The Bastard of Ashfen

In the ash-choked city of Ashfen, gravedigger Porter Shadow splits a skull with his spade and finds something that should not be there: a summons stamped in black wax, bearing the sigil of Madame Seris Vant. Porter cannot read it. He cannot read anything. He is a bastard of unknown blood, raised among the crooked markers of the paupers' cemetery under the watch of Old Mell, the grave-keeper who never explained why the dead in this district are buried twice. When Madame Vant finally comes for him, she brings terrible news. The industrial smoke that chokes the northern quarter is no by-product of forges, it is the breath of something buried beneath the city, a vast and hungry Engine that has been feeding on the harvested souls of Ashfen's forgotten poor. The Proctor-Ghast, an immortal bureaucrat of death, has kept the machine running for generations by buying silence with gold and fear. The price of that bargain is now due, and Porter is the only soul the ledgers cannot account for. Forced from his graves, Porter is joined by Conscript Lira, a fierce one-eyed girl fleeing the conscription rolls; Master Halvern, a disgraced knight seeking redemption; and Ilmara, an archivist who knows too much and is dying of the knowledge. Together they descend into the black archives beneath the city, where Cressida Marchwood, Veylan Marchwood, and Thessaly guard secrets old enough to unmake the Engine, if they can be trusted. Even the Hollow Shade and the Stonewarden construct seem to be watching. Porter must learn to read the names carved on his own bones, confront the Proctor-Ghast's bargain, and choose whether to destroy the Engine, seize it, or become its next architect. Whatever he decides, the harvested souls will finally have an answer, and Ashfen will burn either way.