Tibs survived by picking pockets; until he's caught. Instead of losing a hand, he's sent away and told he must now survive a dungeon. How is a kid who knew nothing more than his street supposed to survive a dungeon that changes each time he goes in it? Being sent into an ever-growing dungeon becomes his life, facing ever-changing threats to him and the people he tries so hard not to become attached to. He'd like to run away, but where the dungeon means he might die, the guards have made it clear trying to run will ensure he does. But his street taught Tibs to get back up after he's beaten down. So he isn't going to just give up. And maybe, just maybe, if he's tough enough to take a chance on people, and on a deal for power he's advised against taking, Tibs can not only survive, but beat those who seem to stack the odds against him.

The Umbrae Lunae existed before man, beautiful abominations birthed in the nightmares of mad gods. They wait for humanity to misstep, for the angels to look away. For the moment when they can cloak the world in moon shadows once again. But even horrors have children. Even nightmares must feed. One child, unlike the others, finds his way to a school for young abominations. Will he be a sheep cast before the wolves, or a terror that wears the skin of wool to entice the wolf close? The flesh of his body was his only coin, strips cut to pay debts that never ended. Everyone has scars, stories in a life led, lessons learned, and licks taken. Luminous bodies touched by darkness. There are a cursed few that are the opposite, black shadows consumed by scars, twisted minds devoured by diseased hungers, bodies tortured misshapen works of gouged flesh, silver lines of blade thin cuts, ragged tears of teeth and glass. For them, the scars are marks of homecoming, the mangled wasteland the only place they feel at peace. Hell is a place. It's made of concrete, steel and glass. It's the sounds of starving kids crying themselves to sleep, huddling into small balls as creepers come and take their due of innocence and tender meat. It's eating rotten food and carrying ticks in your hair. It's having no one and nothing while surrounded by everything. It's the life of a street kid. What abomination was birthed in the corrupt womb of man's cast-off shit? Pretty people don't know the power of ugly. They can't see the strength in a broken soul or the power in a calloused heart. Those secrets are for the discarded alone. Only the broken understand the grace of darkness. The blessed folds that hide scars and tears, the protection of its concealing umbra.