❝You are the love that came
without warning;
You had my heart before
I could say no.❞

SIX LONG YEARS AGO, Penney Laucier made a very important promise.

On the eve of the end of the world, when Penney's life was painfully torn into two jagged pieces, she declared that she would stop at nothing to find her brother, Knox.  Under the shaded pretense of vowed safety from an unfaithful guardian, he had been stolen away from Penney and placed into the arms of another family that had recognized a hopeless mother's sacrifice in a light that an abandoned sister could not see.  That an abandoned sister could not forgive. 

For six long years, that rage and resentment has festered within a vengeful Penney, who has had no choice but to grow up as an orphan on the dangerous and overrun streets of a ruthless and dark trading city.  With no one but herself to rely on, she has been biding her time to unleash her withheld wrath on the faraway nation of Ravka—strategizing, preparing, waiting for the proper moment to rightfully explode and rain fire on those who have betrayed her.  And now, on the brink of her own doomsday, the time of a sworn reckoning has come, arising up from the malevolent shadows of Kerch's worst.

In the form of three peculiar, mischievous, and stubborn teenagers, opportunity falls into Penney's lap and she will be damned if she lets the chance to be reunited with her brother go.  With the aid from a spy known to the public eye as the Wraith, Penney is pulled headfirst into the heart of Ketterdam and thrust beneath the spotlight of the infamous Crow Club, where she must prove her worth to the Wraith's mission beneath the calculating and prying eyes of sixteen-year-old Kaz Brekker, the supposed Bastard of the Barrel, who did not ever need a reason to unleash absolute terror and pain on those that deserved it.

Born of violence and crafted by bloodshed, in another world Penney and Kaz might have been friends. But that is not a world that they find themselves in. Now, all that might prevail in the catalyst of their fated meeting is an echoing wave of torment; a reminder of what could have been if either's path had curved just the slightest fraction in another direction—in a direction that did not lead to the deepest and darkest depths of one's merciless soul.

In clear fashion, the task of trust and acceptance amongst Kaz and his gang of conniving Dregs will not be an easy ladder to climb, but Penney does not take risks lightly, and she knows that the sacrifices she may be forced to make in the short run would be worth the price in the long run.  She also supposes that if she can get past the barriers of the fearsome Dirtyhands' weary guard, she can get past just about anything—including the massive and looming front doors of the Little Palace, the one place that she has been clambering and fighting to reach for more than half a lonely decade.

After all, how hard can it really be to break a Grisha out of the Little Palace?  Especially one that wants to be freed?

Penney Laucier is about to find out.

Six long years ago, Penney made a very important promise to her brother.  Now, allied with a spy, a sharpshooter, and a thief who have all been wronged in their own ways by the vast, cruel universe, four damaged, dirtied, and deranged souls are eager to watch it crumble at their feet.  In a world where countless memories and precious moments have been stolen from Penney, she refuses to wait for her promised doomsday any longer.

It is time to steal what was once taken from her back. 

❝You were a risk,
a mystery,
and the most
certain thing I'd ever known.❞