Half-blind and half-trained, Joely Puck has only days to solve a murder.

A sleepy town is thrown into turmoil by the brutal murder of a priestess and a promiscuous minstrel. The town's leaders are corrupt, the imperial Core's local agents are strangely evasive, and a village rife with secrets is ready to explode under the pressure.

Famed inquisitress Cressida Raith is assigned the investigation, and her secret weapon is Joely Puck. Joely stumbled out of a magical gateway to another world with a bloody knife, a missing eye, and no memories. But she gained a magical power as rare as it is dangerous: the ability to sense the truth behind any lie.

Every villager is suspect. Joely's fellow priestesses are treacherous. Each clue draws her deeper into the snare of deception and desire...and her unwanted memories begin to surface.

Joely's in a race to unmask both a murderer and her own past. Losing means she's silenced forever-either by a desperate village's shame or a vicious killer's blade.