For five and a half centuries, the Seven watched the sleeping demon. For five and a half hundred years, the monster bound by chains of an unbreakable Covenant guarded the clean water and peace of the city of Basel. But today everything will change. The water will turn to poison, a knife will glitter in the half-dark, and the crimson gaze of the avenger will flare beneath a carnival mask. Death has set off on her last dance—she dozed for five hundred years. The Snake King. Welcome his Majesty!