49,603 Words
Request Beta CopyYou know what the real crime is? That someone this cute still has to pay her own way through magic school. Mostly by stealing stuff, once or twice. Or a few (hundred) times. But when I accidentally trigger a magic contract that says I now have to pay a lifetime of tuition next week, even this hellhole of a city doesn’t have enough rich idiots–or skeezy loan sharks–to get me out of it. Unless, of course, I sign another contract. By the time the dead body turns up–just hours after I robbed the guy blind–I already owe big favors to just about every suspect, from the victim’s scheming lady-cat boss, to the Gnomish company he stole his ideas from, to a mysterious old healer he met with in secret. Even my childhood crush is mysteriously back in town–either to stalk me (I do look way better as a woman, if I do say so myself), or because she’s secretly neck-deep in this mess just like me. I’ve never had the slightest urge to solve a murder, but if I don’t figure it out fast, I’m in for a fate worse than death… and the whole city won’t be far behind.