MallenIve is a city of monstrous extremes, where the magical Great Houses live in luxury and play a treacherous game of politics, while the Hobs and vampire clans struggle to survive. It's here that Felicita Pelim has run, leaving behind House Pelim, her family and her birthplace. By breaking propriety and arranging a marriage of convenience to Jannik, a free House vampire, she has been made a pariah.

Felicita's only allies in MallenIve are two social outcasts who hate her for reasons she cannot fully understand, and Jannik, the one person she can trust, is withdrawing more with every passing day.

It's not long before the city's prejudices start seeping into her life and Felicita finds herself slipping back into old patterns. When a slave vampire is killed, she is shocked out of her complacency. Felicita tries to bring his murderers to justice only to expose a festering secret at the heart of the MallenIve Great Houses. And going up against the House Lords and their magic will cost her everything she has left.