Mélusine, Sarah Monette
The book is told through the dual POVs of the wizard Felix Harrowgate and the thief Mildmay. They are connected but it’s only until late in the book that the reader finds out the nature of the connection.
Felix is hiding from his past. He was once a child thief himself as well as an unwilling prostitute. The man who bought him and taught him to pass as upper-class now has returned and uses Felix as a conduit to destroy the Virtu, which is the center and symbol for the organized, official magic of the city of Mélusine. Felix is sent into madness by this and is unable to tell anyone that he did not intentionally destroy the Virtu.
At the same time, Mildmay has interesting problems of his own. He is hired by a young woman to steal back gifts that her upper-class lover took from her. He does the job but gets involved with her in more ways than one. When they try to sell the jewelry they get mixed up in another magic working that goes wrong, causing their lives to spiral out of control.
This ends when a foreign wizard hires Mildmay to break Felix out of the insane asylum–but Felix is no longer there. Soon, they’re all on the run and looking for something that will save them both.
This book is obviously the first in a series. (The Virtu is already out, and The Mirador is to be released in August 2007.) There are too many loose ends. Why was the Virtu destroyed? There are some answers to things, but not enough. There are characters with unknown fates.
The main theme of this book that I can discuss without spoiling is the issue of class. Felix and Mildmay come from similar backgrounds, with opposite conclusions Felix is afraid of anyone knowing of his low-class origins. Mildmay is the one person to whom that background doesn’t matter.