Orphan Rossamund Bookchild has been sworn into the Emperor's service - his duty is to light the lamps along the Emperor's highways and protect travelers from the ferocious bogles that live in the wild. But he's found it no easier to fit in with the lamplighters than he did with the foundlings - always too small and too meek - and his loneliness continues no matter how hard he tries to succeed.

But when a haughty young girl, a member of a suspiciously regarded society of all-women teratologists - monster hunters - is forced upon the lamplighters for training, Rossamund is no longer the most despised soul around. As Rossamund begins to make new friends in the dangerous world of the Half-Continent, he also seems to make more enemies, finding himself pushed toward a destiny that he could never have imagined.