​​Magic has been franchised. Magical conveniences are sold everywhere like designer coffee. Everyday life is filled with technical and magical wonders. Only, the magic is murdering people. Thoth Corp's hot new spell is turning people into ravening monsters. Their only hope to quietly rectify the situation before the epidemic spreads is the spell architect they framed and sent to prison. Eli’s response to his former partners wasn't polite. Homeless, forbidden government-regulated magic and barely surviving out of dumpsters, Eli struggles to rebuild his life. Fairytale rats thought long extinct with the rest of the fey rescue Eli from murderous vigilantes but at a cost. They force him to save fairy matrons stolen away by Thoth's monsters, thrusting Eli between his old company and a shadow war waged against humanity. To stop the war, cure Thoth's victims and rescue the city, Eli need only find some way to make magic out of trash.

​Two weeks of freedom hasn’t been enough for Eli to rebuild his life. While he races to prepare for looming winter, a killer’s crusade to exterminate Seufert Fells’s homeless drives a knife into the city’s criminal elite. Forced to hunt a killer disguised by magic, Eli’s world becomes a house of mirrors. Friends become enemies. Deceptions abound, and the magic that saved Eli threatens to consume him. ​With the serial killer targeting everything ​he ​loves, even new dumpstermancer ​ spells might not be enough. Eli may have to protect his worst enemy to defeat a killing machine with a thousand faces.