Balance Between Wings

Lira was born with wings that never lifted her-wings the Rites, a brutal ritualistic academy on Catalina Island, have spent decades trying to "fix." Each season demands more obedience, more pain, more of her. And each season, she loses another piece of herself.Then Caliel returns-the quiet Nephilim who once saw her before the world did-and the cracks in the Rites begin to split wide open. His presence awakens forbidden tenderness, buried memories, and a truth Lira was never meant to discover: she was never broken. The system was.As autumn deepens and the island falls into its off-season silence, Lira finds unlikely allies: misfits, outcasts, and others the Rites tried to reshape. Together, they form a fragile found family in a place built to isolate them.But freedom has a price. And claiming her own wings may cost Lira everything the Rites promised-and everything she's ever known.For fans of gothic fantasy, dark academia, slow-burn supernatural tension, found family, and disability-centered storytelling, The Balance Between Wings delivers a haunting, atmospheric tale of survival, identity, and the quiet rebellion of choosing yourself.