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}} [[image:Holland Everless.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1408349159?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1408349159]]
Jules and her father live in the kingdom of Sempera. In Sempera, everything is reckoned in terms of time. Wages come in the form of blood-coins, currency taken from actual blood and denominated in weeks, months or even years of life. In Sempera, as you'd imagine, the rich live for a long time and the poor do not. In debt and struggling to afford the rent, Jules decides to ignore her father's warnings and take a job at Everless, an estate belonging to the Gerling family. But Jules's father objects for a reason: there is a royal wedding coming up, between Lord Roan Gerling and a ward of Sempera's queen, and secrets long concealed that, if revealed, would change everything...