In an alternate steamfunk Haiti, at the height of General Toussaint's revolution, two lovers separated by class and a young woman whose love is forbidden, are thrust into war, sorcery and a quest for liberation on their own terms. . .

On the island of Saint-Domingue, in the dead of night, thousands of slaves crept silently along the path through the trees and wiry brush to Bois Caïman. In the clearing the Houngan Dutty Boukman, a huge, self-educated slave with a fierce countenance, and Mambo Cecile Fatiman, a mulatto slave woman, waited to led them in ceremony.

They petitioned the Loa for protection, for deliverance from slavery’s lash—calling upon the darkest spirits. . .