Becoming a mage-for-hire hasn't quite turned out the way Nik Thorn hoped.

Sometimes you just have to take whatever job is on offer, whether it's a missing pet, a curse to break, or tracking down a cheating husband. And sometimes it turns out to be something else altogether.

And if theft, murder, and blackmail aren't enough, there's a high mage involved.

This is not what Nik signed up for.

Meet Nik Thorn for the first time in this prequel to Shadow of a Dead God.