13 Secret Cities (The Coil, Book 1)

Book 1 of The Coil Series

Thirteen portals exist in the cosmos. They are hidden, and secret. No one knows how to find them.

Clara Montes has lived her entire life in a Chicago, where militarized police patrol the streets, surveillance is constant, and the democracy her parents once believed in has been hollowed out by authoritarianism. When a protest in Millennium Park erupts into violence, Clara is swept into something far worse than a political crisis. She is marked. And the ancient forces that marked her have been waiting a long time.

To survive, Clara must travel to Mictlán—the Aztec realm of the dead—and face the Lords of the Dead, two merciless gods who thrive on human blood. The journey will take her through landscapes that defy physics—past smoke owls that hunt in silence, a pyramid made of living flowers, and entities older than any civilization—and toward a discovery about the thirteen secret cities that exist between worlds. Portals. Gateways. Places where reality thins and something else presses through.

What Clara finds in Mictlán will change the course of her life. What follows her back will change everything else.

How far would you descend to learn the truth about the world you live in?

The Coil Series reading order:

1. 13 Secret Cities
2. 9 Lords of Night
3. Hall of Mirrors

About the Author Cesar Torres is the creator of the Aztecverse—a dark fantasy multiverse rooted in Mexica cosmology and queer identity. They are the author of the How to Kill a Superhero saga and The Coil Series. Find them at cesartorres.me.