The Night Mother saved Julietta when she was but a girl and the Unseelie mistress has watched over the young waif ever since: guiding her, comforting her, keeping her from pain. For the city is pitiless and it is punishing. It consumes all wayward wanderers and devours any unhardened hearts. Julietta knows that she would have died if not for her mistress; yet, her mistress seems at times to be just as cruel as the venal city. When she is rescued from the gutters by a black-swathed servant of the charitable Marquis Bellamy de La Clermont, Julietta's mistress warns her to flee. But the servant offers her sanctuary and the Marquis' reputation precedes him: Bellamy is renowned. Handsome. Altruistic. Gentle. Offered hope like she had never known before, Julietta does the unthinkable; she disobeys her unseen mistress and so embroils herself in a dark new world run by a hedonistic nobility ever at odds with the fervent mutineers who lurk amidst the rabble. Julietta is made a student of lust, loss and loathing, but only with her mistress' guidance can she become a master of dread, desire and despair. There is no other way to make undone the tangled web of secrets that has entrapped her.