The Banished King's plans for widespread insurrection and destruction are nearing fruition. Victor and Calixte, on the cusp of finding the miraculous Aurora Spring, have reached a dead end. And Basile appears to have abandoned his family in favor of the enemy camp. With the walls closing in on her and no allies apart from the Francoeur children and her trusted valet, will Aristophania be able to use her powers-and her instincts-to save the Kingdom of Azur?

After Rose Prairie leaves him, Jonas Crow sinks deep into a hole. That's when he's brought on for a special assignment by Sid Beauchamp, a friend in misfortune from his youth and now the sheriff of Tucson: to recover the corpse of Caleb Barclay, enslaved and tortured by the Indians. But things get complicated when it turns out that Caleb wasn't a slave at all, but had married into the Apache tribe, and he was killed by none other than Sid himself. With Sid and his well-heeled bride-to-be at the helm, Tucson seems on the verge of great things... But as a blizzard hits, so do Jonas and Caleb's widow, the fierce Salvaje, and bullets and vengeance storm the winter skies of the Arizona desert.