A life lived for the past. A spirit with no future. A sacrifice that defies time itself.

Owen Ho is learning to live with silence. Recently widowed, his days are a quiet loop of grief, his only solace the weekly Xianqi games at his local Calgary chess club. His world is one of carefully managed endings.

Yuen is a scholar from the Tang Dynasty, a tutor to the Imperial Prince, whose world ends in a flash of geomantic energy. He awakens over a thousand years in the future, a disoriented spirit in the basement of a museum, his brilliant mind and ancient manners utterly lost in the roaring heart of modern Chinatown.

Drawn by the familiar sight of a Xianqi board, Yuen challenges a kindly old man to a game-and wins with a skill that seems impossible. Seeing a lost, brilliant boy with nowhere to go, Owen does something impulsive: he takes him home.

What begins as a strange companionship blossoms into a profound father-son bond. Owen finds new purpose in teaching Yuen about the modern world, while Yuen's ancient wisdom brings a forgotten light into Owen's life. But Yuen carries a terrifying secret: he is not truly alive, and as the energy that sustains him fades, he begins to literally disappear.

Their desperate search for an answer leads them to a devastating ancient text and a single, horrifying solution: for a spirit to become real, a real life must be willingly given.

Faced with an impossible choice, Owen must decide what he is willing to sacrifice for the son he never expected to find-and Yuen must learn what it truly means to live.

The Endgame of a Sparrow is a breathtaking novel of love, loss, and the beautiful, heartbreaking choices that define a lifetime.