Seventeen-year-old Oregon teenager Kelsey forms a bond with a circus tiger who's actually one of two brothers, Indian princes Ren and Kishan, who were cursed to live as tigers for eternity, and she travels with him to India where the tiger's curse may be broken once and for all.

The Ibis, loaded to its gunwales with a cargo of indentured servants, is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for survival are Neel-convicted of embezzlement; Paulette masquerading as a deck hand; and Deeti a widow fleeing with her lover Kalua. The storm also threatens the clipper ship Anahita, which is carrying the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India for Canton. And the Redruth, a nursery ship, carrying...