It isn't business as usual for Maelwine when a new family moves into Grave's End House. With the old, great house standing untenanted for quite some time, being a house shade attached to it has turned the hours dull for Maelwine. He has no family to entertain him, no variations in his daily duty, which involves the rousing of shadows in every room when the sun goes down.
Things change when the Villar family arrive, however, and Maelwine is finally happily caught up in the comings and goings at Grave's End. That is, until he notices Royden Villar, a young boy with a secret that depresses his spirits and touches Maelwine in surprising and alarming ways. The more Maelwine studies Royden's behavior, the more he glimpses the other boy's heart, and, suddenly, new paths reveal themselves to Maelwine — paths that are as muddy as they are dangerous.
As a house shade, Maelwine is immortal and enjoys certain benefits that can only come with immortality. Not once has he questioned his situation. It is, after all, as Nature has always intended. But with Royden's arrival, Maelwine's forced to face difficult answers to unsettling questions about the nature of his existence.
He's only a house shade, after all, and nothing more. He doesn't have a heart, doesn't feel loneliness in the shadows of his world. Things should be easy, but Royden Villar has set certain wheels in motion, and there's simply no turning back.