For sixteen years, Minerva Trevi?o has stayed alive in a city torn by political violence and a home more ready to beat her than to feed her by keeping her head down.
Hunger and desperation finally push her to run and take a place as lady's maid to Encarnación del Valle, a wealthy widow loyal to the deposed viceroy.
Regular meals and the shelter of a warm house lit by magical chispa leave Minerva little reason to ask who governs the country or how her employer pays for that magic.
When the viceroy returns to power, she withdraws with her gleeful mistress to the family's mountainside stronghold, la Casa de las Gardenias, to wait out the slaughter of the rebels.
Haughty servants and the cruel, scheming del Valles soon make the post perilous.
The living, though, are not the estate's oldest or most bloodthirsty danger.
