For the first twenty years of her life, Shem has been moved from place to place by her father, who wants luxury and safety for his daughter. But everywhere she goes, the magicks of her heritage claim her. They follow her from dark chapels to gilded courts, to the wave-tossed shores of far-off Goa, and it's time for her to choose. Will she be a wytch of magicks loose or magicks bound? How can she choose between breath and blood, flesh and fire? But it is time to choose, because with such forces running through her veins, nobody, not even her father, will be able to stop her from becoming whatever she wants to be.