Ever since Phèdre nó Delaunay was sold into servitude as a child, her path has taken a strange, and often dangerous course. She has lain with princes and pirate kings and battled a wicked temptress still determined to win the crown at any cost. All this time Phèdre has had at her side the devoted swordsman Joscelin, who has never violated the central precept of the angel Cassiel: to protect and serve. Now Phèdre's plans will put his pledge to the ultimate test. For she has never forgotten her childhood friend Hyacinthe, and has spent ten long years searching for the key to free him from his eternal indenture to the Master of Straits. To redeem Hyacinthe, Phèdre and Joscelin embark on a dangerous journey that will carry them to far-off countries where madness reigns, and to confront a power so mighty that none dare speak its name. 'Carey dismantles standard notions of both magic and mortality to produce a long, complex saga worthy of the field's best writer on such a scale, George R. R. Martin' Locus 'One of the best running fantasy sequences at present' Time Out