Devon just shot her ex-boyfriend, and she really wishes she hadn't. As a goblinkin, revenge is in her blood. A mixture of order and chaos, human and animal, goblinkin see violence as an everyday fact of life, but Devon is different. It's been a long time since she acknowledged her goblin side in any way other than the magical dance that is part of her heritage. Now that she's let her chaotic side out, she feels damned in more ways than one. True, she shot Mark in self-defense, but that doesn't make him any less dead.

  Now she must run for Signal, the city which stands between the human world and the hidden goblin wilderness. It's is the last place she wants to go. Devon's never desired to be the center of attention, but in a city with few women, she becomes just that. The men covet Devon's human attributes both for their own sake and for the human-looking children she could produce. It's a web of dating politics she doesn't want to get tangled in.

  Working as a handywoman in her uncle's bar, the only bright spots in Devon's situation are the bar's other denizens. A two-foot tall talking rat, a porcine bartender, a little orange man in an apron and her gigantic, tusked uncle keep Devon from loneliness. The bar's bouncers keep her safe. The more time she spends with them, the more she comes to like and admire the tavern dwellers. Against her better judgment, she begins to have feelings for one in particular.

  When the bar is attacked, Devon suspects that she is the target. Her investigation to find out the identity of her attacker, leads Devon and her friends down paths they didn't dream of: beyond the walls of Signal into the goblin wilderness; through life-threatening spells and torture; to the human world; and into a legendary force that devours everything in its path.