A young woman confronts her own dark desires, and finds her match in a masked conjurer turned assassin. Inspired by Gaston LeRoux's The Phantom of the Opera, Marion Grace Woolley takes us on forbidden adventures through a time that has been written out of history books.
"Those days are buried beneath the mists of time. I was the first, you see. The very first daughter. There would be many like me to come. Svelte little figures, each with saffron skin and wide, dark eyes. Every one possessing a voice like honey, able to twist the santur strings of our father's heart."
It begins with a rumour, an exciting whisper. Anything to break the tedium of the harem for the Shah's eldest daughter. People speak of a man with a face so vile it would make a hangman faint, but a voice as sweet as an angel's kiss. A master of illusion and stealth. A masked performer, known only as Vachon. For once, the truth will outshine the tales.
On her birthday, the Shah gifts his eldest daughter Afsar a circus. With the circus comes a man who will change everything.