Zinda is a city of spiraling marble towers and turrets, of universities and guildhalls, and of specialty shops lining paved streets. Far below the balconies, the Court of Flowers and the pier ring with the merry laughter and the songs of laborers. Year round, Zinda’s plazas and parlors are full of academics, merchants, and pilgrims. But for ten days in the summer, the March of Vice draws even larger crowds as the city celebrates the local wine trade—specifically, the jeli wine that has made Zinda the wealthiest city in the land. Zindanese citizens garb themselves in brightly colored costumes and feathered headdresses and indulge in feasting, song, and dance. After its recent years of prosperity, a cloud has settled over the city. Political dissidents are rumored to disappear from their beds as the Silent Verse, the enforcers of the ruling Kings of Coin, stalk the streets. The newest member of the Kings of Coin, Madame Samira Arah, grows restless with ambition and regularly hires mercenaries and spies to investigate her rivals’ secrets. The Bloodletters laborers’ union opposes the leadership of the aristocracy at every turn. And beneath it all, the dire secret on which Zinda’s prosperity was built waits to be exposed.