Slavers have come to Crowns Peak. For Creeper, a street urchin living rough in the slums, that fact is just one more in a long list of everyday realities she has to deal with. But what if there were a better place for her, a place where she might be safe? Safe from the coming winter, from the older littles who bully her, from the king's guards who want to take her, and perhaps even from the slavers. Creeper might just have found such a place... within the palace walls, surrounded by the very guards she has been taught to fear. But better in here than out there. Or is it? Secrets swirl within those walls, and old hatreds bubble close to the surface. Creeper will have to navigate very carefully if she is to remain safe, remain welcome. Outside the walls, however, the littles from Creeper's old life are being snatched up one by one...