PREORDER NOTE – Publish Date is August 26th, 2025. By preordering you will be reserving your copy for pickup at Slant of Light Books on the publish date.

DantesInfernomeetsSusanna Clarkes Piranesiin this all-new dark academia fantasyfrom R. F. Kuang, the #1New York Timesbestselling author ofBabel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professors soulperhaps at the cost of their own.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:

The story of a heros descent to the underworld

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and shes going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams.

Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.

With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they dont even like.

But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isnt always the answer, and theres something in Alice and Peters past that could forge them into the perfect alliesor lead to their doom.