Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found, from feathered serpents in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics. Facing storms, shipwrecks, and warfare, she makes a discovery that offers a revolutionary new insight into the ancient history of dragons.

Marie Brennan is a former academic with a background in archaeology, anthropology, and folklore, which she now puts to rather cockeyed use in writing fantasy. She is the critically acclaimed author of the Lady Trent series, as well as the Doppelganger and Onyx Court novels, six novellas and more than thirty short stories. She won two Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Grand Prizes.