"In days gone by there were places you could sell a shadow. Their owners never felt the lack, but believe me when I say you never want to hear a shadow scream."The city of Umbra is powered by something far less wholesome than the steam and gas that run through its grimy pipes.When Edmund Tyler is forced to flee his drunken father and sleep outside the slag works he cannot imagine that this will lead to a chance encounter with a disembodied shadow, Charlotte.Together they must thwart the machinations of a mad scientist, reunite the shadow with her body and ultimately save the gloom-shrouded city.