Annika has never had a birthday. Instead, she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants' quarters, surrounded with friends, including the elderly woman next door who regales Annika with stories of her performing days and her countless admirers – especially the Russian count who gave her the legendary emerald, the Star of Kazan.

And yet, Annika still dreams of finding her true mother. But when a glamorous stranger arrives claiming to be Annika's mother and whisks her away to a crumbling, spooky castle, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in her newfound home...