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. . . .