Where there's smoke, there may be fire...

Cici Connolly knows all about magic. How delicate spells were constructed. How enchantment, applied properly, could move worlds.

How magic was lost forever twenty-five years ago.

Born into a compound of refugees from Faerie and the Arcanum, Cici grew up under far too many watchful eyes in the Alaskan wilderness. Now, she longs for her freedom?at least a few years in the wider world. She wants to explore distant lands and play on tropical beaches with her friends by her side. And whether their overprotective parents approve or not, she and her longtime boyfriend, Gawain, want to make their relationship official.

But then the strange smoke-like mist arrives one morning?whisps of dark magic drifting from the forest beyond the compound's wall. Perhaps Conota wasn't destroyed after all when Faerie fell.

Perhaps some spark of Faerie may yet exist.

Cici doesn't know what the hints of dark magic foretell, but she'll need to fight to save what she holds dearest in her rapidly changing world.