Cybele's Secret is the companion to Wildwood Dancing. I have to compare it to The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke. I was thinking about that book during some of the story. There's the acquiring and mending of a magical artifact that different parties are after that moves the novel forward.

Our narrater, Paula, is the scholarly younger sister to Jena and Tatiana. She's grown now and on a merchant trip with her father in Istanbul. I couldn't quite like Paula as much as I've liked other female leads in Juliet Marrillier's works. She seemed very self important for most of the book. I know it was part of the life lesson the Otherworld folks were trying to teach her though. Paula, her hired guard, Stoyan, and the Portuguese merchant with a bad reputation, Duarte, end up on an adventure of epic proportions. They must elude their ill purposed trackers, find a secret portal, answer riddles, endure great physical tasks, earn a little treasure, and find the secret village that reveres the bee goddess, Cybele. Both men want Paula for his bride. Whom will she choose?