Despite Clover's victory over the destructive Seamstress, war continues to rage between the fledgling Unified States and Napoléon Bonaparte. Clover and Nessa, former snake-oil salesgirl, join the Women's Service League expecting to dole out soup and socks to invalids and orphans. Instead, under the direction of the wealthy and mysterious Miss Yamada, they're tasked with rooting out the last of the pestilential Vermin--vicious creatures animated by magic, such as squirrel skins stuffed with nails, who have been terrorizing the countryside. But when the group is attacked by a new kind of monster--a sharp-toothed harehound with bloodshot eyes--they discover a much greater threat lurks: the grotesque Underking and his army of twisted creatures. With the help of a Paper-Doll Witch, an elegantly dressed skeleton, a girl bearing a Quilt with threatening properties, and Susanna the bad-tempered Doll, Clover and Nessa must defeat the Underking before he conquers the whole land. This follow-up to Oddity is a wildly imaginative and engrossing dark fantasy set in an alternate American past.