The Step and the Walk (The Darkening Gate Book 2)

A dark academia fantasy of forbidden alchemy, demonic bargains, and a young man determined to conquer death itself.

To achieve immortality, just give up your desire and walk through the Gate.

Driven by loss, Andresh has bent his every study toward a single heresy—an end to death itself. At university, he finds the path: the Magnum Opus, an alchemical road to immortality, and a demon named Isabelle who trades in the secrets that line it. But the road has a toll. Each gate demands he sacrifice a piece of himself, and the first—Nigredo—asks for the one thing he never imagined surrendering: his desire.

Which would be simpler if his heart were not already divided between Lily, the friend he has loved as long as he can remember, and Sebastien, the classmate who makes that loyalty harder to keep by the day. He wants them both. The first gate will let him keep neither. And the further Andresh walks, the clearer it becomes that he is not the only one with designs on his soul—and that a man bargaining away death may be a danger to far more than himself.

Perfect for readers who love:
– Dark academia, alchemy and demonic bargains
–Romantic temptation and impossible choices
– Gothic, epistolary, and steeped in forbidden magic
– Forbidden ambition and the price of immortality