The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup. ΓÇ£Wonderfully clever and compulsively readable . . . another winning blend of fantasy and classic detection.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöPublishers Weekly In the canton of Yarrowdale,at the very edge of the EmpireΓÇÖs reacha Treasury officer has disappeared into thin airΓÇövanishing from a room within a heavily guarded towerits door and windows locked from the inside. To solve the casethe Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial detectivethe great Ana Dolabra. At her sideas alwaysis her bemused assistant Dinios Kol. Ana soon discovers that they are investigating not a disappearance but a murderΓÇöand one of surpassing cunningcarried out by an opponent who can pass through warded doors like a ghost. Worse stillthe killer may be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroudwhere the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fallthe Empire itself will grind to a haltrobbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn. Din has seen his superior solve impossible cases before. But as the death toll grows and their quarry predicts each of AnaΓÇÖs moves with uncanny foresighthe fears that she has at last met an enemy she canΓÇÖt defeat.