The Shadow Ledger of Maren Quill

About this book

In Greymere, shadows are property. Banks lend against them, factories rent them, and anyone who lacks one is untrustworthy by law. Thirteen-year-old Maren Quill apprentices at her aunt's brokerage, appraising and filing the silhouettes of the recently dead before they dissolve on the ninth day. She is precise, sharp-tongued, and missing three months of memory since the warehouse fire that killed her mother. She also has no shadow, and no record of ever selling it. When six filed silhouettes vanish from the Quill ledger, all sold to the same nameless company, Maren starts pulling threads her aunt would rather she left alone. Across the water, Inspector Davan Orlis fishes a drowned lockkeeper out of the canal and finds him breathing, obedient, and buried three weeks ago. One of them is lying about what happened that winter. Maren isn't certain it isn't her.