Port Astor is a city of secrets. Once home to the Hollow Queen and her court, the fae have been driven out by industrialists and religious leaders. But just below the surface, their legacy remains in traceries of hidden roads, strange apparitions and spectral hauntings.
Brix and Bellefeather are paranormal investigators, clearing out Port Astor's ghosts and devouring its demons. Both have their own secrets: Bellefeather shares her body with a demon, Belezial; Brix has trapped the ghost of his fiancée in the world of the living, unwilling to let her go.
When Brix is asked to investigate an apparent haunting at the prestigious Peony Hotel, he comes across a young couple tangled up in one of the city's most infamous stories. They have summoned the ghost of Jimmy Valentine, tragic movie star and supposed favorite of the Hollow Queen herself. Meanwhile, Bellefeather is called back to her childhood home by her estranged sister, whose preacher husband Clarence has gotten a young woman from his congregation pregnant. But when Bellefeather arrives, she realizes whatever has taken over Clarence and his 'flock' is more sinister than faith, and Ava's is no normal pregnancy.
The fae have not forgotten that Port Astor once belonged to them. And the Hollow Queen won't give up her kingdom so easily.