Velsa is Grau's wife and a free woman--thanks to a lie. And the High Sorcerer's Palace is no place for keeping a secret, with its bustling social life of parties and balls. The beautiful princess with coveted magic, the doll girl heiress, the Peacock General and the blood-sucking gentleman from another realm--are they friends or enemies? Velsa is torn between her old role as a concubine and her place in a strange new world. When she takes in a young telepathic slave, she is inadvertently led to a dark secret and a danger that might tear her and Grau apart forever . . .