The Shadows Within Us

The third book in the acclaimed sci-fi/queer romance that began with the Stonewall Honor Award winner The Darkness Outside Us is a mind-bending tale of the power and the limits of love in an unknown and unsympathetic universe, from two-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Eliot Schrefer.

Kodiak Celius awakes on a ship in the endless void of space, on a mission to rescue Minerva Cusk.

He is not alone; with him is Ambrose Cusk—Minerva’s brother, scion of the world’s largest tech corporation, and representative of Kodiak’s rival nation, Federation. If there’s anything Kodiak’s disciplined upbringing in Dimokratia has taught him, it’s never to trust anyone, especially not a sworn enemy of his motherland, no matter how handsome and kind he is. But Ambrose’s presence is not the only thing off about the ship: there are anomalies in the life support systems, and Kodiak swears he can hear voices in the ship’s walls. And he soon begins to suspect that the ship’s OS is lying to them about their mission.

Two spacefarers.

A mission to save Minerva Cusk.

A dawning realization that things on the ship are not as they seem.

This is a story that has played out before.

But what Kodiak and Ambrose will discover about this particular mission is something no one is prepared for. Because Kodiak is right: there are voices in the walls. Someone, somewhere, is watching them, witnessing this familiar story unfold. And if the two of them want to have any hope of surviving what’s coming, they will have to find a way to trust each other.

The third installment in the mind-bending saga that began with the acclaimed, award-winning The Darkness Outside Us takes Ambrose and Kodiak on a journey to the distant edges of the galaxy, one in which the question of how humanity will endure—and whether it should at all—depends on them.