Years after swallowing a kraken bone fragment and then witnessing the killing of his magician father, Daniel endures a life of thievery until his crime-boss uncle compels him to steal his father's sword and fight a corrupt regime.

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand by his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles, his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian's sword, an object of untold power.