For centuries of seasons, Warden has served the Pact at Ash House. For any creature of the Twilight Lands who shows up on the doorstep of her House with a need, she stitches wounds, cures poisons, provides safety and rest, assuming the form demanded of her by each of her varied visitors. When a guest arrives whose mind is so locked away that she does not know what form to take, what injuries he has suffered, nor how to help him, it will stretch her skills - and the Pact - to the limit.

Should the Pact be broken, it could be the end of the Twilight itself.

"There is such ferocity in [this book's] desire for the safety and well-being of its characters, such passionate fury at the cruelties of a world that inflicts harm on the poor, the weak, the low of status, and such profound acknowledgement of pain, that every flicker of light, every new growth, every step towards freedom, is an enormous victory against the powers that seek to break us."

- C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death's Daughter