Edmund is a fae, but lives secretly in the World Above, his powers hidden from his parents and older sister. He was swapped at birth with the Childe, who lives as a human curiosity among the fae in the World Below.
When the evil sorceress Hawthorne seizes the fae throne, the Childe seeks his changeling above, and soon the two, along with candle-golem Whick (who is nonbinary) and Edmund’s human sister Alexis are on a dangerous underground hunt to save the worlds neither feels they belong to. Along the way, they encounter dragons, witches, and any number of other fantasy staples. These tropes are masterfully wielded, however, with the dazzling illustrations adding richness to the tale.
There is no clearly queer romance in this book, although this develops for one character in the sequel, so I am tagging it “Gay/queer boy.”
