Writing

Thirteen-year-old Aren is a thief. An excellent one, but he only takes what he needs. Promise. The other orphans he calls family rely on what he steals for food. But with the Disruptors’ granary attacks, even Aren’s schemes can’t keep up with the cost of stale bread.

When the youngest orphans are threatened with work in the mines, Aren targets Theodore Varren, a wealthy noble with magic. The lift goes awry, and Aren discovers he’s been unknowingly using magic to teach objects to do what he needs. Required by law to train, he accepts Varren’s offer to become his ward and enrolls at the House of Caeris, where wizards build impossible inventions. His plan is simple. Become a wizard, get rich, save his brothers and sisters from hunger. He doesn’t expect to find a new family along the way.

The threat of the Disruptors has reached Caeris, too. Rumor has it they’re searching for ancient knowledge with the power to devastate cities, and Aren fears what this could mean for his family back home. When a manuscript is stolen from a secret archive, Aren’s skills as a thief put him hot on the trail, and now Aren must decide whom to trust with what he’s discovered. The new family he’s grown to love may also be implicated in the very dangers that threaten his old one.