Sixteen-year-old Sarah sells her soul to reclaim her family's estate and is given 100 years to atone for their sins, but as the bargain nears its end, modern-day Tom, yearning to attend the private school that Darkwater Hall has become, gets caught up in the bargain.

Sixteen-year-old Raffi, Master Galen, and a mysterious traveler, Carys, enter the ruined city of Tasceron seeking a relic that may save the world, while evading the Watch, a brutal organization opposed to the Order to which Raffi and Galen belong.

Even though the city of Tasceron and its emperor have fallen, when Master Galen and his sixteen-year-old apprentice Raffi hear a rumor that the heiress to the throne still lives, they must try to find her and keep her safe.

After she is chosen to be "Bearer-of-the-god," Mirany questions the established order and sets out, along with a musician and a scribe, to find the legitimate heir of the religious leader known as the Archon.

Worried about his sister Chloe's comatose state after a riding accident, teenage Rob, in an effort to distract himself, gets a job on a secretive local archeological dig. He soon finds himself drawn into a mysterious world of magic involving a powerful, centuries-old, shape-shifting Druid called Vetch who promises to help retrieve his sister from the "unworld" of her coma.