Even the greatest of symphonies begin with the simplest of notes.Cast out of the Great Library and the future it promised, Asaege scratches out a meager living among the city's other castaways. On the streets of the Ash, life is cheap because those that dwell there have no coin to spare. She pursues the only thing of value she can knowledge.It is that knowledge that brings her back to the scene of her greatest disgrace, the Great Library itself. Within its stacks, a chance meeting propels Asaege down a road she couldn't have imagined with a companion she wouldn't have chosen.Famed thief and scoundrel, Hollis the Slender, finds himself in the right place at the wrong time. Framed for a crime they didn't commit and marked for death by the city's elite, Hollis and Asaege must expose the truth before the ever-tightening noose of paranoia and suspicion closes around their necks.