"Benjamin January is called up to Vicksburg, deep in cotton-plantation country, to help a wounded 'conductor' of the Underground Railroad, the secret network of safe-houses that guide escaping slaves to freedom. When the chief 'conductor' of the 'station' is found murdered, Jubal Cain, the coordinator of the whole Railroad system in Mississippi is accused of the crime. Since Cain can't expose the nature of his involvement in the railroad, January...

When slave owner Simon Fourchet asks Benjamin January to investigate sabotage, arson, and murder on his plantation, January is reluctant to do any favors for the savage man who owned him until he was seven. But he knows too well that plantation justice means that if the true culprit is not found, every slave on Mon Triomphe will suffer. Abandoning his Parisian French for the African patois of the field hand, cutting cane until his bones ache and his...

Cécile is enjoying her older brother Armand's return from France and her growing friendship with Marie-Grace, with whom she volunteers at an orphanage, until the yellow fever epidemic theatening New Orleans strikes her own household.

Now that the yellow fever epidemic is over, the people of New Orleans raise money to care for the orphans, and Cécile seeks to discover something special she can to do help.