Bolivian Argentinian Inex Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old-world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgottn. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns for the most: her globetrotting parents, who frequently leave her behind.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse.