a break.”
His dad gave him a sympathetic smile. “Well, good news—we’re ready to go if you are.”
“Please.” He’d never wanted to leave a place more in his life.
“I’ll grab your mom—I left her by the dessert table.”
As his dad went back into the party, Miles couldn’t help peering after him, scanning the crowd one last time.
He didn’t see Gabriel again.
Excerpted from The Hollow and the Haunted, copyright © 2024 by Camilla Raines.
