Sara and Nicolas search for an alchemical cure for a gravely ill friend threatened by an old enemy and a bloodthirsty horseman, while Prince Max tries to explain the strange reappearance of a saint while outmaneuvering a scheming historian.

In the wild and action packed sequel to 'City of Dark Magic', musicologist Sarah Weston is in Vienna, racing to find a cure for her gravely ill friend Pollina, a blind music prodigy with an eerie sixth sense. Nico, the four-hundred-year-old dwarf, and the irresistible Prince Max are also back, investigating leads of their own in Prague and London. Nothing is as it seems in the mesmerizing city where Beethoven, Mozart and Freud all made their home, and Sarah soon finds herself ensnared in a fatal web of intrigue involving long-dead alchemists, a goth biologist, a purloined cloak, and a distractingly attractive horseman. But the most frightening of all is the vindictive villian obsessed with bending time itself-and who will let nothing stand in her way. Now, to save the people she holds dearest, Sarah must venture deep into an ancient mystery and face her greatest fears. - back of book