Summary

As the novel opens in the Prologue, Kit Rook is going to the Shadow Market where his father has a stall. The Shadow Market is protected from the eyes of the Mundanes – ordinary humans without the gift of Sight who do not know that magic exists. Kit has the Sight and it has taken him years to come to the point that he can see magical people and events without reacting. Kit's father, Johnny Rook, deals mainly in information. Johnny sends Kit to get change as the market is beginning. Kit stops to talk with a witch named Wren who mentions some recent murders that have increased the demand for her protection jewelry. Wren points out two Shadowhunters, a group of people with the Sight who are dedicated to enforcing the rules that keep the magical people – or Downworlders – from harming ordinary people...