Excerpt from Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The train slows.

I watch the light spill into evening.

Here we are.

* * *

Just the soft dark now.

The earth shifts and recoils and changes around her.

It knots around her bones.

Feathers turn to ash and soil and she clings on.

Still solid.

Blind dark.

Old ache.

A map of roots twisting and talking to each other.

Bringing news of the air and the sky and the rain and all the things that were once

so bright and beautiful.

But now

Now

There is

Something

new

Excerpted from Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen. Copyright © 2026 by Katya Balen. Excerpted by permission of HarperVia. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.