Mouths of Harrowgate

Harrowgate runs on bottled virtues. Strength is weighed, Courage pressed into lozenges, Luck blown into glass-and the Priests tax every swallow. Mara (a broken-shouldered ex-lion-bearer) and Sevrin (a nearly-brilliant scribe with a lake-cold mind) are done kneeling to arithmetic that keeps them small. With a contraband "mouth-spell," they turn other people's attributes into meat, eat what they need, and pour the excess back into the city's drains. The drains keep the secret. Mostly.

What begins as correction becomes appetite. Black tables, owl pits, and love hotels give way to culverts where lost virtues accumulate and wake. Monsters don't tithe; they accrue. Mara and Sevrin make a living unmaking both.

Assassins, hedge-witches, chain gangs, and a municipal horror called the keeper force the pair to choose between mercy and math. Doors answer when Mara knocks. Ledgers hush when Sevrin says "Enough." In a city that counts saints and monsters on the same page, can two thieves of grace stay human while teaching the numbers to bend?