"Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known. Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So...

Keralie is the best pickpocket in all of the kingdoms of Quadara, but when she steals a "comm disk" and realizes a royal murder plot is afoot, she must learn who to trust and fast. Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but she's, in fact, one of Quadara's most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara's most enlightened region, Eonia. He runs afoul of Keralie when she steals...

Pip lives by his wits in the city of Clarel. But when he picks the wrong pocket, Pip finds himself in possession of a strange dried heart in a silver casket--and those who lost it will stop at nothing to get it back. With assassins on his trail and the ominous heart beginning to whisper to him, Pip and his childlike older sister El are drawn deeper into the forbidden world of magic. Now they must seek the help of the secret witches of Clarel and Princess...

Petty crook Skip McCoy has his eye set on the big score. When the three-time convict picks the pocketbook of unsuspecting Candy, he finds a haul bigger than he ever could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. secrets. Tailed by the Feds and the unwitting courier's Communist puppeteers, Skip and Candy find themselves in a precarious gambit that pits greed against redemption.

This gripping tale of Charles Dickens' classic remains faithful to the spirit of the novel while delivering a modern, thrilling, tragic, and occasionally comic edge.