Foundryside (2018)

Scriving turns written instructions into manufactured power, and the merchant houses that control it have made an industry of controlling everyone else. Sancia's theft brings her into the machinery behind that arrangement. The magic is especially appealing when you want to see inventions tested, revised and exploited, with access to tools carrying social consequences. A tense, violent choice about who owns productive knowledge, opening the Founders trilogy rather than offering a cosy workshop escape.