Radiant Basket of Rainbow Shells, scholar of curses and magical history, has spent several years on a research expedition abroad in Quruscan, one of the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia. When Radiant's home country of Loasht suddenly revokes his citizenship--and that of his entire ethnic enclave--he soon finds that Quruscan is no longer a safe haven either. He needs someone to help him escape: someone with the sheer cunning to escort him to safety. The perfect candidate is Kalyna Aljosanova: a crafty, mysterious mercenary with an uncanny reputation.

But with the political situation in Loasht far more volatile and dangerous than when Radiant left it, he may never be able to return home to his family. Wielding her signature guile, Kalyna finds Radiant asylum in a utopian community on the border between Loasht and the Tetrarchia, and, for a moment, it seems like they might finally have a safe place to stay. But when the group's charismatic leader grows wary of the refugees flocking over the border to his community--and suspicious of Kalyna in particular--a brief sense of safety begins to unravel. . . .

Kalyna the Cutthroat deftly imagines how the pressures of heroism warps even the most unshakeable of survivors, asking what responsibilities humans have to one another, and whether one good deed--of any magnitude--can absolve you of your past.