Isabelle is one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, who cut off their toes in an attempt to fit into the glass slipper; but there is more to her story than a maimed foot, for the Marquis de la Chance is about to offer her a choice and the opportunity to change her fate--there will be blood and danger, but also the possibility of redemption and triumph, and most of all the chance to find her true self.

"Bitsy is no one's ideal princess. She's heard it all: that it's a shame she's so plain, so lacking in grace. That the best thing for her to do is simply wait (and wait some more) and hope some prince will grant her a happy ending. Then Bitsy pricks her finger on a spindle and falls down, down, down. Into a world where cutthroats and con artists are more common than curtsies. Where no one ages and everyone is beautiful. Where an inscrutable evil rests...