In 1889 Paris, hotelier and treasure hunter Séverin Montagnet-Alarie is determined to win back his inheritance. His crew members are Enrique Mercado-Lopez, a Spanish-Filipino historian struggling with his position in society as a mixed-race young man; Zofia Boguska, the Polish and Jewish engineer who processes the world differently than others; Laila, the South Indian dancer with the ability to read the history of objects and who shares a fraught romantic past with Séverin; and Tristan,
the gardener of Séverin's hotel and his adopted brother. In the world of The Gilded Wolves, magic is an art known as Forging and is reputed to stem from the broken fragments of the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible, although other countries and religions have their own explanations for this source of magic. Forging allows people to control and, essentially, create magic depending on whether the artist has an affinity for
mind--mental manipulation, dream implantation, illusions-or matter -which includes solid, gas and liquid.
