When it comes to family, you're rich... and I'm dirt poor." Amid the intoxicating chaos of Winter Festival, attendant Dilly and Hedge Mage Fitch cross paths. After surviving Rin's wretched streets, Dilly aims to prove herself to Lady Elenia, who brought her back to Lac's Holding and blessed her with a new life of comfort and luxury. Fitch seeks vengeance for a loved one, killed by a liquor that makes one vulnerable to suggestion. But their separate goals are derailed when Dilly discovers Elenia's secret lover is the head of a too-ambitious kinship, and Fitch finds his own smuggler-family pressuring him into using his unique nudging abilities for mutinous deeds. When murmurs of treason break out in Lac's Holding, it becomes clear that only Dilly and Fitch know the truth. The question is how they can save the city when those they're loyal to stand in their way.
