Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage, a calling for which it seems he is ideally suited. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies. . . and assassins. Kane discovers the Thieves War spiralling out of control as tit-for-tat killings increase in frequency and savagery, while he has to balance his allegiance to the guild with the raw power he gains from becoming a fully fledged Shadowmage.