Troilo Visconti, a poetic doctor from Zurich, travels to the Austrian springs of Bad Ischl to observe a Habsburg archduchess suffering from a case of hysteria. There, on the edge of a lake nestled firmly within the Salzkammergut mountains, he meets Philippa, a tantalizing young woman who bears a striking resemblance to his late wife.

The serpent-infested grounds and wallpapered ruby halls of the Empress' tea house breed desire and secrecy, but the closer he grows to the cunning Philippa, the more Visconti is confronted by the ghost of his memory and the ethics of his treatment. Because he, too, is harboring a secret.

He has waited 500 years to find her again.