The third in an enthralling award-winning Maori Gothic trilogy set in the parallel worlds of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is a year since Matiu Douglas and his friends slew Puarata, the tohunga makutu, and nine months since they rescued the taniwha in Lake Waikaremoana. Life has settled into a normal routine, although Mat is training every school holidays in taupo, with Aethlyn Jones, refining his magical and martial skills. He is also in mental contact with Ngatoro-i-rangi. the legendary tohunga is imprisoned somewhere in Aotearoa, the Ghost World, where war continues among the warlocks who served Puarata. It has become a covert war, of bitter intrigue and chilling murders, as they seek the elusive power Puarata used to gain pre-eminence – te Iho – the Heart. the first of the warlocks to find te Iho will assume Puarata's bloody korowai and dominate Aotearoa. they are closing in. Mat's next visit to taupo will see him drawn once more into the fray. When Jones is attacked and a fellow protege kidnapped, Mat finds himself once more on the tail of the warlocks, on a path leading to te Iho. Handguns and flintlocks, technology and magic, modern teens and mythological beings, all collide in this thrilling young adult fantasy novel from the writer who defines the new genre of Maori Gothic.
