When tyrants come, fools surrender their books. Reading is outlawed, the people too indoctrinated to care. The populace is held in slavery by a drug called Bliss. Self-taught to read, Quillion, a sell-sword, and Kikkan, a former slave, seek power from ancient forbidden texts. In Edentown, a fortress of tyranny where the literate are put to death, is a keeper of ancient secrets, power hidden in the written word, with knowledge to spark a rebellion. Does the literate thief still live?