The city-state of Theumas is a gleaming metropolis of advanced technology and innovation where the use of automatons is commonplace and modern medicine is seemingly developing at a rapid rate. However, alongside the opulent wealth and industrialists exists another Theumas of impoverished boroughs, black market trading, and violent crime. In this indigent part of the city, 18-year-old Nhika scrapes a living under the radar as a homeopathic healer, called upon in secret when even Theumas' highly advanced medicine fails to cure the ill and dying.

But Nhika's on-the-surface talent for homeopathic remedies is a disguise for her true ability. For she is what is known in Theumas as a bloodcarver: a magical being who can alter human biology with just a touch, for good or bad; someone who can heal the sick or wound fatally if they so wish. Bloodcarvers are not native to Theumas. They are ...