Never play games with someone who is a master of them. When Nyx and her friends return to Tenebris Umbra to negotiate with the Keeper of Shadows, Nyx expects to find the Keeper in a poor mood-there's the antagonistic relationship she and Bryn have always had, not to mention the IOU Nyx left in place of the information she was supposed to give the Keeper for resources borrowed. Still, it's nothing she figures can't be smoothed over. What Nyx doesn't expect to find is that in her absence, someone else has been giving Bryn the very information Nyx intended to bargain with. Someone Nyx knows to be neither benevolent nor particularly sane-but who is doing an excellent job of pretending to be both. Trapped in the Keep with her friends-a visiting Kalvar included-Nyx must convince Bryn that her new mentor cannot be trusted. A tall order, when that mentor has done an excellent job of painting Nyx as the untrustworthy one. If she fails, more than her life is at stake.

Treachery and deceit have never come easily to Nyx, but she'll have to fight against-and wield-both if she's to survive this stay in the Shadow Keep.