The Ember Cartographer
Maren Thistle makes maps of places no one wants remembered. In the rain-hammered Lowtide Quarter, where alleys run black with gutter-water and the city's debts are settled in ash, she is the only cartographer willing to chart the drowned streets of Gloomhall. When the Ember Map, the only record of a city that burns from within anyone who tries to hold it, goes up in flames in the shop of Old Vellum, the chandler, Maren is left with nothing but a satchel of cinder and a warning she cannot afford to heed. Hireo Vant, a watchman with his own interest in the map, is already on her trail. Pint, a sharp-tongued thief who knows every gutter and rooftop in the Quarter, offers help at a price Maren cannot yet calculate. Daro Quill, a scholar who once loved her, may hold the key to what the map was trying to say, if he will speak. And Rook Ashenmere, who has worn the title of Cinderheart before, is watching from the smoke. Each clue Maren follows pulls her deeper into Gloomhall's flooded ruins, closer to the Cinderheart's secret, and nearer to the gutterkin who remember what she has chosen to forget. To finish the map, she will have to trade with thieves, outrun the watch, and stand before a fire that has been waiting for her. The question is no longer whether the city will burn, but who will be left holding the last ember when it does.