“You should be afraid of me, mongrel. I keep telling you that.”

The first hybrid in Magique in a thousand years, Leda Shadow finally learns why her parents died, years after seeing them murdered outside a tube stop in London. Their deaths left Leda to raise her younger brother virtually alone, all while attending school, trying to get a scholarship to a prestigious university in the hopes of bettering their fates.

Just as she gets everything she wanted, her aunt comes to take her away. Nineteen-year-old Leda soon finds herself enrolled in a very different university, one filled with dark and light magics, adult Magicals who shudder at her touch, ghostly animals channeling otherworldly beings, and students who perform unbelievable supernatural feats.

She can’t return home. She can’t see her brother. Most Magicals view her as a lesser creature, a near-animal, yet Leda can’t deny her resonance with this strange world. She should be grateful, her aunt tells her. Founded by the illustrious Bones family, a family as infamous for their power and wealth as they are for their dark magic, the prestigious university, Malcroix Bones Academy, never admitted a half-human before. The male heir to that family, Caelum Bones, is even her classmate.

Of course, he despises her on sight. But when someone tries to kill Leda, Caelum learns something strange about both of their magics. Together they make a pact. He’ll help her stay alive, and she’ll help him with his magical “problem,” and absolutely no one will know of their agreement. But as the school year unfolds, their already-volatile relationship gets increasingly complicated. And Caelum’s got a rep as the biggest prick in school for a reason.