Read An Excerpt From 'Give Up the Night' by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

New York Times bestsellers P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast return with Give Up the Night, the astonishing conclusion to their Moonstruck duology set in a dark and magickal world filled with incredible danger and irresistible romance.

Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast’s Give Up The Night, which is out April 1st 2025.

Since becoming Moonstruck on her eighteenth birthday, Wren Nightingale has found herself thrust into a world filled with deception, danger, and murder. Uncovering that their magick was fractured and limited when the original Moonstruck ritual was broken by Selene, Wren is determined to find a way to restore it. But the Elementals are split into two factions―some want the ritual completed and their freedom―and others are so terrified of change that they’re willing to end Wren before she can reach the center of the island where the ritual Selene ruined can be completed.

Between his overbearing father’s arrival, Rottingham delegating him more and more responsibility, and Celeste taking a special interest in him, Lee Young has been struggling to find his own path. As much as Lee wants to take his place in the Moonstruck hierarchy, he knows something’s not right at the Academia de la Luna. He thinks if he can talk some sense into Wren and get her to return to the Academia, that everything will turn out alright.

As Wren and Lee both battle for what they believe is right, they’ll have to uncover who their true allies are…and if they’re even on the same side of this magickal fight.

ONE
Wren

Within the protective embrace of my Air Elemental I hover above the broken dome of the Conduit Chamber, the jagged glass glinting in the light of the full moon like the fanged mouth of a beast. I don’t want to look down—not at the shattered dome and the two people below it: my love and my enemy.

Is my love now my enemy?

But I have to look. I have to see if Lee is still there. Still with Celeste. My gaze lowers and I breathe out a long sigh that I’m not sure is relief or disappointment. Lee and Celeste are gone. All I see are the statue-like figures of the other Elementals, dozens of them, seemingly frozen, a forest of specters in a strange landscape of questions without answers.

I shake my head as if trying to wake from a dream that will not release me. My gaze lifts and I meet the Air Elemental’s amber eyes. He has one arm around my waist, steadying me as we float high in the night sky. Slowly, he lifts his other hand and wipes away a tear tracking down my cheek.

“Wren.”

His voice is the same, familiar but odd, like it has to struggle to reach me—a pixelated version of communication. Hidden within the hood of the dark robe that swirls around him, his face is almost impossible to see. Except for his amber eyes, it’s just a shadowy form, but in those eyes I see compassion. It’s the compassion that holds me, steadies me, allows me to take a few deep breaths and look down again, searching for Lee.

Beneath us my gaze is pulled to Crossroads Courtyard, the main campus courtyard—the meeting place for students—where Lee and I waltzed under the moonlight just hours ago, where my best friend Sam died holding my hand, her body shattered and bloody.…

There are students and teachers in the courtyard, though they all avoid the dark liquid stain in the middle of the circle of cobblestones where Sam’s body had been. As I watch, the group shifts and turns. I recognize the man who hurries from the others, clutching an ancient leather-bound book to his chest. Dean Rottingham rushes to someone carrying a limp body whose long hair is streaked with white and whose cloak glints with the shimmer of stars.

I jolt as I realize it’s Lee and Celeste.

Oh god, Wren! What happened? What did you do?

Lee’s stunned voice echoes in my mind. I’ll never forget his face, devastated and accusatory, looking up at me as he gathered Celeste with her self-inflicted wound into his arms.

“Don’t believe her, Lee.” I whisper the words like a prayer through my cold lips. As Dean Rottingham takes Celeste from Lee and shouts for the healers, Lee’s face lifts. I feel his gaze. “Please don’t believe her,” I beg, even though he’s too far away to hear me.

“Wren!” My name explodes from Lee. He’s shouting. The dean has taken Celeste from him and given Lee the book. With one hand he holds the leather tome against his chest. With the other he points up. Up. At me. It’s like his voice is the bow and his extended hand is the arrow that pierces me.

Rottingham turns with Celeste still in his arms. His head snaps back and now the dean is also staring at me.

But I’m no longer looking at Lee or Rottingham. Celeste raises her head from the dean’s shoulder. Her eyes are open, glowing with reflected moonlight as her lips move. Suddenly, adult-sized shapes fly up through the broken glass of the dome. The other Elementals, released from their frozen, statue-like state, dart from the Conduit Chamber where Celeste, the leader of our Lunar Council, just tried—and failed—to kill me. Where she also tried to make it look to Lee like I’d stabbed her. With that, she’d succeeded.

The cloaked shapes speed toward us, eyes glowing with malevolence. My Elemental doesn’t hesitate. He wraps his cloak around me and my vision goes black as we soar up above the flock of swarming Elementals. We catch an air current that carries us away from the school so swiftly that my stomach flip-flops and my mouth fills with saliva as I battle not to puke.

Just as I know I’m losing the puke war, we descend. My Elemental places me gently on the mossy forest floor. I’m shaking and my legs are noodles. I drop to my knees, head bowed, gulping air while I try to convince my stomach to retreat from my throat.

“Wren?”

His voice brushes against me like a warm breeze and I lift my hand, making what I hope is the universal just give me a second gesture as I continue to tremble and not puke.

“Doncella?”

Doncella—maiden. I understand more now. I know the Elemental isn’t just calling me a generic term for a young, unmarried woman. I’m the maiden. The first of the three: maiden, mother, elder. The book that started it all and ended it all, the ancient leather tome Rottingham has given to Lee, explained it. Maya, Lee’s sister, her life was taken after she read the book. Sam, my best friend, was killed earlier that night after she read the book.

And now me. I read the book. Not all of it. I hadn’t had time. But I read enough to understand that Sam was right. She’ll kill you if she can.… I can still hear Sam’s broken words, stuttering from her broken body as the last thing she did in this life was warn me about Celeste, warn me that the leader of the Lunar Council would try to kill me.

The book. I need it. Now that I know the key to understanding it—that it must be read in the light of the moon—I have to get it. I have to finish reading it and figure out how to fix this mess.

My body hurts. My heart feels shattered. I force myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my back. My Elemental’s questioning amber gaze meets my eyes. “We have to go back. I have to get that book.”

My Elemental doesn’t speak. He paces back and forth across the mossy forest floor, ferns bowing and pine needles rustling with each pass.

“Please,” I say. “You have to take me to campus.”

He whirls around to face me. His cowl slips and I can glimpse the suggestion of a jawline and dark hair, but if I stare too long my vision blurs. “Danger!” This time the pixilated voice pushes against me with more force. Not a warm breeze, but a whipping wind—cold and final.

“I know!” I shout into the wind. “But it’s all I have. All we have to get us out of this mess.” And that is the absolute truth. I don’t have Sam anymore. Sam, who was a Taurus moon, gifted with computer-level intelligence and an eidetic memory, is dead. Broken by Celeste because she knew too much. I don’t have Lee anymore. Lee … my other best friend and an Aquarius moon, a healer who was also so much more to me. The memory of him shielding Celeste from the shards of glass that fell from the shattered dome is permanently burned into my mind, as is the expression on his face when he looked up at me.

He believed Celeste.

No. I don’t have Lee anymore.

I plead with the Elemental. “The book has information we need. We can’t fight against what’s going on at the school unless we understand exactly what’s going on at the school.”

He stares back and I see something flicker across his amber eyes.

“What? Do you know what’s going on?” A spark of hope lights within me. “Whatever you know you have to tell me. It’s just the two of us now.” I take a step closer to him. The Elementals are mysterious and dangerous and I don’t know much about them other than they’re ancient, as old as this island, and this one particular Elemental has saved me—three times. I suck in a breath. “Wait, were you there? At the beginning when Celeste and her people shipwrecked here and made a deal with all of you, all of the Elementals?”

“Betrayal!” The word bursts from him. He continues to hold my gaze as he speaks, but his words are muffled, as if he’s shouting at me from underwater. I can’t understand anything he’s saying.

I fling up my hands in frustration. “I can’t understand you!” And then I wince as the movement tugs at my back, which stings and burns. Grimacing, I reach around my shoulder and gingerly touch the slash across my upper back. Celeste cut me. My T-shirt is wet and my fingers come away tipped in blood. “Damn Celeste! Damn whatever is wrong with her and damn whatever is wrong with that school!”