It is set in the secondary world of Meduse and tells the story of the adventures of the wizard Felix Harrowgate and his half-brother, former assassin Mildmay the Fox.
Former master, lover and torturer of Felix Harrowgate, on whom he had cast the obligation de sang.
It's theorized that he used the 'binding by blood' to circumvent the protection wards that all wizards of the Mirador have in order to use Felix to break The Virtu and burn the palace (Mélusine, 2005).
Initially considers Felix to be no more than a nutcase, and has a prickly relationship with Mildmay, with whom he can yet work harmoniously when need requires.
Wizard of the Fressandran School from Norvena Magna; practitioner of divination using the Sibylline, cards akin to the Tarot.
He might have been a fairly decent fellow if not for the monomania that consumes him—the desire for revenge against Beaumont Livy, an evil wizard who seduced his fiancée, bringing about her death many years ago.
The last reigning Kings of Marathat, comprising Paul, Matthias, Sebastian, Edmund, Laurence, Charles, Claudius, Jasper, and John, who was killed in a revolution that brought his cousin, Michael Teverius, to power.
The center of power of the Kekropian empire, and home of the Eusebian wizards, rivals and enemies of the Cabalines.
Geographically it lies west of the Kekropian Empire and east of the Coeurterre, and is in constant danger of being subsumed by one or other of its more powerful neighbors.
Its central audience hall-cum-throne room, the Hall of the Chimeras, also houses the Virtu, a magical artifact that concentrates the wizards' power and is the chief safeguard of the city.
A country across the eastern sea, in ancient times the center of an empire that extended to Kekropia.