The Book of D. A.

Valdrin runs on coal smoke, gaslight, and the general understanding that gods are a myth. Cairon D’Averin picks pockets to eat and has never believed he couldn’t steal anything . He has to worry about — whose street this is, which foreman looks the other way, how to keep a stairwell to himself one more night. He doesn’t know that something below the city has decided it’s done waiting: who has carried the balance of the world’s Powers longer than history remembers has finally set the weight down, and the Arcane has gone looking for someone to carry it. As Cairon claws his way up through Valdrin’s underworld, the marks start showing on more than just him — a merchant with eyes like gold coin, a rival with fire running under his skin that he can’t explain. Cairon only ever wanted the least in the city just to live by. He’s about to inherit considerably more than that. An arcane steampunk epic about the weight nobody asks for, and the boy who ends up carrying it anyway.