Fifteen-year-old Arinda has never made a friend, or worn a pretty dress, or performed a spell in school like all the other girls her age. She has no idea how extraordinary she really is, just that she has a different kind of magic; different in a bad way. What Arinda does know is that she must never reveal this difference to anyone lest the King find out about her and send her away to a secretive society called the Circle of Mages, where she would be magically bound to and enslaved by one of these monstrous mages forever. When Arinda and her snotty older sister, Amaris, are sent away to school, Arinda is alarmed by the amount of interest the Headmaster Jahx Rife shows in her, terrified that he might find out about her dire secret. However, what she doesn't know is that the Headmaster is, himself, a secret member of the Circle of Mages, and she has bigger problems than whether or not the King finds out about her. Then Arinda's world is turned upside down when her own magic betrays her during a fierce argument with Amaris. Now Arinda must face the very people she has feared her whole life, and call upon powers she has been too afraid to explore in order to endure in a society she has been taught to dread.