From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo comes a spellbinding novel set in the Spanish Golden Age. In a shabby house on a shabby street in the new capital of Madrid Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the familys social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Perez the disgraced secretary to Spains king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against Englands heretic queen--and Perez will stop at nothing to regain the kings favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists holy men and hucksters where the lines between magic science and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisitions wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive--even if that means enlisting the help of Guillen Santangel an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
