Brimming with new ideas for magical research, Emily returns to Whitehall School for her second year of magical education, looking forward to returning to her studies. And yet things are different; her new roommates harbor their secrets, her old friends are becoming distracted by sports and games, and one of the teachers seems to dislike her. As she starts new classes, she discovers she has to work far harder to keep her place in the school.

But her second year will be far more adventurous than her first. When it becomes clear that there is a murderer – and a spy – in the school, Emily will be the only one who can save the school from a plot aimed right at the heart of the Allied Lands themselves. And yet her curiosity may very well prove her undoing.