In the rain-soaked underworld of the docklands of Karliah, work is work and scruples are a luxury few can afford. When two seasoned thieves are offered double pay for a quiet break-in at an empty villa, it sounds like the easiest coin they’ll make all season. The client wants a single document. No complications, and they have an advantage:

Darrik carries something he should never have made – a charm fashioned from a severed hand, its eerie candle said to open any lock and still any witness who looks upon its light.

As they move through the darkened house, doors yielding one by one to the corpse-light, it becomes clear that the night will not go as planned, and they discover too late that some tools do not belong to the hand that wields them.

Gutter-level fantasy where magic is dangerous, enigmatic and morally uncertain, and every advantage demands a reckoning.