Even the strongest of vampires has a breaking point: for Marcelle, it was being tortured by a witch in New York and trying to return to her regular existence as if nothing had happened. She has too much to do to allow herself to focus on something as trivial as trauma. Occult hunters accost her witch allies; an aggravating pyromancer needles a fiery thorn in her side; and the coronation of one of her lovers, the vampire crown prince of New Ulster, Setanta, has her full attention. Not only that, but her newest lover, the necromancer and healing witch Sarai, has trials of her own to face and a reckoning to come with her formal introduction to the vampire royal court at the Midnight Festival. Marcelle and her lovers must face the demons of the past and future, or she may lose the new love desperately needs.