Having sold her soul to a demon lord, Kasu works the exchange desk at Camellia House, a high-stakes gambling den in the under-realm. Here, in Ghost City, Kasu keeps her head down, following the strict moral code of the Heavenly Principles in hopes of one day achieving reincarnation. Night after night, she dispenses gambling tiles to customers who surrender their treasures—jewelry, limbs, dreams—which Kasu stores in a ghoulish cabinet for her mistress. Into this regime drops Arun, a brash mortal prince in search of his mother. Desperate to honor her code and spare the foolish young man—as innocent as he is arrogant—a fate worse than death, Kasu enlists her companion “curse” Ruo, a wise-cracking cat with an appetite for eyeballs, and mounts a rescue. As danger and deceit engulf her, Kasu must reexamine her beliefs about the gods she worships . . . and the mortal she was. At once wry and poignant, teeming with masked demons, hungry ghosts, and high atmosphere, this dazzling dark-fantasy adventure draws from the deep well of Chinese mythology while crafting a richly appointed world like no other.
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