Halvorn Keep, snowbound in the mountains, on Candlemas Eve. Edrin Sallow, nineteen, is the keep's candle: a gifted boy raised in a tower and spent one winter at a time, for each spell costs its caster a year of life. By dawn he has given seventeen. At midnight the Margrave wants ten more, and that same night Pia Lark, the laundress's twelve-year-old daughter, will be branded to take his place. A wintry fantasy adventure where warmth is never free.