Six years ago Abigail Grey escaped from brutal captivity, along with eight other teenage girls, at the hands of Baron Alistair Rigby of Highgate, a man who knew well how to guard himself with the secrets he collected on the wealthy and powerful in the Sanctum. In the years since her escape she's lived a life of quiet retreat with Oliver Grey, the doctor who counseled her after the traumatic events of Rigby's farm and who later adopted her as his daughter. Though still haunted by memories of the farm, Abigail manages to carve out a simple life for herself in the countryside. All this changes when Abigail is informed that Doctor Grey has been murdered while in the city on business. Due to his social standing in the Sanctum, Abigail finds herself invited by the Queen herself to come to the Capital City, the beating cosmopolitan heart of this closed matriarchal society. Now, despite her own fears and social doubts, Abigail sets out with determination to find her father's killer. It's a perilous journey that will take her right into the turning cogs of the Sanctum's most powerful and dangerous political circles. It is a world filled with shifting allegiances and deadly secrets, where legalized assassination serves as a replacement for open war between the Ladies who lead the royal houses of the Sanctum. The closer Abigail comes to tracking down her father's killer the clearer it becomes that someone is pursuing her as well. As she races against the clock, coming face to face with her own worst fears and nightmares, one question continues to haunt Abigail, Is she the hunter...or the prey?

The brutal murder of a Baron in the provinces punctuates the bitter rivalry between two royal houses. While this kind of small-scale conflict isn't uncommon amongst the male-driven rural estates, the fact that one of the Lords is an Islander (Black) while the other is a Continental (White) adds a racial dimension which concerns the Queen and the Royal Congress of Ladies who represent these houses in the Capital City. Intendant Jacob Guimard is dispatched to the countryside to investigate the Baron's murder. As an officer of the Judiciary, one of the few positions of power still available to men in the Sanctum, he is sworn to celibacy and well-versed in the forensic arts, literally. Basing all their criminal and martial training in the humanities, the Judiciary actually trains its officers to analyze crime scenes like paintings and to read people like books. Even after Guimard's arrival the death toll continues to rise. Just as disturbingly, his young partner, Adjutant Eli Brook, begins a perilous fall into a forbidden romance with a young Lady-in-training. Matters spin out of control and Guimard is greatly troubled to learn that his assignment to the case may have been no accident. As he uncovers more and more disturbing details, he also learns what a vital role he himself plays in this recent turmoil and how little in this rural province is what it appears to be...