A Conflicted Death Mage's Hunt Through 1880s San Francisco's Magically Criminal Underworld

She steals power from the dying. In 1881 San Francisco, that makes her useful—and dangerous.

Mick Kelly, one-handed agent with the Bureau of Magical Investigations, possesses a rare and lethal gift called Gleaning, the ability to absorb supernatural power from dying souls. When her partner is murdered and her young apprentice vanishes into the city's criminal underworld, Mick finds herself suspended and out of options.

Except one. Gold Tooth Mary, crime boss, power broker, offers a bargain: find the Nü Gua Jade, a mythical artifact that every faction in San Francisco would kill to possess, and Mary will find the boy.

It's the kind of deal that makes sense when you're desperate. Mary's the kind of friend who makes sense when you're alone.

Standing between Mick and the Jade are the most dangerous women in the city. A Rusalka who owns every death in the bay. Ah Toy—Chinatown's iron matriarch, who built an empire from the wreckage of everything San Francisco threw at her, and whose real power no one fully understands.

As betrayals stack like bodies at the docks, Mick must decide how far she'll go for a friend, how much she'll sacrifice for a city that never wanted her, and whether the Nü Gua Jade is worth the price everyone seems willing to pay—including her.

The second book in the Mick Kelly series delivers supernatural noir, gaslit intrigue, and a cast of dangerous women who refuse to play by anyone's rules.