Murder, mystery, magic, and treachery—to live a merchant's life means trafficking with demons, within and without.

Curio peddler Van Edwin of Vanguard Acquisitions is finally on the road home to his beloved city, Burg, after a close call with an evil ghost and its army of ghoulish gnolls.

But out of the line of wand fire and into the frigid northland, more than the welcoming faces of his wife and children await him. Sickness and fay-worshipping Neverlander cultists threaten his family with death and internal strife…that is, unless Van bargains his morals for his son's and daughter's lives.

Can Sealand's most noble merchant deal with a djinn and win with his soul intact?

"Listen close, oh son of man, and take what I tell thee to heart. For I am the spirit who tickleth fate, whose music tempteth, whose fiddlestick slayeth the shadows of gravity, limitation, constraint. I am the wish, the ambition, the fires that animate! Dancer of the Deep Wood! Primordial flame!”