During the nights between Christmas and New Year's, the witches of New York--Adelaide Thom, Eleanor St. Clair and the youngest, Beatrice Dunn--gather before the fire to tell ghost stories and perform traditional Yuletide divinations. (Did you know that roasting chestnuts were once used to foretell one's fate?) As the witches seek their fortunes, a series of odd messages arrive, with the strangest of them landing on their doorstep on New Year's Eve. A young waif has brought them a mysterious woman, who informs the witches that she has come in search of Mr. Palsham, a man they had hoped was in their past. Even Eleanor's beloved familiar, the raven Perdu, is disturbed by the mention of his name. And so, as Gilded-Age New York prepares to ring in the New Year, the witches find themselves on the hunt for a dangerous man, a man who might be more than human, a man who might well be the end of them.