Stories from Among the Stars · Macmillan Audio

The Book Eaters: 10

March 27, 2026·51 min·2 clips

Devon unleashes her book-eater fury, tearing out a man's throat to save her son from execution.

Devon arrives in Scotland already on guard. The grey car moves through heather hills toward Inner Leven, past moors, cloud, twisted trees, and snow, into a place that feels old and half-hidden. Her thoughts will not leave the body. Eaters look human, but their hungers, strength, dark vision, and decay keep pushing her toward answers that sound like folklore. The quiet in this chapter does not stay quiet for long. When Kai meets Killick, the older man gives him courtly warmth, reaches for Arthurian legend, and offers a chewable pill as if it can wash something clean. Kai takes it with open relief. Devon catches the part he misses: Killick talks about him like a holy object, not a child. Hester's warning sits right there in the room. Killick is polished, polite, almost pleasant, but every sentence has a hook in it. He sounds like a man used to judging first and explaining later. Devon needs shelter, so she bargains. They share enemies in the families, but his interest in her husband's death makes even agreement feel like questioning. Safety has teeth here. By the end, civility drops away and Devon is back in blood, speed, and bodily danger. A man calls her a monster. Devon answers with action, ending the threat with the same brutal logic the world keeps handing her. No comfort follows. The valley looked like sanctuary. It may be something closer to a test.

As heard by us

A cold welcome in Scotland turns a family meeting into something sharper.

Inner Leven feels stripped bare by snow, heather, and a kind of watchful unease. The meeting in Killick's house sharpens that mood fast. Devon looks at the landscape, the man, and the invitation with the same careful suspicion, and the story keeps pressing on family, exile, and…

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Why you'd press play

A snowy refuge in Scotland, a brittle truce, and a family meeting that never stays polite.

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