oe Hana Mikuta delivers a bloody and unrelenting fantasy about young witches dangling on the edge of love and obsession, of magic and madness, of life and death (and death and death and death). . .
Just like her mother and her mother´s mother, 18-year-old Vanity Adams is destined to lead a lavish life under the patronship of the Museum, someday taking her place as its premiere necromantic Spectacle and the centerpiece of their weekly soirees thrown for the City´s elite.
But until that day, Vanity (and the other young witches of the Museum) is isolated from the outside world and purged of her magic-magic being particularly unstable for teenagers and often leading to antisocial conduct, mood swings, bloodlust, delusions, and, most concerning, a habitual, violent obsession with one another.
To all of this, Vanity thinks: Well, whatever. Better than being confined to the Sanatorium with the less fortunate witches, imprisoned in a chemically induced coma as her blood is harvested to make World, the City´s favorite designer drug. At least she´ll be dead someday, there´s always that. And at least the Museum has Arrogance, Vanity´s twin sister, who just might remember how to do magic, and who just might be where our story begins. . . .