Ciel Sarven, 17, is nothing but another girl from the Bowels, her life an endless series of low-end jobs. When a vampire stalks her through the night and leaves her half-dead on the porch of the most powerful magician in town, Jaan Whitestar, Lady Whitestar, personal magician of the Queen, it's the beginning of what could be the adventure of a lifetime.
Lady Jaan is more than a magician, more than just another vampire, more than the finely-bred lady she seems. She is the eyes and ears of the Crown and, with civil war looming on the horizon, the child she has just taken in might make the difference between survival and the end of life as they know it. But her world is one of intrigues and ruthless plotting, a world Ciel isn’t sure she can survive.
Trapped within the Wards, the gigantic bubble that engulfs their city, those two women who should never have met, are dragged into a deadly race against the clock.