Scott Lynch is the author of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies. He lives in Wisconsin and frequently visits Massachusetts, the home of his partner, SF/F writer Elizabeth Bear. He moonlights as a volunteer firefighter.

With what should have been the greatest heist of their career gone spectacularly sour, Locke and his trusted partner, Jean, have barely escaped with their lives. Or at least Jean has. But Locke is slowly succumbing to a deadly poison that no alchemist or physiker can cure. Yet just as the end is near, a mysterious Bondsmage offers Locke an opportunity that will either save him or finish him off once and for all.