Onyx

What's inside (8 sections)

1. The trace becomes something else
2. Blake and Will
3. Someone who should not be alive
4. What Blake wants
5. Rescue and cost
6. What works and what wears thin
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Onyx because Obsidian left me with a question I could not shake. If a Luxen saves you by pouring light into you, what does that leave behind. Jennifer L. Armentrout published it with Entangled Teen in 2012, a 421 page second book in the Lux series, after Obsidian and before Opal. I expected a simple sequel about dating an alien. I got something messier about debt, watching eyes, and a girl who starts to glow in ways she did not ask for.

Katy Swartz is back in West Virginia for senior year. She moved from Florida, lost her dad years ago, runs a book blog, and spent last spring learning her neighbors are not human. Daemon and Dee Black are Luxen, beings of light hiding as teens. Daemon saved her twice and marked her with a trace the Arum can see. At the end of book one they chose each other, sort of. At the start of book two that choice feels wobbly.

Daemon pulls back. He is still cocky, still staring, but he keeps saying he needs to prove what he feels is real and not just the connection left by healing her. Katy hears that as rejection. I heard it as fear. He watched his brother Dawson love a human girl and lose everything. He does not want to repeat it, and he does not know how to stay away either.

That push and pull drives the first third. Katy tries to act normal. School, blog, mom working late, best friend Lesa cracking jokes at lunch. Daemon watches from his porch. Dee tries to keep peace. It is sweet until it is not, because Katy is changing and nobody will say it plain.

The trace becomes something else

In Obsidian the trace was like a flag. Stay near Daemon, stay quiet, wait for it to fade. In Onyx it does not fade. It sinks in.

Katy starts moving things without touching them. A book slides. A pen rolls. Light bends wrong around her hands when she is scared. She can see a kind of glow around the Luxen now, and she heals faster than she should. She does not tell Daemon at first because she knows what he will do. Worry, hover, blame himself.

I liked this part a lot. Armentrout does not give Katy powers as a prize. She gives them as a problem. Katy liked being ordinary. She liked reviewing books and gardening badly and deciding for herself who to trust. Now her body makes choices for her. When she gets a fright in class, the lights flicker. When she argues with Daemon, static jumps. She has to learn control without a manual, while pretending in front of her mom that everything is fine.

Her mom notices the distance even if she misses the cause. That thread hurt to read. Katy loves her mom and lies to her every day to keep her safe.

Matthew Gray, who teaches as Mr. Garrison and quietly looks after the Luxen kids for the Department of Defense, warns them to keep heads down. The DOD knows the Luxen are here. Housing, cover stories, check ins. The deal is simple. Do not shine where humans can see. Do not tell. Katy already knows, which already breaks the deal. Now she is showing signs herself, which could get her taken in, tested, filed away.

The book keeps that threat low and constant. Black cars. New questions at school. A sense that someone is counting who sits where at lunch.

Blake and Will

Then a new boy shows up. Blake Saunders is easy in a way Daemon is not. Funny, open, quick to sit with Katy at lunch and talk books. He has a friend named Will who hangs back. Blake tells Katy he knows what happened to her. He says he can help her learn control. He says she does not have to tell Daemon everything.

Katy, who is tired of being the girl who needs guarding, says yes to training in secret. They meet to practice moving small objects, breathing through panic, shutting the glow off. Blake is patient. He does not flinch when she fails. For a while I understood why she liked him. He offers what Daemon will not, a plan.

Daemon hates Blake on sight. Part of that is jealousy, and the book owns it. Daemon sulks, makes sharp remarks, picks fights in hallways. Part of it is instinct. Ash is still cold to Katy, Andrew is watchful, Adam is kind in a quiet way, and none of them trust the new kid. Dee wants to like everyone and even she holds back.

Here is where I have to give Armentrout credit and also a small complaint. The love triangle beats are familiar. Two boys, one secret practice, lies that pile up. If you are tired of that shape, you will sigh. But the book uses it to show something true about Katy. She lies to Daemon not because she likes Blake more, but because she wants one place where she is not a problem to solve. That lie costs her. Every chapter where she hides practice made my stomach tighten, because you know Daemon will find out and you know he will read it as betrayal.

Blake also knows too much about Dawson. He drops hints about what really happened the night Dawson and Bethany vanished. He says the official story, that they died when an Arum found them, might be wrong. Katy cannot ignore that. Neither can Daemon, even though he pretends he wants to.

Someone who should not be alive

Midway through, Katy sees someone she thought was dead.

I will keep this vague to leave some surprise, but the sighting cracks the Black family open. Dee cries and then gets angry at herself for hoping. Daemon goes still in that scary Luxen way, all light held tight under skin. For a year they grieved Dawson, Daemon and Dee's brother who loved a human girl named Bethany Williams and disappeared with her. Now there is a chance Dawson lived.

The search for answers pulls the DOD fully into view. Matthew Gray stops hinting and starts warning. Men in suits visit the school. Questions about absences. Katy realizes the DOD is not just a distant office that pays rent. It has a local face and files with names in them. If they learn Katy has changed, she will not just be the human who knows. She will be useful.

This is the strongest stretch for me. Armentrout balances high school life with dread without making either silly. One page Katy worries about a test. Next page she watches a car follow her home and has to decide whether to run to Daemon and risk marking herself more. Lesa provides normal friendship, gossip, plans, which makes the abnormal sharper by contrast.

Katy's powers grow in fits. She stops something heavy once by instinct and then cannot repeat it when calm. She learns that onyx, the black stone, can block Luxen energy and muffle a trace, while obsidian can kill. That is why the title matters. Onyx is not just a pretty cover word. In this world certain stones change what light can do. Katy starts wearing and carrying stone to hide, which helps and also reminds her she is hiding.

I liked that the magic stays physical. No long lectures. Just heat, headache, nosebleeds, shaking hands after.

What Blake wants

Blake is not just a nice new kid. That will not surprise you, but how it plays out still stung me.

Without laying out every turn, Blake has his own link to the DOD and to what happened to Dawson and Bethany. He sought Katy because she is changing, and changed humans matter to people who study the Luxen. His kindness has a purpose. His training sessions give him a read on how far her mutation has gone.

When the truth comes out, it comes fast. A confrontation at a party, a drive that goes wrong, a choice Katy makes to protect Daemon that puts someone else at risk. Armentrout does not let Katy off easy. Her lies helped Blake get close. Her silence kept Daemon from guarding the right door.

The action late in the book is messy in a good way. Light against light in woods, cars on a road at night, a house that feels too small to hold what happens inside it. Adam Thompson, who has always been steady and kind, pays a price here. I felt that loss more than any fight. Adam was the proof the Luxen could be gentle. Losing him breaks the group and breaks Daemon most of all.

Daemon blames Katy. He says cruel things he partly means because grief needs a target. Katy takes it because part of her agrees. That breakup stretch is bleak and honest. No noble speeches. Just two teens who love each other and cannot fix what just happened by saying sorry.

Meanwhile Dawson is real. Alive, damaged, held for a long time with Bethany by people inside the DOD program that studies Luxen and hybrids at a place called Mount Weather. Bethany has changed too, after healing and testing. Dawson never stopped trying to get back to her. Daemon never stopped feeling guilty for not saving his brother. When brothers finally stand in the same room, the book earns its tears without forcing them.

Rescue and cost

The last act is a rescue that does not feel like a win.

Daemon decides to go after Dawson and Bethany. He has to. Katy decides to go with him. She has to. Dee, Ash, Andrew, and even Matthew Gray get pulled in, each with different reasons. The DOD facility is not a cartoon base. It is offices, badges, locked doors, men who think they are protecting the country by caging kids who glow.

Katy uses everything Blake taught her plus everything Daemon tried to keep her from learning. She moves things, shields, pushes light back when it should crush her. It hurts her. Her nose bleeds. Her hands shake for hours after. Armentrout keeps the cost visible, which I appreciated. Power does not make Katy equal to a Luxen. It makes her a cracked human holding too much current.

They get people out. Not cleanly. Not without alarms and blood. Bethany is free but altered, quiet in a way that scares Dawson. Dawson is free but raw, clinging to Bethany like air. Adam is gone and cannot be brought back. The DOD knows more than before. The cover that let the Luxen live quietly in that small town is thinner.

Back home, Daemon pushes Katy away to protect her. He thinks distance will fade her trace and cool the DOD interest. Katy, who has spent a whole book learning to stand up, refuses to accept that logic quietly. She calls him out. She names what he is doing. It does not fix them, but it keeps her dignity intact. I was glad Armentrout let Katy stay angry instead of melting.

The final pages set up Opal without cheating. Katy is stronger and less sure who to trust. Daemon is grieving and guilty. Dee lost Adam and gained a brother back in pieces. The DOD has names and samples. Blake is gone but his damage stays.

What works and what wears thin

What works is voice. Katy narrates in first person, funny about books and blogs, prickly when embarrassed, loyal to a fault. Her observations about Daemon, hot then cold, infuriating then tender, feel like a teen trying to sound sure while being unsure. The romance is intense but not empty. Daemon has to learn that protecting someone does not mean deciding for her. Katy has to learn that independence does not mean lying to the people who would die for you. They both fail and try again.

Pacing is quick. Thirty six short chapters, most ending with a pull. I read it in two sittings. The DOD thread gives the alien story weight beyond school hallways. Dawson and Bethany give grief a face. The stone lore, obsidian to kill, onyx to block, gives fights clear stakes without long info dumps.

Fair criticism matters here too. The middle sags a little with secret training scenes that repeat. Practice, almost caught, lie, repeat. Blake's turn, while sad, follows a familiar path for new boy rivals. If you read a lot of YA paranormal romance, you will see parts coming. The DOD as villain can feel broad. Men in suits, vague orders, science that is more threat than detail. And the breakup after Adam's death, while true to grief, leans on miscommunication that frustrated me. Talk, you two. Just talk.

Content notes for friends I lend to. This is YA with heat but not explicit detail. Language is mild to moderate. Violence rises late, with death that lands hard. Grief, medical testing, and control by authorities run through the back half. If Obsidian's stalker edge bothered you, this one is heavier because the watchers are official.

Who should read it. If you finished Obsidian and liked Katy's spine and Daemon's growl, keep going. This is book two in Lux for a reason. It deepens the bond by testing it, and it widens the world from Arum shadows to human systems that cage light. New readers should not start here. The trace, Dawson, the DOD deal, none of it lands without book one.

I closed Onyx thinking about Katy in her bedroom after, curtains shut, a piece of onyx in her palm, trying to dim her own shine while her mom calls her for dinner. That image says the whole series to me. A girl who wanted a quiet senior year with books, now learning to carry light she never asked for, choosing who gets to see it.

It is not perfect. It is gripping. For a middle book it moves the pieces a lot. Dawson lives. Bethany changed. Adam lost. Katy altered. Daemon undone. I went straight to Opal.

FAQ

When was Onyx published?

Entangled Teen published it in August 2012. The paperback runs 421 pages and the ISBN is 9781620610114.

Is Onyx part of a series?

Yes, it is book two in the Lux series, after Obsidian and before Opal.

Who are the main characters?

Katy Swartz, Daemon and Dee Black, Dawson and Bethany, Blake Saunders, and teacher Matthew Gray.