After 850 years, you'd think I'd have cleaned this place up. To prevent anything like that ritual from happening again, I've devoted my life to protecting the balance between magical and mundane. After almost a millennium hunting monsters and keeping witches in line, the thrill is gone. My heart's not in it anymore, and my once-flourishing powers have begun to wane. Add in the recent strain of dealing with my ex, a servant of death who happens to be the force binding me to existence, and damn, do I need a vacation. But when a blood mage with familiar ambitions begins gathering tools for a deadly ritual, I can't stand by and do nothing. Not when his success means a bloody history repeating itself. To stop him, I'll need to dust off decades of apathy and appeal to the single surviving ally I haven't driven away, but first I need to access my full power. If I can remember how. It's time for me to pull up my big sorceress panties and remind everyone who's boss.

Immortality has its perks. Dealing with vampires is not one of them. After nine hundred years protecting the balance between magical and mundane, I do my best to avoid squabbles among the fanged variety. They’re overdramatic, dress better than I do, and never have simple problems. My oldest friend included. But when Adrian asks me, his favourite sorceress, to do him a favour and help find a missing vampire queen, what can I do but say yes? Especially when my sort-of protégé has a vision about all the ways the city will go sideways if we don’t get her back on her throne. The missing person’s case quickly devolves into a free-for-all as a horde of rogue human thralls decides I would better serve the vampires dead. Who’s giving them orders? Because it certainly isn’t the queen. Not helping matters is my ex-lover, a servant of Death, who refuses to stay where he’s supposed to: in my past. With the city on the brink of war, the vampire nest on the edge of collapse, and my suitcase at serious risk of running empty before this problem is resolved, I have to put the pieces together before it’s too late. Oh yeah. Adrian owes me big time.

How deep do I need to bury the past to make it stay down? Twice in two months, a witch named Abigail has used my dark history to try to destroy me. For weeks, my team has hunted her, but she’s as skilled at evading us as I am at stuffing my nightmares where I can’t see them. Except she’s not evading us anymore. Now she’s coming straight for us, and I have to be ready. For every blow she strikes, I need to strike back—even if it means turning my feet in a direction I haven’t walked in almost nine hundred years. Emrick and my chosen family stand with me, but I fear they’ll get caught in the crossfire. Especially as secrets are revealed and the truth unravels in ways that make my world tremble. Abigail thinks she can use my past to draw blood. I’ll make her regret every drop.