The lives of four characters, including cemetery thief Cade Curtis, a runaway slave, and an illegally captured ocelot, flow together across time through their connections to the Houston bayou and an angel carved from Georgia marble.

After her cousin Matyas' blood breaks the Binding, effectively disarming the spell restricting magic to the elite Luminates, Anna Arden believes that the magical, inhuman Praetheria will be safe, Hungary will be independent of Hapsburg rule, and she can freely love the Romani Gábor, but instead by May 1848, Anna feels pressure to lend her support to opposing political factions, attempts to master her chimera nature, and ends up seeking the aid of...