In a sprawling city where gas lamps burn with the discarded thoughts of the poor, the mind is the ultimate currency. Elena Parker is the best memory thief in the lower districts. Armed with a brass extraction siphon and a dangerously empty space in her own head, she steals the precious pasts of the corrupt elite to sell on the black market. But memory extraction is a perilous trade. When a routine job siphoning a pure, sunlit memory from the mind of a ruthless shipping magnate nearly turns disastrous, Elena barely escapes with the crystallized memory-and her sanity-intact. Fleeing into the coal-choked night, she must evade the elite Wardens of the Grand Archivist, who sweep the cobblestone streets with violet, thought-detecting lanterns. Step into a thrilling world where human history is commodified and every stolen emotion carries a dangerous price.