Following a fierce battle, Grau's life hangs in the balance. Velsa seeks healing and refuge in the land of Laionesse, only to learn that Grau's injuries may be beyond help-unless Velsa and her friends can beg a favor from the great necromancer Dormongara, who lives alone in a castle on a mountain and is notoriously unkind to visitors. Indeed, the steep price he demands will have unexpected consequences, bringing an old nemesis back into Velsa's life along with a notorious gang of bandits. Velsa and Grau must consider how many times they will run from their fate and what tests true love can withstand in this conclusion to the Telepath and the Sorcerer trilogy.
Velsa is Grau's wife and a free woman-thanks to a lie. And the High Sorcerer's Palace is no place for keeping a secret, with its bustling social life of parties and balls. The beautiful princess with coveted magic, the doll girl heiress, the Peacock General and the blood-sucking gentleman from another realm-are they friends or enemies? Velsa is torn between her old role as a concubine and her place in a strange new world. When she takes in a young telepathic slave, she is inadvertently led to a dark secret and a danger that might tear her and Grau apart forever . . .
Born of wood, cloth, and a substantial dose of magic, Velsa is a Fanarlem, a beautiful artificial girl. Raised to be a concubine, she has seen her friends at the House of Perfumed Ribbons sold off to be the pets of wealthy men. Now her own dreaded day has come. Grau Thanneau is a kind and handsome sorcerer who expects to own a spectacular piece of spellwork-he doesn't realize that everything he has been told about Fanarlem is a lie. Velsa is not a dull-witted doll, but an intelligent and luminous soul who captivates his heart. Neither of them expected to fall in love, in a land where the law will never recognize her as his equal . . . When Grau brings Velsa with him as he serves in the border patrol, they encounter odd magic sent from the High Sorcerer's palace-or is it magic at all? War is brewing, and with it, the winds of opportunity. Velsa has powers of her own, powers no Fanarlem girl should have, but when the enemy attacks, she might be the only one who can stand against them.
