Manya (18): Sarcastic, callous and a just generally unpleasant person to be around, Manya is a professional thief and is the best in this unofficial business. She has something of a grudge against people who don’t live in Tiberis’ Undercity. She’ll only tell you her name if she has to or if you live long enough to earn an introduction. People who have the guts (and stupidity) to go and ask her don’t live much longer.

Manya’s skills can’t be bought— if you want her to do something for you, you have to state EXACTLY what it is and why you want it. If you try to hide something or she thinks you’ll try to hide something, you don’t leave the Undercity with her service (or your life, usually). Obviously, blackmail doesn’t work.

Jal (19): Good-looking and easy-going, Jal can’t seem to stop drinking, smoking and stealing. He enjoys all three, though he’ll never admit the third. He seems to be just the right person to soothe and tame Manya’s injured soul, the way lots of water will eventually put out a wildfire, and with just as much steam and smoking.

Jal lived in a village until he turned ten, when they sent him off on a trial for manhood in which he had to survive in Deidreisa’s Undercity for seven days. Jal liked Deidreisa and never bothered to return to his village. This lasted until he was thirteen, when the Guild of Merchants kicked him out for filching some of their merchandise. Jal, of course, was confused and jilted (Jal still doesn’t understand that merchants (and other people) might not want you to take their stuff).So Jal set off wandering, and searching for something to tie him down the way Deidreisa did.

Panteleimon (22): Just as good-looking as Jal, Pan is a renowned mercenary from the Deidreisa Undercity. He and Jal have been traveling together since they met when Jal was twelve, and Pan seems to have taken a liking to the easy-going fighting thief.

Pan’s callous personality hides a friendly nature and a void in his heart left by his father.

Laveda (15): Her name means innocent one, and Laveda lives up to it. Manya kidnaps her in the beginning of the book to use her against Senator Balthazar.

Balthazar, unfortunately, doesn’t care for her very much, and decides that she would be better off dead than as Manya’s pawn, and orders the deaths of Manya, Pan, Jal and Laveda.

And those damned Places you don’t want to go:

Worse, the ‘normal’ people in Tiberis aren’t known for being particularly friendly.

Zaza- Zadana (East): Zadana is the home of flower children (literally, like in Children of the Corn) and it shows in the design. Inside the white metal domes that lend it its futuristic look, Zadana is covered in flowers and beautiful natural things. Zadana is Zen heaven.

Ashleigh Brindle-Argon (North): The cold of the north lends to a warm society and one that gives freely. Its snow domes and fur-wearing populace like fire a lot, but without actually strict and brutal hurting anything. The freaky part is that marriages are arranged by social rank, and the ranking is insanely strict. The Undercity is even worse.

Aron Talib -Deidreisa (West): Renowned for being the darned weirdest city of them all, the inhabitants of Deidreisa are very much in touch with their inner psychos. Well, they’re in touch with their inner merchants, anyway.

Unlike Argon, Deidreisa is all about the money. There are three Guilds: Craftsman, Merchant and Warrior (unlike Tiberis, which has one for each occupation). If the Merchants’ Guild doesn’t like you, you haul your butt out of there, because otherwise you’ll die SOON.

By the way, stay out of the Undercity if you like having all your limbs, pretty boy. The Undercity is basically a haven for crime and murder. Just about every body there wants the people from the Overcity dead as soon as they enter the Undercity.

People who aren’t fast runners or good with a LASGun don’t last long.

He threatens to use a new technology to wipe out this crime-ridden portion of Tiberis. Basically, it’s that anime Sin or whatever.

Manya gets an earful of this information and FLIPS OUT. So she concocts this insane plan to kidnap Balthazar’s daughter and hold her for ransom until Balthazar gets rid of the technology.

An unexpected twist: Balthazar expected this, and hired a bunch of guards and Pan and Jal. Pan and Jal kill the guards and Manya slips in.

Pan and Jal get pissed when Manya slips back out with Laveda, but they’ve been seen and they’re looped in this together, now. And Laveda is REALLY stupid.

An even MORE unexpected twist: not only is Laveda basically a little angel, but Balthazar doesn’t want her back. He orders anyone to shoot her and the mercenaries and Manya on sight.

So now they’re running all over the place, trying to save crime and their own little asses simultaneously.

And that’s it.